Deep Impact: A Study on the Impact of Data Papers and Datasets in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Authors : Barbara McGillivray, Paola Marongiu, Nilo Pedrazzini, Marton Ribary, Mandy Wigdorowitz, Eleonora Zordan

The humanities and social sciences (HSS) have recently witnessed an exponential growth in data-driven research. In response, attention has been afforded to datasets and accompanying data papers as outputs of the research and dissemination ecosystem.

In 2015, two data journals dedicated to HSS disciplines appeared in this landscape: Journal of Open Humanities Data (JOHD) and Research Data Journal for the Humanities and Social Sciences (RDJ).

In this paper, we analyse the state of the art in the landscape of data journals in HSS using JOHD and RDJ as exemplars by measuring performance and the deep impact of data-driven projects, including metrics (citation count; Altmetrics, views, downloads, tweets) of data papers in relation to associated research papers and the reuse of associated datasets.

Our findings indicate: that data papers are published following the deposit of datasets in a repository and usually following research articles; that data papers have a positive impact on both the metrics of research papers associated with them and on data reuse; and that Twitter hashtags targeted at specific research campaigns can lead to increases in data papers’ views and downloads.

HSS data papers improve the visibility of datasets they describe, support accompanying research articles, and add to transparency and the open research agenda.

URL : Deep Impact: A Study on the Impact of Data Papers and Datasets in the Humanities and Social Sciences

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications10040039

Dawning of a new age? Economics journals’ data policies on the test bench

Author : Sven Vlaeminck

In the field of social sciences and particularly in economics, studies have frequently reported a lack of reproducibility of published research. Most often, this is due to the unavailability of data reproducing the findings of a study.

However, over the past years, debates on open science practices and reproducible research have become stronger and louder among research funders, learned societies, and research organisations.

Many of these have started to implement data policies to overcome these shortcomings. Against this background, the article asks if there have been changes in the way economics journals handle data and other materials that are crucial to reproduce the findings of empirical articles.

For this purpose, all journals listed in the Clarivate Analytics Journal Citation Reports edition for economics have been evaluated for policies on the disclosure of research data.

The article describes the characteristics of these data policies and explicates their requirements. Moreover, it compares the current findings with the situation some years ago.

The results show significant changes in the way journals handle data in the publication process. Research libraries can use the findings of this study for their advisory activities to best support researchers in submitting and providing data as required by journals.

URL : Dawning of a new age? Economics journals’ data policies on the test bench

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.10940

Les revues SIC et les données de recherche : Une étude empirique

Auteurs/Authors : Joachim Schöpfel, Eric Kergosien

Dans le cadre de la politique de la science ouverte, les revues scientifiques jouent un rôle central pour l’ouverture et le partage des données de recherche. Notre étude porte sur 95 revues en sciences de l’information et de la communication (liste de la section Conseil national des universités [CNU] 71).

Nous avons analysé leur politique éditoriale en matière d’intégrité et de transparence en appliquant les 10 critères du TOP Factor du Center for Open Science aux recommandations et instructions aux auteurs. Plus de la moitié des revues n’affichent aucune politique dans ce domaine.

Les autres encouragent les auteurs à partager leurs données et/ou d’autres matériels, avec parfois des consignes pour la citation des données. Très peu de revues vont plus loin et exigent une telle transparence.

Les résultats sont discutés par rapport aux divergences d’interprétation et d’évaluation, par rapport à la représentativité de l’échantillon et par rapport aux choix des rédactions et éditeurs. Plusieurs pistes pour aller plus loin sont indiquées.

URL : Les revues SIC et les données de recherche : Une étude empirique

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.35562/balisages.641

La fin de la publication scientifique ? Une analyse entre légitimité, prédation et automatisation

Auteure/Author : Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

La courte histoire de la communication scientifique sur le Web se caractérise par des régulations spécifiques au numérique : accélération, ouverture et fragmentation. Au cœur de ces régulations, le modèle de la « Revue » devient moins le vecteur de diffusion de l’information scientifique que le lieu de structuration et de convergence des stratégies des acteurs impliqués.

Revues légitimes, revues médias, revues prédatrices ou bien encore revues générées automatiquement, composent aujourd’hui « l’offre » de la publication scientifique disponible via des plateformes qui contribuent à en effacer les caractéristiques et les repères.

Ainsi, l’information scientifique, concept apparu après-guerre, trouve un champ d’intervention conceptuel et opératoire nouveau, qui dépasse la multiplication et la généralisation du modèle de la plateforme (archives ouvertes, serveurs de pré-prints, réseaux sociaux…). Il permet de prendre en charge l’évolution des sciences, de leurs objets et de leurs pratiques.

Mais surtout il permet de penser les nouvelles formes de validation scientifiques qui se redéfinissent, à l’intersection des champs scientifique, social et médiatique, et qui soulèvent de nouvelles questions à leur tour.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03435153

A Journal is a Club: A New Economic Model for Scholarly Publishing

A new economic model for analysis of scholarly publishing—journal publishing in particular—is proposed that draws on club theory. The standard approach builds on market failure in the private production (by research scholars) of a public good (new scholarly knowledge).

In that model publishing is communication, as the dissemination of information. But a club model views publishing differently: namely as group formation, where members form groups in order to confer externalities on each other, subject to congestion.

A journal is a self-constituted group, endeavouring to create new knowledge. In this sense ‘a journal is a club’. The knowledge club model of a journal seeks to balance the positive externalities due to a shared resource (readers, citations, referees) against negative externalities due to crowding (decreased prospect of publishing in that journal).

A new economic model of a journal as a ‘knowledge club’ is elaborated. We suggest some consequences for the management of journals and financial models that might be developed to support them.

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2763975

Interconnection among Academic Journal Websites: Multilateral versus Bilateral Interconnection

Electronic academic journal websites provide new services of text and/or datamining and linking, indispensable for efficient allocation of attention among abundant sources of scienti…c information. Fully realizing the benefitt of these services requires interconnection among websites.

Motivated by CrossRef, a multilateral citation linking backbone, this paper performs a comparison between multilateral interconnection through an open platform and bilateral interconnection, and finds that publishers are fully interconnected in the former regime while they can be partially interconnected in the latter regime for exclusion or di¤erentiation motives.

Surprisingly, if partial interconnection arises for di¤erentiation motive, exclusion of small publisher(s) occurs more often under multilateral interconnection. We also find that in the case of multilateral interconnection, a for-profit platform induces less exclusion than an open platform. Various other extensions are analyzed.

URL : https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/medias/doc/wp/io/wp_io_102_2009.pdf