The UGC-CARE initiative: Indian academia’s quest for research and publishing integrity

Authors : Bhushan Patwardhan, Shubhada Nagarkar

This paper discusses the reasons for emergence of predatory publications in India, engendered by mandates of higher educational institutions: that require stipulated number of research publications for employment and promotions.

Predatory journals have eclipsed the merits of open access publishing, compromised ethical practices, and left the research community groping for benchmarks of research integrity and publication ethics. To fight back the menace of predatory publications, University Grants Commission, India has established “Consortium for Academic Research and Ethics” (UGC-CARE) in 2018 to promote and benchmark research integrity and publication ethics among the Indian academia.

The present paper discusses the UGC-CARE initiative, its structure, objectives and specifically, “UGC-CARE Reference List of Quality Journals” (UGC-CARE list) and finally, the challenges it faces.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v26i10.10349

The value of research funding for knowledge creation and dissemination: A study of SNSF Research Grants

Authors : Rachel Heyard, Hanna Hottenrott

This study investigates the effect of competitive project funding on researchers’ publication outputs. Using detailed information on applicants at the Swiss National Science Foundation and their proposal evaluations, we employ a case-control design that accounts for individual heterogeneity of researchers and selection into treatment (e.g. funding).

We estimate the impact of the grant award on a set of output indicators measuring the creation of new research results (the number of peer-reviewed articles), its relevance (number of citations and relative citation ratios), as well as its accessibility and dissemination as measured by the publication of preprints and by altmetrics.

The results show that the funding program facilitates the publication and dissemination of additional research amounting to about one additional article in each of the three years following the funding.

The higher citation metrics and altmetrics by funded researchers suggest that impact goes beyond quantity and that funding fosters dissemination and quality.

URL : The value of research funding for knowledge creation and dissemination: A study of SNSF Research Grants

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00891-x

Electronic resource management in a post-Plan S world

Authors: Jill Emery, Graham Stone

cOAlition S and research funding policies mean open access content is no longer a ‘trend’ but rather another consideration of content management for librarians and libraries. In 2018, the authors of this article launched a new version of TERMS (Techniques for Electronic Resources Management).

TERMS 2.0 envisages a post-Plan S e-resources life cycle blending e-resources and open access content management.

This article outlines how open content management can dovetail into current e-resource management tactics across six TERMS: Investigation of material, procurement and licensing of content, implementation, troubleshooting of problems, evaluation and preservation, and sustainability concerns.

Lastly, we reflect on the themes growing in libraries in regard to management of online resources.

URL : Electronic resource management in a post-Plan S world

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.554

L’ouverture des matériaux de recherche ethnographiques en question

Auteur-e-s/Authors : Florence Revelin, Alix Levain, Morgane Mignon, Marianne Noel, Betty Queffelec, Pascal Raux, Hervé Squividant

Le mouvement d’ouverture des données scientifiques constitue, pour les sciences humaines et sociales (SHS), un défi à la fois épistémologique, juridique, éthique et technique. Il se manifeste par des normes et injonctions multiples vis-à-vis des communautés de recherche, qui peinent à s’y conformer et à se saisir des instruments mis à leur disposition.

Le projet PARDOQ vise à rendre intelligibles les implications complexes de ce mouvement pour les communautés travaillant à partir de données qualitatives (ethnographiques), à travers l’analyse de l’expérience de chercheuses et chercheurs confronté.e.s à la tension entre partage et protection des données ethnographiques, en prenant appui d’une part sur une étude de cas (le programme de recherche interdisciplinaire Parchemins) et d’autre part sur une enquête auprès de chercheurs.euses pratiquant l’ethnographie et de membres de réseaux scientifiques, techniques et juridiques d’appui et à la recherche.

URL : L’ouverture des matériaux de recherche ethnographiques en question

Original location : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03238067

Academic Teams and Commercialization in the Life Sciences

Authors : Paige Clayton, Maryann Feldman

We review the literature on entrepreneurial team formation with a focus on data to study academic teams and summarize our empirical work on the life sciences industry.

We consider how academics form teams to start new companies and the implications of various configurations on firm behavior with regards to patenting, survival and firm growth.

We present several empirical challenges facing research on academic teams and conclude with suggestions for future research.

URL : Academic Teams and Commercialization in the Life Sciences

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2021.733073

Association between the Rankings of Top Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Journals and the Scholarly Reputations of Chief Editors

Author : Salim Sazzed

The scientometric indices, such as the journal Impact Factor (IF) or SCImago Journal Rank (SJR), often play a determining role while choosing a journal for possible publication. The Editor-in-Chief (EiC), also known as a lead editor or chief editor, usually decides the outcomes (e.g., accept, reject) of the submitted manuscripts taking the reviewer’s feedback into account.

This study investigates the associations between the EiC’s scholarly reputation (i.e., citation-level metrics) and the rankings of top Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB) and Medical Informatics (MI) journals. I consider three scholarly indices (i.e., citation, h-index, and i-10 index) of the EiC and four scientometric indices (i.e., h5-index, h5-median, impact factor, and SJR) of various journals.

To study the correlation between scientometric indices of the EiC and journal, I apply Spearman (ρ) and Kendall (τ) correlation coefficients. Moreover, I employ machine learning (ML) models for the journal’s SJR and IF predictions leveraging the EiC’s scholarly reputation indices.

The analysis reveals no correlation between the EiC’s scholarly achievement and the journal’s quantitative metrics. ML models yield high prediction errors for SJR and IF estimations, which suggests that the EiC’s scholarly indices are not good representations of the journal rankings.

URL : Association between the Rankings of Top Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics Journals and the Scholarly Reputations of Chief Editors

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9030042

Covid-19 et Science ouverte, premiers reculs

Auteur/Author : Ghislaine Chartron

Cet article propose un premier bilan de la science ouverte liée à la pandémie Covid-19. Typologie des ressources mises à disposition en fonction des publics cibles, analyse de certains problèmes de qualité de l’information et des données, enjeux de la science des données et de la gouvernance des données, énoncé de certaines limites de la science ouverte dans le contexte Covid-19, évolution de la communication scientifique en virologie.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03347094