Purpose: Thousands of preprints related to Covid-19 have effused into the academic literature. Even though these are not peer-reviewed documents and have not been vetted by medical or other experts, several have been cited, while others have been widely promoted by the media. While many...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess what the challenges to open peer review (OPR) are, relative to traditional peer review (TPR). Design/methodology/approach: By examining select issues within peer review, more broadly, and challenges within TPR, the effectiveness of OPR is...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the status of the open access (OA) movement on the African continent, and if there is any financial or moral exploitation by dominant “foreign” world powers. OA provided the African intellectual community with a tool to prove its academic...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the relative opacity of the “About” page at PubPeer, which is a whistleblower website, primarily of the academic literature. The site refers to itself as an online journal club. It is important to assess whether the PubPeer site, organization...

Purpose: Authorship is the ultimate status of intellectual recognition in academic publishing. Although fairly robust guidelines have already been in place for a considerable amount of time regarding authorship criteria and credit, such as those by the International Committee of Medical Journal...

Fossil fuels are being heavily depleted due to increasing anthropogenic activities worldwide, and burning them contributes to global climate warming and air pollution. Vegetable oils are one of the main feedstocks for biodiesel: they are non-toxic and environmentally friendly. Rising global...