Archives des auteurs : Hans Dillaerts

The Roles of Female Involvement and Risk Aversion in Open Access Publishing Patterns in Vietnamese Social Sciences and Humanities

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Authors : Minh-Hoang Nguyen, Huyen Thanh Thanh Nguyen, Manh-Toan Ho, Tam-Tri Le, Quan-Hoang Vuong

The open-access (OA) publishing model can help improve researchers’ outreach, thanks to its accessibility and visibility to the public. Therefore, the presentation of female researchers can benefit from the OA publishing model.

Despite that, little is known about how gender affects OA practices. Thus, the current study explores the effects of female involvement and risk aversion on OA publishing patterns among Vietnamese social sciences and humanities.

The study employed Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on a dataset of 3,122 Vietnamese social sciences and humanities (SS&H) publications during 2008–2019. The Mindsponge mechanism was specifically used to construct theoretical models, while Bayesian inference was utilized for fitting models.

The result showed a positive association between female participation and OA publishing probability. However, the positive effect of female involvement on OA publishing probability was negated by the high ratio of female researchers in a publication. OA status was negatively associated with the JIF of the journal in which the publication was published, but the relationship was moderated by the involvement of a female researcher(s).

The findings suggested that Vietnamese female researchers might be more likely to publish under the OA model in journals with high JIF for avoiding the risk of public criticism.

The study could only provide evidence on the association between female involvement and OA publishing probability. However, whether to publish under OA terms is often determined by the first or corresponding authors, but not necessarily gender-based.

Systematically coordinated actions are suggested to better support women and promote the OA movement in Vietnam.

The findings show the OA publishing patterns of female researchers in Vietnamese SS&H.

URL : The Roles of Female Involvement and Risk Aversion in Open Access Publishing Patterns in Vietnamese Social Sciences and Humanities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2022-0001

A View from the Top: Library Leaders’ Predictions for the Future of Science Liaison Librarianship

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Authors : Laura Bolton Palumbo, Jeffra D Bussmann, Barbara Kern

Library leaders at academic institutions in the United States at the level of University Librarians, Library Directors, and Library Deans were surveyed about their predictions for the future of science liaison librarianship and the importance of science subject specialization.

Responses from 71 library leaders at institutions ranging from community colleges through large, research intensive universities provide insight into evolving roles for academic science librarians.

Key findings include that library leaders perceive functional roles such as data management and scholarly communication growing in importance, yet they are rarely seen as replacing traditional subject-based ones. Subject specialization is still seen by many as a desirable qualification for science librarians, even though smaller institutional size and budget constraints may necessitate a more generalist approach.

While there was no consensus on the necessity of science subject specialization, and whether or not science liaison librarianship would retain this characteristic in the future, there was a widespread acknowledgement of the value of liaison relationships with science faculty and others at their institutions.

URL : A View from the Top: Library Leaders’ Predictions for the Future of Science Liaison Librarianship

Original location : https://journals.tdl.org/llm/index.php/llm/article/view/7511

How to improve scientific peer review: Four schools of thought

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Authors : Ludo Waltman, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Stephen Pinfield, Helen Buckley Woods

Peer review plays an essential role as one of the cornerstones of the scholarly publishing system. There are many initiatives that aim to improve the way in which peer review is organized, resulting in a highly complex landscape of innovation in peer review.

Different initiatives are based on different views on the most urgent challenges faced by the peer review system, leading to a diversity of perspectives on how the system can be improved.

To provide a more systematic understanding of the landscape of innovation in peer review, we suggest that the landscape is shaped by four schools of thought: The Quality & Reproducibility school, the Democracy & Transparency school, the Equity & Inclusion school, and the Efficiency & Incentives school.

Each school has a different view on the key problems of the peer review system and the innovations necessary to address these problems. The schools partly complement each other, but we argue that there are also important tensions between the schools.

We hope that the four schools of thought offer a useful framework to facilitate conversations about the future development of the peer review system.

URL : How to improve scientific peer review: Four schools of thought

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/v8ghj

How should evaluation be? Is a good evaluation of research also just? Towards the implementation of good evaluation

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Authors : Cinzia Daraio, Alessio Vaccari

In this paper we answer the question of how evaluation should be by proposing a good evaluation of research practices. A good evaluation of research practices, intended as social practices à la MacIntyre, should take into account the stable motivations and the traits of the characters (i.e. the virtues) of researchers.

We also show that a good evaluation is also just, beyond the sense of fairness, as working on good research practices implies keep into account a broader sense of justice. After that, we propose the development of a knowledge base for the assessment of “good” evaluations of research practices to implement a questionnaire for the assessment of researchers’ virtues.

Although the latter is a challenging task, the use of ontologies and taxonomic knowledge, and the reasoning algorithms that can draw inferences on the basis of such knowledge represents a way for testing the consistency of the information reported in the questionnaire and to analyse correctly and coherently how the data is gathered through it.

Finally, we describe the potential application usefulness of our proposal for the reform of current research assessment systems.

URL : How should evaluation be? Is a good evaluation of research also just? Towards the implementation of good evaluation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04329-2

Are female scientists less inclined to publish alone? The gender solo research gap

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Authors : Marek Kwiek, Wojciech Roszka

In solo research, scientists compete individually for prestige, sending clear signals about their research ability, avoiding problems in credit allocation, and reducing conflicts about authorship. We examine to what extent male and female scientists differ in their use of solo publishing across various dimensions.

This research is the first to comprehensively study the “gender solo research gap” among all internationally visible scientists within a whole national higher education system. We examine the gap through mean “individual solo publishing rates” found in “individual publication portfolios” constructed for each Polish university professor.

We use the practical significance/statistical significance difference (based on the effect-size r coefficient) and our analyses indicate that while some gender differences are statistically significant, they have no practical significance.

Using a partial effects of fractional logistic regression approach, we estimate the probability of conducting solo research. In none of the models does gender explain the variability of the individual solo publishing rate.

The strongest predictor of individual solo publishing rate is the average team size, publishing in STEM fields negatively affects the rate, publishing in male-dominated disciplines positively affects it, and the influence of international collaboration is negative.

The gender solo research gap in Poland is much weaker than expected: within a more general trend toward team research and international research, gender differences in solo research are much weaker and less relevant than initially assumed.

We use our unique biographical, administrative, publication, and citation database (“Polish Science Observatory”) with metadata on all Polish scientists present in Scopus (N = 25,463) and their 158,743 Scopus-indexed articles published in 2009–2018, including 18,900 solo articles.

URL : Are female scientists less inclined to publish alone? The gender solo research gap

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04308-7

Free access to scientific literature and its influence on the publishing activity in developing countries: The effect of Sci-Hub in the field of mathematics

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Authors : Kilian Buehling, Matthias Geissler, Dorothea Strecker

This paper investigates whether free access to scientific literature increases the participation of under-represented groups in scientific discourse. To this end, we aggregate and match data tracing access to Sci-Hub, a widely used black open access (OA) repository or shadow library, and publication data from the Web of Science (WoS).

We treat the emergence of Sci-Hub as an exogenous event granting relatively unrestricted access to publications, which are otherwise hidden behind a paywall. We analyze changes in the publication count of researchers from developing countries in a given journal as a proxy for general participation in scientific discourse.

Our results indicate that in the exemplary field of mathematics, free access to academic knowledge is likely to improve the representation of authors from developing countries in international journals.

Assuming the desirability of greater international diversity in science (e.g., to generate more original work, reproduce empirical findings in different settings, or shift the research focus toward topics that are overlooked by researchers from more developed countries), our findings lend evidence to the claim of the OA movement that scientific knowledge should be free and widely distributed.

URL : Free access to scientific literature and its influence on the publishing activity in developing countries: The effect of Sci-Hub in the field of mathematics

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24636

Research data management and services: Resources for different data practitioners

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Author : Gilbert Mushi

The emergence of data-driven research and demands for the establishment of Research Data Management (RDM) has created interest in academic institutions and research organizations globally.

Some of the libraries especially in developed countries have started offering RDM services to their communities. Although lagging behind, some academic libraries in developing countries are at the stage of planning or implementing the service. However, the level of RDM awareness is very low among researchers, librarians and other data practitioners.

The objective of this paper is to present available open resources for different data practitioners particularly researchers and librarians.

It includes training resources for both researchers and librarians, Data Management Plan (DMP) tool for researchers; data repositories available for researchers to freely archive and share their research data to the local and international communities.

A case study with a survey was conducted at the University of Dodoma to identify relevant RDM services so that librarians could assist researchers to make their data accessible to the local and international community.

The study findings revealed a low level of RDM awareness among researchers and librarians. Over 50% of the respondent indicated their perceived knowledge as poor in the following RDM knowledge areas; DMP, data repository, long term digital preservation, funders RDM mandates, metadata standards describing data and general awareness of RDM.

Therefore, this paper presents available open resources for different data practitioners to improve RDM knowledge and boost the confidence of academic and research libraries in establishing the service.

URL : Research data management and services: Resources for different data practitioners

DOI : https://doi.org/10.29173/iq995