1. The Open Syllabus Project, Altmetrics, and a New Dataset
The Open Syllabus Project has created a database of over 1 million college syllabuses and extracted the names of the materials used in these courses. These materials are analyzed quantitatively and ranked. The creators of the service propose a new metric for the evaluation of academic publications, notes Joseph Esposito, in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): The value of JIF lies primarily in the fact that it is an administrative shorthand used by promotion committees. It has value in itself, but its outsized value lies outside the journals themselves and their publishers (who of course are blamed for everything). There are many currencies in the world, but what do you do when you pull into a gas station and they only take American? Different metrics measure different things for different audiences. A new thing, a new metric, can have value without negating the things that came before it. I am reminded of TED founder Richard Saul Wurman’s remark that we live in "the age of also"...........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Are scientific findings exaggerated? Study finds steady increase of superlatives in PubMed abstracts.
Are scientists using language aimed at convincing editors and reviewers to publish their work? Joeri Tijdink, Christiaan Vinkers and Wim Otte, in their post in The Impact Blog, present findings which suggest a rise in potentially exaggerated language. Potentially conflicting with the core values of science, the pressure to publish in high impact publications may be contributing to a paradigm of over-interpretation, overstatement and misreporting of scientific results.
The blog post says (quote): There is a well-known tendency in people to use positive words, and exaggeration of research related news has previously been linked to overstatements in academic press releases (Sumner 2014). In order to examine the use of superlatives in science, we used a data-driven approach examining trends in the use of positively and negatively valenced words in PubMed abstracts and titles over the past four decades. We hypothesised that the emergence of a 'publish or perish' culture aimed at productivity and novelty could have affected the use of positive and negative words in scientific reporting and discussion...........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Revisiting: The Problem(s) With Credit for Peer Review
Do we need a metric for everything? Many activities of a researcher are done as a service to one's community, not out of an expectation that they will lead to financial reward or career advancement. Do we really need to turn philanthropic volunteerism into a carefully tracked and rated competitive exercise? David Crotty, in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, looks at if we need more metrics, or can some questions be answered more easily?
The blog post says (quote): Perhaps the biggest problem of all comes when we ask the simple question that must always be asked when new changes to the academic career structure or the scholarly publishing ecosystem are proposed: Who cares? Not "who cares" as in "peer review is unimportant and no one should care about it", but "who cares" as in "who exactly are we asking to grant credit here?" As we are constantly reminded, the two things that matter most to academic researchers are career advancement and funding (and the more cynical among us suspect that the former is primarily dependent on one's ability to secure the latter)...........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free
Publishing an open-access paper in a journal can be prohibitively expensive. Some researchers are drumming up support for a movement to change that. Imagine you’ve spent the last few years writing a manuscript. You submit it to a publisher, and they make you an offer: They'll print it, but once it's published, they own your work. They'll sell it to people who want to read it, but you won't see any of the profits. Alternatively, if you pay the publisher to print your work, they'll release it to the public for free, notes Jane C. Hu, in her post in the Atlantic Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Johan Rooryck, the former editor-in-chief of Lingua and the current editor-in-chief of Glossa, refers to hybrid journals as "double-dipping journals" because they profit from both APCs and subscriptions. Though Elsevier's official policy states that the company does not charge subscribers for open-access papers, many scientists share Rooryck's view of hybrid journals as a money grab. Last February, some vented their frustrations by poking fun at the company with the hashtag #ElsevierValentines (one highlight: "Roses are red / Violets are blue / We've gone open access / So authors pay too!")...........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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