A blog spoke, they listened: A look at groups that joined the Embargo Watch Honor Roll in 2011

Photo b jma.work via Flickr http://bit.ly/tbxvYX

The end of 2011 has snuck up on me, and there’s not much time left for a Best of 2011 post. So I’ll just call attention to the scientific societies and journals that did something to earn a spot on the Embargo Watch Honor Roll this year. These are all organizations who changed their policies following Embargo Watch criticism:

• The American Diabetes Association, for doing away with a “freely available but embargoed” policy at its meetings
• The American Astronomical Society, for doing the same
• The New England Journal of Medicine, for deciding to provide draft abstracts of papers to give reports more time
• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for reversing itself on a move that would have made reporters into stenographers
• The journal CHEST, for changing a “freely available but embargoed” policy on its advance online papers

As I’ve noted before, there’s plenty of room on the Honor Roll, so I look forward to adding members in 2012.

Some of you may have noticed that the volume of posts has gone down this year. The fact is, a good chunk of the time I’d spent posting on Embargo Watch in 2010 was devoted to sister blog Retraction Watch in 2011. The success of the latter, thanks in no small part to the great audience Embargo Watch helped build, and the lessons it taught me about blogging, is a good thing. But I’m going to do my best to pick up the pace again in 2012.

Happy New Year.