Étiquette : scientific communication

Catégories
EN

Unbundling Open Access dimensions: a conceptual discussion to reduce terminology inconsistencies

Authors : Alberto Martín-Martín, Rodrigo Costas, Thed N. van Leeuwen, Emilio Delgado López-Cózar

The current ways in which documents are made freely accessible in the Web no longer adhere to the models established Budapest/Bethesda/Berlin (BBB) definitions of Open Access (OA). Since those definitions were established, OA-related terminology has expanded, trying to keep up with all the variants of OA publishing that are out there.

However, the inconsistent and arbitrary terminology that is being used to refer to these variants are complicating communication about OA-related issues. This study intends to initiate a discussion on this issue, by proposing a conceptual model of OA.

Our model features six different dimensions (authoritativeness, user rights, stability, immediacy, peer-review, and cost). Each dimension allows for a range of different options. We believe that by combining the options in these six dimensions, we can arrive at all the current variants of OA, while avoiding ambiguous and/or arbitrary terminology.

This model can be an useful tool for funders and policy makers who need to decide exactly which aspects of OA are necessary for each specific scenario.

URL : Unbundling Open Access dimensions: a conceptual discussion to reduce terminology inconsistencies

Alternative location : https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.05029

Catégories
FR

La circulation internationale des savoirs communicationnels entre cadrages disciplinaires et pratiques situées

Auteur/Author : Sarah Cordonnier

L’internationalisation académique et la circulation internationale des savoirs sont toujours présentées comme désirables, sans que leurs conditions de félicité soient explicitées. Il en découle des injonctions contradictoires souvent pénalisantes pour les (aspirants) chercheurs.

Les sciences consacrées à la communication fournissent des outils pour élucider les formes spécifiques de l’échange international et ses entraves, ainsi qu’un terrain d’observation remarquable.

L’enquête socio-discursive proposée dans l’article montre d’abord comment elles sont régies par un discours constituant paradoxal, fondé sur l’inachèvement, et ensuite comment l’expérience internationale de chercheurs et d’étudiants des sciences consacrées à la communication est contrainte par ce cadre tout en contribuant à l’amender.

URL : https://lesenjeux.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/2017-supplementB/07-Cordonnier/

Catégories
EN

Collaboration Diversity and Scientific Impact

Authors : Yuxiao Dong, Hao Ma, Jie Tang, Kuansan Wang

The shift from individual effort to collaborative output has benefited science, with scientific work pursued collaboratively having increasingly led to more highly impactful research than that pursued individually.

However, understanding of how the diversity of a collaborative team influences the production of knowledge and innovation is sorely lacking. Here, we study this question by breaking down the process of scientific collaboration of 32.9 million papers over the last five decades.

We find that the probability of producing a top-cited publication increases as a function of the diversity of a team of collaborators—namely, the distinct number of institutions represented by the team.

We discover striking phenomena where a smaller, yet more diverse team is more likely to generate highly innovative work than a relatively larger team within one institution.

We demonstrate that the synergy of collaboration diversity is universal across different generations, research fields, and tiers of institutions and individual authors.

Our findings suggest that collaboration diversity strongly and positively correlates with the production of scientific innovation, giving rise to the potential revolution of the policies used by funding agencies and authorities to fund research projects, and broadly the principles used to organize teams, organizations, and societies.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.03694

Catégories
EN

Zombie Journals: Designing a Technological Infrastructure for a Precarious Journal

Authors : Daniel Paul O’Donnell, Carey Viejou, Sylvia Chow, Rumi Graham, Jarret McKinnon, Dorothea Morrison, Reed Parsons, Courtney Rieger, Vanja Spirić, Elaine Toth

Background

The Meeting of the Minds graduate student journal is edited primarily by students from our Masters programme. This means that our editorial board is subject to high annual turnover and that our technological infrastructure and workflow needed to be easy to train for, accommodate differing levels of technological skill and editorial interest, and provide archiving that did not require a continuing interest in the journal by future generations of students.

Analysis

This article provides a detailed and comparative account of the “off-the-shelf ” systems and software used in developing the journal with an explanation of the rationale behind our choices.

Conclusion and implications

The choices we made can be adopted by other journals interested in a low-cost, “future-proof ” approach to developing a publishing infrastructure.

URL : Zombie Journals: Designing a Technological Infrastructure for a Precarious Journal

DOI : https://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/296

Catégories
EN

Analysis of Peer Review Effectiveness for Academic Journals Based on Distributed Parallel System

Authors : Zong-Yuan Tan, Ning Cai, Jian Zhou

A simulation model based on parallel systems is established, aiming to explore the relation between the number of submissions and the overall quality of academic journals within a similar discipline under peer review.

The model can effectively simulate the submission, review and acceptance behaviors of academic journals, in a distributed manner. According to the simulation experiments, it could possibly happen that the overall standard of academic journals may deteriorate due to excessive submissions.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00287

Catégories
EN

Creativity in Science and the Link to Cited References: Is the Creative Potential of Papers Reflected in their Cited References?

Authors : Iman Tahamtan, Lutz Bornmann

Several authors have proposed that a large number of unusual combinations of cited references in a paper point to its high creative potential (or novelty). However, it is still not clear whether the number of unusual combinations can really measure the creative potential of papers.

The current study addresses this question on the basis of several case studies from the field of scientometrics. We identified some landmark papers in this field. Study subjects were the corresponding authors of these papers.

We asked them where the ideas for the papers came from and which role the cited publications played. The results revealed that the creative ideas might not necessarily have been inspired by past publications.

The literature seems to be important for the contextualization of the idea in the field of scientometrics. Instead, we found that creative ideas are the result of finding solutions to practical problems, result from discussions with colleagues, and profit from interdisciplinary exchange. The roots of the studied landmark papers are discussed in detail.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.00224

Catégories
EN

Open and transparent research practices and public perceptions of the trustworthiness of agricultural biotechnology organizations

Authors : Asheley R. Landrum, Joseph Hilgard, Robert B. Lull, Heather Akin, Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Public trust in agricultural biotechnology organizations that produce so-called ‘genetically-modified organisms’ (GMOs) is affected by misinformed attacks on GM technology and worry that producers’ concern for profits overrides concern for the public good.

In an experiment, we found that reporting that the industry engages in open and transparent research practices increased the perceived trustworthiness of university and corporate organizations involved with GMOs.

Universities were considered more trustworthy than corporations overall, supporting prior findings in other technology domains.

The results suggest that commitment to, and communication of, open and transparent research practices should be part of the process of implementing agricultural biotechnologies.

URL : Open and transparent research practices and public perceptions of the trustworthiness of agricultural biotechnology organizations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.17020204