Deconstructing doctoral dissertations : how many papers does it take to make a PhD?

A collection of coauthored papers is the new norm for doctoral dissertations in the natural and biomedical sciences, yet there is no consensus on how to partition authorship credit between PhD candidates and their coauthors. Guidelines for PhD programs vary but tend to specify only a suggested range for the number of papers to be submitted for evaluation, sometimes supplemented with a requirement for the PhD candidate to be the principal author on the majority of submitted papers. Here I use harmonic counting to quantify the actual amount of authorship credit attributable to individual PhD graduates from two Scandinavian universities in 2008. Harmonic counting corrects for the inherent inflationary and equalizing biases of routine counting methods, thereby allowing the bibliometrically identifiable amount of authorship credit in approved dissertations to be analyzed with unprecedented accuracy. Unbiased partitioning of authorship credit between graduates and their coauthors provides a post hoc bibliometric measure of current PhD requirements, and sets a de facto baseline for the requisite scientific productivity of these contemporary PhD’s at a median value of approximately 1.6 undivided papers per dissertation. Comparison with previous census data suggests that the baseline has shifted over the past two decades as a result of a decrease in the number of submitted papers per candidate and an increase in the number of coauthors per paper. A simple solution to this shifting baseline syndrome would be to benchmark the amount of unbiased authorship credit deemed necessary for successful completion of a specific PhD program, and then monitor for departures from this level over time. Harmonic partitioning of authorship credit also facilitates cross-disciplinary and inter-institutional analysis of the scientific output from different PhD programs. Juxtaposing bibliometric benchmarks with current baselines may thus assist the development of harmonized guidelines and transparent transnational quality assurance procedures for doctoral programs by providing a robust and meaningful standard for further exploration of the causes of intra- and inter-institutional variation in the amount of unbiased authorship credit per dissertation.Paid Open Acces

Publishing a Master’s Thesis: A Guide for Novice Authors

Publication of original research, clinical experiences, and critical reviews of literature are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field, delivery of genetic counseling services, and professional development of genetic counselors. Busy clinical schedules, lack of time and funding, and training that emphasizes clinical skills over research skills may make it difficult for new genetic counselors to turn their thesis projects into publications. This paper summarizes and elaborates upon a presentation aimed at de-mystifying the publishing process given at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors Annual Education Conference. Specific topics include familiarizing prospective authors, particularly genetic counseling students, with the basics of the publication process and related ethical considerations. Former students’ experiences with publishing master’s theses also are described in hopes of encouraging new genetic counselors to submit for publication papers based on their thesis projects

Conducting Information Systems Research the Old-Fashioned Way

This research career retrospective summarizes the intellectual contributions of the author’s academic career, covering 35 years from the early 1980’s onwards. It also attends to various incidents and conditions that shaped his research career, as well as his research strategy choices that allowed him to overcome some of the challenges imposed by these conditions. These strategic choices comprised to do small research rather than big research and to privilege international collaboration over local collaboration

Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders: A systematic review of scholarly research on wikipedia readers and readership

Hundreds of scholarly studies have investigated various aspects of the immensely popular Wikipedia. Although a number of literature reviews have provided overviews of this vast body of research, none of them has specifically focused on the readers of Wikipedia and issues concerning its readership. In this systematic literature review, we review 99 studies to synthesize current knowledge regarding the readership of Wikipedia and also provide an analysis of research methods employed. The scholarly research has found that Wikipedia is popular not only for lighter topics such as entertainment, but also for more serious topics such as health information and legal background. Scholars, librarians and students are common users of Wikipedia, and it provides a unique opportunity for educating students in digital literacy. We conclude with a summary of key findings, implications for researchers, and implications for the Wikipedia community

Social shaping of digital publishing: exploring the interplay between culture and technology

The processes and forms of electronic publishing have been changing since the advent of the Web. In recent years, the open access movement has been a major driver of scholarly communication, and change is also evident in other fields such as e-government and e-learning. Whilst many changes are driven by technological advances, an altered social reality is also pushing the boundaries of digital publishing. With 23 articles and 10 posters, Elpub 2012 focuses on the social shaping of digital publishing and explores the interplay between culture and technology. This book contains the proceedings of the conference, consisting of 11 accepted full articles and 12 articles accepted as extended abstracts. The articles are presented in groups, and cover the topics: digital scholarship and publishing; special archives; libraries and repositories; digital texts and readings; and future solutions and innovations. Offering an overview of the current situation and exploring the trends of the future, this book will be of interest to all those whose work involves digital publishing

Open Access Publishing and Scholarly Communication Among Greek Biomedical Scientists

urpose: The purpose of this research is to study in what ways the open access publishing can improve the scholarly communtication among biomedical sciences in Greece over a period of about five years and provide new roles for health librarians to support open access.\ud Methods: The implementation of Critical Realism as research philosophy allowed the multi-level analysis of the research object; a mixture of research tools were used. Supplementary research methods were adopted to provide more accurate and reliable conclusions. The Literature review contributed to the identification of the open access publishing context and the relations which were forming and re-forming in it. Additionally, similar studies were found and the research gaps were identified as well. Bibliometrics demonstrated the participation of Greek scientists in world research could be evaluated. The research was conducted in five world databases (PUBMED, SCI, BIOMED CENTRAL, DOAJ, GOOGLE) for two different periods (2006-2007 and 2011). Publishers? aggrements provided information about the role of Greek biomedical publishers to the awareness of Greek biomedical scientists on journal related issues such as copyright. Additionally, and journal cost analysis presented publishers? subscription and open access policies and provided an approach of the costs requested for the access to journals. Web 2.0 offers new scholarly communication channels that seem to be cheaper and effective ones. The participation of Greek biomedical scientists in social networks such as ResearchGate, LinkedIn was analysed to evaluate the trends towards these new information sources. Case study methodology provided the qualitative and quantitative tools to explain the attitudes and awareness of Greek biomedical stakeholders about open access publishing and open access biomedical journals and also helped to the longitudinal study of the changes. A questionnaire survey among biomedical scientists took place in three phases (2007-early in 2010, September 2010 to May 2011). In addition, Greek biomedical publishers were interviewed in January and February 2010 .\ud Findings: The bibliometric findings indicated an increasing participation of Greek scientists and Greek biomedical journals in world research. Greek biomedical scientists also use social networking as a means of scholarly communication. The questionnaire surveys showed that the physicians are the most active researchers and more familiar with the open access publishing concept. However, across all the phases the majority of Greek biomedical scientists seem to be unaware of aspects of publishing in open access journals, although by the third phase more participants seem to be aware. Greek biomedical publishers seem to approve the deposit in repositories, and the self-archiving process under specific terms, because, the publishers? agreements analysis demonstrated, the publishers want to be the copyright holders and information about authors? rights is omitted. Biomedical scientists are confused over copyright. As far as cost analyses are concerned, the journal prices depend on the publisher (commercial or scientific) and the subscriber (the institutional prices are higher than individual ones). The findngs were interpreted according to Roger?s diffusion of innovations theory and Lewin?s force field analysis.\ud Conclusions: Open access seems to be acceptable in Greece but the stakeholders, including libraries, need to co-operate more. Greek academic biomedical libraries can actively reinforce the driving forces and reduce the restraining forces (around copyright, mainly) (Lewin?s Force Field Analysis) in order to move into the ?refreeze stage?. However, institutional repositories do seem to be an innovation that (according to Rogers? theory) will take time to develop

Congress UPV Proceedings of the 21ST International Conference on Science and Technology Indicators

This is the book of proceedings of the 21st Science and Technology Indicators Conference that took place in València (Spain) from 14th to 16th of September 2016. The conference theme for this year, ‘Peripheries, frontiers and beyond’ aimed to study the development and use of Science, Technology and Innovation indicators in spaces that have not been the focus of current indicator development, for example, in the Global South, or the Social Sciences and Humanities. The exploration to the margins and beyond proposed by the theme has brought to the STI Conference an interesting array of new contributors from a variety of fields and geographies. This year’s conference had a record 382 registered participants from 40 different countries, including 23 European, 9 American, 4 Asia-Pacific, 4 Africa and Near East. About 26% of participants came from outside of Europe. There were also many participants (17%) from organisations outside academia including governments (8%), businesses (5%), foundations (2%) and international organisations (2%). This is particularly important in a field that is practice-oriented. The chapters of the proceedings attest to the breadth of issues discussed. Infrastructure, benchmarking and use of innovation indicators, societal impact and mission oriented-research, mobility and careers, social sciences and the humanities, participation and culture, gender, and altmetrics, among others. We hope that the diversity of this Conference has fostered productive dialogues and synergistic ideas and made a contribution, small as it may be, to the development and use of indicators that, being more inclusive, will foster a more inclusive and fair world

Genre Archive: Bibliography

The Genre Archive, created by the English Language Institute at The University of Michigan, is a collection of around one thousand papers dealing in nearly all cases with some aspect or aspects of non-literary genres. The Archive was assembled by John Swales, his graduate students, and the visiting scholars who came to the institute, often supported by the H. Joan Morley Scholarship Fund, with the assistance of the staff of the ELI Library. The earliest papers are from the 1950s and the latest from 2007, but the majority are from the 1985 to 2005 period. Some are published papers; others dissertations or theses, or parts thereof; some are manuscripts, sometimes drafts of later publications and sometimes term papers or other coursework. Many of the last group have no date (n.d). This bibliography lists the papers contained in the Archive in alphabetical order by author, and then by year of publication. A few of the entries are highlighted in yellow, indicating that these papers themselves are currently missing. The Genre Archive exists solely in paper form and is housed at the ELI offices. Access to the Archive is available by appointment only. Researchers interested in visiting the Archive should email [email protected]. Unfortunately, we are not able to accept requests for scanned copies by mail or email or to otherwise circulate the contents of the Archive. (Introduction by John Swales)http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134394/1/ELI Genre Archive Bibliography 10-12-16.dochttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134394/2/ELI Genre Archive Bibliography.pdf-1Description of ELI Genre Archive Bibliography 10-12-16.doc : Genre Archive: Bibliography (Word Version)Description of ELI Genre Archive Bibliography.pdf : Genre Archive: Bibliography (pdf version