Investigating SSH Research and Publication Practices in Disciplinary and Institutional Contexts. A Survey-Based Comparative Approach in Two Universities

Authors : Florian Baye, Juan Gorraiz, Christian Gumpenberger, Arantxa Itúrbiden, Isabel Iribarren-Maestro, Steve Reding

In this paper, we comparatively analyze, present and discuss the results from a survey on increasing the visibility of research achievements in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) that was carried out at the University of Vienna (Austria) and the University of Navarra (Spain) in 2016 and 2017.

Covering four major topics—searching and finding literature, publishing, the visibility of research, and the assessment of research outputs—we ask the following questions: are there disciplinary differences to be identified, and how do they present themselves in the two institutional contexts?

Discussing the results, we showcase how disciplinary and institutional traditions and contexts are important factors that influence research and publication practices in the SSH.

Our results indicate that the practices of searching and finding literature as well as publication practices and behavior are shaped by disciplinary traditions and epistemic cultures.

On the contrary, assessment and valuation of research outputs are influenced by institutional and national contexts in which SSH research is organized and carried out.

URL : Investigating SSH Research and Publication Practices in Disciplinary and Institutional Contexts. A Survey-Based Comparative Approach in Two Universities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2019.00001

The insoluble problems of books: What does Altmetric.com have to offer?

Authors : Daniel Torres-Salinas, Juan Gorraiz, Nicolas Robinson-Garcia

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the capabilities, functionalities and appropriateness of Altmetric.com as a data source for the bibliometric analysis of books in comparison to PlumX.

We perform an exploratory analysis on the metrics the Altmetric Explorer for Institutions platform offers for books. We use two distinct datasets of books: the Book Collection included in Altmetric.com and the Clarivate’s Master Book List, to analyze Altmetric.com’s capabilities to download and merge data with external databases.

Finally, we compare our findings with those obtained in a previous study performed in PlumX. Altmetric.com combines and orderly tracks a set of data sources combined by DOI identifiers to retrieve metadata from books, being Google Books its main provider. It also retrieves information from commercial publishers and from some Open Access initiatives, including those led by university libraries such as Harvard Library.

We find issues with linkages between records and mentions or ISBN discrepancies. Furthermore, we find that automatic bots affect greatly Wikipedia mentions to books. Our comparison with PlumX suggests that none of these tools provide a complete picture of the social attention generated by books and are rather complementary than comparable tools.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.10128