Catégorie : EN

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Editors between Support and Control by the Digital Infrastructure — Tracing the Peer Review Process with Data from an Editorial Management System

Authors : Judith Hartstein, Clemens Blüme

Many journals now rely on editorial management systems, which are supposed to support the administration and decision making of editors, while aiming at making the process of communication faster and more transparent to both reviewers and authors. Yet, little is known about how these infrastructures support, stabilize, transform or change existing editorial practices.

Research suggests that editorial management systems as digital infrastructures are adapted to the local needs at scholarly journals and reflect main realms of activities. Recently, it has been established that in a minimal case, the peer review process is comprised of postulation, consultation, decision and administration.

By exploring process generated data from a publisher’s editorial management system, we investigate the ways by which the digital infrastructure is used and how it represents the different realms of the process of peer review. How does the infrastructure support, strengthen or restrain editorial agency for administrating the process?

In our study, we investigate editorial processes and practices with their data traces captured by an editorial management system. We do so by making use of the internal representation of manuscript life cycles from submission to decision for 14,000 manuscripts submitted to a biomedical publisher.

Reconstructing the processes applying social network analysis, we found that the individual steps in the process have no strict order, other than could be expected with regard to the software patent. However, patterns can be observed, as to which stages manuscripts are most likely to go through in an ordered fashion.

We also found the different realms of the peer review process represented in the system, some events, however, indicate that the infrastructure offers more control and observation of the peer review process, thereby strengthening the editorial role in the governance of peer review while at the same time the infrastructure oversees the editors’ performance.

URL : Editors between Support and Control by the Digital Infrastructure — Tracing the Peer Review Process with Data from an Editorial Management System

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.747562

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Ensuring Quality and Status: Peer Review Practices in Kriterium, A Portal for Quality-Marked Monographs and Edited Volumes in Swedish SSH

Authors : Björn Hammarfelt, Isak Hammar, Helena Francke

Although established forms of peer review are often criticized for being slow, secretive, and even unfair, they are repeatedly mentioned by academics as the most important indicator of quality in scholarly publishing.

In many countries, the peer review of books is a less codified practice than that of journal articles or conference papers, and the processes and actors involved are far from uniform. In Sweden, the review process of books has seldom been formalized.

However, more formal peer review of books has been identified as a response to the increasing importance placed on streamlined peer-reviewed publishing of journal articles in English, which has been described as a direct challenge to more pluralistic publication patterns found particularly in the humanities.

In this study, we focus on a novel approach to book review, Kriterium, where an independent portal maintained by academic institutions oversees the reviewing of academic books. The portal administers peer reviews, providing a mark of quality through a process which involves reviewers, an academic coordinator, and an editorial board.

The paper studies how this process functions in practice by exploring materials concerning 24 scholarly books reviewed within Kriterium. Our analysis specifically targets tensions identified in the process of reviewing books with a focus on three main themes, namely the intended audience, the edited volume, and the novel role of the academic coordinator.

Moreover, we find that the two main aims of the portal–quality enhancement (making research better) and certification (displaying that research is of high quality)–are recurrent in deliberations made in the peer review process.

Consequently, we argue that reviewing procedures and criteria of quality are negotiated within a broader discussion where more traditional forms of publishing are challenged by new standards and evaluation practices.

URL : Ensuring Quality and Status: Peer Review Practices in Kriterium, A Portal for Quality-Marked Monographs and Edited Volumes in Swedish SSH

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.740297

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Investigating the process of ethical approval in citizen science research: the case of Public Health

Authors : Antonella Ficorilli, Giovanni Maccani, Mara Balestrini, Annibale Biggeri, Bruna De Marchi, Frederique E. M. Froeling, Florence Gignac, Regina Grazuleviciene, Gerard Hoek, Tjaša Kanduč, David Kocman, Valeria Righi, Xavier Basagana

Undertaking citizen science research in Public Health involving human subjects poses significant challenges concerning the traditional process of ethical approval.

It requires an extension of the ethics of protection of research subjects in order to include the empowerment of citizens as citizen scientists.

This paper investigates these challenges and illustrates the ethical framework and the strategies developed within the CitieS-Health project. It also proposes first recommendations generated from the experiences of five citizen science pilot studies in environmental epidemiology within this project.

URL : Investigating the process of ethical approval in citizen science research: the case of Public Health

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.20060204

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Application Profile for Machine-Actionable Data Management Plans

Authors : Tomasz Miksa, Paul Walk, Peter Neish, Simon Oblasser, Hollydawn Murray, Tom Renner, Marie-Christine Jacquemot-Perbal, João Cardoso, Trond Kvamme, Maria Praetzellis, Marek Suchánek, Rob Hooft, Benjamin Faure, Hanne Moa, Adil Hasan, Sarah Jones

This paper presents the application profile for machine-actionable data management plans that allows information from traditional data management plans to be expressed in a machine-actionable way.

We describe the methodology and research conducted to define the application profile. We also discuss design decisions made during its development and present systems which have adopted it.

The application profile was developed in an open and consensus-driven manner within the DMP Common Standards Working Group of the Research Data Alliance and is its official recommendation.

URL : Application Profile for Machine-Actionable Data Management Plans

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2021-032

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Industry Collaborations of Research Teams: Are They Penalized or Rewarded in the Grant Evaluation Process?

Authors : Sıla Öcalan-Özel, Patrick Llerena

This paper explores the relationship between the industry collaborations of grant applicant teams and the outcomes of a multistage grant evaluation process.

We studied this relationship by focusing on two possible channels of impact of industry engagement—team diversity (or the diversity effect) and prior collaboration experience (or the experience effect)—and examined their influence on the evaluators’ decision by using the proxies of direct industry engagement (i.e., the involvement of a company-affiliated researcher in the grant applicant team) and indirect industry engagement (i.e., joint publications with a company-affiliated researcher prior to the grant application), respectively.

We analyzed data extracted from the application and reviewed materials of a multidisciplinary, pan-European research funding scheme—European Collaborative Research (EUROCORES)—for the period 2002–2010 and conducted an empirical investigation of its three consecutive grant evaluation stages at the team level.

We found that teams presenting an indirect engagement were more likely to pass the first stage of selection, whereas no significant relationships were found at any of the three evaluation stages for teams presenting a direct engagement.

Our findings point to the heterogeneity of the decision-making process within a multistage grant evaluation scheme and suggest that the policy objective of fostering university–industry collaboration does not significantly impact the funding process.

URL: Industry Collaborations of Research Teams: Are They Penalized or Rewarded in the Grant Evaluation Process?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.707278

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Representation of Women Among Editors in Chief of Leading Medical Journals

Authors : Ana-Catarina Pinho-Gomes, Amy Vassallo, Kelly Thompson, Kate Womersley, Robyn Norton, Mark Woodward

Importance

Women remain underrepresented among editors of scientific journals, particularly in senior positions. However, to what extent this applies to medical journals of different specialties remains unclear.

Objective

To investigate the gender distribution of the editors in chief at leading medical journals.

Design, Setting, and Participants

Cross-sectional study of the editors in chief at the top 10 international medical journals of 41 categories related to the medical specialties of the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Journal Citation Reports in 2019.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Proportion of women as editors in chief.

Results

This study found that, overall, women represented 21% (94 of 44) of the editors in chief, with wide variation across medical specialties from 0% to 82%. There were 5 categories for which none of the editors in chief were women (dentistry, oral surgery and medicine; allergy; psychiatry; anesthesiology; and ophthalmology) and only 3 categories for which women outnumbered men as editors in chief (primary health care, microbiology, and genetics and heredity).

In 27 of the 41 categories, women represented less than a third of the editors in chief (eg, 1 of 10 for critical care medicine, 2 of 10 for gastroenterology and hepatology, and 3 of 10 for endocrinology and metabolism).

Conclusions and Relevance

This study found that women are underrepresented among editors in chief of leading medical journals. For the benefit of medical research, a joint effort from editorial boards, publishers, authors, and academic institutions is required to address this gender gap.

URL : Representation of Women Among Editors in Chief of Leading Medical Journals

DOI :10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.23026

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Development and implementation of research integrity guidance documents: Explorative interviews with research integrity experts

Authors : Rea Roje, Vicko Tomić, Ivan Buljan, Ana Marušić

Research integrity (RI) guidance documents often lack sufficient details on handling specific RI issues causing the lack of harmonized approaches to RI and opening the way to research misconduct and other detrimental research practices.

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are developed and implemented by organizations for ensuring the uniformity and quality of performed actions. This study aimed to explore stakeholders’ opinions on SOPs for RI, factors influencing the implementation of RI guidance documents and practices, and ideas for improvements in the RI field.

We conducted semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from different groups. Data were analyzed using the reflexive thematic analysis approach, and three themes were developed. The first theme addressed participants’ knowledge and perceptions on SOPs for RI and their impact on RI promotion and implementation.

The second theme described different factors that have a positive or negative impact on the implementation of RI and RI guidance documents and practices, while the third theme addressed needed changes and ideas for improvements in the RI field.

Participants considered SOPs valuable for RI promotion. SOPs should be developed based on and consistent with more general and aspirational guidance and through the dialogue with researchers and other stakeholders, to ensure their relevancy.

URL : Development and implementation of research integrity guidance documents: Explorative interviews with research integrity experts

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2021.1989676