Implementing the RDA Research Data Policy Framework in Slovenian Scientific Journals

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Authors: Janez Štebe, Maja Dolinar, Sonja Bezjak, Ana Inkret

The paper aims to present the implementation of the RDA research data policy framework in Slovenian scientific journals within the project RDA Node Slovenia. The activity aimed to implement the practice of data sharing and data citation in Slovenian scientific journals and was based on internationally renowned practices and policies, particularly the Research Data Policy Framework of the RDA Data Policy Standardization and Implementation Interest Group.

Following this, the RDA Node Slovenia coordination prepared a guidance document that allowed the four pilot participating journals (from fields of archaeology, history, linguistics and social sciences) to adjust their journal policies regarding data sharing, data citation, adapted the definitions of research data and suggested appropriate data repositories that suit their disciplinary specifics.

The comparison of results underlines how discipline-specific the aspects of data-sharing are. The pilot proved that a grass-root approach in advancing open science can be successful and well-received in the research community, however, it also pointed out several issues in scientific publishing that would benefit from a planned action on a national level.

The context of an underdeveloped data sharing culture, slow implementation of open data strategy by the national research funder and sparse national data service infrastructure creates a unique environment for this study, the result of which can be used in similar contexts worldwide.

URL : Implementing the RDA Research Data Policy Framework in Slovenian Scientific Journals

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-049

Open Data Challenges in Climate Science

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Authors : Francesca Eggleton, Kate Winfiel

The purpose of this paper is to explore challenges in open climate data experienced by data scientists at the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA). This paper explores two of the five V’s of Big Data, Volume and Variety.

These challenges are explored using the Sentinel satellite data and Climate Modelling Intercomparison Project phase six (CMIP6) data held in the CEDA Archive. To address the Big Data Volume challenge, this paper describes the approach developed by CEDA to manage large volumes of data through the allocation of storage as filesets.

These filesets allow CEDA to plan and track dataset storage volumes, a flexible approach which could be adopted by any data centre. CEDA utilise the implementation of the Climate and Forecast (CF) conventions and standard names within archived data wherever possible to overcome the challenge of Variety.

Collaboration from the international science community through contributions to the moderation of CF standard names ensures these data then adhere to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data principles.

Utilising data standards such as the CF standard names is recommended because it promotes data exchange and allows data from different sources to be compared. Addressing these Open Data challenges is crucial to ensure valuable climate data are made available to the scientific community to facilitate research that addresses one of society’s most pressing issues – climate change.

URL : Open Data Challenges in Climate Science

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-052

Investigation and Development of the Workflow to Clarify Conditions of Use for Research Data Publishing in Japan

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Authors : Yasuyuki Minamiyama, Ui Ikeuchi, Kunihiko Ueshima, Nobuya Okayama, Hideaki Takeda

With the recent Open Science movement and the rise of data-intensive science, many efforts are in progress to publish research data on the web. To reuse published research data in different fields, they must be made more generalized, interoperable, and machine-readable.

Among the various issues related to data publishing, the conditions of use are directly related to their reuse potential. We show herein the types of external constraints and conditions of use in research data publishing in a Japanese context through the analysis of the interview and questionnaire for practitioners.

Although the conditions of research data use have been discussed only in terms of their legal constraints, we organize the inclusion of the non-legal constraints and data holders’ actual requirements.

Furthermore, we develop practical guideline for examining effective data publishing flow with licensing scenarios. This effort can be positioned to develop an infrastructure for data-intensive science, which will contribute to the realization of Open Science.

URL : Investigation and Development of the Workflow to Clarify Conditions of Use for Research Data Publishing in Japan

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-053

YouTube as a source of information on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Authors : Thales Brandi Ramos, Luciana Castilho Bokehi, Raphael Castilho Bokehi, Taynah da Silava Pinheiro, Erika Barreto de Oliveira, Renan da SilvaGianoti Torres, Jose Raphael Bokehi, Sabrina Calil-Elias, Selma Rodrigues de Castilho

This research aimed to analyze the quality of the information conveyed through YouTube videos in Portuguese on the use of two medicines suggested for the treatment of COVID-19: chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.

The ‘Brief DISCERN’ questionnaire was applied to assess the quality of the video content as well as baseline characteristics, such as length, views, likes and dislikes, in a total of 90 videos with almost 4,5 million views.

Traditional media accounted for 58,89% of videos. Misleading information was present in most of the videos (63,5%). Despite the ease of access, the videos showed problems in the quality of information.

URL : YouTube as a source of information on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine during the COVID-19 pandemic

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.19070206

Open Bioeconomy—A Bibliometric Study on the Accessibility of Articles in the Field of Bioeconomy

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Authors : Marianne Duquenne, Hélène Pros, Joachim Schöpfel, Franck Dumeignil

Open access (OA) to scientific information is one of the major challenges and objectives of actual public research policy. The purpose of this paper is to assess the degree of openness of scientific articles on bioeconomy, as one of the emergent research fields at the crossroads of several disciplines and with high societal and industrial impact.

Based on a Web of Science (WoS) corpus of 2489 articles published between 2015 and 2019, we calculated bibliometric indicators, explored the openness of each article and assessed the share of journals, countries and research areas of these articles.

The results show a sharp increase and diversification of articles in the field of bioeconomy, with a beginning long tail distribution. 45.6% of the articles are freely available and the share of OA articles is steadily increasing, from 31% in 2015 to 52% in 2019.

Gold is the most important variant of OA. Open access is low in the applied research areas of chemical, agricultural and environmental engineering but higher in the domains of energy and fuels, forestry and green and sustainable science and technology.

The UK and the Netherlands have the highest rates of OA articles, followed by Spain and Germany. The funding rate of OA articles is higher than of non-OA articles. This is the first bibliometric study on open access to articles on bioeconomy.

The results can be useful for the further development of OA editorial and funding criteria in the field of bioeconomy.

URL : Open Bioeconomy—A Bibliometric Study on the Accessibility of Articles in the Field of Bioeconomy

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8040055

How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

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Author : Hendrik P. van Dalen

The publish-or-perish principle has become a fact of academic life in gaining a position or being promoted. Evidence is mounting that benefits of this pressure is being countered by the downsides, like forms of goal displacement by scientists or unethical practices.

In this paper we evaluate whether perceived work pressure (publishing, acquisition funds, teaching, administration) is associated with different attitudes towards science and the workplace among economists working at Dutch universities.

Publication pressure is high and is related to faculty position and university ranking position. Based on a latent class analysis we can detect a clear divide among economists. Around two third of the economists perceives that this pressure has upsides as well as serious downsides and one third only perceives upsides and no downsides.

Full professors see more than other faculty members the positive sides of the publish-or-perish principle and virtually no downsides. These different perceptions are also reflected in their appreciation of the academic work environment.

URL : How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03786-x

The evolutionary pattern of language in scientific writings: A case study of Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society (1665–1869)

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Authors : Kun Sun, Haitao Liu, Wenxin Xiong

Scientific writings, as one essential part of human culture, have evolved over centuries into their current form. Knowing how scientific writings evolved is particularly helpful in understanding how trends in scientific culture developed. It also allows us to better understand how scientific culture was interwoven with human culture generally.

The availability of massive digitized texts and the progress in computational technologies today provide us with a convenient and credible way to discern the evolutionary patterns in scientific writings by examining the diachronic linguistic changes. The linguistic changes in scientific writings reflect the genre shifts that took place with historical changes in science and scientific writings.

This study investigates a general evolutionary linguistic pattern in scientific writings. It does so by merging two credible computational methods: relative entropy; word-embedding concreteness and imageability.

It thus creates a novel quantitative methodology and applies this to the examination of diachronic changes in the Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society (PTRS, 1665–1869). The data from two computational approaches can be well mapped to support the argument that this journal followed the evolutionary trend of increasing professionalization and specialization.

But it also shows that language use in this journal was greatly influenced by historical events and other socio-cultural factors. This study, as a “culturomic” approach, demonstrates that the linguistic evolutionary patterns in scientific discourse have been interrupted by external factors even though this scientific discourse would likely have cumulatively developed into a professional and specialized genre.

The approaches proposed by this study can make a great contribution to full-text analysis in scientometrics.

URL : The evolutionary pattern of language in scientific writings: A case study of Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society (1665–1869)

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03816-8