Archives des mots-clés : case study

Sweat, Skepticism, and Uncharted Territory : A Qualitative Study of Opinions on Data Sharing Among Public Health Researchers and Research Participants in Mumbai, India

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Efforts to internalize data sharing in research practice have been driven largely by developing international norms that have not incorporated opinions from researchers in low- and middle-income countries. We sought to identify the issues around ethical data sharing in the context of research involving women and children in urban India. We interviewed researchers, managers, and research participants associated with a Mumbai non-governmental organization, as well as researchers from other organizations and members of ethics committees.

We conducted 22 individual semi-structured interviews and involved 44 research participants in focus group discussions. We used framework analysis to examine ideas about data and data sharing in general; its potential benefits or harms, barriers, obligations, and governance; and the requirements for consent. Both researchers and participants were generally in favor of data sharing, although limited experience amplified their reservations. We identified three themes: concerns that the work of data producers may not receive appropriate acknowledgment, skepticism about the process of sharing, and the fact that the terrain of data sharing was essentially uncharted and confusing.

To increase data sharing in India, we need to provide guidelines, protocols, and examples of good practice in terms of consent, data preparation, screening of applications, and what individuals and organizations can expect in terms of validation, acknowledgment, and authorship.

URL : Sweat, Skepticism, and Uncharted Territory

Alternative location : http://m.jre.sagepub.com/content/10/3/239

Assessment of Data Management Services at New England Region Resource Libraries

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Objective

To understand how New England medical libraries are addressing scientific research data management and providing services to their communities.

Setting

The National Network of Libraries of Medicine, New England Region (NN/LM NER) contains 17 Resource Libraries. The University of Massachusetts Medical School serves as the New England Regional Medical Library (RML). Sixteen of the NER Resource Libraries completed this survey.

Methods

A 40-question online survey assessed libraries’ services and programs for providing research data management education and support. Libraries shared their current plans and institutional challenges associated with developing data services.

Results

This study shows few NER Resource Libraries currently integrate scientific research data management into their services and programs, and highlights the region’s use of resources provided by the NN/LM NER RML at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Conclusions

Understanding the types of data services being delivered at NER libraries helps to inform the NN/LM NER about the eScience learning needs of New England medical librarians and helps in the planning of professional development programs that foster effective biomedical research data services.

URL : Assessment of Data Management Services at New England Region Resource Libraries

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.2015.1068

Knowledge Sharing Behaviour of Academics in The Polytechnic Ibadan

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The study was designed to investigate the factors driving the academics to engage in work-related knowledge sharing activity using a conceptual model adapted from Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) of Ajzen (1991) and the two affective components (affective commitment and affect-based trust). A descriptive survey research design covering academics in all departments of the five faculties in The Polytechnic, Ibadan was employed.

The literature review covered knowledge management KM, knowledge sharing KS and knowledge sharing behaviour KSB. Self-structured questionnaire based on the adapted model were administered as data collection instrument. Complete enumeration survey study was carried out because the total study population was about 346 lecturers and the same copies of questionnaire were distributed to the academics across the five faculties of the polytechnic of which 235 copies were returned.

The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.Academics of The Polytechnic, Ibadan will be willing to share their work-related knowledge if both the factors encouraging and inhibiting sharing of knowledge with their colleagues are adequately addressed.

The result shows, on one hand, that perceived behavioural control (.000) and affective commitment (.000) were significant predictors of intention to share knowledge while attitude (.066), subjective norm (.308) and affect-based trust (.694)are not.On the other hand, academics’ intention to share knowledge (.000) significantly predicted academics’ knowledge sharing behaviour.

The study further concludes and recommends that more group activities should be encouraged and collaborative teaching and research should be emphasized to further promote knowledge sharing among academics.Further studies could focus on a comparative study between or across two or more federal, state and/or private polytechnics.

URL : http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1287/

Review times in peer review: quantitative analysis of editorial workflows

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We examine selected aspects of peer review and suggest possible improvements. To this end, we analyse a dataset containing information about 300 papers submitted to the Biochemistry and Biotechnology section of the Journal of the Serbian Chemical Society. After separating the peer review process into stages that each review has to go through, we use a weighted directed graph to describe it in a probabilistic manner and test the impact of some modifications of the editorial policy on the efficiency of the whole process.

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.01134

Identifying Open Access Articles within the Top Ten Closed Access LIS Journals: A Global Perspective

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Librarians have embraced the open access movement. They work to raise awareness of issues surrounding scholarly communication, to educate faculty about authors’ rights, and to help implement and maintain institutional repositories (IRs). But for all of the research and commentary from librarians about the importance of IRs and of making research freely available, there still exists the glaring contradiction that few librarians and Library and Information Science (LIS) authors provide free access to their own research publications.

In this study, we will look at the open access availability of articles from the top 20 closed access LIS journals and discuss some factors that may explain the discrepancies between LIS authors’ attitudes towards open access and their own self-archiving practices.

URL : http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1245/

Research Data Practices in Veterinary Medicine: A Case Study

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Objective
To determine trends in research data output, reuse, and sharing of the college of veterinary medicine faculty members at a large academic research institution.
Methods
This bibliographic study was conducted by examining original research articles for indication of the types of data produced, as well as evidence that the authors reused data or made provision for sharing their own data. Findings were recorded in the categories of research type, data type, data reuse, data sharing, author collaboration, and grants/funding and were analyzed to determine trends.
Results
A variety of different data types were encountered in this study, even within a single article, resulting primarily from clinical and laboratory animal studies. All of the articles resulted from author collaboration, both within the University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign, as well as with researchers outside the institution. There was little indication that data was reused, except some instances where the authors acknowledged that data was obtained directly from a colleague. There was even less indication that the research data was shared, either as a supplementary file on the publisher’s website or by submission to a repository, except in the case of genetic data.
Conclusions
Veterinary researchers are prolific producers and users of a wide variety of data. Despite the large amount of collaborative research occurring in veterinary medicine, this study provided little evidence that veterinary researchers are reusing or sharing their data, except in an informal manner. Wider adoption of data management plans may serve to improve researchers’ data management practices.

In an Age of Open Access to Research Policies: Physician and Public Health NGO Staff Research Use and Policy Awareness

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“Introduction

Through funding agency and publisher policies, an increasing proportion of the health sciences literature is being made open access. Such an increase in access raises questions about the awareness and potential utilization of this literature by those working in health fields.

Methods

A sample of physicians (N=336) and public health non-governmental organization (NGO) staff (N=92) were provided with relatively complete access to the research literature indexed in PubMed, as well as access to the point-of-care service UpToDate, for up to one year, with their usage monitored through the tracking of web-log data. The physicians also participated in a one-month trial of relatively complete or limited access.

Results

The study found that participants’ research interests were not satisfied by article abstracts alone nor, in the case of the physicians, by a clinical summary service such as UpToDate. On average, a third of the physicians viewed research a little more frequently than once a week, while two-thirds of the public health NGO staff viewed more than three articles a week. Those articles were published since the 2008 adoption of the NIH Public Access Policy, as well as prior to 2008 and during the maximum 12-month embargo period. A portion of the articles in each period was already open access, but complete access encouraged a viewing of more research articles.

Conclusion

Those working in health fields will utilize more research in the course of their work as a result of (a) increasing open access to research, (b) improving awareness of and preparation for this access, and (c) adjusting public and open access policies to maximize the extent of potential access, through reduction in embargo periods and access to pre-policy literature.”

URL : In an Age of Open Access to Research Policies: Physician and Public Health NGO Staff Research Use and Policy Awareness

DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0129708