1. To move towards a more open science, we must free the data
Data sharing is a key principle of open science, and research funders are increasingly including this as a condition of grant awards. Despite this, Jessica Couture, in her post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, reports on research that found little more than a quarter of relevant research projects to be compliant.
The blog post says (quote): To move toward more open science, scientists must take on some of the responsibility of learning about the benefits of data sharing and incorporating open science methods into their daily work. Creating data in a way that others can access and easily interpret may require an extra initial step, but it will reduce additional work down the road. Using data formats that are easy to share and read on multiple and open source platforms - for example, CSV files rather than MS Excel - and publishing data in open archives will also save time when other researchers or the funder request data. Refined data preparation protocols can also expedite the publication process, as many journals, similar to funders, now require proof of data publication………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Challenges for Academics in the Global South - Resource Constraints, Institutional Issues, and Infrastructural Problems
For social science and humanities researchers in many parts of the world there are significant barriers to conducting and sharing research, in some cases more so than for science and medicine. In his guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, Naveen Minai provides a perspective as a gender studies researcher in Pakistan.
The blog post says (quote): In addition, initiatives that aim to provide resources to scholars in the Global South by working with international publishers often have an emphasis on the fields of applied sciences, medicine, agriculture, and environment studies. Moreover, they often have an emphasis on policy-focused research, which is not always the focus for academics in the social sciences and the humanities. The problem of value is also manifested in costs: universities cannot afford to pay for subscriptions in currencies such as the US and Canadian dollars, Euros, or British pounds sterling because currencies from and of the Global South are weak. This is one reason why the availability of books and journals as open access is so important for so many researchers. However, open access is not the rule in globalised academic institutions (including university presses), and it can also be an expensive and difficult model even for academics in the Global North to implement and maintain………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Embedding Altmetric data and tools at the University of Reading
The University of Reading has had a subscription to Altmetic Explorer for over two years and they are now finding ways to embed the data in everyday activities surrounding research and research impact. In her guest post in the Altmetric Blog, Karen Rowlett discusses how their Altmetric tools and data are used to keep track of mentions of the University’s publications and uncover strategic insights.
The blog post says (quote): One of the more interesting ways in which they are using Altmetric data at Reading is to dig into the information available to find out who is blogging and tweeting about their content. This can be useful to create lists of like-minded Twitter users and to identify blogs that might be worth following or writing for. It is also great for compiling lists of mentions of the researchers' outputs in policy documents from organisations such as the WHO, FAO, NICE, World Bank and UK Government. They are doing this by importing lists of DOIs from targeted Scopus searches and then exporting the mentions into Excel sheets. By a bit of pivot table wizardry, it is possible to pull out the top news sources, tweeters and bloggers who are active in the selected research area. They are also using this approach, using data from Scopus and SciVal, to benchmark Altmetric activity so they can see how attention to the research outputs compares with those of the competitor institutions………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Creating a Culture of Knowledge Sharing: Improving your Productivity and your Bottom Line
It is difficult to quantify productivity or financial costs related to inefficient knowledge sharing. But a new research from The Panopto Workplace Knowledge and Productivity Report does just that, notes Jill Shuman, in her post in the CCC Blog.
The blog post says (quote): According to LinkedIn member data on half-a-billion professionals, worldwide turnover rate in 2017 was 10.9 percent - with technology and software as the highest sector for turnover. This is problematic, because each employee leaves with his own unique knowledge. If left uncaptured, coworkers need time to replicate that knowledge - typically a slow and inefficient process. Uncaptured unique knowledge can shut down an entire work stream, present obstacles to new employees and cause massive frustration among employees who no longer have access to their colleagues’ knowledge and experience………(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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