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A glossary for working scientists

Plain-language definitions for the terms behind JRNLClub — the ideas that show up on profiles, paper pages, and the feed.

Guides

Glossary

Preprint: A complete research paper shared publicly before — or alongside — formal peer review, typically on a server like bioRxiv, medRxiv, or arXiv.
DOI: A Digital Object Identifier: a permanent link to a paper, dataset, or other research output. On JRNLClub a paper’s DOI resolves to its own page and out to the publisher.
ORCID: A free, unique identifier for a researcher. JRNLClub uses ORCID to verify identity and to pull in your employments, education, and works.
h-index: A bibliometric measure: the greatest N such that a researcher has N papers each cited at least N times. It rewards a sustained record over a single hit.
J-index: JRNLClub’s reputation number — the h-index applied to your posts: the greatest N such that you have N posts with at least N upvotes each. See the full explainer.
J10-index: The count of your posts with at least 10 upvotes — an i10-index analog.
OpenAlex: An open catalog of the world’s scholarly works, authors, and venues. It supplies the publications, citations, and co-authors on a profile.
Open access: Research that is free to read. JRNLClub surfaces a legal open-access full-text link on a paper page whenever one exists.
Altmetric: A measure of the attention a paper receives across news, policy documents, Wikipedia, and social media — distinct from citations.
Post-publication review: Scrutiny of a paper after it is published — for example comments on PubPeer or a recorded retraction — surfaced on the paper page as durable signals.
FAIR data: Data that is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable — a standard for how research data should be shared.
Verification seal: The green check on a JRNLClub profile or claim. It means the person verified their identity via ORCID or an institutional email. It is a signal, not a gate — anyone can read.
Mention (@): Typing @ in any composer links to a colleague or a paper inline. People resolve to a profile; papers resolve to a paper page — whether or not they’ve joined yet.
Hashtag: A lowercase, dot-free tag like #proteindesign. It links to a topic page collecting posts — and related papers — under that tag.

Glossary

Preprint

A complete research paper shared publicly before — or alongside — formal peer review, typically on a server like bioRxiv, medRxiv, or arXiv.

DOI

A Digital Object Identifier: a permanent link to a paper, dataset, or other research output. On JRNLClub a paper’s DOI resolves to its own page and out to the publisher.

ORCID

A free, unique identifier for a researcher. JRNLClub uses ORCID to verify identity and to pull in your employments, education, and works.

h-index

A bibliometric measure: the greatest N such that a researcher has N papers each cited at least N times. It rewards a sustained record over a single hit.

J-index

JRNLClub’s reputation number — the h-index applied to your posts: the greatest N such that you have N posts with at least N upvotes each. See the full explainer.

J10-index

The count of your posts with at least 10 upvotes — an i10-index analog.

OpenAlex

An open catalog of the world’s scholarly works, authors, and venues. It supplies the publications, citations, and co-authors on a profile.

Open access

Research that is free to read. JRNLClub surfaces a legal open-access full-text link on a paper page whenever one exists.

Altmetric

A measure of the attention a paper receives across news, policy documents, Wikipedia, and social media — distinct from citations.

Post-publication review

Scrutiny of a paper after it is published — for example comments on PubPeer or a recorded retraction — surfaced on the paper page as durable signals.

FAIR data

Data that is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable — a standard for how research data should be shared.

Verification seal

The green check on a JRNLClub profile or claim. It means the person verified their identity via ORCID or an institutional email. It is a signal, not a gate — anyone can read.

Mention (@)

Typing @ in any composer links to a colleague or a paper inline. People resolve to a profile; papers resolve to a paper page — whether or not they’ve joined yet.

Hashtag

A lowercase, dot-free tag like #proteindesign. It links to a topic page collecting posts — and related papers — under that tag.