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The application of bibliometrics to research evaluation in the humanities and social sciences: an exploratory study using normalized Google Scholar data for the publications of a research institute

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

In the humanities and social sciences, bibliometric methods for the assessment of research performance are (so far) less common. The current study takes a concrete example in an attempt to evaluate a research institute from the area of social sciences and humanities with the help of data from Google Scholar (GS).

In order to use GS for a bibliometric study, we have developed procedures for the normalisation of citation impact, building on the procedures of classical bibliometrics. In order to test the convergent validity of the normalized citation impact scores, we have calculated normalized scores for a subset of the publications based on data from the WoS or Scopus.

Even if scores calculated with the help of GS and WoS/Scopus are not identical for the different publication types (considered here), they are so similar that they result in the same assessment of the institute investigated in this study: For example, the institute’s papers whose journals are covered in WoS are cited at about an average rate (compared with the other papers in the journals).

URL :  : https://figshare.com/articles/The_application_of_bibliometrics_to_research_evaluation_in_the_humanities_and_social_sciences_an_exploratory_study_using_normalized_Google_Scholar_data_for_the_publications_of_a_research_institute/1293588

FR

Vers des bibliothèques de lecture publique sans livres imprimés ?

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

L’étude de l’évolution du discours et des données en matière de volumétrie documentaire permet-elle d’anticiper la mise en place de bibliothèques sans livres imprimés en France ? Quelles sont les origines et les caractéristiques principales de ces bibliothèques d’un nouveau genre et en quoi peuvent-elles constituer un modèle pour les bibliothèques de lecture publique françaises ?

La collection physique reste-t-elle le coeur de la bibliothèque à l’heure où les bibliothécaires accordent une importance croissante au bien-être de leurs usagers et entreprennent d’inscrire leur offre documentaire dans un environnement numérique ? Dans un contexte où les bibliothèques traversent une crise identitaire, tenter de répondre à ces questions constitue aujourd’hui une nécessité pour enrichir le débat portant sur l’avenir des bibliothèques.

URL : Vers des bibliothèques de lecture publique sans livres imprimés ?

Alternative location : http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/65759-vers-des-bibliotheques-de-lecture-publique-sans-livres-imprimes

EN

Beams of Particles and Papers. The Role of Preprint Archives in High Energy Physics

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

In high energy physics scholarly papers circulate primarily through online preprint archives based on a centralized repository, arXiv.org, that physicists simply refer to as ‘the archive.’ This is not a tool for preservation and memory, but rather a space of flows where written objects are detected and then disappear, and their authors made available for scrutiny.

In this work I analyse the reading and publishing practices of two subsets of particle physicists, theorists and experimentalists. In order to be recognized as legitimate and productive members of their community, physicists need to abide by the temporalities and authorial practices structured by the archive. Theorists live in a state of accelerated time that shapes their reading and publishing practices around a 24 hour cycle.

Experimentalists resolve to tactics that allow them to circumvent the slowed-down time and invisibility they experience as members of large collaborations. As digital archives for the exchange of preprint articles emerge in other scientific fields, physics could help shed light on general transformations of contemporary scholarly communication systems.

URL : Beams of Particles and Papers. The Role of Preprint Archives in High Energy Physics

Alternative location : http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.08539

EN

Preplication, Replication: A Proposal to Efficiently Upgrade Journal Replication Standards

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Despite 20 years of progress in promoting replication standards in International Relations (IR), significant problems remain in both the provision of data and the incentives to replicate published research. While replicable research is a public good, there appear to be private incentives for researchers to follow socially suboptimal research strategies.

The current situation has led to a growing concern in IR, as well as across the social sciences, that published research findings may not represent accurate appraisals of the evidence on particular research questions. In this article, I discuss the role of private information in the publication process and review the incentives for producing replicable and nonreplicable research.

A small, but potentially important, change in a journal’s workflow could both deter the publication of nonreplicable work and lower the costs for researchers to build and expand upon existing published research. The suggestion, termed Preplication, is for journals to run the replication data and code for conditionally accepted articles before publication, just as journals routinely check for compliance with style guides.

This change could be implemented alongside other revisions to journal policies around the discipline. In fact, Preplication is already in use at several journals, and I provide an update as to how the process has worked at International Interactions.

URL : http://isp.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/02/10/isp.ekv016

FR

Les revues en sciences humaines et sociales à l’heure des communs

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Les échanges récents autour de la loi numérique, comme les discussions ayant fait suite à la mise en place de politiques d’open access par le Conseil européen de la recherche ont largement contribué à publiciser, en France, des débats se déroulant à l’échelle internationale sur les transformations de l’économie politique des publications scientifiques.

Sans discuter ici la vaste littérature produite par des chercheurs en sciences documentaires, mais aussi par différentes parties prenantes (militants de l’accès ouvert, éditeurs, sociétés savantes, financeurs, instances politiques), nous rappelons les caractéristiques de l’édition scientifique en SHS en France, puis nous décrivons les formes contemporaines d’appropriation des publications scientifiques par les éditeurs et diffuseurs. Enfin, nous exposons différentes politiques publiques et les fondements de la politique de l’InSHS en la matière.

URL : https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01278853

EN

Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Textbooks are a vital component in many higher education contexts. Increasing textbook prices, coupled with general rising costs of higher education have led some instructors to experiment with substituting open educational resources (OER) for commercial textbooks as their primary class curriculum. This article synthesizes the results of 16 studies that examine either (1) the influence of OER on student learning outcomes in higher education settings or (2) the perceptions of college students and instructors of OER.

Results across multiple studies indicate that students generally achieve the same learning outcomes when OER are utilized and simultaneously save significant amounts of money. Studies across a variety of settings indicate that both students and faculty are generally positive regarding OER.

URL : Open educational resources and college textbook choices: a review of research on efficacy and perceptions

Alternative location : http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11423-016-9434-9

EN

Data trajectories: tracking reuse of published data for transitive credit attribution

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

The ability to measure the use and impact of published data sets is key to the success of the open data / open science paradigm. A direct measure of impact would require tracking data (re)use in the wild, which however is difficult to achieve. This is therefore commonly replaced by simpler metrics based on data download and citation counts.

In this paper we describe a scenario where it is possible to track the trajectory of a dataset after its publication, and we show how this enables the design of accurate models for ascribing credit to data originators. A Data Trajectory (DT) is a graph that encodes knowledge of how, by whom, and in which context data has been re-used, possibly after several generations.

We provide a theoretical model of DTs that is grounded in the W3C PROV data model for provenance, and we show how DTs can be used to automatically propagate a fraction of the credit associated with transitively derived datasets, back to original data contributors. We also show this model of transitive credit in action by means of a Data Reuse Simulator.

Ultimately, our hope is that, in the longer term, credit models based on direct measures of data reuse will provide further incentives to data publication. We conclude by outlining a research agenda to address the hard questions of creating, collecting, and using DTs systematically across a large number of data reuse instances, in the wild.

URL : Data trajectories: tracking reuse of published data for transitive credit attribution

Alternative location : http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/paolo.missier/doc/DT.pdf