Archives des mots-clés : scientific practices

Choosing the ‘right’ journal for publication: Perceptions and practices of pandemic-era early career researchers

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Authors : David Nicholas, Eti Herman, David Clark, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri, Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo, Abdullah Abrizah, Anthony Watkinson, Jie Xu, David Sims, Galina Serbina, Marzena Świgoń, Hamid R. Jamali, Carol Tenopir, Suzie Allard

Presents early data from an investigation of the work lives and scholarly communication practices of 177 early career researchers (ECRs) from eight countries. Utilizing mainly coded and textual data from interviews, the paper reports on the findings that pertain to publishing papers in peer reviewed journals.

We examine which factors are taken into account when choosing the journal to publish their research in, identifying similarities/differences by country, age, academic status and discipline. Also, explored is whether the pandemic has changed decision-making. Main findings are that the aim for ECRs is to publish in the ‘best’ journals, variably measured by prestige, impact factor, standards of peer review and indexation.

Appropriateness of audience is the only factor unrelated to the quality of the journal that figures highly among the factors that guide ECRs in the process of selecting a journal.

The pandemic has made little difference to the majority of ECRs when they decide on a journal for publishing their research. However, there is a greater awareness of the need for a faster turnover rate, brought on by the importance accorded to speedy publication during the pandemic.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1488

 

The Role of Data in an Emerging Research Community : Environmental Health Research as an Exemplar

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Authors : Danielle Polloc, An Yan, Michelle Parker, Suzie Allard

Open science data benefit society by facilitating convergence across domains that are examining the same scientific problem. While cross-disciplinary data sharing and reuse is essential to the research done by convergent communities, so far little is known about the role data play in how these communities interact.

An understanding of the role of data in these collaborations can help us identify and meet the needs of emerging research communities which may predict the next challenges faced by science. This paper represents an exploratory study of one emerging community, the environmental health community, examining how environmental health research groups form, collaborate, and share data.

Five key insights about the role of data in emerging research communities are identified and suggestions are made for further research.

URL : The Role of Data in an Emerging Research Community : Environmental Health Research as an Exemplar

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v16i1.653

Attitudes, willingness, and resources to cover article publishing charges: The influence of age, position, income level country, discipline and open access habits

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Authors : Francisco Segado-Boj, Juan-Jose Prieto-Gutiérrez, Juan Martín-Quevedo

The rise of open access (OA) publishing has been followed by the expansion of the Article Publishing Charges (APC) that moves the financial burden of scholarly journal publishing from libraries and readers to authors.

We introduce the results of an international randomly selected sampled survey (N = 3,422) that explores attitudes towards this pay-to-publish or Gold OA model among scholars. We test the predictor role of age, professional position, discipline, and income-level country in this regard.

We found that APCs are perceived more as a global threat to Science than a deterrent to personal professional careers. Academics in low and lower-middle income level countries hold the most unfavourable opinions about the APC system.

The less experimental disciplines held more negative perceptions of APC compared to STEM and the Life Sciences. Age and access to external funding stood as negative predictors of refusal to pay to publish. Commitment to OA self-archiving predicted the negative global perception of the APC.

We conclude that access to external research funds influences the acceptance and the particular perception of the pay to publish model, remarking the economic dimension of the problem and warning about issues in the inequality between centre and periphery.

URL : Attitudes, willingness, and resources to cover article publishing charges: The influence of age, position, income level country, discipline and open access habits

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1455

International disparities in open access practices in the Earth Sciences

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Authors : Olivier Pourret, David William Hedding, Daniel Enrique Ibarra, Dasapta Erwin Irawan, Haiyan Liu, Jonathan Peter Tennant

Background

Open access (OA) implies free and unrestricted access to and re-use of research articles. Recently, OA publishing has seen a new wave of interest, debate, and practices surrounding that mode of publishing.

Objectives

To provide an overview of publication practices and to compare them among six countries across the world to stimulate further debate and to raise awareness about OA to facilitate decision-making on further development of OA practices in earth sciences.

Methods

The number of OA articles, their distribution among the six countries, and top ten journals publishing OA articles were identified using two databases, namely Scopus and the Web of Science, based mainly on the data for 2018.

Results

In 2018, only 24%–31% of the total number of articles indexed by either of the databases were OA articles. Six of the top ten earth sciences journals that publish OA articles were fully OA journals and four were hybrid journals. Fully OA journals were mostly published by emerging publishers and their article processing charges ranged from $1000 to $2200.

Conclusions

The rise in OA publishing has potential implications for researchers and tends to shift article-processing charges from organizations to individuals. Until the earth sciences community decides to move away from journal-based criteria to evaluate researchers, it is likely that such high costs will continue to maintain financial inequities within this research community, especially to the disadvantage of researchers from the least developed countries.

However, earth scientists, by opting for legal self- archiving of their publications, could help to promote equitable and sustainable access to, and wider dissemination of, their work.

URL : International disparities in open access practices in the Earth Sciences

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2021.e63663

Corpus d’enquêtes sur les pratiques d’information scientifique des chercheurs. Constitution et exploitation des données

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Autrices : Florence Thiault, Marie-Laure Malingre

Ce projet a pour ambition de recenser les principales enquêtes menées en France et à l’étranger sur les pratiques des chercheurs relatives à l’Information Scientifique et Technique (IST) dans une perspective méthodologique.

Ce data paper a pour objectif principal de présenter la constitution de notre corpus d’étude. Nous rappelons les différents choix de l’équipe projet quant à la collecte et au traitement des données.

Nous indiquons les possibilités de réutilisation et d’exploitation des fichiers qui sont associés au corpus initial. Nous exposons également les questionnements apparus lors de l’étude du corpus, ainsi que les perspectives d’analyse finale et méthodologique pour l’observation des pratiques d’information scientifique des chercheurs.

URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/12228

L’impact de la crise de la COVID-19 sur les pratiques et usages des prépublications des chercheurs en sciences du vivant et de la médecine : questionner leur légitimité

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Autrice/Author : Marie Vial–Bonacci

La COVID-19, pandémie mondiale, apparue dans la ville de Wuhan en Chine en novembre 2019, a engendré un bouleversement sans précédent de la communication scientifique. Cette crise sanitaire a incité les chercheurs à utiliser les serveurs de prépublications afin de communiquer plus rapidement les résultats scientifiques dans l’objectif de faire avancer la science.

Le présent mémoire tentera d’analyser et de mettre en lumière ces changements majeurs à travers une étude des modifications des pratiques et usages des prépublications depuis le début de la pandémie, à l’échelle internationale.

Cette perspective sera également étudiée à l’échelle nationale, à travers une enquête de terrain. Ce travail de recherche sera centré sur le secteur des sciences du vivant et de la médecine, un secteur qui n’utilise que très peu les prépublications mais qui connait une explosion de cette pratique avec la crise sanitaire. Plus encore ce mémoire tentera d’étudier l’évolution de leur légitimité pendant la pandémie.

URL: L’impact de la crise de la COVID-19 sur les pratiques et usages des prépublications des chercheurs en sciences du vivant et de la médecine : questionner leur légitimité

Original location : https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/70354-l-impact-de-la-crise-de-la-covid-19-sur-les-pratiques-et-usages-des-prepublications-des-chercheurs-en-sciences-du-vivant-et-de-la-medecine-questionner-leur-legitimite

More journal articles and fewer books: Publication practices in the social sciences in the 2010’s

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Authors : William E. Savage, Anthony J. Olejniczak

The number of scholarly journal articles published each year is growing, but little is known about the relationship between journal article growth and other forms of scholarly dissemination (e.g., books and monographs).

Journal articles are the de facto currency of evaluation and prestige in STEM fields, but social scientists routinely publish books as well as articles, representing a unique opportunity to study increased article publications in disciplines with other dissemination options.

We studied the publishing activity of social science faculty members in 12 disciplines at 290 Ph.D. granting institutions in the United States between 2011 and 2019, asking: 1) have publication practices changed such that more or fewer books and articles are written now than in the recent past?; 2) has the percentage of scholars actively participating in a particular publishing type changed over time?; and 3) do different age cohorts evince different publication strategies?

In all disciplines, journal articles per person increased between 3% and 64% between 2011 and 2019, while books per person decreased by at least 31% and as much as 54%. All age cohorts show increased article authorship over the study period, and early career scholars author more articles per person than the other cohorts in eight disciplines.

The article-dominated literatures of the social sciences are becoming increasingly similar to those of STEM disciplines.

URL : More journal articles and fewer books: Publication practices in the social sciences in the 2010’s

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263410