Authority of assertion in repository contributions to the PID graph

The principles surrounding Linked Open Data (LOD) and their implementation within digital libraries are well understood. Such LOD implementations may remain challenging, but successes are now well documented and continue to demonstrate the benefits of disseminating and enriching existing metadata with improved semantics and relational associations [1]. Often facilitated in machine-readability enhancements to metadata by harnessing serializations of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and its reliance of URIs, these LOD approaches have ensured digital libraries – and similar GLAMR initiatives elsewhere – contribute to the growing knowledge graphs associated with the wider semantic web by declaring statements of fact about web entities. Within open scholarly ecosystems a growing use of persistent identifiers (PIDs) to define and link scholarly entities has emerged, e.g. DOIs, ORCIDs, etc.. The requirement for greater URI persistence has been motivated by several developments within the scholarly space; suffice to state that, when combined with appropriate structured data, PIDs can support improvements to resource discovery, as well as facilitate contributions to the ‘PID graph’ – a scholarly data graph describing and declaring associative relations between scholarly entities [2]. While the increased adoption of PIDs has the potential to transform scholarship, ensuring that these PIDs are used appropriately, encoded correctly within metadata, and that all relevant relational associations between scholarly entities are declared presents challenges. This is especially true within open scholarly repositories, from where many contributions to the PID graph will be made but – unlike many LOD contexts – from where the authority to assert specific relations may not always exist. Such declarations need to demonstrate reliability and provenance and are central to the interlinking of heterogeneous textual objects, datasets, software, research instruments, equipment, and the related PIDs these items may generate, such as for people, organizations, or other abstract entities. This paper will explore the issues that arise when levels of authority to assert are lacking or are uncertain, and review results from a related study exploring the ‘PID literacy’ of scholars [3]. If the PID graph is to demonstrate reliable growth and adequate relational depth, it will be necessary for scholars to interact meaningfully with PID centric systems and to demonstrate a level of ‘PID literacy’ in their (re)use and creation of PIDs, thereby supporting wider repository metadata initiatives designed to improve research discovery and any relational declarations to the PID graph. In other words, the creation of repository metadata – and scholarly object metadata more generally – is increasingly participatory, requiring scholars to declare relational associations so that repository systems in turn enjoy authority to assert relations. Our work suggests that digital scholarship deficiencies among scholars, including a lack of PID literacy, has the potential to undermine these metadata initiatives, with poor levels of understanding among scholars of why PID referencing is necessary, even for ubiquitous types such as DOIs and ORCIDs [3]. Low levels of scholars’ PID literacy is part of wider concern surrounding scholars’ open research practices, particularly surrounding transparency and reproducibility [4]. We consider some of the disciplinary differences to be observed between scholars and explore possible solutions

Measuring the concept of PID literacy : user perceptions and understanding of persistent identifiers in support of open scholarly infrastructure

The increasing centrality of persistent identifiers (PIDs) to scholarly ecosystems and the contribution they can make to the burgeoning 'PID graph' has the potential to transform scholarship. Despite their importance as originators of PID data, little is known about researchers' awareness and understanding of PIDs, or their efficacy in using them. In this article we report on the results of an online interactive test designed to elicit exploratory data about researcher awareness and understanding of PIDs. This instrument was designed to explore recognition of PIDs (e.g. DOIs, ORCIDs, etc.) and the extent to which researchers correctly apply PIDs within digital scholarly ecosystems, as well as measure researchers' perceptions of PIDs. Our results reveal irregular patterns of PID understanding and certainty across all participants, though statistically significant disciplinary and academic job role differences were observed in some instances. Uncertainty and confusion were found to exist in relation to dominant schemes such as ORCID and DOIs, even when contextualized within real-world examples. We also show researchers' perceptions of PIDs to be generally positive but that disciplinary differences can be noted, as well as higher levels of aversion to PIDs in specific use cases and negative perceptions where PIDs are measured on an 'activity' semantic dimension. This work therefore contributes to our understanding of scholars' 'PID literacy' and should inform those designing PID-centric scholarly infrastructures, that a significant need for training and outreach to active researchers remains necessary

Research contributions to Sustainable Development Goals: a comparison using the main bibliometric suites.

<p>The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set an ambitious plan for society to create a world in which nobody is excluded. United Nations addressed all its country members to work on the achievement of the 17 goals that encompass 169 targets. The present bibliometric analysis summarises the research published globally on these universal goals. This analysis includes data from Web of Science, Scopus, and Dimensions. This is the first macro-level bibliometric assessment of InCites, SciVal and Dimensions Analytics between 2011-2020. SciVal captures the highest number of publications related to the SDGs, with Dimensions and InCites following behind. The publication results from SciVal and InCites have a very strong relation (0.93), allowing for the conclusion that both might be comparable. The two databases are well-accepted for being the most comprehensive citation databases with similar publication coverage. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to analyse the indicators related to the SDGs publications. This research suggests that statistical procedures can help us simplify complex and large numbers of indicators and reveal connections to Sustainable Development Goals.</p&gt

Innovative means of communicating research findings on Sustainable Development Goals

Sustainable Development Goals have recently entered into our lives and made us to realise how important they are for the development of our society. With this work, I intend to show the trends in scholarly communication about Sustainable Development Goals using Dimensions database. Has there been a proliferation of Preprints? Alternatively, Journals continue occupying their star role? How open access means have performed on these issues. Has there been greater international cooperation? What comes after the SDGs? Can publications help us to figure this out