EN

Data journals: incentivizing data access and documentation within the scholarly communication system

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : William H. Walters

Data journals provide strong incentives for data creators to verify, document and disseminate their data. They also bring data access and documentation into the mainstream of scholarly communication, rewarding data creators through existing mechanisms of peer-reviewed publication and citation tracking.

These same advantages are not generally associated with data repositories, or with conventional journals’ data-sharing mandates. This article describes the unique advantages of data journals. It also examines the data journal landscape, presenting the characteristics of 13 data journals in the fields of biology, environmental science, chemistry, medicine and health sciences.

These journals vary considerably in size, scope, publisher characteristics, length of data reports, data hosting policies, time from submission to first decision, article processing charges, bibliographic index coverage and citation impact. They are similar, however, in their peer review criteria, their open access license terms and the characteristics of their editorial boards.

URL : Data journals: incentivizing data access and documentation within the scholarly communication system

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.510

EN

How often do leading biomedical journals use statistical experts to evaluate statistical methods? The results of a survey

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Tom E. Hardwicke, Steven N. Goodman

Scientific claims in biomedical research are typically derived from statistical analyses. However, misuse or misunderstanding of statistical procedures and results permeate the biomedical literature, affecting the validity of those claims.

One approach journals have taken to address this issue is to enlist expert statistical reviewers. How many journals do this, how statistical review is incorporated, and how its value is perceived by editors is of interest.

Here we report an expanded version of a survey conducted more than 20 years ago by Goodman and colleagues (1998) with the intention of characterizing contemporary statistical review policies at leading biomedical journals.

We received eligible responses from 107 of 364 (28%) journals surveyed, across 57 fields, mostly from editors in chief. 34% (36/107) rarely or never use specialized statistical review, 34% (36/107) used it for 10–50% of their articles and 23% used it for all articles.

These numbers have changed little since 1998 in spite of dramatically increased concern about research validity. The vast majority of editors regarded statistical review as having substantial incremental value beyond regular peer review and expressed comparatively little concern about the potential increase in reviewing time, cost, and difficulty identifying suitable statistical reviewers. Improved statistical education of researchers and different ways of employing statistical expertise are needed. Several proposals are discussed.

URL : How often do leading biomedical journals use statistical experts to evaluate statistical methods? The results of a survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239598

FR

La vulgarisation des recherches sur le phénomène de harcèlement dans The Conversation France : analyse du traitement thématique et discursif d’une question de société

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteur/Author : Bérengère Stassin

The Conversation France (TCF) est un média indépendant en ligne à but non lucratif. Il résulte d’une collaboration entre chercheurs et journalistes. Les premiers écrivent des articles en lien avec l’actualité, mais dans une perspective de vulgarisation scientifique.

Les seconds, qui jouent un rôle d’éditeurs, en assurent la publication et la mise en visibilité. Le média aborde différents sujets de société parmi lesquels le harcèlement. Cette étude s’intéresse à la manière dont ce sujet est traité dans les articles, tant sur le plan thématique que discursif.

En appui sur un corpus de 73 articles qui ont tous été indexés « harcèlement » par les éditeurs, l’étude met en exergue qu’il est abordé sous trois angles (harcèlement scolaire, harcèlement moral au travail et cyberharcèlement) et principalement dans trois types d’articles (la présentation d’une recherche, l’analyse scientifique d’un fait d’actualité et l’exposé de mise au point).

Elle montre cependant que 42,5 % des articles portant le tag « harcèlement » ne l’abordent que de manière périphérique. Ce tag a donc été choisi dans une logique d’accroche et d’optimisation pour les moteurs de recherche.

URL : https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/9437

FR

Gilles-Éric Séralini ou la transgression des médiations « traditionnelles » du savoir ?

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteur/Author : François Allard-Huver

Gilles-Éric Séralini est un biologiste français connu pour ses prises de position radicales contre les OGM et les pesticides, en particulier le glyphosate. En 2012, la publication d’un de ses articles a causé une importante controverse scientifique associée à une très forte polémique médiatique : « l’Affaire Séralini ».

Cet article interroge le traitement médiatique de « l’Affaire Séralini », tout comme les stratégies de publicisation et de médiatisation originales adoptées par Gilles-Éric Séralini et critiquées de nombreux chercheurs et journalistes.

Au-delà d’une transgression possible des médiations traditionnelles du savoir, nous observons également les stratégies de communication sensible déployées par Monsanto pour faire retirer l’article tout comme les répercussions de l’affaire sur la figure du chercheur dans les médias et la communauté scientifique.

URL : https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/9397

FR

Collaborer sur Wikipédia pour co-construire une société de la connaissance : Opportunités, défis et enjeux pour le monde universitaire

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteur/Author : Sawsan Attallah Bidart

Dans cet article, nous étudierons le potentiel de Wikipédia, en tant que plateforme collaborative en ligne populaire, en relation avec la co-construction d’une société de la connaissance dont la voie peut être ouverte par des universitaires.

Les concepts de connaissance et de popularisation sont explorés et liés au monde universitaire et à la collaboration sociale constructive. Les opportunités, les défis et les enjeux de l’adoption de Wikipédia par les universitaires sont étudiés en relation avec le rôle des universitaires dans la recherche et en éducation.

Une analyse critique de la littérature existante sur Wikipédia est menée, en tenant compte de la popularité de la plateforme, tout en explorant les perceptions négatives de l’outil. En outre, une enquête est menée auprès de 85 femmes du monde universitaire afin de comprendre leurs perceptions et leur utilisation de la plateforme.

URL : https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/9346

EN

Open access at the national level: A comprehensive analysis of publications by Finnish researchers

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Janne Pölönen, Mikael Laakso, Raf Guns, Emanuel Kulczycki, Gunnar Sivertsen

Open access (OA) has mostly been studied by relying on publication data from selective international databases, notably Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus.

The aim of our study is to show that it is possible to achieve a national estimate of the number and share of OA based on institutional publication data providing a comprehensive coverage of the peer-reviewed outputs across fields, publication types, and languages.

Our data consists of 48,177 journal, conference, and book publications from 14 Finnish universities in 2016–2017, including information about OA status, as self-reported by researchers and validated by data-collection personnel through their Current Research Information System (CRIS).

We investigate the WoS, Scopus, and DOI coverage, as well as the share of OA outputs between different fields, publication types, languages, OA mechanisms (gold, hybrid, and green), and OA information sources (DOAJ, Bielefeld list, and Sherpa/Romeo).

We also estimate the role of the largest international commercial publishers compared to the not-for-profit Finnish national publishers of journals and books.

We conclude that institutional data, integrated at national and international level, provides one of the building blocks of a large-scale data infrastructure needed for comprehensive assessment and monitoring of OA across countries, for example at the European level.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00084

EN

Who Does What? – Research Data Management at ETH Zurich

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors: Matthias Töwe, Caterina Barillari

We present the approach to Research Data Management (RDM) support for researchers taken at ETH Zurich. Overall requirements are governed by institutional guidelines for Research Integrity, funders’ regulations, and legal obligations. The ETH approach is based on the distinction of three phases along the research data life-cycle: 1. Data Management Planning; 2. Active RDM; 3. Data Publication and Preservation. Two ETH units, namely the Scientific IT Services and the ETH Library, provide support for different aspects of these phases, building on their respective competencies. They jointly offer trainings, consulting, information, and materials for the first phase.

The second phase deals with data which is in current use in active research projects. Scientific IT Services provide their own platform, openBIS, for keeping track of raw, processed and analysed data, in addition to organising samples, materials, and scientific procedures.

ETH Library operates solutions for the third phase within the infrastructure of ETH Zurich’s central IT Services. The Research Collection is the institutional repository for research output including Research Data, Open Access publications, and ETH Zurich’s bibliography.

URL : Who Does What? – Research Data Management at ETH Zurich

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-036