Auteur/autrice : Hans Dillaerts

Catégories
EN

Assessing Researcher Data Sharing Practices Using Publicly Available Dataset Metadata: A Reproducible Workflow for Institutional Stakeholders

Authors : Danielle R. Kirsch, Isaac Wink

Introduction: Scholarly communities are experiencing increased emphasis on research data sharing and reuse. Given the range of available data repositories and variability in the use of persistent identifiers (PIDs) for individuals and institutions, aggregating datasets by researchers at a specific institution is a significant challenge. We developed a reproducible workflow to evaluate 1) data repository use by researchers at our institutions, 2) metrics of reuse, and 3) quality of metadata records.

Methods: We used the DataCite REST API to locate metadata records for datasets with creator affiliation names that matched our institutions. We performed substantial cleaning and deduplication before comparing repository use, citations, usage metrics, and metadata completeness.

Results: The most common data repositories were Dryad, Harvard Dataverse, figshare, Zenodo, ICPSR, and one institution’s institutional repository. View, download, and citation counts were available from a limited number of repositories, with some discrepancies between different citation reporting methods. PIDs were more frequently used for authors and affiliations than funders, and the inclusion of PIDs varied across repositories, with Dryad being the most consistent.

Discussion & Conclusion: Although broad trends in repository and PID use were similar between institutions, our analysis also surfaced examples that illustrate inconsistencies in metadata across repositories. Variable implementation of the DataCite metadata schema requires a significant amount of data cleaning to obtain meaningful results. Even then, incomplete metadata makes some datasets impossible to locate. Repositories, funders, researchers, and institutional open data advocates must coordinate to create complete and usable metadata that integrates datasets into the scholarship ecosystem.

URL : Assessing Researcher Data Sharing Practices Using Publicly Available Dataset Metadata: A Reproducible Workflow for Institutional Stakeholders

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.22913

Catégories
EN

Are AI-Empowered Early Career Researchers Proving To Be the Harbingers of Change?

Authors : David Nicholas, Jorge Revez, Abdullah Abrizah, John Akeroyd, Marzena Swigon, Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo, David Clark, Eti Herman, Jie Xu, Tatyana Polezhaeva

The Harbingers longitudinal study of early career researchers and their pathfinding scholarly communication attitudes and practices is a decade old and much of its findings have been published in this journal.

We are now moving on to the new generation of researchers—Gen-Z and it is fitting that we draw things to a close by summing up whether our largely millennial researchers have proved to be the harbingers of change.

We focus on the data from the last two rounds of interviewing, conducted in the last 2 years, at a time when AI was (increasingly) propelling change. These two rounds covered over 150 ECRs from all subject fields and from China, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, UK and US.

It was found that ECRs are, indeed, at the forefront of the technological adaptation in research, actively exploring the potential of AI and new communication channels. However, their ability to be truly transformative was constrained by a traditional, quantitative evaluation/reputational system.

This could change with Gen-Z because there were ECRs in their twenties included in our previous studies and they displayed higher practical integration of AI tools and appeared to be more strategically adopting AI for efficiency and career advancement.

URL : Learned Publishing – 2026 – Nicholas – Are AI‐Empowered Early Career Researchers Proving To Be the Harbingers of Change

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2099

Catégories
EN

Examining Persistence of European Open Repository Infrastructure and its Diffusion in the Scholarly Record

Authors : George Macgregor, Joy Davidson 

This article seeks to determine the extent to which the principle of persistence is observed by repositories and the organizations that operate them. In addition, the impact that negative repository persistence levels may be having on the scholarly record is assessed.

This is achieved by interrogating and combining data on European repositories from several repository registries and web-scraped sources, including the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which creates a unique dataset of historic repository locations and their OAI-PMH endpoints.

Then, this data is used as the basis for text mining CORE, a vast corpus of scholarly outputs, to determine the extent to which impersistent European repository content has permeated the scholarly literature.

The findings indicate that over one-fifth of European repositories (greater than 20 per cent) could be classified as “dead,” with an even greater proportion (greater than 40 per cent) of the machine interfaces associated with these repositories similarly dead.

Problematically, this analysis indicates that approximately 12,000 unique scholarly works cite, refer to, or actively use this repository content, amounting to approximately 19,000 unique repository locations, all of which are now dead and unretrievable from their stated resource locations.

Partly owing to limitations in available repository registry data and the existence of “zombie” repositories, there are reasons to conclude that the total number of scholarly works referring to dead repository content is far higher. In addition, evidence of dead repository content entering the current scholarly record is found, which is described as “dead on arrival” referencing.

The implications of these observations are considered, explanations are proffered, and possible policy interventions to address repository persistence are proposed.

The dataset also enables several observations on the nature of impersistent repositories to be made, including their profile and their decay rate.

URL : Examining Persistence of European Open Repository Infrastructure and its Diffusion in the Scholarly Record

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v20i1.1116

Catégories
EN

If You Really Want to Know How AI Is Changing Peer Review Talk to Early Career Researchers

Authors : David Nicholas, Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo, David Clark, Abdullah Abrizah, Jorge Revez, Marzena Swigon, John Akeroyd, Jie Xu, Tatyana Polezhaeva, Eti Herman

The Harbingers study of early career researchers (ECRs), their work life and scholarly communications, began by studying generational—Millennial—change (H1 c.2016), then pandemic change (H2 c2020) and is now investigating yet another: artificial intelligence (H3 2024–).

We report here on a scoping pilot study, which looks at the impact of AI on peer review from over 150 international ECRs from all disciplines. The data were collected by open-ended, in-depth interviews, but being a convenience sample the findings need to be treated with caution.

We find that ECRs are displaying a complex, shifting attitude towards the integration of AI into peer review, characterised by cautious optimism on the one hand and scepticism on the other. ECRs are already reporting specific instances of AI increasingly influencing reviewing practices: both potentially beneficial applications and actual misuse.

AI is seen as a new systemic threat, potentially worsening the alleged exploitative nature of publishing if adopted without ethical guidelines.

URL : If You Really Want to Know How AI Is Changing Peer Review Talk to Early Career Researchers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2082

Catégories
EN

Against the current: Sole authorship as method in contemplative and conceptual scholarship

Author : Heather Kempton

In the context of escalating authorship inflation and growing concern about research integrity, this article examines sole authorship as an epistemically and ethically grounded methodological condition within specific forms of contemplative and conceptual scholarship.

Focusing on forms of inquiry in which interpretation constitutes the primary analytic process, I argue that sole authorship supports a continuous and traceable interpretive arc, central to epistemic integrity.

In such contexts, continuity of interpretation not only enables conceptual coherence but also underpins ethical accountability by ensuring that responsibility for interpretive decisions remains clearly identifiable across the analytic process.

Framed as a contemplative method grounded in mindful solitude, understood as an intentional orientation toward inward integration, sole authorship is situated within contemplative psychology and extended to methodologies such as Intuitive Inquiry, heuristic inquiry, hermeneutic phenomenology, and autoethnography, where interpretive validity depends on a sustained authorial perspective.

While collaborative research remains essential across many domains, this article identifies conditions under which a unified authorial voice provides methodological advantages not fully reproduced through distributed authorship.

The argument is therefore not that sole authorship offers a general solution, but that it functions as a context-specific stance aligned with the epistemic and ethical demands of contemplative scholarship.

URL : Against the current: Sole authorship as method in contemplative and conceptual scholarship

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2026.2714974

Catégories
EN

Examining Persistence of European Open Repository Infrastructure and its Diffusion in the Scholarly Record

Authors : George Macgregor, Joy Davidson

This article seeks to determine the extent to which the principle of persistence is observed by repositories and the organizations that operate them. In addition, the impact that negative repository persistence levels may be having on the scholarly record is assessed.

This is achieved by interrogating and combining data on European repositories from several repository registries and web-scraped sources, including the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which creates a unique dataset of historic repository locations and their OAI-PMH endpoints.

Then, this data is used as the basis for text mining CORE, a vast corpus of scholarly outputs, to determine the extent to which impersistent European repository content has permeated the scholarly literature. The findings indicate that over one-fifth of European repositories (greater than 20 per cent) could be classified as “dead,” with an even greater proportion (greater than 40 per cent) of the machine interfaces associated with these repositories similarly dead.

Problematically, this analysis indicates that approximately 12,000 unique scholarly works cite, refer to, or actively use this repository content, amounting to approximately 19,000 unique repository locations, all of which are now dead and unretrievable from their stated resource locations. Partly owing to limitations in available repository registry data and the existence of “zombie” repositories, there are reasons to conclude that the total number of scholarly works referring to dead repository content is far higher.

In addition, evidence of dead repository content entering the current scholarly record is found, which is described as “dead on arrival” referencing.

The implications of these observations are considered, explanations are proffered, and possible policy interventions to address repository persistence are proposed. The dataset also enables several observations on the nature of impersistent repositories to be made, including their profile and their decay rate.

URL : Examining Persistence of European Open Repository Infrastructure and its Diffusion in the Scholarly Record

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v20i1.1116

 

Catégories
EN

Information avoidance in academia: A grounded theory study of when and why scholars choose not to seek relevant information

Authors : Akinade Adebowale Adewojo, Emmanuel Adefila

This qualitative study employed constructivist grounded theory to investigate information avoidance behaviors among 25 Nigerian scholars across three universities (October 2025–January 2026).

Through interviews, artifact analysis, and reflective diaries, five themes emerged: emotional triggers, cognitive strategies, organizational pressures, discipline-specific patterns (STEM data exclusion vs humanities source avoidance), and consequences (reduced research quality, timeline delays).

Results demonstrate that avoidance stems from systemic institutional factors rather than individual shortcomings. Findings indicate that publication metrics and funding constraints create information silos, while disciplinary norms shape avoidance pathways.

Recommendations include reforming performance metrics, implementing discipline-specific interventions, and embedding psychological safety in academic culture.

This research addresses critical gaps in understanding scholarly information behavior and provides actionable strategies to enhance research integrity and reproducibility in high-pressure academic environments.

URL : Information avoidance in academia: A grounded theory study of when and why scholars choose not to seek relevant information

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/18758789261468726