How to do research on the societal impact of research? Studies from a semantic perspective

We review some recent works of our research lab that have applied novel text mining techniques to the issue of research impact assessment. The techniques are Semantic Hypergraphs and Lexicon-based Named Entity Recognition. By using these techniques, we address two distinct and open issues in research impact assessment: the epistemological and logical status of impact assessment, and the construction of quantitative indicators. © 2021 18th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, ISSI 2021. All rights reserved

Does the public discuss other topics on climate change than researchers? A comparison of explorative networks based on author keywords and hashtags

Twitter accounts have already been used in many scientometric studies, but the meaningfulness of the data for societal impact measurements in research evaluation has been questioned. Earlier research focused on social media counts and neglected the interactive nature of the data. We explore a new network approach based on Twitter data in which we compare author keywords to hashtags as indicators of topics. We analyze the topics of tweeted publications and compare them with the topics of all publications (tweeted and not tweeted). Our exploratory study is based on a comprehensive publication set of climate change research. We are interested in whether Twitter data are able to reveal topics of public discussions which can be separated from research-focused topics. We find that the most tweeted topics regarding climate change research focus on the consequences of climate change for humans. Twitter users are interested in climate change publications which forecast effects of a changing climate on the environment and to adaptation, mitigation and management issues rather than in the methodology of climate-change research and causes of climate change. Our results indicate that publications using scientific jargon are less likely to be tweeted than publications using more general keywords. Twitter networks seem to be able to visualize public discussions about specific topics.Comment: 31 pages, 1 table, and 7 figure

Are Altmetrics-traditional systems correlations affected by the journals' social media marketing plan? The journal Comunicar

En este estudio se analizan las correlaciones entre los datos aportados por los sistemas de citas tradicionales y las altmétricas de los artículos publicados durante cinco años en la revista Comunicar, que destaca sobre las demás de su área por su avanzado plan de marketing en medios sociales. Además, se presentan los indicadores que ofrecen datos altmétricos y se lleva a cabo una revisión bibliográfica sobre las publicaciones que han tratado el tema de las correlaciones, destacando relaciones débiles entre métricas tradicionales y altmétricas. Del estudio de correlaciones sobre los datos de la revista, se confirman las débiles relaciones entre los tipos de métricas y se concluye que son significativas para evaluar el nivel de atención que reciben las publicaciones en distintos ámbitos. Como recomendación a los investigadores y editores se destaca la importancia de utilizar los medios sociales, en especial Mendeley y Twitter, para dar visibilidad y difundir la producción científica.This study analyses the correlations between data provided by the traditional citation systems on one hand and altmetrics on the other hand, related to the articles published in the journal Comunicar during five years. This journal stands out among the others in its field due to its advanced social media marketing plan. First, a presentation of the most representative aspects of altmetrics is given, according to published studies. Next, a bibliographic review is carried out on the publications dealing with the subject of the correlations and that emphasize the low correlation between citations and altmetrics. With the aim of helping researchers to understand what they involved and how they are used for their own benefit, this review is followed by a cross-metric validation study of the articles that concludes that altmetrics do not measure the authors' scientific impact, but they are significant in assessing the level of attention received by their publications in different fields and indicate the interest and the importance of using social media, especially Mendeley and Twitter, to give visibility and disseminate their scientific outputs

A critical review on altmetrics: can we measure the social impact factor?

Altmetrics measure the digital attention received by a research output. They allow us to gauge the immediate social impact of an article by taking real-time measurements of how it circulates in the Internet. While there are several companies offering attention scores, the most extensive are Altmetric.com (Altmetric Attention Score—AAS) and Plum X (Plum Print). As this is an emerging topic, many medical specialities have tried to establish if there is a relationship between an article’s altmetric data and the citations it subsequently receives. The results have varied depending on the research field. In radiology, the social network most used is Twitter and the subspeciality with the highest AAS is neuroimaging. This article will review the process involved from the start when an article is published through to finally obtaining its altmetric score. It will also address the relationship between altmetrics and more traditional approaches focusing on citations in radiology and will discuss the advantages and limitations of these new impact indicators

How Do Researchers Achieve Societal Impact? Results of an Empirical Survey Among Researchers in Germany

How and under what conditions can academic research contribute to solving societal challenges? So far, research on this topic has focused on questions of impact measurability and the public perception of research, and far less on the question of how researchers themselves assess their societal impact. In the same way that it is important to understand how the public receives research, it is important to better understand how researchers anticipate the public and achieve societal impact in order to draft effective policies. In this article we report the results of an empirical survey among 499 researchers in Germany on their pathways to societal impact, i.e. their attitudes towards impact policies, their societal goals and use of engagement formats. We are able to show that most researchers regard societal engagement as part of their job and are generally in favor of impact evaluation. However, few think that societal impact is a priority at their institution, and fewer think that institutional communication departments reach relevant stakeholders in society. Moreover, we are able to show that impact goals differ greatly between disciplines and organizational types. Based on our results, we give recommendations for a governance of impact that is responsive to epistemic cultures and point towards avenues for further research

Training the next generation of plastics pollution researchers: tools, skills and career perspectives in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field

Plastics pollution research attracts scientists from diverse disciplines. Many Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are drawn to this field to investigate and subsequently mitigate the negative impacts of plastics. Solving the multi-faceted plastic problem will always require breakthroughs across all levels of science disciplinarity, which supports interdisciplinary discoveries and underpins transdisciplinary solutions. In this context, ECRs have the opportunity to work across scientific discipline boundaries and connect with different stakeholders, including industry, policymakers and the public. To fully realize their potential, ECRs need to develop strong communication and project management skills to be able to effectively interface with academic peers and non-academic stakeholders. At the end of their formal education, many ECRs will choose to leave academia and pursue a career in private industry, government, research institutes or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Here we give perspectives on how ECRs can develop the skills to tackle the challenges and opportunities of this transdisciplinary research field and how these skills can be transferred to different working sectors. We also explore how advisors can support an ECRs’ growth through inclusive leadership and coaching. We further consider the roles each party may play in developing ECRs into mature scientists by helping them build a strong foundation, while also critically assessing problems in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary context. We hope these concepts can be useful in fostering the development of the next generation of plastics pollution researchers so they can address this global challenge more effectively