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The research data life cycle, legacy data, and dilemmas in research data management

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Authors : Jenny Bossaller, Anthony J. Million

This paper presents findings from an interview study of research data managers in academic data archives. Our study examined policies and professional autonomy with a focus on dilemmas encountered in everyday work by data managers.

We found that dilemmas arose at every stage of the research data lifecycle, and legacy data presents particularly vexing challenges. The iFields’ emphasis on knowledge organization and representation provides insight into how data, used by scientists, are used to create knowledge.

The iFields’ disciplinary emphasis also encompasses the sociotechnical complexity of dilemmas that we found arise in research data management. Therefore, we posit that iSchools are positioned to contribute to data science education by teaching about ethics and infrastructure used to collect, organize, and disseminate data through problem-based learning.

URL : The research data life cycle, legacy data, and dilemmas in research data management

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24645

Open access through Subscribe to Open: a society publisher’s implementation

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Authors: Sara Bosshart, Rod Cookson, Philipp Hess

As pressures mount from global funding mandates and initiatives like Plan S, publishers are seeking sustainable solutions to transition their subscription portfolios to open access.

For self-publishing societies with niche portfolios and low publication volumes, traditional transition options such as article processing charge models or transformative agreements are limited or out of reach and often involve significant financial risk.

In this article, we focus on one society publisher’s implementation of Subscribe to Open (S2O): an emerging open access model that moves away from article-level charges, instead leveraging existing subscription revenues and infrastructure to achieve seamless and sustainable open access.

We outline the advantages of this model for society publishers, the parameters to consider when implementing the model, the initial community response to a successful implementation and some early data highlighting the effect of the S2O model on our journals.

URL : Open access through Subscribe to Open: a society publisher’s implementation

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.567

Assessing Open Science Practices in Phytolith Research

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Author : Emma Karoune

Open science is an integral part of all scientific research, but the extent of open science practices in phytolith research is unknown. Phytolith analysis examines silica bodies that are initially formed within and between plant cells during the life of the plant but become deposited in sediments once the plant dies.

The use of phytoliths in archaeobotanical and palaeoecological studies has been increasing in recent years resulting in an upsurge in publications. The aims of this article are to assess open science practices in phytolith research by reviewing data and metadata sharing, and open access, in a sample of journal articles containing primary phytolith data from 16 prominent archaeological and palaeoecological journals (341 articles).

This study builds on similar studies conducted for zooarchaeology (Kansa et al. 2020) and macro-botanical remains (Lodwick 2019). This study shows that 53% of papers shared data in any format but only 4% of papers contained reusable data, 74% included some pictures of phytolith morphotypes for identification purposes, 69% had a fully described method, 47% used the International code for phytolith nomenclature (ICPN 1.0) and only 13% of articles were open access.

Steps forward are then proposed, including planning for open projects, making more articles openly accessible and implementing the FAIR data principles, to use as a starting point for discussions in the wider phytolith and archaeological communities to develop guidelines for greater integration of open science practices.

URL : Assessing Open Science Practices in Phytolith Research

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/oq.88

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