Publication by association: the Covid-19 pandemic reveals relationships between authors and editors

Authors : Clara Locher, David Moher, Ioana Cristea, Florian Naudet

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rush to scientific and political judgments on the merits of hydroxychloroquine was fuelled by dubious papers which may have been published because the authors were not independent from the practices of the journals in which they appeared.

This example leads us to consider a new type of illegitimate publishing entity, “self-promotion journals” which could be deployed to serve the instrumentalisation of productivity-based metrics, with a ripple effect on decisions about promotion, tenure, and grant funding.

URL : Publication by association: the Covid-19 pandemic reveals relationships between authors and editors

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/64u3s

Scientific globalism during a global crisis: research collaboration and open access publications on COVID-19

Authors : Jenny J. Lee, John P. Haupt

This study sought to understand the nature of scientific globalism during a global crisis, particularly COVID-19. Findings show that scientific globalism occurs differently when comparing COVID-19 publications with non-COVID-19 publications during as well as before the pandemic.

Despite the tense geopolitical climate, countries increased their proportion of international collaboration and open-access publications during the pandemic. However, not all countries engaged more globally.

Countries that have been more impacted by the crisis and those with relatively lower GDPs tended to participate more in scientific globalism than their counterparts.

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10734-020-00589-0

Some Issues on the Funding of the Scientific Publication in Open Access

Authors : Maria José Sá José Sá, Sandro Serpa

The academic/scientific publication in Open Access is already a current practice with several advantages, and the trend is that it will continue to be adopted worldwide by academics and researchers to disseminate the results of their work among the scientific community and the public at large.

At a time when Open Access is not only unavoidable but tends to become generalised as a form of scientific publication, this paper seeks to put forth, discuss and analyse some emerging issues, which are directly related to the financing of the publication of scientific research in Open Access, and which are directly linked to the consequences for academic freedom and the impact of the dissemination of the scientific publication, as current questions that shape the scientific publication that we will have and wish.

The results of this analysis allow concluding that, for this new way of publishing science to grow in a sustained way, it is necessary to ensure, among other aspects, the existence of independent scientific advisory boards; freedom of publication within certain boundaries; a sustainability strategy to plan for the operation of the platform; transparency in public scrutiny; and respect for the law.

URL : Some Issues on the Funding of the Scientific Publication in Open Access

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2020-0063

Le Markdown, une praxis énonciative du numérique

Auteur/Author : Patrick Mpondo-Dicka

Le Markdown est un lieu privilégié d’observation de ce que la théorie opérationnelle de l’écriture numérique (Crozat et al., 2011) appelle « la tension de la manifestation », c’est-à-dire la tension entre le niveau techno-applicatif des formats, des langages de programmation et des programmes, et le niveau sémio-rhétorique des interfaces.

Nous choisirons l’exemple de l’avènement du Markdown, de son évolution, pour montrer, en acte, la praxis énonciative qui préside à ce lieu du dialogue humain-machine.

URL : Le Markdown, une praxis énonciative du numérique

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.25965/interfaces-numeriques.3915

Adopting open access in the social sciences and humanities: evidence from a developing nation

Authors : Thu-Trang Vuong, Manh-Toan Ho, Minh-Hoang Nguyen, Thanh-Huyen T. Nguyen, Thanh-Dung Nguyen, Thi-Linh Nguyen, Anh-Phuong Luong, Quan-Hoang Vuong

Open Access (OA) publishing, with ambitious movements such as Plan S, is engendering radical changes among academic publishers. Emerging countries need to keep publishing as well as adopt open access to catch up with the changes.

Using exclusive data from the Social Sciences & Humanities Peer Awards (SSHPA) database, the study employed both descriptive statistics and a Bayesian linear regression model to examine the journals and publishers in which Vietnamese social scientists published during the period 2008–2019, and the potential of pursuing the OA movement in Vietnam.

We found an increasing diversification in the publishing sources of Vietnamese social science researchers with growth rates of 9.8% and 14.1% per annum in the number of publishers and journals, respectively. Given that the proportion of Gold OA articles had a fourfold increase over the examined period, it seems that the Vietnamese academic community is adopting OA.

Furthermore, Bayesian analysis results hint at positive associations of internal and external collaborative power (number of domestic and foreign authors, respectively) with the decision to publish in OA (βb_TotalVN_OpenAccess = 0.22; βb_TotalForeign_OpenAccess = 0.15).

The results and its implications suggest that Vietnamese policymakers and university director boards should facilitate as well as control the quality of the scientific publishing and the OA movement.

URL : Adopting open access in the social sciences and humanities: evidence from a developing nation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04522

Quantifying professionalism in peer review

Authors : Travis G. Gerwing, Alyssa M. Allen Gerwing, Stephanie Avery-Gomm, Chi-Yeung Choi, Jeff C. Clements, Joshua A. Rash

Background

The process of peer-review in academia has attracted criticism surrounding issues of bias, fairness, and professionalism; however, frequency of occurrence of such comments is unknown.

Methods

We evaluated 1491 sets of reviewer comments from the fields of “Ecology and Evolution” and “Behavioural Medicine,” of which 920 were retrieved from the online review repository Publons and 571 were obtained from six early career investigators.

Comment sets were coded for the occurrence of “unprofessional comments” and “incomplete, inaccurate or unsubstantiated critiques” using an a-prior rubric based on our published research. Results are presented as absolute numbers and percentages.

Results

Overall, 12% (179) of comment sets included at least one unprofessional comment towards the author or their work, and 41% (611) contained incomplete, inaccurate of unsubstantiated critiques (IIUC).

Conclusions

The large number of unprofessional comments, and IIUCs observed could heighten psychological distress among investigators, particularly those at an early stage in their career. We suggest that development and adherence to a universally agreed upon reviewer code of conduct is necessary to improve the quality and professional experience of peer review.

URL : Quantifying professionalism in peer review

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-020-00096-x

Humanités numériques et archives : la longue émergence d’un nouveau paradigme

Auteur/Author : Frédéric Giuliano

Cet article vise à démystifier le domaine de recherche que sont les humanités numériques en révélant sa contribution et l’immense potentiel de ses approches pour la pratique archivistique et bibliothéconomique.

L’auteur y présente une réflexion sur les apports conceptuels et technologiques des humanités numériques tout en soulignant les défis que doivent relever les professionnels de l’information associés à ces projets, mais aussi les nouveaux rôles que ces derniers sont appelés à y jouer.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1063788ar