Revues de droit et science ouverte : écosystème, pratiques des chercheurs, rôle des bibliothèques

Auteur/Author : Pierre Guibourg

Cette étude vise à décrire l’écosystème actuel des revues françaises de droit, qui semble dominé par des logiques extra-académiques, au premier plan desquelles le poids important des grands éditeurs privés.

Dans ce contexte, se pose la question de l’accès ouvert en droit, qui est moins développé que dans les autres SHS, ainsi que celle des actions que mènent et que peuvent mener les bibliothèques pour faire changer cette situation.

URL : Revues de droit et science ouverte : écosystème, pratiques des chercheurs, rôle des bibliothèques

enssib : https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/73421-revues-de-droit-et-science-ouverte-ecosysteme-pratiques-des-chercheurs-role-des-bibliotheques

(In)former, accompagner, convaincre : comment engager les jeunes chercheurs dans la science ouverte

Auteur : Adrien Julla-Marcy

Le sujet des jeunes chercheurs a progressivement pris de l’importance au cours des dix dernières années jusqu’à devenir un enjeu majeur des politiques d’ouverture de la science. Les jeunes chercheurs sont identifiés comme le public-cible des actions de formation car ils aspirent à des valeurs d’intégrité de la recherche proches des principes de la science ouverte.

Pour autant, ils subissent des injonctions contradictoires entre volonté d’ouverture et stratégies de carrière.

Si les services d’appui à la recherche disposent de leviers concrets pour les convaincre d’ouvrir leur production scientifique, poser la question de l’engagement des jeunes chercheurs suppose de réfléchir à la réforme des conditions de la recherche et, en particulier, de l’évaluation.

URL : (In)former, accompagner, convaincre : comment engager les jeunes chercheurs dans la science ouverte

enssib : https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/documents/73422-informer-accompagner-convaincre-comment-engager-les-jeunes-chercheurs-dans-la-science-ouverte.pdf

Generative AI and the future of scientometrics: current topics and future questions

Authors : Benedetto Lepori, Jens Peter Andersen, Karsten Donnay

The aim of this paper is to review the use of GenAI in scientometrics, and to begin a debate on the broader implications for the field. First, we provide an introduction on GenAI’s generative and probabilistic nature as rooted in distributional linguistics.

And we relate this to the debate on the extent to which GenAI might be able to mimic human ‘reasoning’. Second, we leverage this distinction for a critical engagement with recent experiments using GenAI in scientometrics, including topic labelling, the analysis of citation contexts, predictive applications, scholars’ profiling, and research assessment.

GenAI shows promise in tasks where language generation dominates, such as labelling, but faces limitations in tasks that require stable semantics, pragmatic reasoning, or structured domain knowledge. However, these results might become quickly outdated. Our recommendation is, therefore, to always strive to systematically compare the performance of different GenAI models for specific tasks.

Third, we inquire whether, by generating large amounts of scientific language, GenAI might have a fundamental impact on our field by affecting textual characteristics used to measure science, such as authors, words, and references. We argue that careful empirical work and theoretical reflection will be essential to remain capable of interpreting the evolving patterns of knowledge production.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2507.00783

 

Scholarly publishing’s hidden diversity: How exclusive databases sustain the oligopoly of academic publishers

Authors : Simon van Bellen, Juan Pablo Alperin, Vincent Larivière

Global scholarly publishing has been dominated by a small number of publishers for several decades. This paper revisits the data on corporate control of scholarly publishing by analyzing the relative shares of scholarly journals and articles published by the major publishers and the “long tail” of smaller, independent publishers, using Dimensions and Web of Science (WoS).

The reduction of expenses for printing and distribution and the availability of open-source journal management tools may have contributed to the emergence of small publishers, while recently developed inclusive databases may allow for the study of these. Dimensions’ inclusive indexing revealed the number of scholarly journals and articles published by smaller publishers has been growing rapidly, especially since the onset of large-scale online publishing around 2000, resulting in a higher share of articles from smaller publishers.

In parallel, WoS shows increasing concentration within a few corporate publishers. For the 1980–2021 period, we retrieved 32% more articles from Dimensions compared to the more selective WoS.

Dimensions’ data showed the expansion of small publishers was most pronounced in the Social Sciences and the Arts and Humanities, but a similar trend is observed in the Natural Sciences and Engineering, and the Health Sciences. A major geographical divergence is also revealed, with English-speaking countries and/or those located in northwestern Europe relying heavily on major publishers for the dissemination of their research, while the rest of the world being relatively independent of the oligopoly.

Finally, independent journals publish more often in open access in general, and in Diamond open access in particular. We conclude that enhanced indexing and visibility of recently created, independent journals may favour their growth and stimulate global scholarly bibliodiversity.

URL : Scholarly publishing’s hidden diversity: How exclusive databases sustain the oligopoly of academic publishers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0327015

Peer Review as Structured Commentary: Immutable Identity, Public Dialogue, and Reproducible Scholarship

Author : Craig Steven Wright

This paper reconceptualises peer review as structured public commentary. Traditional academic validation is hindered by anonymity, latency, and gatekeeping. We propose a transparent, identity-linked, and reproducible system of scholarly evaluation anchored in open commentary.

Leveraging blockchain for immutable audit trails and AI for iterative synthesis, we design a framework that incentivises intellectual contribution, captures epistemic evolution, and enables traceable reputational dynamics.

This model empowers fields from computational science to the humanities, reframing academic knowledge as a living process rather than a static credential.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.22497

Who funds what: An assessment of research funding networks in data papers

Authors : Yurdagül Ünal, Müge Akbulut

This study examines the role of funding collaborations in shaping the production and dissemination of scientific information through data papers, a rapidly growing academic publication format.

To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies investigating, and evaluating the data paper-funder relationship. The goal of this study was, therefore, to evaluate data papers and funder information in detail, extracted from the data papers themselves, in order to reveal the collaborative characteristics of funders, and to provide guidance to researchers and funding agencies.

Data papers published between 2006–2017 were downloaded from the Web of Science database. The same papers were retrieved from Dimension, which offered more detailed category classifications. These classifications were then utilized for further analysis based on categories. The names of funders were standardized by matching them using the Crossref funder registry, and associated funding metadata.

A statistical, and social network analysis were performed. The top funding country was the USA; the top funding institution was the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. The collaboration network among funders exhibited relatively low density.

A collaboration network of 1197 links between 69 countries was created. The USA had connections with 62 countries. Our study is important because it standardizes the funding data for data papers by associating them with Crossref funding metadata.

The widespread increase of data papers, and their relatively dispersed funding among a variety of funders points to the need for research evaluating collaborations between funders, as important both for the funded researchers, and for understanding and optimizing the shortcomings of current funding management.

URL : Who funds what: An assessment of research funding networks in data papers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/02666669251352185