Logo image
Back
Use of PubMed Commons - still not so common?
Abstract   Peer reviewed

Use of PubMed Commons - still not so common?

Paul Lane, Brian Grice and Karen L Woolley
Current Medical Research and Opinion, Vol.34(Supplement 1), p.27
Annual Meeting of Annual Meeting of International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP): From publication to practice: advancing science through effective communication, 14th (National Harbour, United States, 30-Apr-2018–02-May-2018)
2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2018.1440994
url
https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2018.1440994View
Published Version

Abstract

Medical and Health Sciences Economics transparency technology tools
Objective: PubMed Commons, launched as a 1-year pilot on October 22, 2013, was designed to provide a forum for post-publication peer review. Our previous study showed that use of PubMed Commons during the pilot was extremely low1 . For this study, our aim was to investigate whether the use of PubMed Commons had changed after the pilot period. Research design and methods: We conducted an e-search of PubMed using the "has_user_comments [filter]" to capture all publications (November 30, 2014, to December 19, 2017) with comments. These publications were then sorted by language, species, access, type, year, and journal. We reviewed a random sample (10%) of publications to categorize comments according to the source and nature of the comment (including posting of plain-language publication summaries). Results: Use of PubMed Commons remains extremely low. Of all the publications listed in PubMed during or after the pilot period, <0.1% received comments. In our first study, 1,771 publications had comments. In this study, approximately 1,366 publications per year received comments, which is only 77% of the initial usage rate. Of the 5,874 publications receiving comments during the tenure of PubMed Commons, 66% (3,882/5,874) were based on human studies, 34% were open access (2,006/5,874) and 6% (370/5,874) were published in 119 core clinical journals. Conclusions: The promise of PubMed Commons as a forum to help advance science through effective post-publication communication remains. Use of PubMed Commons, however, is extremely low and has not increased since the pilot. PubMed Commons use may increase by meeting other emerging needs (eg, posting data, sharing information and links, providing free access to plain-language publication summaries).

Details

Metrics

1 File views/ downloads
248 Record Views
Logo image