Archives des mots-clés : case study

Does the use of open, non-anonymous peer review in scholarly publishing introduce bias? Evidence from the F1000 post-publication open peer review publishing model

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Authors : Mike Thelwall, Verena Weigert, Liz Allen, Zena Nyakoojo, Eleanor-Rose Papas

This study examines whether there is any evidence of bias in two areas of common critique of open, non-anonymous peer review – and used in the post-publication, peer review system operated by the open-access scholarly publishing platform F1000Research.

First, is there evidence of bias where a reviewer based in a specific country assesses the work of an author also based in the same country? Second, are reviewers influenced by being able to see the comments and know the origins of previous reviewer?

Scrutinising the open peer review comments published on F1000Research, we assess the extent of two frequently cited potential influences on reviewers that may be the result of the transparency offered by a fully attributable, open peer review publishing model: the national affiliations of authors and reviewers, and the ability of reviewers to view previously-published reviewer reports before submitting their own.

The effects of these potential influences were investigated for all first versions of articles published by 8 July 2019 to F1000Research. In 16 out of the 20 countries with the most articles, there was a tendency for reviewers based in the same country to give a more positive review.

The difference was statistically significant in one. Only 3 countries had the reverse tendency. Second, there is no evidence of a conformity bias. When reviewers mentioned a previous review in their peer review report, they were not more likely to give the same overall judgement.

Although reviewers who had longer to potentially read a previously published reviewer reports were slightly less likely to agree with previous reviewer judgements, this could be due to these articles being difficult to judge rather than deliberate non-conformity.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.03379

A Case Report: Building communities with training and resources for Open Science trainers

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Authors: Helene Brinken, Iryna Kuchma, Vasso Kalaitzi, Joy Davidson, Nancy Pontika, Matteo Cancellieri, Antónia Correia, José Carvalho, Remedios Melero, Damjana Kastelic, Filomena Borba, Katerina Lenaki, Ulf Toelch, Katerina Zourou, Petr Knoth, Eloy Rodrigues

To foster responsible research and innovation, research communities, institutions, and funders are shifting their practices and requirements towards Open Science. Open Science skills are becoming increasingly essential for researchers. Indeed general awareness of Open Science has grown among EU researchers, but the practical adoption can be further improved.

Recognizing a gap between the needed and the provided training offer, the FOSTER project offers practical guidance and training to help researchers learn how to open up their research within a particular domain or research environment.

Aiming for a sustainable approach, FOSTER focused on strengthening the Open Science training capacity by establishing and supporting a community of trainers. The creation of an Open Science training handbook was a first step towards bringing together trainers to share their experiences and to create an open and living knowledge resource.

A subsequent series of train-the-trainer bootcamps helped trainers to find inspiration, improve their skills and to intensify exchange within a peer group. Four trainers, who attended one of the bootcamps, contributed a case study on their experiences and how they rolled out Open Science training within their own institutions.

On its platform the project provides a range of online courses and resources to learn about key Open Science topics. FOSTER awards users gamification badges when completing courses in order to provide incentives and rewards, and to spur them on to even greater achievements in learning.

The paper at hand describes FOSTER Plus’ training strategies, shares the lessons learnt and provides guidance on how to reuse the project’s materials and training approaches.

URL : A Case Report: Building communities with training and resources for Open Science trainers

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10303

The institutional repository landscape in medical schools and academic health centers: a 2018 snapshot view and analysis

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Authors : Daniel G. Kipnis, Lisa A. Palmer, Ramune K. Kubilius

Objective

This study uses survey research methods to gain a deeper understanding of the institutional repository (IR) landscape in medical schools and academic health centers.

Methods

Members of the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries (AAHSL) were surveyed about their IRs. The authors used a mixed-methods approach of a survey and qualitative content analysis to identify common themes.

Results

Survey results indicate that a large majority of responding medical schools and academic health centers have or are implementing an IR (35 out of 50, 70%). Of these, 60% (21 institutions) participate in an institution-wide IR rather than administer their own repositories.

Much of the archived content is grey literature that has not already been published, but the percentage of original content varies greatly among institutions. The majority (57.1%) of respondent institutions are not considering an open access policy or mandate. Most institutions (71.4%) reported that repository staff are depositing materials on behalf of users.

DSpace and bepress Digital Commons are the most popular repository platforms in this community. The planned enhancements that were most frequently reported were implementing a discovery layer and ORCID integration. The majority of respondents (54.3%) do not plan to migrate to a different platform in the foreseeable future.

Analysis of respondent comments identified the following themes: integration, redundancy, and reporting; alternatives and exploration; uniqueness; participation; and funding and operations.

Conclusions

The study results capture a view of the IR landscape in medical schools and academic health centers and help readers understand what services their peers have in place as well as their plans for future developments.

URL : The institutional repository landscape in medical schools and academic health centers: a 2018 snapshot view and analysis

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.5195%2Fjmla.2019.653

Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

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Authors : Esther Plomp, Nicolas Dintzner, Marta Teperek, Alastair Dunning

Research data management (RDM) is increasingly important in scholarship. Many researchers are, however, unaware of the benefits of good RDM and unsure about the practical steps they can take to improve their RDM practices. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) addresses this cultural barrier by appointing Data Stewards at every faculty.

By providing expert advice and increasing awareness, the Data Stewardship project focuses on incremental improvements in current data and software management and sharing practices.

This cultural change is accelerated by the Data Champions who share best practices in data management with their peers. The Data Stewards and Data Champions build a community that allows a discipline-specific approach to RDM. Nevertheless, cultural change also requires appropriate rewards and incentives.

While local initiatives are important, and we discuss several examples in this paper, systemic changes to the academic rewards system are needed. This will require collaborative efforts of a broad coalition of stakeholders and we will mention several such initiatives.

This article demonstrates that community building is essential in changing the code and data management culture at TU Delft.

URL : Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.484

Services de gestion et de partage des données de recherche : ce qu’en pensent les chercheurs

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Auteurs/Authors : Violaine Rebouillat, Ghislaine Chartron

En France, les professionnels de l’information scientifique et technique (IST) se positionnent sur le développement de services pour la gestion et la valorisation des données de recherche.

L’article interroge l’utilisation de ces services par les chercheurs. Il s’appuie sur 46 entretiens, réalisés auprès de chercheurs de l’Université de Strasbourg. Le catalogue Cat OPIDoR, référençant les services de données français, a servi de base d’étude pour l’enquête. Les résultats montrent que les services développés par les professionnels de l’IST correspondent pour une faible partie à ceux qu’utilisent les répondants.

Une des explications esquissées est qu’en matière de données les chercheurs sont davantage influencés par les recommandations des éditeurs que par celles des professionnels de l’IST.

URL : https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/ISKOFRANCE2019/hal-02307085

An Analysis of Search Results from Institutional Repository: Econpapers

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Authors : Sidharta Chatterjee, Sujoy Dey, Mousumi Samanta

The goal of this research is to examine and explore information retrieval process of patrons who access institutional repositories. Repositories are generally hosted by public universities and run by volunteers which allow researchers to submit their draft versions of their manuscripts in pre-print forms.

In this study, we analyze using search methods to sort out research papers classified according to their levels of relevance that are available from a repository, and report the pattern of search results as our findings.

Our model employs search methods for searching Econpapers which utilize RePEc bibliographic data. Our analysis attempts to highlight how information seekers, scholars and researchers search relevant topics of their interest and how relevant such information is which is retrieved from an institutional repository.

This could aid researchers to modify their search processes to obtain better search results from their queries. The goal is to obtain the most relevant documents from online search.

We discuss about the methods employed to retrieve information which is most pertinent to the requirements of researchers. A broad implication could be better utilization of time and resources for efficient retrieval of the most relevant documents of interest that could be expected from searching institutional repositories.

URI : https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/id/eprint/96178

Research data management and the evolutions of scholarship: policy, infrastructure and data literacy at KU Leuven

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Authors : Tom Willaert, Jacob Cottyn, Ulrike Kenens, Thomas Vandendriessche, Demmy Verbeke, Roxanne Wyns

This case study critically examines ongoing developments in contemporary scholarship through the lens of research data management support at KU Leuven, and KU Leuven Libraries in particular.

By means of case-based examples, current initiatives for fostering sound scientific work and scholarship are considered in three associated domains: support for policy-making, the development of research infrastructures, and digital literacy training for students, scientists and scholars.

It is outlined how KU Leuven Libraries collaborates with partner services in order to contribute to KU Leuven’s research data management support network. Particular attention is devoted to the innovations that facilitate such collaborations.

These accounts of initial experiences form the basis for a reflection on best practices and pitfalls, and foreground a number of pertinent challenges facing the domain of research data management, including matters of scalability, technology acceptance and adoption, and methods for effectively gauging and communicating the manifold transformations of science and scholarship.

URL : Research data management and the evolutions of scholarship: policy, infrastructure and data literacy at KU Leuven

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10272