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Use of the journal impact factor for assessing individual articles need not be statistically wrong

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Authors : Ludo Waltman, Vincent A. Traag

Most scientometricians reject the use of the journal impact factor for assessing individual articles and their authors. The well-known San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment also strongly objects against this way of using the impact factor.

Arguments against the use of the impact factor at the level of individual articles are often based on statistical considerations. The skewness of journal citation distributions typically plays a central role in these arguments.

We present a theoretical analysis of statistical arguments against the use of the impact factor at the level of individual articles. Our analysis shows that these arguments do not support the conclusion that the impact factor should not be used for assessing individual articles.

In fact, our computer simulations demonstrate the possibility that the impact factor is a more accurate indicator of the value of an article than the number of citations the article has received.

It is important to critically discuss the dominant role of the impact factor in research evaluations, but the discussion should not be based on misplaced statistical arguments. Instead, the primary focus should be on the socio-technical implications of the use of the impact factor.

URL : Use of the journal impact factor for assessing individual articles need not be statistically wrong

DOI : https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.23418.1

From Open Access to Open Science: The Path From Scientific Reality to Open Scientific Communication

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Authors : Christian Heise, Joshua M. Pearce

Although opening up of research is considered an appropriate and trend-setting model for future scientific communication, it can still be difficult to put open science into practice. How open and transparent can a scientific work be?

This article investigates the potential to make all information and the whole work process of a qualification project such as a doctoral thesis comprehensively and freely accessible on the internet with an open free license both in the final form and completely traceable in development.

The answer to the initial question, the self-experiment and the associated demand for openness, posed several challenges for a doctoral student, the institution, and the examination regulations, which are still based on the publication of an individually written and completed work that cannot be viewed by the public during the creation process.

In the case of data and other documents, publication is usually not planned even after completion. This state of affairs in the use of open science in the humanities will be compared with open science best practices in the physical sciences.

The reasons and influencing factors for open developments in science and research are presented, empirically and experimentally tested in the development of the first completely open humanities-based PhD thesis.

The results of this two-part study show that it is possible to publish everything related to the doctoral study, qualification, and research process as soon as possible, as comprehensively as possible, and under an open license.

URL : From Open Access to Open Science: The Path From Scientific Reality to Open Scientific Communication

DOI : From Open Access to Open Science: The Path From Scientific Reality to Open Scientific Communication

Hostage authorship and the problem of dirty hands

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Authors : William Bülow, Gert Helgesson

This article discusses gift authorship, the practice where co-authorship is awarded to a person who has not contributed significantly to the study. From an ethical point of view, gift authorship raises concerns about desert, fairness, honesty and transparency, and its prevalence in research is rightly considered a serious ethical concern.

We argue that even though misuse of authorship is always bad, there are instances where accepting requests of gift authorship may nevertheless be the right thing to do. More specifically, we propose that researchers may find themselves in a situation much similar to the problem of dirty hands, which has been frequently discussed in political philosophy and applied ethics.

The problem of dirty hands is relevant to what we call hostage authorship, where the researchers include undeserving authors unwillingly, and only because they find it unavoidable in order to accomplish a morally important research goal.

URL : Hostage authorship and the problem of dirty hands

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016118764305

Research Data Management Services and Strategic Planning in Libraries Today: A Longitudinal Study

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Authors : Elise Gowen, John J. Meier

INTRODUCTION

Research data services have been adopted by many academic libraries. This study tracked the changes in research data management services and staffing among Association of American Universities (AAU) libraries over the past 5 years and compared them to the libraries’ goals for research data management (RDM) in their strategic plan.

METHODS

This quantitative study examined libraries at the 60 U.S. AAU institutions. In order to examine longitudinal changes, portions of Briney et.al. (2015a) were used as a basis for measuring data librarian staffing and services.

These trends were compared to the contemporary strategic priorities of libraries interviewed by Meier (2016), as well as against strategic plans of 2014 and 2019 available online.

RESULTS & DISCUSSION

While there have been modest increases in libraries in the sample population offering data services, most of those gains have been among the libraries that did not consider RDM a priority in 2014. Interestingly, some of the libraries that mentioned RDM as a priority in 2014 have lost data librarian positions.

Over half of the libraries in this study now provide or support a data repository. Many library strategic plans that mentioned RDM as an explicit goal 5 years ago now no longer mention it.

CONCLUSION

Data librarian positions, data services, and data repositories have now become common features of large research university libraries. However, research data services are no longer as prominent in many library strategic plans at institutions where such services are more established, and libraries instead seem to be moving on to the work of rethinking the nature of the services or expanding them.

URL : Research Data Management Services and Strategic Planning in Libraries Today: A Longitudinal Study

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2336

Cancelling with the world’s largest scholarly publisher: lessons from the Swedish experience of having no access to Elsevier

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Authors : Lisa Olsson, Camilla Hertil Lindelöw, Lovisa Österlund, Frida Jakobsson

This article covers the consequences of the decision of the Bibsam consortium to cancel its journal licence agreement with Elsevier, the world’s largest scholarly publisher, in 2018.

First, we report on how the cancellation affected Swedish researchers. Second, we describe other consequences of the cancellation. Finally, we report on lessons for the future. In short, there was no consensus among researchers on how the cancellation affected them or whether the cancellation was positive or negative for them. Just over half (54%) of the 4,221 researchers who responded to a survey indicated that the cancellation had harmed their work, whereas 37% indicated that it had not.

Almost half (48%) of the researchers had a negative view of the cancellation, whereas 38% had a positive view. The cancellation highlighted the ongoing work at research libraries to facilitate the transition to an open access publishing system to more stakeholders in academia than before.

It also showed that Swedish vice-chancellors were prepared to suspend subscriptions with a publisher that could not accommodate the needs and requirements of open science.

Finally, the cancellation resulted in the signing of a transformative agreement which started on 1 January 2020. If it had not been for the cancellation, the reaching of such an agreement would have been unlikely.

URL : Cancelling with the world’s largest scholarly publisher: lessons from the Swedish experience of having no access to Elsevier

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.507

Introducing Massively Open Online Papers (MOOPs)

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Authors: Jonathan P. Tennant, Natalia Bielczyk, Bastian Greshake Tzovaras, Paola Masuzzo, Tobias Steiner

An enormous wealth of digital tools now exists for collaborating on scholarly research projects. In particular, it is now possible to collaboratively author research articles in an openly participatory and dynamic format.

Here we describe and provide recommendations for a more open process of digital collaboration, and discuss the potential issues and pitfalls that come with managing large and diverse authoring communities.

We summarize our personal experiences in a form of ‘ten simple recommendations’. Typically, these collaborative, online projects lead to the production of what we here introduce as Massively Open Online Papers (MOOPs).

We consider a MOOP to be distinct from a ‘traditional’ collaborative article in that it is defined by an openly participatory process, not bound within the constraints of a predefined contributors list.

This is a method of organised creativity designed for the efficient generation and capture of ideas in order to produce new knowledge. Given the diversity of potential authors and projects that can be brought into this process, we do not expect that these tips will address every possible project.

Rather, these tips are based on our own experiences and will be useful when different groups and communities can uptake different elements into their own workflows.

We believe that creating inclusive, interdisciplinary, and dynamic environments is ultimately good for science, providing a way to exchange knowledge and ideas as a community. We hope that these Recommendations will prove useful for others who might wish to explore this space.

URL : Introducing Massively Open Online Papers (MOOPs)

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/kula.63

Open access and research dissemination in Africa

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Authors : Katie Wilson, Anthony Kiuna, Richard Lamptey, Susan Veldsman, Lucy Montgomery, Cameron Neylon, Richard Hosking, Karl Huang, Alkim Ozaygen

This paper discusses research undertaken by the Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) and participants during and following an Open Knowledge international workshop held in Mauritius in September 2019.

The workshop brought together key experts to explore the role of open knowledge in the creation of equitable and inclusive global knowledge landscapes.

This paper explores the role of open access and institutional repositories in knowledge sharing and the dissemination of research output from higher education and research institutions within the African continent.

The paper reviews the landscape of research output from the African continent; analyses open access research output, overviews of institutional knowledge sharing positions and the dissemination of research output from Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02544891