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Transformation of Science Communication in the Age of Social Media

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

The aim of the present article is to discuss several consequences of the Open Science from a perspective of science communication and philosophy of communication. Apart from the purely communicative and philosophical issues, the paper deals with the questions that concern the science populariza- tion process through social media (especially Twitter and blogs).

The article consists of three sections: the first one suggests a definition of science communication and social media, the second examines the transformation of science in the Age of the Internet and considers the influence of social media on science communication, the third and final one presents some case studies and philosophical observations.

The most important conclusion to be reached here is that the social media have changed science and science communication. Twitter and blogs as novelty tools of science communication can be useful and meaningful for both science and society. Furthermore, social media can be used to facilitate broader involvement of citizens in the discussion about science.

URL : http://teorievedy.flu.cas.cz/index.php/tv/article/view/172

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Commercialising Public Research New Trends and Strategies …

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Commercialising Public Research: New Trends and Strategies :

« Policy-makers have high hopes for public research as a new source of growth. This research has been the source of significant scientific and technological breakthroughs that have become major innovations. Well-known examples include the Global Positioning System (GPS), MP3 technology, and Apple’s Siri voice recognition technology.
The substantial economic benefits from public research, and demands by governments to reap them, have led to increased efforts toward more direct engagement in downstream commercialisation activities. In light of this, institutions and infrastructures that support the networks and markets for transferring and commercialising public research results are being reviewed across many OECD countries, as traditional approaches and models are facing considerable limitations and may be restraining further scientific advance and broader innovation.
The OECD report Commercialising Public Research: New Trends and Strategies looks closely at this evolution and provides a comprehensive review of government and institutional level policies aimed at enhancing the transfer and exploitation of public research results. The publication also compares performance in OECD countries, universities and public research institutions using both traditional and new indicators. »

URL : http://www.oecd.org/sti/sci-tech/commercialising-public-research.htm

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Journal Usage Half Life An analysis of…

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Journal Usage Half-Life :

« An analysis of article downloads from 2,812 academic and professional journals published by 13 presses in the sciences, social sciences , and the humanities reveals extensive
usage of articles years after publication. Measuring usage half life — the median age of articles downloaded from a publisher’s web site — just 3% of journals had half lives shorter than 12 months. While journal usage half lives were typically shorter for journals in the Health Sciences (median half life: 25-36 months), they were considerably longer for journals in the Humanities, Physics and Mathematics (median half life: 49-60 months). Nearly 17% (475) of all journals had usage half lives exceeding six years. This study illustrates substantial variation in the usage half lives of journals both within and across subject disciplines. »

URL : http://www.publishers.org/_attachments/docs/journalusagehalflife.pdf

EN

From Sustainable Publishing To Resilient Communications

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

In their opening reflection on Open Access (OA) in this special section, Fuchs and Sandoval (2013) argue the current policy debate on Open Access publishing is limited by a for-profit bias which blinds it to much of the most innovative activity in Open Access.

They further argue for a refocusing of the policy debate within a public service, commons based perspective of academic knowledge production. I pick up these themes by looking at another key term, sustainable publishing, in an effort to contextualize the policy debate on OA within the broader context of the privatization of the university.

From this perspective, the policy debate reveals an essential tension between top-down and bottom-up cultures in legitimizing knowledge. This is a tension that has profound implications for scholarly practices mediated through digital networked communications. Explicitly acknowledging this fundamental tension gives additional insight into formulating strategies for maintaining an academic culture of free and open inquiry.

I suggest that the frame of resilient communications expresses the dynamic nature of scholarly communications better than that of sustainable publishing, and that empowering scholars through practice-based OA initiatives is essential in broadening grass roots support for equitable Open Access amongst scholars.

URL : http://triplec.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/528

EN

A practice theoretical exploration of information sharing and trust in a dispersed community of design scholars

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Introduction

This paper presents an exploration of information sharing and trust in a geographically dispersed network of design scholars.

Method

The study used a practice theory approach to identify aspects of trust in relation to information sharing. The empirical material consists of 15 in-depth interviews with design scholars from four Nordic countries and field notes from workplace visits.

Analysis

The interview transcripts and field notes were categorised in accordance with three themes derived in synergy from practice theory and the empirical material.

Results

A number of strategies for assessing and creating trust in relation to information sharing were identified. Depending on the dimension of practice in analytical focus, different aspects of trust emerge.

Conclusions

Trust issues connected to information sharing appear in relation to the information to be shared, the people involved, the tools used for sharing, and the place where information sharing occurs.

The practice-theoretical perspective has proven effective in order to identify and capture the elusive phenomenon of trust in connection to information sharing.

URL : http://www.informationr.net/ir/18-4/paper595.html#.Uq2L36HYWuI

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Disciplinary differences in faculty research data management practices…

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Disciplinary differences in faculty research data management practices and perspectives :

« Academic librarians are increasingly engaging in data curation by providing infrastructure (e.g., institutional repositories) and offering services (e.g., data management plan consultations) to support the management of research data on their campuses. Efforts to develop these resources may benefit from a greater understanding of disciplinary differences in research data management needs. After conducting a survey of data management practices and perspectives at our research university, we categorized faculty members into four research domains—arts and humanities, social sciences, medical sciences, and basic sciences—and analyzed variations in their patterns of survey responses. We found statistically significant differences among the four research domains for nearly every survey item, revealing important disciplinary distinctions in data management actions, attitudes, and interest in support services. Serious consideration of both the similarities and dissimilarities among disciplines will help guide academic librarians and other data curation professionals in developing a range of data-management services that can be tailored to the unique needs of different scholarly researchers. »

URL : http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/view/8.2.5

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Datasharing guía práctica para compartir datos de investigación…

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Datasharing: guía práctica para compartir datos de investigación :

« Asociar los datos de investigación a la publicación favorece que la comunidad científica los reutilice, pero no tiene suficientes garantías de preservación. Almacenarlos en bases de datos solventa esta contingencia y aporta visibilidad, pero en España no existen demasiados servicios de estas características. Por esta razón, se describen, evalúan y exponen los pros y contras de depósitos de datos multidisciplinares extranjeros que pueden ser de utilidad para investigadores y gestores de información: Dryad, Figshare, Zenodo y Dataverse. Todavía es pronto para escoger de forma óptima y definitiva entre una u otra aplicación, por lo que se concluye con unas recomendaciones que orienten a la comunidad de usuarios e intermediarios. »

« To associate research data to the published results favors their reuse by the scientific community, but this does not afford sufficient guarantees of preservation. To store them in databases solves this contingency and provides visibility, but in Spain there are not many services of this kind. For this reason, we describe, evaluate and discuss the pros and cons of foreign multidisciplinary data repositories that can be useful for researchers and information managers: Dryad, Figshare, Zenodo and Dataverse. It is still early to choose optimally and definitively one or the other application, so we conclude with recommendations to guide the user community and intermediaries. »

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/20907/