Le français, langue seconde? : de l’évolution des lieux et langues de publication des chercheurs québécois, français, et allemands

Depuis la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, la diffusion des connaissances dans les disciplines des sciences naturelles et médicales est dominée par l’anglais. Toutefois, dans les sciences sociales et humaines, on considère généralement les langues nationales comme étant beaucoup plus importantes, compte tenu de l’aspect plus localisé de leurs objets. Afin de mieux comprendre l’évolution de la place de l’anglais dans ces disciplines, cet article analyse, pour les chercheurs québécois, français et allemands, la langue de diffusion des revues et articles, l’effet de la langue sur la réception des travaux et, enfin, la relation entre le pays d’origine de la revue et l’aspect national des objets d’étude. Nos résultats montrent la montée de l’anglais pour chacun des trois pays et dans tous les domaines et même dans les revues nationales, la plus grande visibilité des travaux en anglais, et la forte relation entre les revues nationales et les objets nationaux, particulièrement au Québec. L’article conclut avec une discussion des causes et conséquences du phénomène.Since the end of the Second World War, the spread of knowledge in the disciplines of the natural and medical sciences has been dominated by English. However, in the social sciences and humanities, national languages are generally considered to be much more determining, given the more localized focus of the subjects of these disciplines. To better understand the evolution of the place of English in these disciplines, this article analyzes, for Quebec, French and German researchers, the language in which the journals and articles of these disciplines are disseminated, the effect of the language on the reception of works and, finally, the relationship between the journal’s country of origin and the national aspect of the objects of study. Our results show the rise of English for each of the three countries, in all domains and even in national journals, greatest visibility for works published in English, and a strong relationship between national journals and national subjects, particularly in Quebec. The article concludes with a discussion of the causes and consequences of the phenomenon

PhD students’ excellence scholarships and their relationship with research productivity, scientific impact, and degree completion

This paper examines the relationship between excellence scholarships and research productivity, scientific impact, and degree completion. Drawing on the entire population of doctoral students in the province of Québec, this paper analyzes three distinct sources of data: students, excellence scholarships, and scientific publications. It shows that funded students publish more papers than their unfunded colleagues, but that there is only a slight difference between funded and unfunded PhD students in terms of scientific impact. Funded students, especially those funded by the federal government, are also more likely to graduate. Finally, although funding is clearly linked to higher degree completion for students who did not publish, this is not true of those who managed to publish at least one paper during the course of their PhD The paper concludes with a discussion of the implication of the findings for Canadian science policy.À partir de trois différentes sources de données relatives à l’ensemble de la population de doctorants du Québec (listes d’étudiants, de boursiers et d’articles savants), le présent article examine les liens qui existent entre les bourses d’excellence et la productivité en recherche, l’impact scientifique et l’obtention d’un diplôme. Il démontre que les étudiants financés publient davantage que ceux qui ne le sont pas, mais qu’il n’existe qu’une infime différence entre les deux groupes d’étudiants en termes d’impact scientifique. Par ailleurs, les étudiants financés sont plus susceptibles d’obtenir leur diplôme, et cette relation est encore plus forte si le financement provient du gouvernement fédéral. Enfin, bien que le financement soit clairement associé à un taux plus élevé d’obtention de diplôme chez les étudiants qui n’ont rien publié pendant leurs études doctorales, cette relation disparaît chez les étudiants qui ont publié au moins un article. Une discussion portant sur les conséquences des résultats obtenus sur la politique scientifique du Canada conclut le présent article

What makes papers visible on social media? An analysis of various document characteristics

In this study we have investigated the relationship between different document characteristics and the number of Mendeley readership counts, tweets, Facebook posts, mentions in blogs and mainstream media for 1.3 million papers published in journals covered by the Web of Science (WoS). It aims to demonstrate that how factors affecting various social media-based indicators differ from those influencing citations and which document types are more popular across different platforms. Our results highlight the heterogeneous nature of altmetrics, which encompasses different types of uses and user groups engaging with research on social media.Comment: Presented at the 21th International Conference in Science & Technology Indicators (STI), 13-16, September, 2016, Valencia, Spai

Textual analysis of artificial intelligence manuscripts reveals features associated with peer review outcome

We analyzed a data set of scientific manuscripts that were submitted to various conferences in artificial intelligence. We performed a combination of semantic, lexical, and psycholinguistic analyses of the full text of the manuscripts and compared them with the outcome of the peer review process. We found that accepted manuscripts scored lower than rejected manuscripts on two indicators of readability, and that they also used more scientific and artificial intelligence jargon. We also found that accepted manuscripts were written with words that are less frequent, that are acquired at an older age, and that are more abstract than rejected manuscripts. The analysis of references included in the manuscripts revealed that the subset of accepted submissions were more likely to cite the same publications. This finding was echoed by pairwise comparisons of the word content of the manuscripts (i.e., an indicator of semantic similarity), which were more similar in the subset of accepted manuscripts. Finally, we predicted the peer review outcome of manuscripts with their word content, with words related to machine learning and neural networks positively related to acceptance, whereas words related to logic, symbolic processing, and knowledge-based systems negatively related to acceptance

Scientific publications and patenting by companies : a study of the whole population of Canadian firms over 25 years

There is evidence in the literature that technological inventions have an increasing connection to scientific knowledge. This raises two related questions: (1) Are firms increasingly conducting scientific basic research? (2) Is being at the scientific forefront helping firms to be closer to the technological frontier? This paper examines scientific output, as measured by numbers of papers, and technological output, as measured by patents granted to all Canadian firms, during the 1980 to 2005 period. Though the number of firms publishing papers and obtaining patents is increasing, scientific research and patenting by Canadian firms are at near ‘homeopathic’ levels. Firms that both publish papers and obtain patents (1) perform research that is more basic than firms that only publish scientific papers; (2) publish in more highly cited journals than firms that only perform scientific research; (3) publish papers that are more highly cited; and 4) hold patents that are more frequently cited

On the citation lifecycle of papers with delayed recognition

Delayed recognition is a concept applied to articles that receive very few to no citations for a certain period of time following publication, before becoming actively cited. To determine whether such a time spent in relative obscurity had an effect on subsequent citation patterns, we selected articles that received no citations before the passage of ten full years since publication, investigated the subsequent yearly citations received over a period of 37 years and compared them with the citations received by a group of papers without such a latency period. Our study finds that papers with delayed recognition do not exhibit the typical early peak, then slow decline in citations, but that the vast majority enter decline immediately after their first – and often only – citation. Middling papers’ citations remain stable over their lifetime, whereas the more highly cited papers, some of which fall into the “sleeping beauty” subtype, show non-stop growth in citations received. Finally, papers published in different disciplines exhibit similar behavior and did not differ significantly

A multidimensional analysis of Aslib proceedings – using everything but the impact factor

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that the journal impact factor (IF) is not able to reflect the full impact of scholarly journals and provides an overview of alternative and complementary methods in journal evaluation. Design/methodology/approach – Aslib Proceedings (AP) is exemplarily analyzed with a set of indicators from five dimensions of journal evaluation, i.e. journal output, content, perception and usage, citations and management to accurately reflect its various strengths and weaknesses beyond the IF. Findings – AP has become more international in terms of authors and more diverse regarding its topics. Citation impact is generally low and, with the exception of a special issue on blogs, remains world average. However, an evaluation of downloads and Mendeley readers reveals that the journal is an important source of information for professionals and students and certain topics are frequently read but not cited. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to one journal. Practical implications – An overview of various indicators and methods is provided that can be applied in the quantitative evaluation of scholarly journals (and also to articles, authors and institutions). Originality/value – After a publication history of more than 60 years, this analysis takes stock of AP, highlighting strengths and weaknesses and developments over time. The case study provides an example and overview of the possibilities of multidimensional journal evaluation