EN

Zombie Journals: Designing a Technological Infrastructure for a Precarious Journal

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Daniel Paul O’Donnell, Carey Viejou, Sylvia Chow, Rumi Graham, Jarret McKinnon, Dorothea Morrison, Reed Parsons, Courtney Rieger, Vanja Spirić, Elaine Toth

Background

The Meeting of the Minds graduate student journal is edited primarily by students from our Masters programme. This means that our editorial board is subject to high annual turnover and that our technological infrastructure and workflow needed to be easy to train for, accommodate differing levels of technological skill and editorial interest, and provide archiving that did not require a continuing interest in the journal by future generations of students.

Analysis

This article provides a detailed and comparative account of the “off-the-shelf ” systems and software used in developing the journal with an explanation of the rationale behind our choices.

Conclusion and implications

The choices we made can be adopted by other journals interested in a low-cost, “future-proof ” approach to developing a publishing infrastructure.

URL : Zombie Journals: Designing a Technological Infrastructure for a Precarious Journal

DOI : https://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/296

FR

Dessiner les acteurs en humanités numériques : La recherche en dialogue

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteur/Author : Marie-Laure Massot

Le numérique, environnement technologique des ordinateurs et du réseau, a transformé les méthodes de travail et la publication des résultats scientifiques dans le domaine des sciences humaines et sociales (SHS).

Dans ce contexte, le rôle de l’ingénieur(e) SHS est en pleine mutation, à la charnière des humanités et du numérique, voire du design. En pleine transformation des savoirs et des métiers, les profils de soutien à la recherche sont en effet brouillés, ont perdu leurs frontières disciplinaires et cherchent à se redéfinir, à se réinventer.

Quels sont les acteurs impliqués dans des projets relevant du champ de humanités numériques ? Quel est le rôle de l’ingénieur SHS dans ce paysage en devenir ? Quelles compétences doit-il acquérir pour faire face au défi du numérique ? Quel pourrait être le profil type d’un ingénieur en « Humanités numériques » ?

Quelques pistes de réflexion issues du travail effectué dans le cadre de l’Atelier Digit_Hum « Humanités numériques et valorisation de corpus », axe transversal du CAPHÉS qui soutient scientifiquement et techniquement des projets d’éditions numériques portés par des équipes de l’École normale supérieure et organise des journées annuelles d’étude sur les humanités numériques en collaboration avec le labex TransferS. Parcours illustré par Saint-Oma qui dessine les acteurs de ce nouveau type de projets interdisciplinaires.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01794185

EN

Analysis of Peer Review Effectiveness for Academic Journals Based on Distributed Parallel System

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Zong-Yuan Tan, Ning Cai, Jian Zhou

A simulation model based on parallel systems is established, aiming to explore the relation between the number of submissions and the overall quality of academic journals within a similar discipline under peer review.

The model can effectively simulate the submission, review and acceptance behaviors of academic journals, in a distributed manner. According to the simulation experiments, it could possibly happen that the overall standard of academic journals may deteriorate due to excessive submissions.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00287

EN

Creativity in Science and the Link to Cited References: Is the Creative Potential of Papers Reflected in their Cited References?

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Iman Tahamtan, Lutz Bornmann

Several authors have proposed that a large number of unusual combinations of cited references in a paper point to its high creative potential (or novelty). However, it is still not clear whether the number of unusual combinations can really measure the creative potential of papers.

The current study addresses this question on the basis of several case studies from the field of scientometrics. We identified some landmark papers in this field. Study subjects were the corresponding authors of these papers.

We asked them where the ideas for the papers came from and which role the cited publications played. The results revealed that the creative ideas might not necessarily have been inspired by past publications.

The literature seems to be important for the contextualization of the idea in the field of scientometrics. Instead, we found that creative ideas are the result of finding solutions to practical problems, result from discussions with colleagues, and profit from interdisciplinary exchange. The roots of the studied landmark papers are discussed in detail.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00224

EN

Open and transparent research practices and public perceptions of the trustworthiness of agricultural biotechnology organizations

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Asheley R. Landrum, Joseph Hilgard, Robert B. Lull, Heather Akin, Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Public trust in agricultural biotechnology organizations that produce so-called ‘genetically-modified organisms’ (GMOs) is affected by misinformed attacks on GM technology and worry that producers’ concern for profits overrides concern for the public good.

In an experiment, we found that reporting that the industry engages in open and transparent research practices increased the perceived trustworthiness of university and corporate organizations involved with GMOs.

Universities were considered more trustworthy than corporations overall, supporting prior findings in other technology domains.

The results suggest that commitment to, and communication of, open and transparent research practices should be part of the process of implementing agricultural biotechnologies.

URL : Open and transparent research practices and public perceptions of the trustworthiness of agricultural biotechnology organizations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.17020204

EN

Conceptualizing Data Curation Activities Within Two Academic Libraries

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Sophia Lafferty-Hess, Julie Rudder, Moira Downey, Susan Ivey, Jennifer Darragh

A growing focus on sharing research data that meet certain standards, such as the FAIR guiding principles, has resulted in libraries increasingly developing and scaling up support for research data.

As libraries consider what new data curation services they would like to provide as part of their repository programs, there are various questions that arise surrounding scalability, resource allocation, requisite expertise, and how to communicate these services to the research community.

Data curation can involve a variety of tasks and activities. Some of these activities can be managed by systems, some require human intervention, and some require highly specialized domain or data type expertise.

At the 2017 Triangle Research Libraries Network Institute, staff from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University used the 47 data curation activities identified by the Data Curation Network project to create conceptual groupings of data curation activities.

The results of this “thought-exercise” are discussed in this white paper. The purpose of this exercise was to provide more specificity around data curation within our individual contexts as a method to consistently discuss our current service models, identify gaps we would like to fill, and determine what is currently out of scope.

We hope to foster an open and productive discussion throughout the larger academic library community about how we prioritize data curation activities as we face growing demand and limited resources.

URL : Conceptualizing Data Curation Activities Within Two Academic Libraries

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ZJ5PQ

EN

A Case Study for a New Peer-Review Journal on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Cristobal Salinas Jr.

In this exploratory case study, the interests, attitudes, and opinions of participants of the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) in American Higher Education are presented.

This case study sought to understand how college and university administrators and faculty perceived the need to create a peer-reviewed journal that aimed to support and create opportunities to publish research, policy, practices, and procedures within the context of race and ethnicity in American higher education.

The findings of this study reflect that the vast majority of those surveyed (n = 605) and interviewed (n = 5) support, and are interested in, having a peer-reviewed journal that focuses on race and ethnicity in American higher education.

URL : A Case Study for a New Peer-Review Journal on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications6020026