Archives des auteurs : Hans Dillaerts

Open access publishing trend analysis: statistics beyond the perception

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Authors : Elisabetta Poltronieri, Elena Bravo, Moreno Curti, Maurizio Ferri, Cristina Mancini

Introduction

The purpose of this analysis was twofold: to track the number of open access journals acquiring impact factor, and to investigate the distribution of subject categories pertaining to these journals. As a case study, journals in which the researchers of the National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità) in Italy have published were surveyed.

Method

Data were collected by searching open access journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals ) then compared with those having an impact factor as tracked by the Journal Citation Reports for the years 2010-2012. Journal Citation Reports subject categories were matched with Medical Subject Headings to provide a larger content classification.

Analysis

A survey was performed to determine the Directory journals matching the Journal Citation Reports list, and their inclusion in a given subject area.

Results

In the years 2010-2012, an increase in the number of journals was observed for Journal Citation Reports (+ 4.93%) and for the Directory (+18.51%). The discipline showing the highest increment was medicine (315 occurrences, 26%).

Conclusions

From 2010 to 2012, the number of open access journals with impact factor has gradually risen, with a prevalence for journals relating to medicine and biological science disciplines, suggesting that authors prefer to publish more than before in open access journals.

URL : http://www.informationr.net/ir/21-2/paper712.html

 

Le catalogue des bibliothèques et ses données à l’heure du web

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Auteur/Author : Raphaëlle Lapôtre

Le point de vue de cet article est de décrire la logique du web et du web de données à la lumière des enseignements de Michel Foucault, tels qu’on peut les lire, notamment, dans Les Mots et les Choses (1966).

Dans un premier temps, les données sur le web jouent le rôle que jouait au XVIIe siècle la monnaie : à la fois représentation des richesses, substitution dans le cadre d’échange différés et mesure de la valeur, en l’occurrence, de l’attention que leur attribuent les acteurs du web.

Du point de vue de la gestion de l’attention, deux visions économiques s’affrontent sur le web : l’une, plutôt utilitariste, s’attache à définir la valeur du point de vue de la subjectivité humaine et du besoin, l’autre, plutôt physiocrate, cherche à transformer l’abondance d’information pour la découper et la synthétiser.

Le Web de données quant à lui, reflète ces deux logiques au sein même du langage qui sert à l’exprimer : le RDF reproduit à sa manière l’attribution qui est le principe du lien hypertexte, tandis que les ontologies donnent à lire une classification du monde et des données qui le représentent.

D’une certaine manière, la logique épistémologique des données massives bouleversent quelque peu la logique représentationnelle du web, leur principe fondamental n’étant plus l’analyse ou la critique, mais bien la recherche de corrélation, la mise en parallèle, le commentaire.

URL : https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01331753v1

Can Scientific Impact Be Predicted?

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Authors : Yuxiao Dong, Reid A. Johnson, Nitesh V. Chawla

A widely used measure of scientific impact is citations. However, due to their heavy-tailed distribution, citations are fundamentally difficult to predict.

Instead, to characterize scientific impact, we address two analogous questions asked by many scientific researchers: “How will my h-index evolve over time, and which of my previously or newly published papers will contribute to it?” To answer these questions, we perform two related tasks. First, we develop a model to predict authors’ future h-indices based on their current scientific impact. Second, we examine the factors that drive papers—either previously or newly published—to increase their authors’ predicted future h-indices.

By leveraging relevant factors, we can predict an author’s h-index in five years with an R2 value of 0.92 and whether a previously (newly) published paper will contribute to this future h-index with an F1 score of 0.99 (0.77).

We find that topical authority and publication venue are crucial to these effective predictions, while topic popularity is surprisingly inconsequential. Further, we develop an online tool that allows users to generate informed h-index predictions.

Our work demonstrates the predictability of scientific impact, and can help scholars to effectively leverage their position of “standing on the shoulders of giants.”

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.05905

Obstacles to Scholarly Publishing in the Social Sciences and Humanities: A Case Study of Vietnamese Scholars

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Authors : Phuong Dzung Pho, Thi Minh Phuong Tran

Publishing scientific research is very important in contributing to the knowledge of a discipline and in sharing research findings among scientists. Based on the quantity and quality of publications, one can evaluate the research capacity of a researcher or the research performance of a university or a country.

However, the number of quality publications in Vietnam is very low in comparison with those in the other countries in the region or in the world, especially in the fields of social sciences and humanities.

Employing both quantitative and qualitative approaches, the current study investigates university lecturers’ attitudes towards research and publication and the obstacles to local and international publication at one of the main universities in social sciences and humanities in Vietnam.

The study found the main barriers to publication are funding and time for research and publication, among many other obstacles. From the analysis of the data, the study would also argue that lecturers’ obstacles to publication may vary across faculties (or disciplines), ages, qualifications, education, research and publication experience.

The findings in this study may be applied to other institutions in Vietnam or in other countries where English is used as a foreign language.

URL : Obstacles to Scholarly Publishing in the Social Sciences and Humanities: A Case Study of Vietnamese Scholars

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications4030019

Scientific notations for the digital era

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Author : Konrad Hinsen

Computers have profoundly changed the way scientific research is done. Whereas the importance of computers as research tools is evident to everyone, the impact of the digital revolution on the representation of scientific knowledge is not yet widely recognized.

An ever increasing part of today’s scientific knowledge is expressed, published, and archived exclusively in the form of software and electronic datasets. In this essay, I compare these digital scientific notations to the the traditional scientific notations that have been used for centuries, showing how the digital notations optimized for computerized processing are often an obstacle to scientific communication and to creative work by human scientists.

I analyze the causes and propose guidelines for the design of more human-friendly digital scientific notations.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.02960

Collaboration at International, National and Institutional Level – Vital in Fostering Open Science

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Authors :Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen, Pirjo-Leena Forsström

Open science and open research provide potential for new discoveries and solutions to global problems, thus are automatically extending beyond the boundaries of an individual research laboratory.

By nature they imply and lead to collaboration among researchers. This collaboration should be established on all possible levels: institutional, national and international. The present paper looks at the situation in Finland, it shows how these collaborations are organized at the various levels.

The special role played by LIBER is evidenced. The advantages of these collaborations are highlighted.

URL : Collaboration at International, National and Institutional Level – Vital in Fostering Open Science

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10157

The Costs of Open and Closed Access: Using the Finnish Research Output as an Example

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Authors : Jyrki Ilva, Markku Antero Laitinen, Jarmo Saarti

The Open Access movement in scientific publishing has been gathering momentum in the European Union and its member states, partly due to the policies of some of its main research funders.

Already we have seen encouraging research results on the effects of openness on the dissemination of scientific outputs. As business models of Open Access publishing are still under development, the aim of our paper is to assess the statistical tools and data that the Finnish libraries currently have for comparing the costs associated with different modes of disseminating scientific publications.

We will also analyse the potential costs associated with Open Access publishing models and compare them with the current cost structure of – mostly – paywalled (PW) access.

The discussion will include a description of current Finnish Open Access policies and their funding models. The financial analysis will be based on the statistical data found in the national Research Library Statistics database and the Finnish National Research Publications database, Juuli.

We will discuss the alternatives on how best to develop statistical tools to estimate the true costs of scientific publishing.

URL : The Costs of Open and Closed Access: Using the Finnish Research Output as an Example

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10137