To preprint or not to preprint: A global researcher survey

Authors : Rong Ni, Ludo Waltman

Open science is receiving widespread attention globally, and preprinting offers an important way to implement open science practices in scholarly publishing. To develop a systematic understanding of researchers’ adoption of and attitudes toward preprinting, we conducted a survey of authors of research papers published in 2021 and early 2022. Our survey results show that the United States and Europe led the way in the adoption of preprinting.

The United States and European respondents reported a higher familiarity with and a stronger commitment to preprinting than their colleagues elsewhere in the world. The adoption of preprinting is much stronger in physics and astronomy as well as mathematics and computer science than in other research areas. Respondents identified free accessibility of preprints and acceleration of research communication as the most important benefits of preprinting.

Low reliability and credibility of preprints, sharing results before peer review and premature media coverage are the most significant concerns about preprinting, emphasized in particular by respondents in the life and health sciences. According to respondents, the most crucial strategies to encourage preprinting are integrating preprinting into journal submission workflows and providing recognition for posting preprints.

URL : To preprint or not to preprint: A global researcher survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24880

The experiences of COVID-19 preprint authors: a survey of researchers about publishing and receiving feedback on their work during the pandemic

Authors : Narmin Rzayeva, Susana Oliveira Henriques, Stephen Pinfield, Ludo Waltman

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a rise in preprinting, triggered by the need for open and rapid dissemination of research outputs. We surveyed authors of COVID-19 preprints to learn about their experiences with preprinting their work and also with publishing their work in a peer-reviewed journal.

Our research had the following objectives: 1. to learn about authors’ experiences with preprinting, their motivations, and future intentions; 2. to consider preprints in terms of their effectiveness in enabling authors to receive feedback on their work; 3. to compare the impact of feedback on preprints with the impact of comments of editors and reviewers on papers submitted to journals. In our survey, 78% of the new adopters of preprinting reported the intention to also preprint their future work.

The boost in preprinting may therefore have a structural effect that will last after the pandemic, although future developments will also depend on other factors, including the broader growth in the adoption of open science practices. A total of 53% of the respondents reported that they had received feedback on their preprints. However, more than half of the feedback was received through “closed” channels–privately to the authors.

This means that preprinting was a useful way to receive feedback on research, but the value of feedback could be increased further by facilitating and promoting “open” channels for preprint feedback. Almost a quarter of the feedback received by respondents consisted of detailed comments, showing the potential of preprint feedback to provide valuable comments on research.

Respondents also reported that, compared to preprint feedback, journal peer review was more likely to lead to major changes to their work, suggesting that journal peer review provides significant added value compared to feedback received on preprints.

URL : The experiences of COVID-19 preprint authors: a survey of researchers about publishing and receiving feedback on their work during the pandemic

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15864

More than data repositories: perceived information needs for the development of social sciences and humanities research infrastructures

Authors : Anna Sendra, Elina Late, Sanna Kumpulainen

Introduction

The digitalization of social sciences and humanities research necessitates research infrastructures. However, this transformation is still incipient, highlighting the need to better understand how to successfully support data-intensive research.

Method

Starting from a case study of building a national infrastructure for conducting data-intensive research, this study aims to understand the information needs of digital researchers regarding the facility and explore the importance of evaluation in its development.

Analysis

Thirteen semi-structured interviews with social sciences and humanities scholars and computer and data scientists processed through a thematic analysis revealed three themes (developing a research infrastructure, needs and expectations of the research infrastructure, and an approach to user feedback and user interactions).

Results

Findings reveal that developing an infrastructure for conducting data-intensive research is a complicated task influenced by contrasting information needs between social sciences and humanities scholars and computer and data scientists, such as the demand for increased support of the former. Findings also highlight the limited role of evaluation in its creation.

Conclusions

The development of infrastructures for conducting data-intensive research requires further discussion that particularly considers the disciplinary differences between social sciences and humanities scholars and computer and data scientists. Suggestions on how to better design this kind of facilities are also raised.

URL : More than data repositories: perceived information needs for the development of social sciences and humanities research infrastructures

DOI : https://doi.org/10.47989/ir284598

Judging Journals: How Impact Factor and Other Metrics Differ across Disciplines

Authors : Quinn Galbraith, Alexandra Carlile Butterfield, Chase Cardon

Given academia’s frequent use of publication metrics and the inconsistencies in metrics across disciplines, this study examines how various disciplines are treated differently by metric systems. We seek to offer academic librarians, university rank and tenure committees, and other interested individuals guidelines for distinguishing general differences between journal bibliometrics in various disciplines.

This study addresses the following questions: How well represented are different disciplines in the indexing of each metrics system (Eigenfactor, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar)? How does each metrics system treat disciplines differently, and how do these differences compare across metrics systems?

For university libraries and academic librarians, this study may increase understanding of the comparative value of various metrics, which hopefully will facilitate more informed decisions regarding the purchase of journal subscriptions and the evaluation of journals and metrics systems.

This study indicates that different metrics systems prioritize different disciplines, and metrics are not always easily compared across disciplines. Consequently, this study indicates that simple reliance on metrics in publishing or purchasing decisions is often flawed.

URL : Judging Journals: How Impact Factor and Other Metrics Differ across Disciplines

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.6.888

Enquête quantitative sur les pratiques et les besoins des chercheurs sur la gestion des données de la recherche, algorithmes et codes sources dans les établissements du site toulousain

Authors : Danielle Brunet, Soraya Demay, Pierre Diaz, Borbala Goncz, Laure Leclerc, Flora Poupinot, Sibilla Michelle

Le Comité de réflexion pour le partage et la valorisation des données de la recherche et la coordination de la Science Ouverte (CéSO) de l’Université de Toulouse a réalisé une enquête quantitative sur la gestion des données de la recherche, algorithmes et codes sources.

Adressée à l’ensemble de la communauté scientifique du site toulousain, son objectif était de produire un état des lieux des pratiques, des connaissances et des besoins des chercheurs en matière de gestion des données de la recherche. Les résultats permettront de préciser l’offre de services proposée sur le site toulousain.

Cette enquête concerne les établissements membres de l’Université de Toulouse ainsi que les organismes de recherche partenaires : Université Toulouse Capitole, Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, Institut national polytechnique de Toulouse (Toulouse INP), Institut national des sciences appliquées de Toulouse (INSA Toulouse), Institut supérieur de l’aéronautique et de l’espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), Institut national universitaire Champollion (INU Champollion), École nationale de l’aviation civile (ENAC), École nationale d’ingénieurs de Tarbes (ENIT), École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Toulouse (ENSA Toulouse), École nationale vétérinaire de Toulouse (ENVT), École nationale supérieure de formation de l’enseignement agricole (ENSFEA), Institut catholique d’arts et métiers (ICAM), École nationale supérieure des mines d’Albi-Carmaux (IMT Mines d’Albi), Toulouse Business School (TBS), Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement (INRAE), Institut national de l’a santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm), Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD) ; Office national d’études et de recherche aérospatiales (Onera), Météo-France.

URL : Enquête quantitative sur les pratiques et les besoins des chercheurs sur la gestion des données de la recherche, algorithmes et codes sources dans les établissements du site toulousain

Original location : https://ut3-toulouseinp.hal.science/hal-04262708v1/

L’utilisation de HAL par les laboratoires de recherche : Une étude quantitative

Auteur.ice.s/Authors : Joachim Schöpfel, Florence Thiault, Hélène Prost, Bernard Jacquemin, Éric Kergosien

L’article présente les résultats d’une étude menée dans le cadre du projet HAL/LO, sur un échantillon de 1 246 laboratoires (=1 035 612 dépôts) rattachés aux dix grandes universités de recherche et membres de l’association Udice.

L’objectif est une description plus détaillée des pratiques sur HAL. 99 % des laboratoires sont présents sur HAL, avec une distribution du type « longue traîne ». 52 % des publications sont des articles, 23 % des communications. Le degré d’ouverture moyen est 32 % (dépôts avec documents). 50 % des laboratoires ont créé une collection sur HAL.

La discussion porte sur trois aspects : le rôle des laboratoires par rapport à HAL, avec une description plus détaillée de plusieurs situations types ; l’impact des disciplines par rapport au nombre des dépôts, à la création d’une collection, au dépôt de certains types de documents ou à l’auto-archivage des documents en texte intégral ; l’évolution du dispositif HAL vers un outil pour recenser la production scientifique, ce qui pose plusieurs questions notamment sur la provenance et la qualité des métadonnées.

URL : L’utilisation de HAL par les laboratoires de recherche : Une étude quantitative

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.35562/balisages.1166

Scientific Excellence and Publication Patterns: The Winning Applicants of the Bolyai János Research Scholarship in Hungary in 2021

Authors : Péter Sasvári, Tamás Kaiser, Krisztián Várföldi, Csaba Fási

The following paper examines some of the publishing habits observed among the winning applicants of the Bolyai János Research Scholarship. As an academic support programme, the Bolyai Research Scholarship forms a bridge between scholars with the title of doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) and the young generation of researchers with an academic degree. The winning applicants in 2021 were researchers under the age of 45, cooperating with international co-authors, having highly cited publications and showing a continuous publication history of 15 years on average.

The scholarship holders come primarily from research centres and universities. The paper argues that the achievements of scholarship holders follow the international patterns of academic excellence and publication as well as the requirements for international cooperation and publishing mainly in open access journals.

In doing so, they prefer journals under the umbrella of Elsevier for performing their publication activities; however, there has been a significant increase in those publishing in MDPI journals, recently. The results show that one-third of the applicants had published before and a fifth of them had published in one of the journals of MDPI two months after announcing the list of the winning applicants.

At the same time, differences in publication traditions and award systems reveal marked differences in publication strategies and evaluation criteria across fields of science. Based on this, the descriptive statistics presented in this paper contribute to our understanding of the conscious career planning of young scholars in line with international standards.

URL : Scientific Excellence and Publication Patterns: The Winning Applicants of the Bolyai János Research Scholarship in Hungary in 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11030043