Archives des mots-clés : scientific communication

Rethinking the Journal Impact Factor and Publishing in the Digital Age

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Authors : Mark S. Nestor, Daniel Fischer, David Arnold, Brian Berman, James Q. Del Rosso

Clinical and experimental literature search has changed significantly over the past few decades, and with it, the way in which we value information. Today, our need for immediate access to relevant and specific literature, regardless of specialty, has led to a growing demand for open access to publications.

The Journal Impact Factor (JIF) has been a long-time standard for representing the quality or “prestige” of a journal, but it appears to be losing its relevance. Here, we define the JIF and deconstruct its validity as a modern measure of a journal’s quality, discuss the current models of academic publication, including their advantages and shortcomings, and discuss the benefits and shortcomings of a variety of open-access models, including costs to the author.

We have quantified a nonsubscribed physician’s access to full articles associated with dermatologic disease and aesthetics cited on PubMed. For some of the most common dermatology conditions, 23.1 percent of citations (ranging from 17.2% for melasma to 31.9% for malignant melanoma) were available as free full articles, and for aesthetic procedures, 18.9 percent of citations (ranging from 11.9% for laser hair removal to 27.9% for botulinum toxin) were available as free full articles.

Finally, we discuss existing alternative metrics for measuring journal impact and propose the adoption of a superior publishing model, one that satisfies modern day standards of scholarly knowledge pursuit and dissemination of scholarly publications for dermatology and all of medical science.

URL : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7028381/

Funding Sources for Open Access Article Processing Charges in the Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities in the United States

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Authors : Melissa H. Cantrell, Juleah A. Swanson

Article processing charges (APCs) are one method of many to ensure open access to research literature, but studies that explore the funding sources for such payments, especially as related to open access publications in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, have been limited.

This study seeks to understand the range of funding sources that are available and used by faculties in these disciplines to pay for APCs associated with publishing in open access journals, as well as attitudes towards and awareness of available institutional funds that may inflect future engagement with open access publishing.

The authors distributed a survey to faculty who had an open access journal article published in 2017 from three doctoral granting, high research activity universities in the United States.

Twenty-two scholars participated in the final survey, ten of whom indicated that they paid an APC for their publication. While the results cannot make generalizations about funding sources, they do suggest that both the prevalence of APCs as well as attitudes about open access engagement may be influenced by disciplinary self-identification.

This research contributes to discussions around the future of open access funding models as well as to disciplinary outreach regarding APC funding for journal publications.

URL : Funding Sources for Open Access Article Processing Charges in the Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities in the United States

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8010012

Canadian OA scholarly journals: An exhaustive survey

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Author : Marc Couture

This report presents the results of an exhaustive study of more than 500 active, legitimate, Canadian, Open Access scholarly journals.

After an extensive discussion on the definition chosen for each of these terms, which determines the number of journals retained for the study, I present various characteristics of these journals, followed by a discussion on the issues faced by journals not indexed in DOAJ that would consider to apply.

I present next the results of a detailed investigation on the way these journals manage copyright, and the various problems I detected in this regard.

URL : https://r-libre.teluq.ca/106/

Preprints and Scholarly Communication: An Exploratory Qualitative Study of Adoption, Practices, Drivers and Barriers

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Authors : Andrea Chiarelli, Rob Johnson, Stephen Pinfield, Emma Richens

Background

Since 2013, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of preprint servers. Little is known about the position of researchers, funders, research performing organisations and other stakeholders with respect to this fast-paced landscape.

In this article, we explore the perceived benefits and challenges of preprint posting, alongside issues including infrastructure and financial sustainability. We also discuss the definition of a ‘preprint’ in different communities, and the impact this has on uptake.

Methods

This study is based on 38 semi-structured interviews of key stakeholders, based on a purposive heterogeneous sampling approach and undertaken between October 2018 and January 2019.

Interviewees were primarily drawn from biology, chemistry and psychology, where use of preprints is growing. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis to identify trends. Interview questions were designed based on Innovation Diffusion Theory, which was also used to interpret our results.

Results

Participants were conscious of the rising prominence of preprints and cited early and fast dissemination as their most appealing feature. Preprints were also considered to enable broader access to scientific literature and increased opportunities for informal commenting.

The main concerns related to the lack of quality assurance and the ‘Ingelfinger rule’. We identified trust as an essential factor in preprint posting, and highlight the enabling role of Twitter in showcasing preprints.

Conclusions

The preprints landscape is evolving fast, and disciplinary communities are at different stages in the innovation diffusion process. The landscape is characterised by experimentation, which leads to the conclusion that a one-size-fits-all approach to preprints is not feasible.

Cooperation and active engagement between the stakeholders involved will play an important role going forward. We share questions for the further development of the preprints landscape, with the most important being whether preprint posting will develop as a publisher- or researcher-centric practice.

URL : Preprints and Scholarly Communication: An Exploratory Qualitative Study of Adoption, Practices, Drivers and Barriers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.19619.2

Autoréflexivité scientifique : mise en place de conditions productivistes dans la pratique de la publication scientifique

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Auteur/Author : Alma Liliana Díaz-Martínez

Cet article analyse le rôle des publications dans un contexte marqué par la logique productiviste du système d’évaluation de la recherche scientifique au Mexique.

Il aborde la notion d’autoréflexivité critique à partir du concept de rationalité communicationnelle d’Habermas et étudie un corpus composé de chercheurs en sciences sociales membres du Système national de chercheurs (SNI) de l’Université nationale autonome du Mexique (Unam), en utilisant l’analyse du discours dans une perspective herméneutique.

Si les résultats confirment l’existence d’une autoréflexion critique de la part des chercheurs vis-à-vis de l’exigence institutionnelle de publication, ils montrent également à quel point cette norme a été intériorisée comme partie intégrante de la pratique scientifique.

URL : https://lesenjeux.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/2019/dossier/06-autoreflexivite-scientifique-mise-en-place-de-conditions-productivistes-dans-la-pratique-de-la-publication-scientifique

JoVE ou l’avènement d’une nouvelle niche d’éditeurs médiatiques

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Auteur/Author : Sarah Rakotoary

Le marché de l’édition scientifique a connu de nombreuses évolutions avec l’avènement du numérique, du Libre Accès et des nouveaux modèles de publication. Cet article aborde le cas de l’éditeur commercial JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments) à l’origine d’un nouveau modèle de publication d’articles scientifiques en Sciences de la Vie, fondé sur la vidéo.

Ces articles présentent des méthodes expérimentales développées par les auteurs et mises en média sur la plateforme de l’éditeur. À l’aide d’une méthodologie mixte, l’étude de cas exploratoire menée sur une année (entre 2018-2019), montre que JoVE représente une nouvelle niche pour la publication scientifique et devient un nouveau type d’acteur dans la sous-filière de l’édition scientifique.

Le succès de JoVE réside dans le fait qu’il permet aux chercheurs de développer des pratiques de publication qui laissent la place à de nouvelles formes d’écriture, faisant émerger l’article scientifique médiatique.

En outre, les articles vidéo circulent sur le Web (YouTube, Réseaux sociaux,…) et véhiculent de nouveaux objectifs (visibilité, ouverture, mise en média…) attendus par les chercheurs et leurs instances d’évaluation pour la reconnaissance de leurs expertises méthodologiques.

C’est autour de ce positionnement  que JoVE parvient à s’imposer dans le monde de l’édition scientifique en reconfiguration.

URL : https://lesenjeux.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/2019/dossier/05-jove-ou-lavenement-dune-nouvelle-niche-dediteurs-mediatiques

Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis

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Authors : Ferrán Catalá-López, Lisa Caulley, Manuel Ridao, Brian Hutton, Don Husereau, Michael F Drummond, Adolfo Alonso-Arroyo, Manuel Pardo-Fernández, Enrique Bernal-Delgado, Ricard Meneu, Rafael Tabarés-Seisdedos, José Ramón Repullo, David Moher

Introduction

There has been a growing awareness of the need for rigorously and transparent reported health research, to ensure the reproducibility of studies by future researchers.

Health economic evaluations, the comparative analysis of alternative interventions in terms of their costs and consequences, have been promoted as an important tool to inform decision-making.

The objective of this study will be to investigate the extent to which articles of economic evaluations of healthcare interventions indexed in MEDLINE incorporate research practices that promote transparency, openness and reproducibility.

Methods and analysis

This is the study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis. We registered the study protocol within the Open Science Framework (osf.io/gzaxr). We will evaluate a random sample of 600 cost-effectiveness analysis publications, a specific form of health economic evaluations, indexed in MEDLINE during 2012 (n=200), 2019 (n=200) and 2022 (n=200).

We will include published papers written in English reporting an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio in terms of costs per life years gained, quality-adjusted life years and/or disability-adjusted life years. Screening and selection of articles will be conducted by at least two researchers.

Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in each article will be extracted using a standardised data extraction form by multiple researchers, with a 33% random sample (n=200) extracted in duplicate.

Information on general, methodological and reproducibility items will be reported, stratified by year, citation of the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement and journal. Risk ratios with 95% CIs will be calculated to represent changes in reporting between 2012–2019 and 2019–2022.

Ethics and dissemination

Due to the nature of the proposed study, no ethical approval will be required. All data will be deposited in a cross-disciplinary public repository.

It is anticipated the study findings could be relevant to a variety of audiences. Study findings will be disseminated at scientific conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.

URL : Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-034463