The Open Research Web: A Preview of the Optimal and the Inevitable

The multiple online research impact metrics we are developing will allow the rich new database , the Research Web, to be navigated, analyzed, mined and evaluated in powerful new ways that were not even conceivable in the paper era – nor even in the online era, until the database and the tools became openly accessible for online use by all: by researchers, research institutions, research funders, teachers, students, and even by the general public that funds the research and for whose benefit it is being conducted: Which research is being used most? By whom? Which research is growing most quickly? In what direction? under whose influence? Which research is showing immediate short-term usefulness, which shows delayed, longer term usefulness, and which has sustained long-lasting impact? Which research and researchers are the most authoritative? Whose research is most using this authoritative research, and whose research is the authoritative research using? Which are the best pointers (“hubs”) to the authoritative research? Is there any way to predict what research will have later citation impact (based on its earlier download impact), so junior researchers can be given resources before their work has had a chance to make itself felt through citations? Can research trends and directions be predicted from the online database? Can text content be used to find and compare related research, for influence, overlap, direction? Can a layman, unfamiliar with the specialized content of a field, be guided to the most relevant and important work? These are just a sample of the new online-age questions that the Open Research Web will begin to answer

Can alternative indicators overcome language biases in citation counts? A comparison of Spanish and UK research

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Springer in Scientometrics on 09/09/2016, available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-016-2118-8 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.This study compares Spanish and UK research in eight subject fields using a range of bibliometric and social media indicators. For each field, lists of Spanish and UK journal articles published in the year 2012 and their citation counts were extracted from Scopus. The software Webometric Analyst was then used to extract a range of altmetrics for these articles, including patent citations, online presentation mentions, online course syllabus mentions, Wikipedia mentions and Mendeley reader counts and Altmetric.com was used to extract Twitter mentions. Results show that Mendeley is the altmetric source with the highest coverage, with 80% of sampled articles having one or more Mendeley readers, followed by Twitter (34%). The coverage of the remaining sources was lower than 3%. All of the indicators checked either have too little data or increase the overall difference between Spain and the UK and so none can be suggested as alternatives to reduce the bias against Spain in traditional citation indexes

Can Web citations be a measure of impact? An investigation of journals in the life sciences

We examine traditional and Web citations to journal articles in biology and genetics. There is significant correlation between citations in these two formats. Journals with higher numbers of Web citations tend to have more citations indicating intellectual impact (citations from papers or class readings, in contrast to citations from bibliographic services or the author\u27s or journal\u27s home page). Web citations show a broader geographic coverage and capture a greater number and variety of uses of journal articles

Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades Digitales. Técnicas, herramientas y experiencias de e-Research e investigación en colaboración

Prólogos de Paul Spence y de Nuria Rodríguez Ortega.Autores de los capítulos: Esteban Romero Frías; Octavio Rubiera; Belén Álvarez; Carlos Arcila; Mabel Calderín Cruz; Luis Núñez; Ysabel Briceño; Elika Ortega; Silvia Eunice Gutiérrez; María Sánchez González; Daniel Villar-Onrubia; Juan M. García Sierra; Manuel D. Pérez Heredia; Javier Jiménez Cuadros; Patricia Lázaro Pernias; Daniel Tena Parera; David Roca Correa; Josep María Blanco Pont; Alfonso González Quesada; Álvaro Baraibar; Victoria Tur-Viñes; María del Carmen Quiles-Soler; José Manuel de Pablos; Ana María Rodera Bermúdez; Ana María González Ramos; Ernesto Priani Saisó.El desarrollo, a lo largo de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación ha transformado profundamente la sociedad, la academia y las formas de generación de conocimiento. El indiscutible impacto social de este fenómeno ha modificado significativamente las ciencias sociales y las humanidades, las cuales viven un tiempo de redefinición, cuestionamiento y puesta en valor en un contexto social cada vez más hiperconectado. Ello ha motivado el desarrollo de múltiples propuestas conceptuales que se han tratado de recoger, en este volumen, bajo la denominación de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades Digitales, queriendo abarcar una doble vía de reflexión, la que se desarrolla, por un lado, bajo las Humanidades Digitales y, por otro, bajo la e-Research. El libro pretende contribuir a mostrar las formas en las que las humanidades y las ciencias sociales en el contexto hispano están enfrentando un cambio de paradigma cultural motivado por la irrupción de las tecnologías digitales. Su objetivo es promover este tipo de investigación y visibilizar su comunidad de investigadores. El libro comienza con un capítulo introductorio sobre las Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades Digitales y se estructura en tres bloques. El primero, ―Investigaciones en torno al estado de la cuestión de las Humanidades Digitales y la e-Research‖ comprende tres capítulos en los que se aborda una panorámica de las Humanidades Digitales y de la e-Research en el contexto hispano. El segundo bloque, ―Potenciales usos de Internet y de la Web social para la investigación en ciencias sociales y humanidades‖, incluye, aportaciones que van desde los métodos (Big Data o Webmetría) hasta el análisis de fenómenos digitales (iniciativas P2P) pasando por algunas reseñas de proyectos. En el último bloque, ―Experiencias sobre investigación colaborativa y sobre enseñanza-aprendizaje en el contexto de la e-Research y las Humanidades Digitales‖, se aborda una propuesta de Tesis 2.0 y una experiencia de formación basada en TEI.La edición del presente libro ha sido posible gracias a la financiación recibida por el proyecto de I+D "Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades Digitales: casos, gestión y modelos de negocio", concedido por el Campus de Excelencia Internacional BioTic Granada. Dicho proyecto está vinculado a las actividades de GrinUGR - Colaboratorio sobre culturas digitales en ciencias sociales y humanidades.Web GrinUGR: http://grinugr.org

The effect of scholarly communication practices on engagement with open access: An Australian study of three disciplines

This dissertation addresses a specific aspect of the broad area of communication systems used among researchers. This research has undertaken to establish a broader view of the communication practices of scholars to understand the motivations behind their publication choices. Open access offers a solution to issues with the scholarly publication system such as delays in publication and restricted visibility of research due to high subscription costs. The principle of open access is to enable maximum access to findings from publicly funded research to maximise social returns on public investments. Despite the apparent benefits of open access, the uptake has been limited. ¶ This thesis research takes a holistic view of the researcher as a communicator to uncover the reasons why researchers are making the publishing decisions they are. In-depth interviews were conducted with 43 researchers in three disciplines at two institutions, the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales. The disciplines, Chemistry, Sociology and Computer Science, were known to have different publication practices, The questions asked about all aspects of researcher communication including researching, authoring, informal communication, article submission, refereeing, mentoring and data storage. ¶ ..