Archives des mots-clés : Scholarly Publishing

The Roles of Female Involvement and Risk Aversion in Open Access Publishing Patterns in Vietnamese Social Sciences and Humanities

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Authors : Minh-Hoang Nguyen, Huyen Thanh Thanh Nguyen, Manh-Toan Ho, Tam-Tri Le, Quan-Hoang Vuong

The open-access (OA) publishing model can help improve researchers’ outreach, thanks to its accessibility and visibility to the public. Therefore, the presentation of female researchers can benefit from the OA publishing model.

Despite that, little is known about how gender affects OA practices. Thus, the current study explores the effects of female involvement and risk aversion on OA publishing patterns among Vietnamese social sciences and humanities.

The study employed Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on a dataset of 3,122 Vietnamese social sciences and humanities (SS&H) publications during 2008–2019. The Mindsponge mechanism was specifically used to construct theoretical models, while Bayesian inference was utilized for fitting models.

The result showed a positive association between female participation and OA publishing probability. However, the positive effect of female involvement on OA publishing probability was negated by the high ratio of female researchers in a publication. OA status was negatively associated with the JIF of the journal in which the publication was published, but the relationship was moderated by the involvement of a female researcher(s).

The findings suggested that Vietnamese female researchers might be more likely to publish under the OA model in journals with high JIF for avoiding the risk of public criticism.

The study could only provide evidence on the association between female involvement and OA publishing probability. However, whether to publish under OA terms is often determined by the first or corresponding authors, but not necessarily gender-based.

Systematically coordinated actions are suggested to better support women and promote the OA movement in Vietnam.

The findings show the OA publishing patterns of female researchers in Vietnamese SS&H.

URL : The Roles of Female Involvement and Risk Aversion in Open Access Publishing Patterns in Vietnamese Social Sciences and Humanities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2478/jdis-2022-0001

How to improve scientific peer review: Four schools of thought

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Authors : Ludo Waltman, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Stephen Pinfield, Helen Buckley Woods

Peer review plays an essential role as one of the cornerstones of the scholarly publishing system. There are many initiatives that aim to improve the way in which peer review is organized, resulting in a highly complex landscape of innovation in peer review.

Different initiatives are based on different views on the most urgent challenges faced by the peer review system, leading to a diversity of perspectives on how the system can be improved.

To provide a more systematic understanding of the landscape of innovation in peer review, we suggest that the landscape is shaped by four schools of thought: The Quality & Reproducibility school, the Democracy & Transparency school, the Equity & Inclusion school, and the Efficiency & Incentives school.

Each school has a different view on the key problems of the peer review system and the innovations necessary to address these problems. The schools partly complement each other, but we argue that there are also important tensions between the schools.

We hope that the four schools of thought offer a useful framework to facilitate conversations about the future development of the peer review system.

URL : How to improve scientific peer review: Four schools of thought

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/v8ghj

Are female scientists less inclined to publish alone? The gender solo research gap

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Authors : Marek Kwiek, Wojciech Roszka

In solo research, scientists compete individually for prestige, sending clear signals about their research ability, avoiding problems in credit allocation, and reducing conflicts about authorship. We examine to what extent male and female scientists differ in their use of solo publishing across various dimensions.

This research is the first to comprehensively study the “gender solo research gap” among all internationally visible scientists within a whole national higher education system. We examine the gap through mean “individual solo publishing rates” found in “individual publication portfolios” constructed for each Polish university professor.

We use the practical significance/statistical significance difference (based on the effect-size r coefficient) and our analyses indicate that while some gender differences are statistically significant, they have no practical significance.

Using a partial effects of fractional logistic regression approach, we estimate the probability of conducting solo research. In none of the models does gender explain the variability of the individual solo publishing rate.

The strongest predictor of individual solo publishing rate is the average team size, publishing in STEM fields negatively affects the rate, publishing in male-dominated disciplines positively affects it, and the influence of international collaboration is negative.

The gender solo research gap in Poland is much weaker than expected: within a more general trend toward team research and international research, gender differences in solo research are much weaker and less relevant than initially assumed.

We use our unique biographical, administrative, publication, and citation database (“Polish Science Observatory”) with metadata on all Polish scientists present in Scopus (N = 25,463) and their 158,743 Scopus-indexed articles published in 2009–2018, including 18,900 solo articles.

URL : Are female scientists less inclined to publish alone? The gender solo research gap

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04308-7

Editors publishing in their own journals: A systematic review of prevalence and a discussion of normative aspects

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Authors : Gert Helgesson, Igor Radun, Jenni Radun, Gustav Nilsonne

Journal editors are the main gatekeepers in scientific publishing. Yet there is a concern that they may receive preferential treatment when submitting manuscripts to their own journals. The prevalence of such self-publishing is not known, nor the consequences for reliability and trustworthiness of published research.

This study aimed to systematically review the literature on the prevalence of editors publishing in their own journals and to conduct a normative ethical analysis of this practice. A systematic review was performed using the following databases: Medline, PsycInfo, Scopus and Web of Science.

Articles that provided primary data about editors publishing in own journals were included. We identified 15 studies meeting inclusion criteria. There was large variability of self-publishing across fields, journals and editors, ranging from those who never published in their own journal to those publishing extensively in their own journal.

Many studies suffered from serious methodological limitations. Nevertheless, our results show that there are settings where levels of self-publication are very high. We recommend that editors-in-chief and associate editors who have considerable power in journals refrain from publishing research articles in their own journals. Journals should have clear processes in place about the treatment of articles submitted by editorial board members.

URL : Editors publishing in their own journals: A systematic review of prevalence and a discussion of normative aspects

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1449

Predatory journals and publishers: Characteristics and impact of academic spam to researchers in educational sciences

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Authors : Jaume Sureda-Negre, Aina Calvo-Sastre, Rubén Comas-Forgas

This study focuses on the phenomenon of presumed predatory scientific publications in the field of Educational Sciences, and the utilization of email by editors to request manuscripts. It examined, using content analysis methods, 210 emails received by three professors of the field of Education, at a Spanish university with different research profiles over a period of 3 months.

Through analysis of the unsolicited emails a total of 139 journals and 37 publishers were identified and examined using: (a) the two main predatory journal inventories (Beall’s list and Cabells’ Predatory Reports), and (b) six of the major scientific bibliographic databases. The publishers and their websites were also analyzed, as well as the basic aspects of the emails’ content.

The majority of the unsolicited emails were from predatory journals or publishers and half of the article requests did not match the field of the recipient. In addition, it is relevant to note that more than half of the domains of predatory publishers analysed have untrustworthy security levels.

The data provided relevant information on the phenomenon of predation in scientific publications in the field of Education and, most importantly, provided evidence for developing training and preventive strategies to tackle it.

URL : Predatory journals and publishers: Characteristics and impact of academic spam to researchers in educational sciences

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1450

Why do journals discontinue? A study of Australian ceased journals

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Authors : Hamid R. Jamali, Simon Wakeling, Alireza Abbasi

Little is known about why journals discontinue despite its significant implications. We present an analysis of 140 Australian journals that ceased from 2011 to mid-2021 and present the results of a survey of editors of 53 of them. The death age of journals was 19.7 (median = 16) with 57% being 10 years or older.

About 54% of them belonged to educational institutions and 34% to non-profit organizations. In terms of subject, 75% of the journals belonged to social sciences, humanities and arts. The survey showed that funding was an important reason for discontinuation, and lack of quality submission and lack of support from the owners of the journal also played a role.

Too much reliance on voluntary works appeared to be an issue for editorial processes. The dominant metric culture in the research environment and pressure for journals to perform well in journal rankings negatively affect local journals in attracting quality submissions.

A fifth of journals indicated that they did not have a plan for the preservation of articles at the time of publication and the current availability of the content of ceased journals appeared to be sub-optimal in many cases with reliance on the website of ceased journals or web-archive platforms.

URL : Why do journals discontinue? A study of Australian ceased journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1448

Innovations in peer review in scholarly publishing: a meta-summary

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Authors : Helen Buckley Woods, Johanna Brumberg, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Stephen Pinfield, Ludo Waltman

Background

There are currently numerous innovations in peer review and quality assurance in scholarly publishing. The Research on Research Institute conducted a programme of co-produced projects investigating these innovations.

This literature review was part of one such project ‘Experiments in peer review’ (Kaltenbrunner et al, 2022), which created an inventory and framework of peer review innovations. The aim of this literature review was to aid the development of the inventory by identifying innovations in peer review reported in the scholarly literature and by providing a summary of the different approaches.

Methods

This meta-summary is based on data identified from Web of Science and Scopus limited from 2010 to 2021. A total of 247 papers were screened, with 6 review articles chosen for the focus of the literature review. Items were selected that described approaches to innovating peer review or illustrated examples.

Results

The summary of innovations are drawn from 6 review articles: Bruce et al (2016); Tennant et al (2017); Burley (2017); Horbach and Halffman (2018); Tennant (2018); Barroga (2020). The innovations are divided into three high-level categories: approaches to peer review, reviewer focussed initiatives and technology to support peer review with sub-categories of results presented in tabular form and summarised. A summary of all innovations found is also presented.

Conclusions

From a simple synthesis of the review authors’ conclusions, three key messages are presented: observations on current practice; authors’ views on the implications of innovations in peer review; and calls for action in peer review research and practice.

URL : https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qaksd/