1. Updated Figures on the Scale and Nature of Researchers' Use of Scholarly Collaboration Networks
A new survey provides an updated view of how and why researchers are using scholarly collaboration networks. In his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, Charlie Rapple discusses the key findings of the report.
The blog post says (quote): Usage of SCNs is (probably) growing, and (probably) changing, with authors more actively using SCNs to access and upload work in a dissemination ecosystem completely separate to that provided by publishers and libraries. SCNs have become a major discovery channel, maximising visibility of research (good thing), albeit in a way that is largely uncounted by publishers, institutions and funders (bad thing, for authors too, as it further complicates their ability to get an overall sense of the readership of their work). As a publisher, if you haven’t already done so, it's worth auditing the extent to which your content is available, and within that, the level of copyright compliance (Hamid Jamali's recent study found that 51.3 percent of 392 non-OA full text articles in ResearchGate were non-compliant with publishers’ policy)………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Citations are more than merely assigning credit - their inclusion (or not) conditions how colleagues regard and evaluate your work
The significance of citations goes far beyond energising and rewarding academic competition. In his post in The Impact Blog, Patrick Dunleavy outlines why citations are so important; from setting up a specialist discourse in an economical and highly-focused manner, guiding readers seeking to follow your extended chain of reasoning, right through to showing you have comprehensively surveyed all relevant work and pointed out its consistencies (or otherwise) with your own findings.
The blog post says (quote): All academic research and argument has seven essential characteristics. It is formally stated. Each work contributes to an advanced and specialist conversation. And academic work tackles difficult issues. It forms part of a cumulative and collegial endeavour. Research is evidence-based, and its provenance can always be checked. Research is also demanding and consistent in assessing empirical "facts". All the features mean that referencing and citing are vital components of academic practice. The decisions that scientists and academics make about including or not including citations to support their arguments play a very important role in conditioning how their colleagues regard and evaluate their work………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Leverage ProQuest’s Patron Analytics
With ProQuest's Patron Analytics, one can skip the time-consuming process and dive straight into collecting real data by querying patrons directly through customisable surveys. This post in the ProQuest Blog, discusses the top three ways librarians around the world are putting this feature to work.
The blog post says (quote): Including a question about department will help to more closely tie usage to specific fields, revealing which fields are power users and which could use a nudge to take advantage of the wealth of resources available to them in the virtual stacks. Libraries often serve multiple physical locations. Including a question or two about campus (or office) location on your customised Patron Analytics survey can help you to determine if some geographic groups are underserved and might need new programs to help drive discovery and access. Libraries around the world are using Patron Analytics to eliminate the guesswork that often accompanies virtual service: WHO is the library serving? Students? Faculty members? Are they curating resources to share with students or working on research? If you are in the corporate world, are you serving mostly C-suite executives who disseminate the information to the rest of the company? Patron Analytics enables libraries to define the most fundamental traits of their users………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. A new gold standard of peer review is needed
Peer review fails peer review, and its own test of integrity and validation, and is one of the greatest ironies of the academic world. What we need is a new standard of peer review that is suitable for a Web-based world of scholarly communication. Jon Tennant, in his post in the ScienceOpen Blog, argues how something exclusive, secretive, and irreproducible could be considered as a gold standard of any sort.
The blog post says (quote): Open peer review is inclusive, as anyone can contribute to it, should they wish to. Open peer review is non-secretive, as you can see what is written and by whom. Open peer review is reproducible, because you can track the process from manuscript, through review sessions, and updated versions, as part of an iterative process. The whole process is more valid because you can see what referees say, who said it, what the changes made were as a result, if any. Any good peer review is a critical dialogue between authors, referees, and the Editor or editorial board. That discussion adds important context to research, irrespective of the differences between a submitted article and the final published version, and deserves to be published alongside articles………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Publishing in a Time of Information Warfare - A Wakeup Call
The information war requires changes - new research priorities, new personal and professional boundaries, higher editorial hurdles, and a hardened infrastructure. One new aspect of the information war is that individuals can become either witting or unwitting combatants in this new borderless war, notes Kent Anderson, in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): In addition to nation-states or criminal networks, profiteers are also at work, as with the so-called predatory publishers, who seek to use low barriers to entry in order to hoodwink some people, exploit others, and make a quick buck in the process. As a recent essay by Andy Nobes from INASP in Research Information reminds us, the Think. Check. Submit. campaign may be important to making sure that misinformation strategies don’t succeed in the research publication world, especially after Jeffrey Beall took his predatory journal lists offline. Nobes’ essay outlines a number of blindspots that exist among researchers, promotion and tenure committees, and editors, all of which remain exploitable by predatory journals and, by extension, partisans in the information war………………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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