Catégorie : EN

Catégories
EN

Did awarding badges increase data sharing in BMJ Open? A randomized controlled trial

Authors : Anisa Rowhani-Farid, Adrian Aldcroft, Adrian G. Barnett

Sharing data and code are important components of reproducible research. Data sharing in research is widely discussed in the literature; however, there are no well-established evidence-based incentives that reward data sharing, nor randomized studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of data sharing policies at increasing data sharing.

A simple incentive, such as an Open Data Badge, might provide the change needed to increase data sharing in health and medical research. This study was a parallel group randomized controlled trial (protocol registration: doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/PXWZQ) with two groups, control and intervention, with 80 research articles published in BMJ Open per group, with a total of 160 research articles.

The intervention group received an email offer for an Open Data Badge if they shared their data along with their final publication and the control group received an email with no offer of a badge if they shared their data with their final publication.

The primary outcome was the data sharing rate. Badges did not noticeably motivate researchers who published in BMJ Open to share their data; the odds of awarding badges were nearly equal in the intervention and control groups (odds ratio = 0.9, 95% CI [0.1, 9.0]). Data sharing rates were low in both groups, with just two datasets shared in each of the intervention and control groups.

The global movement towards open science has made significant gains with the development of numerous data sharing policies and tools.

What remains to be established is an effective incentive that motivates researchers to take up such tools to share their data.

URL : Did awarding badges increase data sharing in BMJ Open? A randomized controlled trial

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.191818

Catégories
EN

Faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory open access journals: a needs assessment study

Authors : Stephanie M. Swanberg, Joanna Thielen, Nancy Bulgarelli

Objective

The purpose of predatory open access (OA) journals is primarily to make a profit rather than to disseminate quality, peer-reviewed research.

Publishing in these journals could negatively impact faculty reputation, promotion, and tenure, yet many still choose to do so. Therefore, the authors investigated faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory OA journals.

Methods

A twenty-item questionnaire containing both quantitative and qualitative items was developed and piloted. All university and medical school faculty were invited to participate.

The survey included knowledge questions that assessed respondents’ ability to identify predatory OA journals and attitudinal questions about such journals. Chi-square tests were used to detect differences between university and medical faculty.

Results

A total of 183 faculty completed the survey: 63% were university and 37% were medical faculty. Nearly one-quarter (23%) had not previously heard of the term “predatory OA journal.”

Most (87%) reported feeling very confident or confident in their ability to assess journal quality, but only 60% correctly identified a journal as predatory, when given a journal in their field to assess.

Chi-square tests revealed that university faculty were more likely to correctly identify a predatory OA journal (p=0.0006) and have higher self-reported confidence in assessing journal quality, compared with medical faculty (p=0.0391).

Conclusions

Survey results show that faculty recognize predatory OA journals as a problem. These attitudes plus the knowledge gaps identified in this study will be used to develop targeted educational interventions for faculty in all disciplines at our university.

URL : Faculty knowledge and attitudes regarding predatory open access journals: a needs assessment study

Original location : http://jmla.pitt.edu/ojs/jmla/article/view/849

Catégories
EN

FAIR Digital Objects for Science: From Data Pieces to Actionable Knowledge Units

Authors : Koenraad De Smedt, Dimitris Koureas, Peter Wittenburg

Data science is facing the following major challenges: (1) developing scalable cross-disciplinary capabilities, (2) dealing with the increasing data volumes and their inherent complexity, (3) building tools that help to build trust, (4) creating mechanisms to efficiently operate in the domain of scientific assertions, (5) turning data into actionable knowledge units and (6) promoting data interoperability.

As a way to overcome these challenges, we further develop the proposals by early Internet pioneers for Digital Objects as encapsulations of data and metadata made accessible by persistent identifiers.

In the past decade, this concept was revisited by various groups within the Research Data Alliance and put in the context of the FAIR Guiding Principles for findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable data.

The basic components of a FAIR Digital Object (FDO) as a self-contained, typed, machine-actionable data package are explained. A survey of use cases has indicated the growing interest of research communities in FDO solutions.

We conclude that the FDO concept has the potential to act as the interoperable federative core of a hyperinfrastructure initiative such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

URL : FAIR Digital Objects for Science: From Data Pieces to Actionable Knowledge Units

Alternative location : https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/8/2/21

Catégories
EN

Integration of a National E-Theses Online Service with Institutional Repositories

Authors : Vasily Bunakov, Frances Madden

We present an information resource prototype that was developed by the FREYA project for the integration of a national e-thesis service and institutional repositories supported by a large national laboratory.

The integration allows us to mutually enrich the metadata in the e-thesis service and institutional repositories with new entities and attributes, and can offer novel ways of reasoning over research outcomes that are supported by direct funding and funding-in-kind by large research facilities.

The integrated information resource can be presented as a labeled-property graph for its exploration with a declarative query language and visualizations. We emphasize the role of persistent identifiers (PIDs), including for entities that are currently not necessarily or not consistently assigned PIDs.

URL : Integration of a National E-Theses Online Service with Institutional Repositories

Alternative location : https://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/8/2/20/htm

Catégories
EN

Toward a Critical Approach for OER: A Case Study in Removing the ‘Big Five’ from OER Creation

Authors : Kris Joseph, Julia Guy, Michael B McNally

This paper examines the role of proprietary software in the production of open educational resources (OER). Using a single case study, the paper explores the implications of removing proprietary software from an OER project, with the aim of examining how complicated such a process is and whether removing such software meaningfully advances a critical approach to OER.

The analysis reveals that software from the Big Five technology companies (Apple, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft) are deeply embedded in OER production and distribution, and that complete elimination of software or services from these companies is not feasible.

The paper concludes by positing that simply rejecting Big Five technology introduces too many challenges to be justified on a pragmatic basis; however, it encourages OER creators to remain critical in their use of technology and continue to try to advance a critical approach to OER.

URL : Toward a Critical Approach for OER: A Case Study in Removing the ‘Big Five’ from OER Creation

Alternative location : https://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/1020

Catégories
EN

Collaborating for public access to scholarly publications: A case study of the partnership between the US Department of Energy and CHORUS

Authors : H. Frederick Dylla, Jeffrey Salmon

Key points

  • The success of the CHORUS and DOE relationship is the result of nearly two decades of interactions between the DOE and a group of scientific publishers.
  • The relationship between CHORUS and the US federal agencies required understanding of different motivations, operations, and philosophies.
  • Although achieving public access was simple in principle, it required considerable effort to develop systems that satisfied all parties.
  • Publishers had been working with federal agencies to achieve open access before the 2013 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, but this helped to create a path for a more fruitful relationship.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1298

Catégories
EN

Access to Scientific Literature by the Conservation Community

Authors : Daisy Larios, Thomas M. Brooks, Nicholas B.W. Macfarlane, Sugoto Roy

Access to the scientific literature is perceived to be a challenge to the biodiversity conservation community, but actual level of literature access relative to needs has never been assessed globally.

We examined this question by surveying the constituency of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a proxy for the conservation community, generating 2,285 responses. Of these respondents, ∼97% need to use the scientific literature in order to support their IUCN-related conservation work, with ∼50% needing to do so at least once per week.

The crux of the survey revolved around the question, “How easy is it for you currently to obtain the scientific literature you need to carry out your IUCN-related work?” and revealed that roughly half (49%) of the respondents find it not easy or not at all easy to access scientific literature.

We fitted a binary logistic regression model to explore factors predicting ease of literature access. Whether the respondent had institutional literature access (55% do) is the strongest predictor, with region (Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and gender (male) also significant predictors.

Approximately 60% of respondents from Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have institutional access compared to ∼50% in Asia and Latin America, and ∼40% in Eastern Europe and in Africa. Nevertheless, accessing free online material is a popular means of accessing literature for both those with and without institutional access.

The four journals most frequently mentioned when asked which journal access would deliver the greatest improvements to the respondent’s IUCN-related work were Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Nature, and Science.

The majority prefer to read journal articles on screen but prefer to read books in hard copy. Overall, it is apparent that access to the literature is a challenge facing roughly half of the conservation community worldwide.

URL : Access to Scientific Literature by the Conservation Community

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.30.010058