iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Crazy to see that language like that is common now, even in academic publishing... Congrats on your new editor role!

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Just created a website draft with AI. It was simply terrible. Reassuring to see that humans are still needed.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Yeah, we probably need better metrics I guess? That are more representative of quality.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Considering the recent development regarding slop submissions and paper mills, I am more and more convinced that, within a year or so, quantity of publications won't mean anything anymore. Instead, quality will be everything. Wishful thinking? Maybe #academicsky #science #publishing #academia

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

You got this! And thanks for serving as an editor

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

That's why I always write a short section about myself, where I'm an expert and where not, etc. So that authors know how to read my review comments.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I always wonder why the even accept the review in those cases...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Peer review can be so frustrating. I'm always trying to provide constructive feedback to encourage and help the authors. Still, my default recommendation seems to be "major revision" because the manuscript was so messy that I did not even understand the general idea...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Is the whole publication issue out of scope for metascience? I am talking about review times of 12+ months, low review quality, and high publication costs in many fields. All of this slows us down so much IMO.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I'm building an online reviewing app (revios.app, not mobile-friendly yet). Anonymous conversations between reviewers and authors are planned as a feature! But I'm not there yet. Working on it!

revios.app

Revios: Online Reviewing Tool

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Don't worry! Complaining about reviews is common practice. Just stay fair. Btw, I think it's a shame that the review process is practically one-directional. We can do better!

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Yeah, I'm seriously considering building some kind of central reviewer database (in contrast to each publisher's own pool). Does not solve all problems, but would be a step to the right direction IMO.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Yeah, journals don't have a fallback solution when they dont find reviewers. They just keep trying... Should not be to difficult create a plan B solution, or am I overly optimistic here?

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Amazing! Is there some kind of email newsletter for all of these?

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Reposted by Dr. Thomas Wolgast

Gilad Feldman @giladfeldman.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

I keep seeing/hearing people say that there aren't any open-science and meta-research events. Collecting and curating these the past month has shown me there is a LOT going on, just maybe difficult to keep track. See screenshots, take your pick. Metaventory can help: metaventory.vercel.app/events

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I'm from computer science and engineering, where RRs are not a thing yet. Do you think RRs should be used in every field possible? I guess a main difference is speed of experimentation. Especially in CS, experiments often can be re-done within days.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 21/10/2025

Whenever I do a peer review, I do all my annotations in the PDF, then waste time rewriting it all into a text review. Double work and so much information lost. Why can’t we just review in the PDF? Just me? #academicsky #academia #scisky 🧪

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Take it as a compliment. Appearantly, they did not find anything real to criticize.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

I'm still early career, so no spamming yet 😄

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Well, at least the review is quickly done this way... I would lose trust in the whole manuscript if this happened to me.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

This is not unusual in my perception. They add you to their system first so that they can contact you via their system, I guess?

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Reposted by Dr. Thomas Wolgast

Henning Hermes @henninghermes.com · 09/04/2025

REMINDER: I am looking for two PhD students to work with me on super exciting field experiments in the Economics of Education, joining an extremely vibrant environment in Munich, @ifoeducation.bsky.social & @econmunich.bsky.social 🤩🚀 Deadline in 11 days ⏰ #EconSky #EconJobs #AcademicJobs #JobAlert

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Academia really knows how to use bad software...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

It won't be perfect, but using AI to detect fake references is a good idea. It's very tedious to do manually. At the same time fake paper / fake citations are increasing in numbers.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

As an author, I also like the constructive reviews the most. If reviews are not actionable for the authors, we would spend a lot of time for only :thumbs up:

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

In the end, only one thing matters, and that's quality. If AI produces high-quality reviews, we should absolutely use it. However, we have to consider the side effects. For example, it's useless when some reviewer only uses AI without own input. The editor can do that himself...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I've seen high-quality MDPI publications. Lots of authors publish there thinking these are normal journals. I don't think you can exclude them generally.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

That's the most shocking part of it, how willingly some people waste other people's time...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

True! Writing high-quality code is such an integral part of good research nowadays. In and outside of CS.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Worth investigating! But I'm not fully convinced. The side effects will be drastic. People will stop reviewing if there is no payment. Other researchers will make good money by reviewing a lot. Many AI created reviews will be created to make more money. Especially the last point is a problem...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

True! Preregistration is essentially non-existent in my field (computer science/engineering). I'm very interested in the publication system and how to improve it. A broader implementation of these ideas is probably a good step forward.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

The reviewing system seems to break apart. Eighth months is just ridiculously slow... I'm currently building reviewersearch.net. I hope it will help to make things more efficient and faster.

reviewersearch.net

Reviewer Search

An automated reviewer recommender for editors and journals.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Thank you! However, as far as I understand it, research screener is a tool for writing review papers, not for peer reviews. Still an interesting approach.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Yeah, probably ChatGPT. However, usually, the citation is complete bogus and can never be found.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Thank you! I hope that my tool can also offer that in the long-term. A good quality database of reviewers, how quick they answer, how good their reviews are, etc.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

I didn't know covidence yet. Thanks for sharing! I'm actually building something related at the moment : reviewersearch.net

reviewersearch.net

Reviewer Search

An automated reviewer recommender for editors and journals.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Finally submitted my PhD thesis! Now, I have time to do some coding for reviewersearch.net again. And probably some days of rest are also a good idea? Weird feeling to finally have this done. #AcademicSky #PhDone #Academia #Science #PhDChat #HigherEd #AcademicChatter

reviewersearch.net

Reviewer Search

An automated reviewer recommender for editors and journals.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

My personal lesson learned: Don't change your topic over and over again to find the perfect topic. Stick with the first good-enough idea and get it done! (PhD)

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Yes, that is a common thing, at least in Germany. The Prof already has someone in mind but is forced to advertise publicly. That's how such situations happen...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Great work! I really like the idea of fast reviewing and will certainly consider this when improving reviewersearch.net. However, I think that a single week is not necessary. Two to four weeks would still be a great improvement without the pressure on the reviewers/editors.

reviewersearch.net

Reviewer Search

An automated reviewer recommender for editors and journals.

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Reposted by Dr. Thomas Wolgast

Brian Elliott @brianelliottmd.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

The first article in RJIM! For-profit publishers are increasingly dominating scientific publications. $$APCs are growing and your work is paywalled, so they can make profit margins larger than Google’s. So 2 dozen researchers and I created RJIM… #medSky #EMIMCC www.rjmedicine.org/publications...

rjmedicine.org

The Researchers’ Journal of Internal Medicine: A New Way to Publish Research

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Seems to be a common problem, and there must be a technological solution. One solution is to stop publishing our email in our papers (which then gets crawled by some algorithm). It doesn't make sense anyway to have a short-lived email in a publication. Better would be to use the ORCID for this.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

One risk here is certainly that people will submit AI-generated reviews to make quick money...

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I am skeptical about direct payment. There are too many potential negative side effects and false incentives. But some kind of renumeration is certainly required.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

How do you recognize them? Just from the overall style? Or are they just garbage quality-wise?

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Actually, it might even slow down progress. Why would highly profitable publishers change anything? They might destroy their business model. So they have a clear incentive to slow down innovation.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

I agree with the polling. But why worried? I haven't used Notebook LM yet, but so far I heard only good things.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Good luck! I have a web dev project in an early phase but can't pay at all (reviewersearch.net)

reviewersearch.net

Reviewer Search

An automated reviewer recommender for editors and journals.

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Dr. Thomas Wolgast @twolgast.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Hopefully, we won't call him reviewer ever again. Should not get asked to review again...

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