Enter the dragon: China and global academic publishing

Posté le par

Author : Ken Hyland

One of the most dramatic changes in global publishing in the last decade has been the emergence of China. China now has more researchers than the United States, outspends the United States and European Union in research and publishes more scientific papers each year than any other nation in the world.

The quality of these papers is also increasing, with more appearing in top-ranked journals and gaining more citations overall. Despite this success, China has gained an unenviable reputation for research misconduct and geopolitical issues threaten its continuation.

Given the impact of China’s growing presence on editors, publishers and non-Chinese authors seeking to publish in the same journals, it is important to understand the reasons, directions and outcomes of these changes, their effect on Chinese scholars and local Chinese journals, and where they might be leading.

In this review paper I explore the rise of Chinese scholarship, its influence on global publishing and on Chinese scholars, and how the Chinese government is responding to its new role in global academic publishing.

URL : Enter the dragon: China and global academic publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1545

Politiques documentaires et de médiation des livres numériques en bibliothèque académique

Posté le par

Autrice/Author : Mathilde Gourret

Il y a encore une dizaine d’années, en France, le livre numérique pouvait être qualifié de ressource « émergente » en bibliothèque académique. Les politiques documentaires des établissements peinaient à se saisir de cet objet nouveau. Depuis, le paysage éditorial du livre numérique s’est considérablement transformé.

L’offre éditoriale s’est diversifiée et l’essor des monographies numériques en accès ouvert entraîne une nouvelle donne pour les bibliothèques. Dans ce nouveau contexte, comment les bibliothèques académiques peuvent-elles intégrer les livres numériques dans leurs collections ?

Comment articuler les monographies numériques et imprimées dans une offre répondant aux besoins des usagers ? Pour répondre à ces interrogations, on s’intéressera aux politiques et pratiques documentaires mises en œuvre au sein des bibliothèques académiques françaises, en s’interrogeant en particulier sur les organisations, outils et processus qui sous-tendent ces pratiques.

URL : Politiques documentaires et de médiation des livres numériques en bibliothèque académique

Original location : https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/71195-politiques-documentaires-et-de-mediation-des-livres-numeriques-en-bibliotheque-academique

“We Share All Data with Each Other”: Data-Sharing in Peer-to-Peer Relationships

Posté le par

Author : Eva Barlösius

Although the topic of data-sharing has boomed in the past few years, practices of datasharing have attracted only scant attention within working groups and scientific cooperation (peer-to-peer data-sharing).

To understand these practices, the author draws on Max Weber’s concept of social relationship, conceptualizing data-sharing as social action that takes place within a social relationship. The empirical material consists of interviews with 34 researchers representing five disciplines—linguistics, biology, psychology, computer sciences, and neurosciences.

The analysis identifies three social forms of data-sharing in peer-to-peer relationships: (a) closed communal sharing, which is based on a feeling of belonging together; (b) closed associative sharing, in which the participants act on the basis of an agreement; and (c) open associative sharing, which is oriented to “institutional imperatives” (Merton) and to formal regulations.

The study shows that far more data-sharing is occurring in scientific practice than seems to be apparent from a concept of open data alone. If the main goal of open-data policy programs is to encourage researchers to increase access to their data, it could be instructive to study the three forms of data-sharing to improve the understanding of why and how scientists make their data accessible to other researchers.

URL : “We Share All Data with Each Other”: Data-Sharing in Peer- to-Peer Relationships

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-023-09487-y

Identification and classification of evaluation indicators for scientific and technical publications and related factors

Posté le par

Authors : Hassan Mahmoudi Topkanlo, Mehrdad CheshmehSohrabi

Introduction

Given the importance of the issue of the widespread impact of scientific and technical publications in today’s world, and the diversity and multiplicity of indicators for measuring these publications, it is a necessity to classify these indicators from different angles and through different tools and methods.

Method

This study used documentary analysis and Delphi technique methods. The members of the Delphi panel were twenty-one experts in metric fields in information science who answered the research questionnaires several times until reaching a consensus.

Analysis

Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and a one-sample t-test were used to measure the agreement of the panel members as raters on the questionnaire items.

Results

A total of thirty-four sub-categories of indicators of assessment were identified which were categorised according to their similarities and differences into eight main categories as follows: measurement method, measurement unit, measurement content, measurement purpose, measurement development, measurement resource, measurability, and measurement environment.

Conclusion

Classification of the indicators of evaluation for scientific and technical publications and related factors can lead to improved understanding, critique, modelling and development of indicators. The findings of this study can be considered a basis for further research and help develop evaluative theoretical foundations in scientific and technical publications and related factors.

URL : Identification and classification of evaluation indicators for scientific and technical publications and related factors

DOI : https://doi.org/10.47989/irpaper953

The Invisible Workload of Open Research

Posté le par

Author : Thomas J. Hostler

It is acknowledged that conducting open research requires additional time and effort compared to conducting ‘closed’ research. However, this additional work is often discussed only in abstract terms, a discourse which ignores the practicalities of how researchers are expected to find the time to engage with these practices in the context of their broader role as multifaceted academics.

In the context of a sector that is blighted by stress, burnout, untenable workloads, and hyper-competitive pressures to produce, there is a clear danger that additional expectations to engage in open practices add to the workload burden and increase pressure on academics even further. In this article, the theories of academic capitalism and workload creep are used to explore how workload models currently exploit researchers by mismeasuring academic labour.

The specific increase in workload resulting from open practices and associated administration is then outlined, including via the cumulative effects of administrative burden.

It is argued that there is a high chance that without intervention, increased expectations to engage in open research practices may lead to unacceptable increases in demands on academics. Finally, the individual and systematic responsibilities to mitigate this are discussed.

URL : The Invisible Workload of Open Research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.36850/mr5

Iranian researchers’ perspective about concept and effect of open science on research publication

Posté le par

Authors : Maryam Zarghani, Leila Nemati-Anaraki, Shahram Sedghi, Abdolreza Noroozi Chakoli, Anisa Rowhani-Farid

Background

Sharing research outputs with open science methods for different stakeholders causes better access to different studies to solve problems in diverse fields, which leads to equal access conditions to research resources, as well as greater scientific productivity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to perceive the concept of openness in research among Iranian health researchers.

Methods

From the beginning of August to the middle of November 2021, twenty semi-structured interviews were held with Iranian health researchers from different fields using purposeful, snowball, and convenience sampling. The interviews continued until data saturation. Data analysis was performed with thematic analysis using MAXQDA 20. Finally, seven main issues related to open science were identified.

Results

Through analysis of the interviews, 235 primary codes and 173 main codes were extracted in 22 subclasses. After careful evaluation and integration of subclasses and classes, they were finally classified into nine categories and three main themes. Analysis showed that openness in research was related to three main themes: researchers’ understanding of open science, the impact of open science on publication and sharing of research, concerns and reluctance to open research.

Conclusion

The conditions of access to research output should be specified given the diversity of studies conducted in the field of health; issues like privacy as an important topic of access to data and information in the health system should also be specified. Our analysis indicated that the conditions of publication and sharing of research processes should be stated according to different scopes of health fields.

The concept of open science was related to access to findings and other research items regardless of cost, political, social, or racial barriers, which could create collective wisdom in the development of knowledge. The process of publication and sharing of research related to open access applies to all types of outputs, conditions of access, increasing trust in research, creation of diverse publication paths, and broader participation of citizens in research.

Open science practices should be promoted to increase the circulation and exploitation rates of knowledge while adjusting and respecting the limits of privacy, intellectual property and national security rights of countries.

URL : Iranian researchers’ perspective about concept and effect of open science on research publication

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-023-09420-9

Initial insight into three modes of data sharing: Prevalence of primary reuse, data integration and dataset release in research articles

Posté le par

Authors : Yukiko Sakai, Yosuke Miyata, Keiko Yokoi, Yuqing Wang, Keiko Kurata

While data sharing has received research interest in recent times, its real status remains unclear, owing to its ambiguous concept. To understand the current status of data sharing, this study examined primary reuse, data integration, and dataset release as the actual practices of data sharing.

A total of 963 articles, chosen from those published in 2018 and registered in the Web of Science global citation database, were manually checked. Existing data were reused in the mode of data integration (13.3%) as frequently as they were for the mode of primary reuse (12.1%). Dataset release was the least common mode (9.0%).

The results show the variation in data sharing and indicate the need for standardization of data description in articles based on thorough registration and expansion in public data archives to close the loop that results in the virtuous cycle of research data.

URL : Initial insight into three modes of data sharing: Prevalence of primary reuse, data integration and dataset release in research articles

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1546