Étiquette : scientific practices

Hypotheses : l’inscription d’une pratique de communication dans l’activité de recherche

Auteurs/Authors : Elsa Poupardin, Mélodie Faury

En croisant deux approches, qualitative et quantitative, sur les discours et les pratiques des auteurs de carnets de recherche sur « Hypotheses.org » concernant la publication et la citation, nous montrons que les billets ne sont pas écrits pour remplacer les articles scientifiques classiques.

Neuf logiques distinctes nous semblent décrire la manière dont les carnetières et les carnetiers interrogés s’investissent dans les carnets de recherche : logique d’élaboration, de mise en lien, de partage d’idées, de publication, d’édition, d’information, de pédagogie et de vulgarisation, de valorisation et d’éditorialisation de soi.

L’écriture sur les carnets de recherche apparaît alors comme une pratique de communication directement reliée à l’activité de recherche, dont les effets sont loin d’être marginaux.

À l’instar de ceux que produit la vulgarisation sur le chercheur, ils ne peuvent être quantifiés simplement, et ne s’expriment pas en termes de retour direct, facilement saisissable. Il faut pour les mesurer articuler traces, discours et contextes de l’appropriation de la pratique de carnetier.

URL : https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/4877

Early career researchers: observing how the new wave of researchers is changing the scholarly communications market

Authors : David Nicholas, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri, Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo, Anthony Watkinson, Marzena Świgon, Jie Xu, Abdullah Abrizah, Eti Herman

The paper presents the early findings from the first two years of the Harbingers research project, a 3-year-long study of early career researchers (ECRs), the new wave of researchers, which sought to ascertain their current and changing habits with regard to scholarly communications.

The study recruited a convenience sample of 116 researchers from seven countries (China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, UK and US) who were subject to repeat, in-depth interviews. Interviews were conducted face-to-face or remotely (via Skype).

A major focus of the study was to determine whether ECRs are taking the myriad opportunities proffered by digital innovations, developing within the context Open Science, Open Access and social media to disseminate their research.

The paper provides the highlights of the first-year benchmarking exercise and then investigates the strategic changes one year on.

URL : https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/4635

Hors norme ? Une approche normative des données de la recherche

Auteur : Joachim Schöpfel

Nous proposons une réflexion sur le rôle des normes et standards dans la gestion des données de la recherche, dans l’environnement de la politique de la science ouverte.

A partir d’une définition générale des données de la recherche, nous analysons la place et la fonction des normes et standards dans les différentes dimensions du concept des données. En particulier, nous nous intéressons à trois aspects faisant le lien entre le processus scientifique, l’environnement réglementaire et les données de la recherche : les protocoles éthiques, les systèmes d’information recherche et les plans de gestion des données.

A l’échelle internationale, nous décrivons l’effet normatif des principes FAIR qui, par la mobilisation d’autres normes et standards, créent une sorte de « cascade de standards » autour des plateformes et entrepôts, avec un impact direct sur les pratiques scientifiques.

URL : https://revue-cossi.info/numeros/n-5-2018-processus-normalisation-durabilite-information/730-5-2018-schopfel

Online Safety and Academic Scholarship: Exploring Researchers’ Concerns from Ghana

Authors: Kodjo Atiso, Jenna Kammer

INTRODUCTION

This paper investigates factors, including fears of cybercrime, that may affect researchers’ willingness to share research in institutional repositories in Ghana.

METHODS

Qualitative research was conducted to understand more about the experiences of Ghanaian researchers when sharing research in institutional repositories. Interviews were conducted with 25 participants, documents related to policy and infrastructure in Ghana were examined, and observations were held in meetings of information technology committees.

FINDINGS

The findings indicate that researchers are specifically concerned about three areas when sharing research online: fraud, plagiarism, and identity theft.

DISCUSSION

This paper adds to research that examines barriers toward using institutional repositories, and highlights the lack of basic preventative strategies in Ghana—such as training, security, and infrastructure that are commonplace in developed countries.

CONCLUSION

This study draws on findings from Bossaller and Atiso (2015) that identified fears of cybercrime as one of the major barriers to sharing research online for Ghanaian researchers.

While several other studies have found that fear of identity theft or plagiarism are barriers toward sharing work in the institutional repository, this is the first study that looks specifically at the experiences researchers have had with cybercrime to understand this barrier more fully.

URL : Online Safety and Academic Scholarship: Exploring Researchers’ Concerns from Ghana

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2263

Scholarly Communication Practices in Humanities and Social Sciences: A Study of Researchers’ Attitudes and Awareness of Open Access

Authors: Bhuva Narayan, Edward J. Luca, Belinda Tiffen, Ashley England, Mal Booth, Henry Boateng

This paper examines issues relating to the perceptions and adoption of open access (OA) and institutional repositories. Using a survey research design, we collected data from academics and other researchers in the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) at a university in Australia.

We looked at factors influencing choice of publishers and journal outlets, as well as the use of social media and nontraditional channels for scholarly communication.

We used an online questionnaire to collect data and used descriptive statistics to analyse the data. Our findings suggest that researchers are highly influenced by traditional measures of quality, such as journal impact factor, and are less concerned with making their work more findable and promoting it through social media.

This highlights a disconnect between researchers’ desired outcomes and the efforts that they put in toward the same. Our findings also suggest that institutional policies have the potential to increase OA awareness and adoption.

This study contributes to the growing literature on scholarly communication by offering evidence from the HASS field, where limited studies have been conducted.

Based on the findings, we recommend that academic librarians engage with faculty through outreach and workshops to change perceptions of OA and the institutional repository.

URL : Scholarly Communication Practices in Humanities and Social Sciences: A Study of Researchers’ Attitudes and Awareness of Open Access

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2018-0013

Research data management in the French National Research Center (CNRS)

Authors : Joachim Schöpfel, Coline Ferrant, Francis Andre, Renaud Fabre

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present empirical evidence on the opinion and behaviour of French scientists (senior management level) regarding research data management (RDM).

Design/methodology/approach

The results are part of a nationwide survey on scientific information and documentation with 432 directors of French public research laboratories conducted by the French Research Center CNRS in 2014.

Findings

The paper presents empirical results about data production (types), management (human resources, IT, funding, and standards), data sharing and related needs, and highlights significant disciplinary differences.

Also, it appears that RDM and data sharing is not directly correlated with the commitment to open access. Regarding the FAIR data principles, the paper reveals that 68 per cent of all laboratory directors affirm that their data production and management is compliant with at least one of the FAIR principles.

But only 26 per cent are compliant with at least three principles, and less than 7 per cent are compliant with all four FAIR criteria, with laboratories in nuclear physics, SSH and earth sciences and astronomy being in advance of other disciplines, especially concerning the findability and the availability of their data output.

The paper concludes with comments about research data service development and recommendations for an institutional RDM policy.

Originality/value

For the first time, a nationwide survey was conducted with the senior research management level from all scientific disciplines. Surveys on RDM usually assess individual data behaviours, skills and needs. This survey is different insofar as it addresses institutional and collective data practice.

The respondents did not report on their own data behaviours and attitudes but were asked to provide information about their laboratory. The response rate was high (>30 per cent), and the results provide good insight into the real support and uptake of RDM by senior research managers who provide both models (examples for good practice) and opinion leadership.

URL : https://hal.univ-lille3.fr/hal-01728541/

Confused about copyright? Assessing Researchers’ Comprehension of Copyright Transfer Agreements

Authors: Alexandra Kohn, Jessica Lange

INTRODUCTION

Academic authors’ confusion about copyright and publisher policy is often cited as a challenge to their effective sharing of their own published research, from having a chilling effect on selfarchiving in institutional and subject repositories, to leading to the posting of versions of articles on social networking sites in contravention of publisher policy and beyond.

This study seeks to determine the extent to which authors understand the terms of these policies as expressed in publishers’ copyright transfer agreements (CTAs), taking into account such factors as the authors’ disciplines and publishing experience, as well as the wording and structure of these agreements.

METHODS

We distributed an online survey experiment to corresponding authors of academic research articles indexed in the Scopus database. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of two copyright transfer agreements and were subsequently asked to answer a series of questions about these agreements to determine their level of comprehension.

The survey was sent to 3,154 participants, with 122 responding, representing a 4% response rate. Basic demographic information as well as information about participants’ previous publishing experience was also collected. We analyzed the survey data using Ordinary Least Squared (OLS) regressions and probit regressions.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Participants demonstrated a low rate of understanding of the terms of the CTAs they were asked to read. Participants averaged a score of 33% on the survey, indicating a low comprehension level of author rights.

This figure did not vary significantly, regardless of the respondents’ discipline, time in academia, level of experience with publishing, or whether or not they had published previously with the publisher whose CTA they were administered. Results also indicated that participants did equally poorly on the survey regardless of which of the two CTAs they received.

However, academic authors do appear to have a greater chance of understanding a CTA when a specific activity is explicitly outlined in the text of the agreement.

URL : Confused about copyright? Assessing Researchers’ Comprehension of Copyright Transfer Agreements

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2253