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

Analytical code sharing practices in biomedical research

Authors : Nitesh Kumar Sharma, Ram Ayyala, Dhrithi Deshpande et al.

Data-driven computational analysis is becoming increasingly important in biomedical research, as the amount of data being generated continues to grow. However, the lack of practices of sharing research outputs, such as data, source code and methods, affects transparency and reproducibility of studies, which are critical to the advancement of science. Many published studies are not reproducible due to insufficient documentation, code, and data being shared.

We conducted a comprehensive analysis of 453 manuscripts published between 2016-2021 and found that 50.1% of them fail to share the analytical code. Even among those that did disclose their code, a vast majority failed to offer additional research outputs, such as data. Furthermore, only one in ten papers organized their code in a structured and reproducible manner. We discovered a significant association between the presence of code availability statements and increased code availability (p=2.71×10−9).

Additionally, a greater proportion of studies conducting secondary analyses were inclined to share their code compared to those conducting primary analyses (p=1.15*10−07). In light of our findings, we propose raising awareness of code sharing practices and taking immediate steps to enhance code availability to improve reproducibility in biomedical research.

By increasing transparency and reproducibility, we can promote scientific rigor, encourage collaboration, and accelerate scientific discoveries. We must prioritize open science practices, including sharing code, data, and other research products, to ensure that biomedical research can be replicated and built upon by others in the scientific community.

URL : Analytical code sharing practices in biomedical research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.31.551384

Reflecting on motivations: How reasons to publish affect research behaviour in astronomy

Author : Julia Heuritsch

Recent research in the field of reflexive metrics, which analyses the effects of the use of performance indicators on scientific conduct, has studied the emergence and consequences of evaluation gaps in science.

The concept of evaluation gaps captures potential discrepancies between what researchers value about their research, in particular research quality, and what metrics measure. In the language of rational choice theory, an evaluation gap persists if motivational factors arising out of the internal component of an actor’s situation are incongruent with those arising out of the external components.

The aim of this research is therefore to study and compare autonomous and controlled motivations to become an astronomer, to do research in astronomy and to publish scientific papers. This study is based on a comprehensive quantitative survey of academic and non-academic astronomers worldwide with 3509 responses.

By employing verified instruments to measure perceived publication pressure, distributive & procedural justice, overcommitment to work and observation of scientific misconduct, this paper also investigates how these different motivational factors affect research output and behaviour.

I find evidence for an evaluation gap and that controlled motivational factors arising from evaluation procedures based on publication record drives up publication pressure, which, in turn, was found to increase the likelihood of perceived frequency of misbehaviour.

URL : Reflecting on motivations: How reasons to publish affect research behaviour in astronomy

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281613

Biomedical supervisors’ role modeling of open science practices

AuthorsTamarinde L Haven, Susan Abunijela, Nicole Hildebrand

Supervision is one important way to socialize Ph.D. candidates into open and responsible research. We hypothesized that one should be more likely to identify open science practices (here publishing open access and sharing data) in empirical publications that were part of a Ph.D. thesis when the Ph.D. candidates’ supervisors engaged in these practices compared to those whose supervisors did not or less often did.

Departing from thesis repositories at four Dutch University Medical centers, we included 211 pairs of supervisors and Ph.D. candidates, resulting in a sample of 2062 publications. We determined open access status using UnpaywallR and Open Data using Oddpub, where we also manually screened publications with potential open data statements. Eighty-three percent of our sample was published openly, and 9% had open data statements.

Having a supervisor who published open access more often than the national average was associated with an odds of 1.99 to publish open access. However, this effect became nonsignificant when correcting for institutions. Having a supervisor who shared data was associated with 2.22 (CI:1.19–4.12) times the odds to share data compared to having a supervisor that did not.

This odds ratio increased to 4.6 (CI:1.86–11.35) after removing false positives. The prevalence of open data in our sample was comparable to international studies; open access rates were higher. Whilst Ph.D. candidates spearhead initiatives to promote open science, this study adds value by investigating the role of supervisors in promoting open science.

URL : Biomedical supervisors’ role modeling of open science practices

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.83484

Assessing the publishing priorities and preferences among STEM researchers at a large R1 institution

Authors : Ibraheem Ali, Jason Burton, M. Wynn Tranfield

The cost of academic publishing has increased substantially despite the ease with which information can be shared on the web. Open Access publishing is a key mechanism for amplifying research access, inclusivity, and impact.

Despite this, shifting to a free-to-read publishing environment requires navigating complex barriers that vary by career status and publishing expectations. In this article, we investigate the motivations and preferences of researchers situated within our large research institution as a case study for publishing attitudes at similar institutions.

We surveyed the publishing priorities and preferences of researchers at various career stages in STEM fields as they relate to openness, data practices, and assessment of research impact. Our results indicate that publishing preferences, data management experience and research impact assessment vary by career status and departmental approaches to promotion.

We find that open access publishing is widely appreciated regardless of career status, but financial limitations and publishing expectations were common barriers to publishing in Open Access journals.

Our findings shed light on publishing attitudes and preferences among researchers at a major R1 research institution, and offer insight into advocacy strategies that incentivize open access publishing.

URL : Assessing the publishing priorities and preferences among STEM researchers at a large R1 institution

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e16316

To Preprint or Not to Preprint: Experience and Attitudes of Researchers Worldwide

Authors : Rong Ni, Ludo Waltman

The pandemic has underlined the significance of open science and spurred further growth of preprinting. Nevertheless, preprinting has been adopted at varying rates across different countries/regions.

To investigate researchers’ experience with and attitudes toward preprinting, we conducted a survey of authors of research papers published in 2021 or 2022. We find that respondents in the US and Europe had a higher level of familiarity with and adoption of preprinting than those in China and the rest of the world. Respondents in China were most worried about the lack of recognition for preprinting and the risk of getting scooped.

US respondents were very concerned about premature media coverage of preprints, the reliability and credibility of preprints, and public sharing of information before peer review. Respondents identified integration of preprinting in journal submission processes as the most important way to promote preprinting.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.55835/6442f782b2b5580ba561406b