Archives des mots-clés : scientific practices

The Practicality of Resource Sharing in Academic Law Libraries in South-western Nigeria

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“This study explores the practicability of resource sharing amongst Nigerian academic law libraries by looking at academic law libraries in south-west Nigeria. Judgmental sampling technique was used in selecting four law librarians while simple random technique was used in selecting four law faculties in south west, Nigeria. Phone and electronic mails were used for gathering data from these law librarians through the use of interview research method. Data was analyzed by arranging responses into facets; thus like facets were grouped together and evidences representing issues in this study were selected and used as evidences of findings. Findings from this study showed that there is no practice of resource sharing in law libraries in south-west Nigeria. Though further findings showed that some Federal University Libraries which have equal digital strength were at the initialization stage of forming a consortium for sharing of e-resources; however law libraries were not included in the consortium; though it is assumed that they might be included later. Lack of innovation, lack of zeal, and lack of interest from the Council of Nigerian Legal Education(CNLE) on resource sharing were found as factors behind non-practicability of resource sharing in the law libraries studied. Findings also showed that the interest of Nigerian Council of Legal Education(CNLE) on collaboration by law libraries would boost immediate results. Admittance, a long old culture in which students visit other libraries and use their resources was the only form of sharing found among law libraries; and there was no written or oral agreement to it. it was also found that there was no form of written or oral policy on resource sharing in the law libraries explored. It was concluded that further studies under resource sharing be done using interview (face to face) method in order to get in-depth data on reasons behind non-practicability of resource sharing . It was also concluded that further study on this topic be made in-order to find other reasons not shown in this research findings .”

URL : http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1120/

What Do Researchers Need? Feedback On Use of Online Primary Source Materials

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“Cultural heritage institutions are increasingly providing online access to primary source materials for researchers. While the intent is to enable round-the-clock access from any location, few studies have examined the extent to which current web delivery is meeting the needs of users. Careful use of limited resources requires intelligent assessment of researcher needs in comparison to the actual online presentation, including access, retrieval and usage options. In the hopes of impacting future delivery methods and access development, this article describes the results of a qualitative study of 11 humanities faculty researchers at the University of Alabama, who describe and rate the importance of various issues encountered when using 29 participant-selected online databases.”

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july14/deridder/07deridder.html

The Determinants of Open Access Publishing: Survey Evidence from Countries in the Mediterranean Open Access Network (MedOANet)

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“We discuss the results of a survey conducted between April 2013 and May 2014 in six Mediterranean countries and covering 2,528 researchers from Spain (1,291), Portugal (142), France (380), Italy (596), Turkey (131) and Greece (130). We compare the results to our German survey with 1,913 respondents. We show that there are significant differences between the scientific disciplines with respect to researcher’s awareness of and experience with both open access (OA) journals and self-archiving. Accordingly, the publishing culture (e.g. reputation, publishing language) but also other issues like age and certain policies (MedOANet) may explain why researchers make more frequent use of OA publishing in some countries and disciplines.”

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2457550

Qu’est-ce qu’une archive de chercheur ?

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“Au cours de sa carrière, un chercheur est amené à produire, consulter et conserver différents types de documents. Carnets, agendas, brouillons de toutes formes, livres annotés forment bien souvent la grande partie des fonds d’archives disponibles. La prise en compte et l’étude de ces documents témoignent d’une activité prenante, mais permettent surtout de saisir les évolutions, les tâtonnements et les manières de faire propres à tel ou tel chercheur. En décidant d’explorer certaines pratiques concrètes qui se matérialisent dans les archives, Jean-François Bert met l’accent sur l’aspect ordinaire de l’activité savante afin de comprendre le processus de la recherche, dans sa singularité et souvent sa grande complexité. Cet ouvrage, synthétique et richement documenté, donne les outils essentiels à une meilleure compréhension et à un usage profondément renouvelé des archives de chercheur.”

URL : http://books.openedition.org/oep/438

ResearchGate: Disseminating, communicating, and measuring Scholarship?

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“ResearchGate is a social network site for academics to create their own profiles, list their publications, and interact with each other. Like Academia.edu, it provides a new way for scholars to disseminate their work and hence potentially changes the dynamics of informal scholarly communication. This article assesses whether ResearchGate usage and publication data broadly reflect existing academic hierarchies and whether individual countries are set to benefit or lose out from the site. The results show that rankings based on ResearchGate statistics correlate moderately well with other rankings of academic institutions, suggesting that ResearchGate use broadly reflects the traditional distribution of academic capital. Moreover, while Brazil, India, and some other countries seem to be disproportionately taking advantage of ResearchGate, academics in China, South Korea, and Russia may be missing opportunities to use ResearchGate to maximize the academic impact of their publications.”

URL : http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~cm1993/papers/ResearchGate.pdf

A survey of authors publishing in four megajournals

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“Aim. To determine the characteristics of megajournal authors, the nature of the manuscripts they are submitting to these journals, factors influencing their decision to publish in a megajournal, sources of funding for article processing charges (APCs) or other fees and their likelihood of submitting to a megajournal in the future.

Methods. Web-based survey of 2,128 authors who recently published in BMJ Open, PeerJ, PLOS ONE or SAGE Open.

Results. The response rate ranged from 26% for BMJ Open to 47% for SAGE Open. The authors were international, largely academics who had recently published in both subscription and Open Access (OA) journals. Across journals about 25% of the articles were preliminary findings and just under half were resubmissions of manuscripts rejected by other journals. Editors from other BMJ journals and perhaps to a lesser extent SAGE and PLOS journals appear to be encouraging authors to submit manuscripts that were rejected by the editor’s journals to a megajournal published by the same publisher. Quality of the journal and speed of the review process were important factors across all four journals. Impact factor was important for PLOS ONE authors but less so for BMJ Open authors, which also has an impact factor. The review criteria and the fact the journal was OA were other significant factors particularly important for PeerJ authors. The reputation of the publisher was an important factor for SAGE Open and BMJ Open. About half of PLOS ONE and around a third of BMJ Open and PeerJ authors used grant funding for publishing charges while only about 10% of SAGE Open used grant funding for publication charges. Around 60% of SAGE Open and 32% of PeerJ authors self-funded their publication fees however the fees are modest for these journals. The majority of authors from all 4 journals were pleased with their experience and indicated they were likely to submit to the same or similar journal in the future.

Conclusions. Megajournals are drawing an international group of authors who tend to be experienced academics. They are choosing to publish in megajournals for a variety of reasons but most seem to value the quality of the journal and the speed of the review/publication process. Having a broad scope was not a key factor for most authors though being OA was important for PeerJ and SAGE Open authors. Most authors appeared pleased with the experience and indicated they are likely to submit future manuscripts to the same or similar megajournal which seems to suggest these journals will continue to grow in popularity.”

URL : A survey of authors publishing in four megajournals
Alternative URL : https://peerj.com/articles/365/

Open Access Journals & Academics’ Behaviour The…

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Open Access Journals & Academics’ Behaviour :

“The rising star of scholarly publishing is Open Access. Even some traditional journals now offer this option on author payment, and many full freely accessible journals are now available to scholars, providing relief to research institutions increasingly unable to afford the escalating subscription rates of serials. However, proper recognition of full Open Access journals by the community remains a major obstacle to overcome if they are to become a viable alternative for scholarly communication. Through a survey, this work investigates economics scholars’ attitudes to OA, and attempts to outline the state of practices and norms governing individuals’ publication choices.”

URL : http://www.icer.it/docs/wp2014/ICERwp03-14.pdf