Archives des mots-clés : scientific communication

The aging effect in evolving scientific citation networks

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Authors : Feng Hu, Lin Ma, Xiu-Xiu Zhan, Yinzuo Zhou, Chuang Liu, Haixing Zhao, Zi-Ke Zhang

The study of citation networks is of interest to the scientific community. However, the underlying mechanism driving individual citation behavior remains imperfectly understood, despite the recent proliferation of quantitative research methods.

Traditional network models normally use graph theory to consider articles as nodes and citations as pairwise relationships between them. In this paper, we propose an alternative evolutionary model based on hypergraph theory in which one hyperedge can have an arbitrary number of nodes, combined with an aging effect to reflect the temporal dynamics of scientific citation behavior.

Both theoretical approximate solution and simulation analysis of the model are developed and validated using two benchmark datasets from different disciplines, i.e. publications of the American Physical Society (APS) and the Digital Bibliography & Library Project (DBLP).

Further analysis indicates that the attraction of early publications will decay exponentially. Moreover, the experimental results show that the aging effect indeed has a significant influence on the description of collective citation patterns.

Shedding light on the complex dynamics driving these mechanisms facilitates the understanding of the laws governing scientific evolution and the quantitative evaluation of scientific outputs.

URL : The aging effect in evolving scientific citation networks

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03929-8

What is the benefit from publishing a working paper in a journal in terms of citations? Evidence from economics

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Authors : Klaus Wohlraben, Constantin Bürgi

Many papers in economics that are published in peer reviewed journals are initially released in widely circulated working paper series. This raises the question about the benefit of publishing in a peer-reviewed journal in terms of citations.

Specifically, we address the question: to what extent does the stamp of approval obtained by publishing in a peer-reviewed journal lead to more subsequent citations for papers that are already available in working paper series? Our data set comprises about 28,000 working papers from four major working paper series in economics.

Using panel data methods, we show that the publication in a peer reviewed journal results in around twice the number of yearly citations relative to working papers that never get published in a journal. Our results hold in several robustness checks.

URL : What is the benefit from publishing a working paper in a journal in terms of citations? Evidence from economics

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03942-x

An analysis of the factors affecting open access to research output in institutional repositories in selected universities in East Africa

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Author : Miriam Kakai

INTRODUCTION

Institutional repositories (IRs) present universities with an opportunity to provide global open access (OA) to their scholarship, however, this avenue was underutilised in two of the three universities in this study.

This study aimed at proposing interventions to improve access to research output in IRs in universities in East Africa, and it adds to the depth of knowledge on IRs by pointing out the factors that limit OA in IRs, some of which include lack of government and funder support for OA and mediated content collection workflows that hardly involved seeking author permission to self-archive.

METHODS

A mixed methods approach, following a concurrent strategy was used to investigate the low level of OA in IRs. Data was collected from three purposively selected IRs in universities in East Africa, using self-administered questionnaires from 183 researchers and face-to-face interviews from six librarians.

RESULTS

The findings revealed that content was collected on a voluntary basis, with most of the research output deposited in the IR without the authors’ knowledge. The respondents in this study were, however, supportive of the activities of the IR, and would participate in providing research output in the IR as OA if required to do so.

CONCLUSION

The low level of OA in IRs in universities in East Africa could be increased by improving the IR workflow, collection development, and marketing processes. Self-archiving could be improved by increasing the researchers’ awareness and knowledge of OA and importance of IRs, while addressing their concerns about copyright infringement.

URL : An analysis of the factors affecting open access to research output in institutional repositories in selected universities in East Africa

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2276

Inferring the causal effect of journals on citations

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Author : Vincent A Traag

Articles in high-impact journals are, on average, more frequently cited. But are they cited more often because those articles are somehow more “citable”? Or are they cited more often simply because they are published in a high-impact journal? Although some evidence suggests the latter, the causal relationship is not clear.

We here compare citations of preprints to citations of the published version to uncover the causal mechanism. We build on an earlier model of citation dynamics to infer the causal effect of journals on citations. We find that high-impact journals select articles that tend to attract more citations.

At the same time, we find that high-impact journals augment the citation rate of published articles. Our results yield a deeper understanding of the role of journals in the research system.

The use of journal metrics in research evaluation has been increasingly criticized in recent years and article-level citations are sometimes suggested as an alternative. Our results show that removing impact factors from evaluation does not negate the influence of journals. This insight has important implications for changing practices of research evaluation.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00128

Working with publication technology to make open access journals sustainable

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Authors : Marcel Wrzesinski, Patrick Urs Riechert, Frédéric Dubois, Christian Katzenbach

Over the last 25 years, scholars around the world have used electronic publishing to open up their work, share it with interested publics instantly or even become publishers themselves.

This white paper explores in what ways advances in publication technology in the journal sector (e.g. the widespread use of content management and editorial systems) contributes to a more inclusive and sustainable open access ecosystem.

Drawing on a study we did in Germany in 2019-2021, and for which we tested technical solutions together with the international, peer-reviewed diamond open access journal Internet Policy Review, we present and discuss publishing solutions based on software, workflows, and collaborations with regard to their practicability and scalability.

The paper finds that scholar-led publishing is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to technical solutions tending towards increased bibliodiversity (i.e., variety of content, publication formats and publishing institutions).

URL : Working with publication technology to make open access journals sustainable

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4558781

Open Access and Academic Freedom: Teasing Out Some Important Nuances

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Author : Rick Anderson

Discussion of the ways in which open access (OA) and academic freedom interact is fraught for a number of reasons, not least of which is the unwillingness of some participants in the discussion to acknowledge that OA might have any implications for academic freedom at all. Thus, any treatment of such implications must begin with foundational questions.

Most basic among them are: first, what do we mean by ‘open access’; second, what do we mean by ‘academic freedom’? The answers to these questions are not as obvious as one might expect (or hope), but when they are answered it becomes much easier to address a third, also very important, question: in what ways might OA and academic freedom interact?

With every new OA mandate imposed by a government agency, institution of higher education, or funding organization, careful analysis of this issue becomes more urgent. This article attempts to sort out some of these issues, controversies and confusions.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12636

Openness in Big Data and Data Repositories. The Application of an Ethics Framework for Big Data in Healthand Research

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Authors : Vicki Xafis, Markus K. Labude

There is a growing expectation, or even requirement, for researchers to deposit a variety of research data in data repositories as a condition of funding or publication. This expectation recognizes the enormous benefits of data collected and created for research purposes being made available for secondary uses, as open science gains increasing support.

This is particularly so in the context of big data, especially where health data is involved. There are, however, also challenges relating to the collection, storage, and re-use of research data.

This paper gives a brief overview of the landscape of data sharing via data repositories and discusses some of the key ethical issues raised by the sharing of health-related research data, including expectations of privacy and confidentiality, the transparency of repository governance structures, access restrictions, as well as data ownership and the fair attribution of credit.

To consider these issues and the values that are pertinent, the paper applies the deliberative balancing approach articulated in the Ethics Framework for Big Data in Health and Research (Xafis et al. 2019) to the domain of Openness in Big Data and Data Repositories.

Please refer to that article for more information on how this framework is to be used, including a full explanation of the key values involved and the balancing approach used in the case study at the end.

URL : Openness in Big Data and Data Repositories. The Application of an Ethics Framework for Big Data in Healthand Research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s41649-019-00097-z