Nature Index

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Nature Index is a resource available from Springer Nature (since 2016) that uses data science and bibliometrics to generate indicators and rankings reflecting research output.

From this paper: A guide to the Nature Index. Nature. 2018 Sep;561(7723):S37. doi: 10.1038/d41586-018-06628-2. PubMed PMID: 30232441.

“The Nature Index is a database of author affiliations and institutional relation­ships. The index tracks contributions to research articles published in 82 high-quality natural science journals, chosen by an inde­pendent group of researchers.

The Nature Index provides absolute and fractional counts of publication productivity at the institutional and national level and, as such, is an indicator of global high-quality research output and collaboration. Data in the Nature Index are updated regularly, with the most recent 12 months made avail­able under a Creative Commons licence at natureindex.com. The database is compiled by Springer Nature.”

According to the publisher, the list of included journals (revised in June 2018) was generated by a ”global survey of the wider research community” and via a multidisciplinary panel of researchers who were asked to name the journals that they would most like to publish their best work in, without considering impact factor. (In a way, this concept is not too different from having a stock market index act like a benchmark or indicator of the performance of broader markets.)

Users can view an institution’s individual profile (for example, MSKCC’s profile) that includes information about research output, collaborations and relationships. Also available are supplements based on in-house analyses of the Nature Index data, for example, the Nature Index 2018 Rising Stars supplement recently released in September 2018. These supplements include a variety of interesting Tables, for example, one from this latest supplement focusses on “rising” institutions. Furthermore, on their main website a permanent menu option leads to various annual tables (going back to 2016), for example, ones listing the top healthcare institutions for specified years.

Thanks to Nature Index’s Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) which allows for the most recent 12 months of data to be freely re-used by others, individuals may register with natureindex.com to create customized tables around their own interests.  In fact, it appears that the data has already been used by researchers, for example, to carry out the work reported on in this published study on “Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals”, see:

Bendels MHK, Müller R, Brueggmann D, Groneberg DA. Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals. PLoS One. 2018 Jan 2;13(1):e0189136. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0189136. eCollection 2018. PubMed PMID: 29293499; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5749692.

Fell free to contact the MSK Library with any questions about this or any other information resources.

The Dangers of Using Sci-Hub

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For those of you who haven’t heard of Sci-Hub, this website was founded by Alexandra Elbakyan and her intent for developing this site was to remove barriers that would hinder progress in science. The reality is that Sci-Hub does much more than allow visitors to illegally access published journal articles and download scientific papers. What researchers should understand is how Sci-Hub uses an individual’s personal login credentials. While a small number of credentials are donated to Sci-Hub, the majority are taken, often without the knowledge of the individual.

In a recent post from the Scholarly Kitchen (09/18/2018), guest author, Andrew Pitts provides collected evidence and real examples of how Sci-Hub is using personal credentials to get into academic institutions  — “While illegal access to published content is the most obvious target, this is just the tip of an iceberg concealing underlying efforts to steal multiple streams of personal and research data from the world’s academic institutions.”

In June 2016, I published a post entitled, “Sci-Hub: Serving Up Scholarly “Pirated” Journal Articles”, which provides additional information. For those still curious about Sci-Hub, this 2016 bibliography from Stephen Reid McLaughlin might also be of interest.

For now, we hope that our researchers will resist the urge to use Sci-Hub or any other third-party aggregator of this nature, and instead choose our Document Delivery Service for articles not found in the MSK eJournal collection.

Donna Gibson
Director of Library Services

How Much Screening is Enough?

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Recent research indicates that more post-treatment screening does not impact colorectal cancer survival rates. A study published in JAMA and reported last week by Clinical Oncology News found no connection between post-treatment screening intensity and cancer recurrence detection when comparing 4,188 patients at 613 medical facilities with high-intensity screening to 4,341 patients at 539 medical facilities with low-intensity screening during the first three years of follow-up. Based on their data, the authors recommend following the guidelines of the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which calls for two CT scans in the first three years and biomarker testing every six months during the first three years post-treatment. The Clinical Oncology News piece quotes MSK’s Dr. Andrea Cercek, who states that unnecessary testing can lead to avoidable patient anxiety.