Publications

Open Access is a global cause with the aim of allowing unrestricted access to all scientific research output in electronic formats. This paper presents a model for simulating the game of interests behind this cause in order to investigate ways of promoting the practice of open access. The model represents the following actors: Academics, Administrators, Funders, Publishers and Politicians. Five scenarios were developed to represent both realistic and ideal, interesting, situations. The model was developed using the SocLab platform—a formalization of the sociology of organizational action. It is based on previous descriptions of the game and expert knowledge. A structural analysis permits us to examine the properties of the sub-model behind each scenario. The results corroborate certain intuitions about the scenarios representing realistic cases, e.g., they indicate that publishers, being isolated in their interests, are subject to strong pressures from other actors, who have a circumstantial alliance. Administrators take an intermediate stance in all scenarios. The best scenarios for open access are those in which Politicians and Funders clearly support the cause by expressing mandates in that direction, backing academics. Surprisingly, the model shows that it is in the Publishers’ interest not to take an extremist position against open access. Full article

The purpose of this study is to map the practices regarding open educational resources’ (OERs) development and implementation at European higher education institutions (HEIs) in the field of library and information science (LIS) during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify the challenges and obstacles to their full and optimal utilization, both during crisis situations and beyond. A systematic literature review and questionnaire-based survey yielded results from 56 European LIS schools/departments (n = 56). Statistical analysis was performed using the R programming language, and descriptive statistics were used to quantify the data sets. The results have shown that the COVID-19 pandemic served as an impetus for the adoption of OERs, particularly in the context of digital education (DE) and remote learning. However, there is still a lack of awareness of the many benefits and opportunities they provide to higher education, as evidenced by the fact than less than half LIS schools/departments used OERs. Certain issues were identified, such as the lack of institutional policies regarding OERs, inadequate peer-review of OERs, and, in most cases, the absence of monitoring and evaluation practices for OERs. The results and insights from this study can be used to improve all aspects of OERs’ implementation and thus accelerate their adoption, both with regard to LIS schools/departments and other fields. Further research into the topic through interviews and focus groups should provide a deeper understanding of opportunities, challenges and practices surrounding the adoption of OERs in the field of LIS education. Full article

The article’s purpose is an analysis of the citation impact of scientific publications by authors of different gender compositions. The page method was chosen to calculate the citation impact of scientific publications, and the obtained results allowed to estimate the impact of the scientific publications based on the number of citations. The normalized citation impact is calculated according to nine subsets of scientific publications that correspond to patterns of different gender compositions of authors. Also, these estimates were calculated for each country with which the authors of the publications are affiliated. The Citation database, Network Dataset (Ver. 13), was chosen for the scientometric analysis. The dataset includes more than 5 million scientific publications and 48 million citations. Most of the publications in the dataset are from the STEM field. The results indicate that articles with a predominantly male composition are cited more than articles with a mixed or female composition of authors in this direction. Analysis of advantages in dynamics indicates that in the last decade, in developed countries, there has been a decrease in the connection between the citation impact of scientific publications and the gender composition of their authors. However, the obtained results still confirm the presence of gender inequality in science, which may be related to socioeconomic and cultural characteristics, natural homophily, and other factors that contribute to the appearance of gender gaps. An essential consequence of overcoming these gaps, including in science, is ensuring the rights of people in all their diversity. Full article

The current publishing landscape perpetuates biases that continue to exclude those who have been previously marginalized, specifically from the Global South including Africa. Incorporating philanthropy as the only driving principle to openly share knowledge is insufficient to truly empower and be inclusive to those who have been relegated to the periphery of the scholarly communication ecosystem. Social justice principles have to underpin the foundation of this ecosystem, in tandem with philanthropy, to shed light on these exclusionary, systemic publishing practices and processes. This will entail first breaking down these unfair practices and then rebuilding the ecosystem by advancing equity, diversity and inclusion. This paper highlights the current gaps in the openness movement and demonstrates, through an exemplar of a publishing platform, how the publishing landscape can be transformed. The publishing platform employs a multi-tenant model that enables multiple institutions to publish and disseminate knowledge on one shared instance of the software. The continental platform and the tenant model that it utilizes address the technological and infrastructural barriers often experienced in the Global South and Africa, while simultaneously serving as a collective hub for hosting African scholarship. This case study methodology is used to investigate how the alternate publishing route recaptures the philanthropic pillars of the openness movement. The findings provide evidence for a return to the founding principles of the openness movement and, as importantly, demonstrates the impact of open access on student success. Full article

Born-digital content is rapidly becoming the norm for literary works, professional reports, academic journal articles, and formal corporate correspondence. From the perspective of digital forensics, there is a need to understand the origin of a document and its entire creation process, from outlining and drafting to editing the final version of the text. Revision save identifier (RSID) numbers embedded in MS Word documents have been used to examine the nature and extent of individual edits within a document. These RSIDs remain logged in the metadata even if the text with which they were associated has been removed. As copies of such files retain the original’s RSIDs, this metadata can be used to determine the order in which documents were cloned from each other. As a proof-of-concept, this paper examined over 400 template files generated by a single publisher for manuscript submissions to its journals. The study can show that it is possible to establish genealogies and thus relative chronologies of born digital content by first identifying those documents that share a document (root) RSID and then seriating those RSIDs that are shared between two or more documents. Full article

What are the essential abilities that make proficient book review editors? They should preferably be a seasoned reviewer themselves, with the ability to read a book and write a review in short time in an emergency. They will develop a group of trusted reviewers—the ‘regulars’—which may include the editors themselves. However, there will also be a blacklist of failed reviewers not to be approached again. Recognising that book reviews were dropped by many journals, which were commonly wanting more printed space for research articles, does not mean that they will not be needed in the future. In the age of online publication, page space is no longer a valid limitation. If they are not on board already, electronic journals should be appointing new book review editors and expecting an influx of copy. Full article

The concept of evaluation gaps captures potential discrepancies between what researchers value about their research, in particular research quality, and what metrics measure. The existence of evaluation gaps can give rise to questions about the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to perform research, i.e., how field-specific notions of quality compete with notions captured via evaluation metrics, and consequently how researchers manage the balancing act between intrinsic values and requirements of evaluation procedures. This study analyses the evaluation gap from a rational choice point of view for the case of observational astronomers, based on a literature review and 19 semi-structured interviews with international astronomers. On the basis of the institutional norms and capital at play in academic astronomy, I shed light on the workings of the balancing act and its consequences on research quality in astronomy. I find that astronomers experience an anomie: they want to follow their intrinsic motivation to pursue science in order to push knowledge forward, while at the same time following their extrinsic motivation to comply with institutional norms. The balancing act is the art of serving performance indicators in order to stay in academia, while at the same time compromising research quality as little as possible. Gaming strategies shall give the appearance of compliance, while institutionalised means to achieve a good bibliometric record are used in innovative ways, such as salami slicing or going for easy publications. This leads to an overall decrease in research quality. Full article

There is a noticeable paucity of recently published research on the roles and responsibilities of peer reviewers for international journals. Concurrently, the pool of these peer reviewers is decreasing. Using a narrative research method developed by the author, this study questioned these roles and responsibilities through the author’s assessment in reviewing for five publishing houses July–December 2022, in comparison with two recent studies regarding peer review, and the guidelines of the five publishing houses. What should be most important in peer review is found discrepant among the author, those judging peer review in these publications, and the five publishing houses. Furthermore, efforts to increase the pool of peer reviewers are identified as ineffective because they focus on the reviewer qua reviewer, rather than on their primary role as researchers. To improve consistency, authors have regularly called for peer review training. Yet, this advice neglects to recognize the efforts of journals in making their particular requirements for peer review clear, comprehensive and readily accessible. Consequently, rather than peer reviewers being trained and rewarded as peer reviewers, journals are advised to make peer review a requirement for research publication, and their guidelines necessary reading and advice to follow for peer reviewers. Full article

Scientific activity in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) presents special characteristics that require the use of various sources and methodologies to adequately assess its impact and influence on both academic and non-academic audiences. This study aims to explore the validity of traditional and alternative information sources for the analysis of the characteristics of HSS research and its academic impact and influence (considering social, media, informative and political influence). It is also intended to highlight the differences between Humanities (H) and Social Sciences (SS) and analyse the variables that determine the different types of impact and influence of research in each of them. The following sources of information are used: Web of Science, conCIENCIA (institutional database), Google Scholar, Unpaywall, Altmetric.com and Overton, focused on the study of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The results obtained show that institutional sources make local research visible, which has high percentages of open access. The usefulness of alternative sources to measure social, media, informative and political influence is verified, since HSS publications have an important number of mentions. Significant differences are observed between H and SS in terms of publication coverage (higher in H in the institutional database), language (more Spanish in H), open access (higher percentages in SS) and impact measured through conCIENCIA (the greatest number of documents with a high impact is found in H). In addition, the influence on non-academic audiences is increased by the international orientation of research, the greater academic impact, the participation of SS centres and the immediacy of publications. This study is a starting point for future research, as it explores several tools and data sources to analyse the influence of HSS research on different audiences. A comprehensive analysis will also facilitate the proposal of new metrics applied to the HSS assessment, highlighting its importance for society as a whole. Full article

Undergraduate Research (UR) is an institutional program that introduces undergraduate students to scientific research. The program selects research projects proposed by advisors and students for execution. Despite the importance of knowing the stages of research activities in undergraduate research, only a few studies have evaluated data on this subject. Therefore, this study aims to outline an overview of UR in a Brazilian educational institution, considering the profiles of students and advisors, students’ scientific productions, and perceptions about the experience of both. The study was a mixed-approach case study conducted through a questionnaire and interviews. The sample consisted of 213 undergraduate students and 167 UR supervisors. The results show that the largest group of students were aged 21 and 22 (46.6%) and supervisors 33 to 38 years (38.9%). Regarding the scientific productions of students, those who participated twice or more in undergraduate research had higher indicators compared to those who were participating for the first time. Students’ perceptions of their evolution and perceptions of the advisors were mostly positive, with a greater number of responses classified as very good to good. Thus, the satisfaction of researchers in being part of this experience was perceived and the need to improve the scientific production indicators of students, mediated by the advisors stimulating the writing of articles, abstracts, and books, as well as participation in events and patent development, was shown. We conclude that undergraduate research activities promote the integral development of students’ academic, scientific, personal, and professional terms, which ultimately reflect critical and emancipatory actions in society. Full article

(1) Background: The 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative recommended the self-archiving of scientific articles in open repositories, which has been described as the “green road” to open access. Twenty years later, only one part of the researchers deposits their publications in open repositories; moreover, one part of the repositories’ content is not based on self-archived deposits but on mediated nonfaculty contributions. The purpose of the paper is to provide more empirical evidence on this situation and to assess the impact on the future of the green road. (2) Methods: We analyzed the contributions to the French national HAL repository from more than 1000 laboratories affiliated with the ten most important French research universities, with a focus on 2020, representing 14,023 contributor accounts and 164,070 deposits. (3) Results: We identified seven different types of contributor accounts, including deposits from nonfaculty staff and import flows from other platforms. Mediated nonfaculty contributions (deposits by libraries, import of bibliographic records, migration from other platforms, etc.) account for at least 48% of the 2020 deposits. We also identified differences between institutions and disciplines. (4) Conclusions: Our empirical results reveal a transformation of open repositories from self-archiving and direct scientific communication towards research information management. Repositories like HAL are somewhere in the middle of the process. The paper describes data quality as the main issue and major challenge of this transformation. Full article

This article presents a commentary on the recent resurgence of interest in the practice of rights retention in scholarly publishing. Led in part by the evolving European policy landscape, rights retention seeks to ensure immediate access to accepted manuscripts uploaded to repositories. The article identifies a trajectory in the development of rights retention from something that publishers could previously ignore to a practice they are now forced to confront. Despite being couched in the neoliberal logic of market-centric policymaking, I argue that rights retention represents a more combative approach to publisher power by institutions and funders that could yield significant benefits for a more equitable system of open access publishing. Full article

Researchers primarily dedicate their time to teaching in Latin American universities. For this reason, it is essential to determine how teaching time affects (or contributes to) the scientific productivity of researchers working under these conditions. We analyzed the incidence of gender, groups taught at undergraduate and graduate levels, the researcher proficiency level, and the number of thesis students advised, among others, for the impact on the scientific productivity (annual publications) of a group of professors. We analyzed the data using both statistical and regression methods. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, the number of groups taught does not significantly influence research productivity; it is affected by other factors such as belonging to the Mexican Researcher System (SNI) or having a researcher or administrative position at the institution. Our results can help guide the formulation of academic and research policies that contribute to the scientific productivity of Latin American universities. Full article

Previous analysis has shown that the use of narrative devices in the biomedical literature has changed over time. The purpose of the present study was to measure the degree of narrativity in corpora of scientific abstracts obtained from Pubmed through the use of a proprietary software LIWC 2022, which, based on pre-set dictionaries, attributes scores for Staging, Plot Progression and Cognitive Tension to texts. Each text is automatically divided into a number of segments, so that the score change can be assessed throughout the different parts of a text, thus identifying its narrative arc. We systematically applied the scoring system to a corpus of 680,000 abstracts from manuscripts of any kind and genre published in the years 1989–2022 and indexed in MEDLINE, an independent corpus of 680,000 abstracts of Primary studies published in the same years, and finally a corpus of 680,000 abstracts of Review papers that appeared in the 1989–2022 interval. We were able to create plots of the pattern of how these three scores changed over time in each corpus and observed that the prototypical pattern observed in narrative texts, e.g., novels, is not seen in abstracts of the scientific literature, which, however, mostly possess a diverse but quite reproducible pattern. Overall, Reviews better conform to a higher degree of narrativity than Primary studies. Full article

Although ambiguity in written, oral, and visual communication is inevitably present across all human societies and cultures, variation among these societies and cultures occurs in the sociocultural causes of its existence. This study helps formulate a conceptual framework that enables the enrichment of knowledge about this variation. It takes a first step by highlighting Arab-specific reasons behind ambiguity in academic writings in humanities and social sciences. The investigation entails thematically analysing the thoughts of 905 Arabs in academia. The findings point to a ‘doing-the-minimum’ mentality, whereby one may act hastily and impatiently and do just enough for one’s manuscript to be published in any journal, thereby rushing into publication while skimping on quality and diminishing attention to manuscript clarity. Another finding is the ambition for rewards that Arab institutions assign to publication, whereby one may boost their publication records to reap these rewards, resulting in high quantity while sacrificing quality (e.g., clarity). Another reason discovered is the conceptualisation of writing as a formulaic and ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ task (templates to be completed and, thus, manuscripts to be constructed), instilling a focus on technicality instead of cognitive depth and clarity. An additional reason found is the passive application of foreign theories and conceptual frameworks without subjecting them to critical reflection, reapplying foreign surveys and mimicking survey-based articles, thereby making their articles culturally shallow, suffer from cultural irrelevance, and thus, ambiguity. This is along with the integration of poetry (wherein ambiguity is culturally viewed as desirable and showing poets to be sophisticated) into Arabs’ daily social and educational lives and mindsets, encouraging the acceptability of ambiguity as a possible linguistic quality in scholarly writing as well. The social context lacks direct, explicit, and free articulation, encouraging one to resort to roundabout ways of composing their manuscripts, thus, making the manuscripts fall into ambiguity. Full article

An alive publication is a new genre for presenting the results of scientific research, where the scientific work is published online, and then is constantly being developed and improved by its author. Serious errors and typos are no longer fatal, nor do they haunt the author for the rest of his or her life. The reader of an alive publication knows that the author is constantly monitoring changes occurring in this branch of science. Alive publication faces the inertia of scientific publishing traditions and, in particular, traditional bibliometrics. Unfortunately, at present, the author who supports an alive publication is dramatically losing out on many generally accepted bibliometric indicators. The alive publication encourages the development of the bibliography apparatus. Each bibliographic reference will soon have to contain on-the-fly attributes such as attendance, number of external links, date of the last revision, etc. In the opinion of the writer of these lines, as the alive publication spreads over to the scientific world, the author’s concern for the publication’s evolution will become like a parent’s care for the development of a child. The Internet will be filled with scientific publications that do not lose their relevance with time. Full article

Science is an international effort, receiving contributions from researchers across the globe. The capacity of a country or a region to generate and publish quality research varies greatly according to the location examined. Among the factors that dictate the quantity and quality of scientific research are the availability of infrastructure and human resources, the traditions related to research endeavors, and, most significantly, local governmental support for research. There are several conditions that both individually and cooperatively limit research activities in Latin America, such as insufficient governmental support, a paucity of material and technical resources, heavy teaching loads, the absence of peer networks, and multiple constraints on publication. This commentary has been developed to discuss each of the issues that permit and, more frequently, limit biological and agricultural research endeavors in Latin America. Full article