Welcome to Things we read this week, a weekly post featuring articles from around the internet recommended by BMJ Labs.

Research, data, publishing and promotion of research

• Mriganka Awati, Academic Research Specialist for Editage, Cactus Communications makes the case for universal and simplified journal systems
• Charlie Rapple asks Where is the Publication Puck Going? and reports on a survey of 10,000 researchers’ communications efforts,  the different points in the research cycle when they are communicating, and where they feel they need more support.
• Authors with preprints on medRxiv now have the option to transfer their manuscripts for publication consideration at relevant PLOS journals.
• Alberto Cairo, chair of visual journalism at the University of Miami, on how misreading data visualizations can reinforce biased perceptions – Graphics That Seem Clear Can Easily Be Misread.
• How The Economist grows revenue by experimenting with the digital experience
  “The primary goal of our newsletters isn’t to increase reach; that’s the job of our social media platforms. For newsletters, the primary goal is to deepen our relationship with current readers and help them get more value out of our journalism.”
• Sonali Kochhar et al. on the problems and challenges of clinical trial data sharing in BMJ Open.
• How much can a single paper affect journal impact factor?
  Post about a very interesting arXiv preprint paper on the disproportionate effect one highly cited paper can have on a journal’s IF.
• Eight researchers reflect on how they stay abreast of the latest developments in the literature in How can academics keep up with the literature?

Privacy

• NYT Privacy Project on web tracking  includes a beautiful, if somewhat disturbing, visualization:
  
• Once you’ve looked at the NYT article, try Stratechery on Privacy Fundamentalism for a different take.
• Heather Morrison has some questions about informed consent when working with human subjects to accommodate open licensing

Innovation

• Brittni Bowering on what happens after you run a design sprint –  Design sprints need iteration
  “An iteration sprint is a simplified version of the first design sprint week where we take all the feedback and insights from the user tests and make small (or big) changes to the idea. This gives us the time and framework to rework the solution and bring it closer to something that the target user would love to use. The outcomes were overwhelmingly positive—so now, these are a crucial part of our design sprint process.”
• Also on design sprints Stéphane Cruchon looks at How to Make Design Sprints Work at Big Companies. “How, in this case, does one manage what comes after, and build on the positive energy of the Sprint? How to maintain that energy as everything becomes blurry, slow, bureaucratic again?” The proposed, interesting solution, is the design sprint quarter:
  
• More on design sprints in Jake Knapp’s newsletter.
• Jeanne W. Ross, Cynthia M. Beath and Martin Mocker share some insights into how larger companies are managing ideas for innovation and learning in Creating Digital Offerings Customers Will Buy
• NYCML Innovation Monitor considers the technological social responsibilities of companies: “The most important element of TSR: Management needs to take responsibility for technology’s impact on society at large. Once again, similarly to Corporate Social Responsbility, organizations must address the externalities of their technological decisions. They must staff C-suites accordingly and imbue this ethos at every level of the organization.”