The internationalisation of academic publishing points to distinctly different audiences for scholarly books.

The importance of book publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities may be widely accepted, but what is the evidence of their impact? Frederik Verleysen and Tim Engels discuss the ways in which specific publications can have broad societal impact by catering to different audiences. Their recent study on the internationalisation of scholarly book publishing points to the broad spectrum of scholarly knowledge dissemination

Towards more consistent, transparent, and multipurpose national bibliographic databases for research output

National bibliographic databases for research output collect metadata on universities’ scholarly publications, such as journal articles, monographs, and conference papers. As this sort of research information is increasingly used in assessments, funding allocation, and other academic reward structures, the value in developing comprehensive and reliable national databases becomes more and more clear. Linda Sīle, Raf Guns and Tim Engels outline the challenges faced by those developing national bibliographic databases for research output, from the need for reliable (persistent) identifiers, through to the new and evolving contexts for data use

Publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities in Flanders and Poland

The authors would like to thank Ewa A. Rozkosz for her useful suggestions and remarks.This paper investigates internationalization patterns in the language and type of social sciences and humanities publications in non-English speaking countries. This research aims to demonstrate that such patterns are related not only to discipline but also to each country’s cultural and historic heritage. We used data from Flemish and Polish databases collected between 2009 and 2014. In Flanders, on the one hand, we found that changes in the use of languages and publication types were moderate and occurred gradually over several years. In Poland, on the other hand, we found significant shifts in the use of certain publication types, sometimes from year to year. Examining the social sciences and humanities literature both as a whole and broken down by discipline, we observed similar variability over time in the proportion of work published in English and in article form. However, we found remarkable differences between Flanders and Poland regarding the most commonly used languages and publication types. Overall, we found few similarities between Flemish and Polish social sciences and humanities publication patterns.The work of EK was supported by the National Programme for the Development of Humanities in Poland [grant number 0057/NPHR3/H11/82/2014]. The authors are indebted to COST Action CA1537 “European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and the Humanities” for supporting this work

Indicating interdisciplinarity: A multidimensional framework to characterize Interdisciplinary Knowledge Flow (IKF)

This study contributes to the recent discussions on indicating interdisciplinarity, i.e., going beyond mere metrics of interdisciplinarity. We propose a multi-dimensional and contextual framework to improve the granularity and usability of the existing methodology for quantifying the interdisciplinary knowledge flow (IKF) in which scientific disciplines import and export knowledge from/to other disciplines. To characterize the knowledge exchange between disciplines, we recognize three dimensions under this framework, namely, broadness, intensity, and heterogeneity. We show that each dimension covers a different aspect of IKF, especially between disciplines with the largest volume of IKF, and can assist in uncovering different types of interdisciplinarity. We apply this framework in two use cases, one at the level of disciplines and one at the level of journals, to show how it can offer a more holistic and detailed viewpoint on the interdisciplinarity of scientific entities than plain citation counts. We further compare our proposed framework, an indicating process, with established indicators and discuss how such information tools on interdisciplinarity can assist science policy practices such as performance-based research funding systems and panel-based peer review processes

Predatory open access journals in a performance-based funding model: common journals in Bealls list and in the VABB-SHW

This report gives the results of the comparison of Beall’s list of predatory open access journals with the VABB-SHW lists of journals – including all journals that are being or have been indexed in the Web of Science – as of July 2013. The report may facilitate the GP’s decision making. More generally, the report may raise awareness on the prevalence of predatory open access publishing in the social sciences and humanities in Flanders. The number of articles in predatory open access journals submitted to ECOOM-UAntwerpen by the universities in view of inclusion in the VABB-SHW is increasing in recent years. Whereas no publications in predatory open access journals appeared in 2000-2002, the yearly number remained below 5 in the period 2003-2009. In 2010 the number rose to 5, and then jumped to 15 in 2011 and 24 in 2012. This illustrates that in Flanders too predatory open access publishing is gaining ground. Nonetheless, the percentage of publications in predatory open access journals remains very small thus far (0.20%, the largest proportion for any year thus far, in 2012)

Identifying publications in questionable journals in the context of performance-based research funding

In this article we discuss the five yearly screenings for publications in questionable journals which have been carried out in the context of the performance-based research funding model in Flanders, Belgium. The Flemish funding model expanded from 2010 onwards, with a comprehensive bibliographic database for research output in the social sciences and humanities. Along with an overview of the procedures followed during the screenings for articles in questionable journals submitted for inclusion in this database, we present a bibliographic analysis of the publications identified. First, we show how the yearly number of publications in questionable journals has evolved over the period 2003–2016. Second, we present a disciplinary classification of the identified journals. In the third part of the results section, three authorship characteristics are discussed: multi-authorship, the seniority–or experience level–of authors in general and of the first author in particular, and the relation of the disciplinary scope of the journal (cognitive classification) with the departmental affiliation of the authors (organizational classification). Our results regarding yearly rates of publications in questionable journals indicate that awareness of the risks of questionable journals does not lead to a turn away from open access in general. The number of publications in open access journals rises every year, while the number of publications in questionable journals decreases from 2012 onwards. We find further that both early career and more senior researchers publish in questionable journals. We show that the average proportion of senior authors contributing to publications in questionable journals is somewhat higher than that for publications in open access journals. In addition, this paper yields insight into the extent to which publications in questionable journals pose a threat to the public and political legitimacy of a performance-based research funding system of a western European region. We include concrete suggestions for those tasked with maintaining bibliographic databases and screening for publications in questionable journals

Predatory open access journals in a performance-based funding model: common journals in Bealls list and in the VABB-SHW

This report gives the results of the comparison of Beall’s list of predatory open access journals with the VABB-SHW lists of journals – including all journals that are being or have been indexed in the Web of Science – as of July 2013. The report may facilitate the GP’s decision making. More generally, the report may raise awareness on the prevalence of predatory open access publishing in the social sciences and humanities in Flanders. The number of articles in predatory open access journals submitted to ECOOM-UAntwerpen by the universities in view of inclusion in the VABB-SHW is increasing in recent years. Whereas no publications in predatory open access journals appeared in 2000-2002, the yearly number remained below 5 in the period 2003-2009. In 2010 the number rose to 5, and then jumped to 15 in 2011 and 24 in 2012. This illustrates that in Flanders too predatory open access publishing is gaining ground. Nonetheless, the percentage of publications in predatory open access journals remains very small thus far (0.20%, the largest proportion for any year thus far, in 2012)

Are book publications disappearing from scholarly communication in the social sciences and humanities?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business and history. Design/methodology/approach – Comprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS). These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of scholarly publications in each of these countries. Findings – As expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied. In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book publishing is not disappearing from an SSH. Research limitations/implications – The results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish scholarly evaluation system has influenced scholarly publication patterns considerably, while in the other countries the variations are manifested only slightly. The authors conclude that generalizations like “performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) are bad for book publishing” are flawed. Research evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and social roles it serves in an SSH.Originality/value – The authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing. The authors show that there is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH.This work is conducted within the framework of the COST action “European Network for Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities” (ENRESSH, CA15137, enressh.eu). Tim Engels thanks the Flemish Government for its financial support to the Centre for R&D Monitoring (ECOOM)