Étiquette : Physics

Completeness and overlap in open access systems: Search engines, aggregate institutional repositories and physics-related open sources

Authors : Ming-yueh Tsay, Tai-luan Wu, Ling-li Tseng

This study examines the completeness and overlap of coverage in physics of six open access scholarly communication systems, including two search engines (Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic), two aggregate institutional repositories (OAIster and OpenDOAR), and two physics-related open sources (arXiv.org and Astrophysics Data System).

The 2001–2013 Nobel Laureates in Physics served as the sample. Bibliographic records of their publications were retrieved and downloaded from each system, and a computer program was developed to perform the analytical tasks of sorting, comparison, elimination, aggregation and statistical calculations.

Quantitative analyses and cross-referencing were performed to determine the completeness and overlap of the system coverage of the six open access systems.

The results may enable scholars to select an appropriate open access system as an efficient scholarly communication channel, and academic institutions may build institutional repositories or independently create citation index systems in the future. Suggestions on indicators and tools for academic assessment are presented based on the comprehensiveness assessment of each system.

URL : Completeness and overlap in open access systems: Search engines, aggregate institutional repositories and physics-related open sources

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189751

Choosing Collaboration Partners. How Scientific Success in Physics Depends on Network Positions

Authors : Raphael H. Heiberger, Oliver J. Wieczorek

Physics is one of the most successful endeavors in science. Being a prototypic big science it also reflects the growing tendency for scientific collaborations. Utilizing 250,000 papers from ArXiv.org a prepublishing platform prevalent in Physics we construct large coauthorship networks to investigate how individual network positions influence scientific success.

In this context, success is seen as getting a paper published in high impact journals of physical subdisciplines as compared to not getting it published at all or in rather peripheral journals only.

To control the nested levels of authors and papers, and to consider the time elapsing between working paper and prominent journal publication we employ multilevel eventhistory models with various network measures as covariates. Our results show that the maintenance of even a moderate number of persistent ties is crucial for scientific success.

Also, even with low volumes of social capital Physicists who occupy brokerage positions enhance their chances of articles in high impact journals significantly. Surprisingly, inter(sub)disciplinary collaborations decrease the probability of getting a paper published in specialized journals for almost all positions.

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03251

Beams of Particles and Papers. The Role of Preprint Archives in High Energy Physics

In high energy physics scholarly papers circulate primarily through online preprint archives based on a centralized repository, arXiv.org, that physicists simply refer to as ‘the archive.’ This is not a tool for preservation and memory, but rather a space of flows where written objects are detected and then disappear, and their authors made available for scrutiny.

In this work I analyse the reading and publishing practices of two subsets of particle physicists, theorists and experimentalists. In order to be recognized as legitimate and productive members of their community, physicists need to abide by the temporalities and authorial practices structured by the archive. Theorists live in a state of accelerated time that shapes their reading and publishing practices around a 24 hour cycle.

Experimentalists resolve to tactics that allow them to circumvent the slowed-down time and invisibility they experience as members of large collaborations. As digital archives for the exchange of preprint articles emerge in other scientific fields, physics could help shed light on general transformations of contemporary scholarly communication systems.

URL : Beams of Particles and Papers. The Role of Preprint Archives in High Energy Physics

Alternative location : http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.08539