Archives des mots-clés : Adrian A. Diaz-Faes

From academic to media capital: To what extent does the scientific reputation of universities translate into Wikipedia attention?

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Authors : Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado, Adrián A. Díaz-Faes, Enrique Herrera-Viedma, Rodrigo Costas

Universities face increasing demands to improve their visibility, public outreach, and online presence. There is a broad consensus that scientific reputation significantly increases the attention universities receive.

However, in most cases estimates of scientific reputation are based on composite or weighted indicators and absolute positions in university rankings. In this study, we adopt a more granular approach to assessment of universities’ scientific performance using a multidimensional set of indicators from the Leiden Ranking and testing their individual effects on university Wikipedia page views.

We distinguish between international and local attention and find a positive association between research performance and Wikipedia attention which holds for regions and linguistic areas. Additional analysis shows that productivity, scientific impact, and international collaboration have a curvilinear effect on universities’ Wikipedia attention.

This finding suggests that there may be other factors than scientific reputation driving the general public’s interest in universities. Our study adds to a growing stream of work which views altmetrics as tools to deepen science–society interactions rather than direct measures of impact and recognition of scientific outputs.

URL : From academic to media capital: To what extent does the scientific reputation of universities translate into Wikipedia attention?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24856

Making visible the invisible through the analysis of acknowledgements in the humanities

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Author : Adrian A. Diaz-Faes, Maria Bordons

Purpose

Science is subject to a normative structure that includes how the contributions and interactions between scientists are rewarded. Authorship and citations have been the key elements within the reward system of science, whereas acknowledgements, despite being a well-established element in scholarly communication, have not received the same attention.

This paper aims to put forward the bearing of acknowledgements in the humanities to bring to the foreground contributions and interactions that, otherwise, would remain invisible through traditional indicators of research performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The study provides a comprehensive framework to understanding acknowledgements as part of the reward system with a special focus on its value in the humanities as a reflection of intellectual indebtedness.

The distinctive features of research in the humanities are outlined and the role of acknowledgements as a source of contributorship information is reviewed to support these assumptions.

Findings

Peer interactive communication is the prevailing support thanked in the acknowledgements of humanities, so the notion of acknowledgements as super-citations can make special sense in this area.

Since single-authored papers still predominate as publishing pattern in this domain, the study of acknowledgements might help to understand social interactions and intellectual influences that lie behind a piece of research and are not visible through authorship.

Originality/value

Previous works have proposed and explored the prevailing acknowledgement types by domain.

This paper focuses on the humanities to show the role of acknowledgements within the reward system and highlight publication patterns and inherent research features which make acknowledgements particularly interesting in the area as reflection of the socio-cognitive structure of research.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.06334