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Barriers to Full Participation in the Open Science Life Cycle among Early Career Researchers

Authors : Natasha J. Gownaris, Koen Vermeir, Martin-Immanuel Bittner, Lasith Gunawardena, Sandeep Kaur-Ghumaan, Robert Lepenies, Godswill Ntsomboh Ntsefong, Ibrahim Sidi Zakari

Open science (OS) is currently dominated by a small subset of practices that occur late in the scientific process. Early career researchers (ECRs) will play a key role in transitioning the scientific community to more widespread use of OS from pre-registration to publication, but they also face unique challenges in adopting these practices. Here, we discuss these challenges across the OS life cycle.

Our essay relies on the published literature, an informal survey of 32 ECRs from 14 countries, and discussions among members of the Global Working Group on Open Science (Global Young Academy and National Young Academies).

We break the OS life cycle into four stages—study design and tracking (pre-registration, open processes), data collection (citizen science, open hardware, open software, open data), publication (open access publishing, open peer review, open data), and outreach (open educational resources, citizen science)—and map potential barriers at each stage.

The most frequently discussed barriers across the OS life cycle were a lack of awareness and training, prohibitively high time commitments, and restrictions and/or a lack of incentives by supervisors.

We found that OS practices are highly fragmented and that awareness is particularly low for OS practices that occur during the study design and tracking stage, possibly creating ‘path-dependencies’ that reduce the likelihood of OS practices at later stages.

We note that, because ECRs face unique barriers to adopting OS, there is a need for specifically targeted policies such as mandatory training at the graduate level and promotion incentives.

URL : Barriers to Full Participation in the Open Science Life Cycle among Early Career Researchers

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2022-002

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EN

Two-dimensional books for the new Open Access academic publishing

Author : Fulvio Guatelli

Metadata have become a key element of scientific communication. Indeed, the content of a publication – that is, what we love, discuss and judge – is no longer the alpha and omega of a scientific publication nor its exclusive centre of gravity. Books are gradually taking the form of an iceberg, whose visible part is represented by the content, while the submerged part is constituted by metadata.

In the current communication approach of scientific research, metadata and dissemination go hand in hand, as metadata provide a huge contribution to the success of the research itself.

In this paper, I will illustrate how – in the field of today’s scholarly publishing – best practices, simple metadata, and cataloguing indicators such as DOI and ORCID are taking on the task that was once accomplished by chariots pulled by sturdy horses coming out of Aldo Manuzio’s workshop: spreading books and the discoveries of scientific research all over the world.

URL : Two-dimensional books for the new Open Access academic publishing

Original location : https://jlis.fupress.net/index.php/jlis/article/view/425

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Exploring the social activity of open research data on ResearchGate: implications for the data literacy of researchers

Authors : Juliana Elisa Raffaghelli, Stefania Manca

Purpose

Although current research has investigated how open research data (ORD) are published, researchers’ behaviour of ORD sharing on academic social networks (ASNs) remains insufficiently explored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the connections between ORDs publication and social activity to uncover data literacy gaps.

Design/methodology/approach

This work investigates whether the ORDs publication leads to social activity around the ORDs and their linked published articles to uncover data literacy needs. The social activity was characterised as reads and citations, over the basis of a non-invasive approach supporting this preliminary study.

The eventual associations between the social activity and the researchers’ profile (scientific domain, gender, region, professional position, reputation) and the quality of the ORD published were investigated to complete this picture.

A random sample of ORD items extracted from ResearchGate (752 ORDs) was analysed using quantitative techniques, including descriptive statistics, logistic regression and K-means cluster analysis.

Findings

The results highlight three main phenomena: (1) Globally, there is still an underdeveloped social activity around self-archived ORDs in ResearchGate, in terms of reads and citations, regardless of the published ORDs quality; (2) disentangling the moderating effects over social activity around ORD spots traditional dynamics within the “innovative” practice of engaging with data practices; (3) a somewhat similar situation of ResearchGate as ASN to other data platforms and repositories, in terms of social activity around ORD, was detected.

Research limitations/implications

Although the data were collected within a narrow period, the random data collection ensures a representative picture of researchers’ practices.

Practical implications

As per the implications, the study sheds light on data literacy requirements to promote social activity around ORD in the context of open science as a desirable frontier of practice.

Originality/value

Researchers data literacy across digital systems is still little understood. Although there are many policies and technological infrastructure providing support, the researchers do not make an in-depth use of them.

URL : Exploring the social activity of open research data on ResearchGate: implications for the data literacy of researchers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-05-2021-0255

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EN

The impact of the pandemic on early career researchers: what we already know from the internationally published literature

Authors : Eti Herman, David Nicholas, Anthony Watkinson, Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo, Abdullah Abrizah, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri, Hamid R. Jamali, David Sims, Suzie Allard, Carol Tenopir, Jie Xu, Marzena Świgoń, Galina Serbina, Leah Parke Cannon

In order to take account of the impact of the pandemic on the already changing scholarly communications and work-life of early career researchers (ECRs), the 4-year long Harbingers study was extended for another two years.

As a precursor to the study (featuring interviews and a questionnaire survey), currently underway, an analytic review of the pertinent literature was undertaken and its results are presented here.

The review focuses on the challenges faced by ECRs and how these compare to the ones more senior researchers have to tackle. In the examination of the literature three general questions are posed: Q1) What are the identifiable and forthcoming impacts of the pandemic-induced financial pressures felt in the Higher Education sector on ECRs’ employment and career development prospects? Q2) What are the identifiable and forthcoming pandemic-associated disruptions in the pace/focus/direction of the research undertaking? Have any disruptions been predicted to exert an impact on ECRs’ research activities, and if so, with what scholarly consequences? Q3) How is the work-life of ECRs shaping up under the virus-dictated rules of the ‘new normal’ in the research undertaking? What challenges, if any, arise from the changes in practices identified, and what might their potential consequences be for ECRs?

The broad conclusion of the study is that the literature leaves little room for doubt: junior researchers are already disproportionally affected by and bear the burden of the ongoing pandemic-incurred hardships and they are likely to remain similarly impacted when more trials, still unfolding, materialise.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2021.mar.08

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EN

We Can Make a Better Use of ORCID: Five Observed Misapplications

Authors : Miriam Baglioni, Paolo Manghi, Andrea Mannocci, Alessia Bardi

Since 2012, the “Open Researcher and Contributor ID” organisation (ORCID) has been successfully running a worldwide registry, with the aim of “providing a unique, persistent identifier for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities”.

Any service in the scholarly communication ecosystem (e.g., publishers, repositories, CRIS systems, etc.) can contribute to a non-ambiguous scholarly record by including, during metadata deposition, referrals to iDs in the ORCID registry.

The OpenAIRE Research Graph is a scholarly knowledge graph that aggregates both records from the ORCID registry and publication records with ORCID referrals from publishers and repositories worldwide to yield research impact monitoring and Open Science statistics.

Graph data analytics revealed “anomalies” due to ORCID registry “misapplications”, caused by wrong ORCID referrals and misexploitation of the ORCID registry. Albeit these affect just a minority of ORCID records, they inevitably affect the quality of the ORCID infrastructure and may fuel the rise of detractors and scepticism about the service.

In this paper, we classify and qualitatively document such misapplications, identifying five ORCID registrant-related and ORCID referral-related anomalies to raise awareness among ORCID users.

We describe the current countermeasures taken by ORCID and, where applicable, provide recommendations. Finally, we elaborate on the importance of a community-steered Open Science infrastructure and the benefits this approach has brought and may bring to ORCID.

URL : We Can Make a Better Use of ORCID: Five Observed Misapplications

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2021-038

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EN

The Data Life Aquatic: Oceanographers’ Experience with Interoperability and Re-usability: Oceanographers’ Experience with Interoperability and Re-usability

Authors : Bradley Wade Bishop, Carolyn F Hank, Joel T Webster

This paper assesses data consumers’ perspectives on the interoperable and re-usable aspects of the FAIR Data Principles. Taking a domain-specific informatics approach, ten oceanographers were asked to think of a recent search for data and describe their process of discovery, evaluation, and use.

The interview schedule, derived from the FAIR Data Principles, included questions about the interoperability and re-usability of data. Through this critical incident technique, findings on data interoperability and re-usability give data curators valuable insights into how real-world users access, evaluate, and use data.

Results from this study show that oceanographers utilize tools that make re-use simple, with interoperability seamless within the systems used. The processes employed by oceanographers present a good baseline for other domains adopting the FAIR Data Principles.

URL : The Data Life Aquatic: Oceanographers’ Experience with Interoperability and Re-usability: Oceanographers’ Experience with Interoperability and Re-usability

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v16i1.635

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EN

Trust in Scholarly Communications and Infrastructure: Indigenous Data Sovereignty

Author : Katharina Ruckstuhl

Many Indigenous people have a deep mistrust of research, with some describing research as one of the “dirtiest” words in Indigenous language. The histories and experiences behind such mistrust are long and painful.

Given what has been perceived as Indigenous objectification at the hands of largely Anglo-European others for research from which they fail to benefit, many communities now refuse research unless it is undertaken under certain, Indigenous-defined circumstances.

Such refusal is a move away from others’ purposes and a move towards autonomy and self-determination. For some, this is a statement of sovereignty and it applies to all areas of endeavour, including the new frontiers of research and the structures that support them, such as datification of knowledge.

This article examines data sovereignty from the perspective of Indigenous peoples. While data sovereignty has become a ubiquitous concern, Indigenous data sovereignty arises from contexts specific to Indigenous peoples.

The focus of this article is to provide a brief overview of recent data sovereignty developments, along with the context that lies behind these activities. Through this examination, implications for trust in scholarly communications will be discussed.

URL : Trust in Scholarly Communications and Infrastructure: Indigenous Data Sovereignty

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.752336