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

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)

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)

Measuring cognitive distance between publication portfolios

We study the problem of determining the cognitive distance between the publication portfolios of two units. In this article we provide a systematic overview of five different methods (a benchmark Euclidean distance approach, distance between barycenters in two and in three dimensions, distance between similarity-adapted publication vectors, and weighted cosine similarity) to determine cognitive distances using publication records. We present a theoretical comparison as well as a small empirical case study. Results of this case study are not conclusive, but we have, mainly on logical grounds, a small preference for the method based on similarity-adapted publication vectors

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

The current report presents the results of this monitoring exercise. This report gives the result of the comparison of (1) the journals published by publishers listed on Beall’s list of predatory open access publishers and the journals listed on Beall’s list of standalone journals as of 6 November 2014 and (2) the VABB-SHW list of journals as submitted to the GP as of July 2014. This report is intended to 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 results presented in this ad hoc report make clear that authors affiliated to universities in Flanders may have been misled by or may have resorted to predatory open access publishing at least 138 times in the period 2000-2013. In addition 49 articles that appeared with Hindawi Publishing Corporation were identified

Predatory open access journals in a performance-based funding model: A comparison of journals in version VI of the VABB-SHW with Beall's list and DOAJ

The current report presents the results of this monitoring exercise in view of VABB-SHW version VI, which will contain publications from the time period 2005–2014. This report provides a detailed comparison of (1) the journals published by publishers listed on Beall’s list of POA publishers and the journals on Beall’s list of stand-alone journals as of 5 November 2015 with (2) the VABB-SHW list of journals as submitted to the GP in July 2015. Furthermore, we also provide details on each potentially predatory journal regarding its inclusion in Web of Science (WoS) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and we list the publishers that are, according to Beall’s list, not to be considered predatory open access anymore. This report is intended to 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.A more relaxed approach might consist of taking the whitelisting of a journal in DOAJ as evidence of peer review and hence classify these journals as peer reviewed. However, this approach would raise the question on how the status of journals in other systems (e.g. Italian ANVUR, ERIH) will be handled

The predictive validity of peer review: A selective review of the judgmental forecasting qualities of peers, and implications for innovation in science

In this review we investigate what the available data on the predictive validity of peer review can add to our understanding of judgmental forecasting. We found that peer review attests to the relative success of judgmental forecasting by experts. Both manuscript and group-based peer review allow, on average, for accurate decisions to be made. However, tension exists between peer review and innovative ideas, even though the latter underlie scientific advance. This points to the danger of biases and preconceptions in judgments. We therefore formulate two proposals for enhancing the likelihood of innovative work.Advice taking Cognitive bias Decision-making Expert advice Group decision making Reliability

Consolidation of BPEL process models interacting via exception flow

Bei der Akquirierung von Unternehmen ist es notwendig eine einheitliche Ablauforganisation zu schaffen. Dies wird durch die Konsolidierung von Geschäftsprozessen der Unternehmen, welche in einer Choreographie miteinander kommunizieren, erreicht. Dabei können die Prozesse Fehlerbehandlungen enthalten, die ebenfalls mit konsolidiert werden müssen. Hierfür wird, in der vorliegenden Arbeit, die Umwandlung von synchronen und asynchronen Kommunikationsmuster in Synchronisationsaktivitäten anhand der BPEL Konstrukte Fault Handler, Termination Handler, Event Handler und Compensation Handler (FCTE-Handler) untersucht. Durch diese Umwandlung kann der Kontrollfluss in den BPEL Konstrukten sich verändern und muss korrigiert werden. Als weiterer Aspekt werden Kontrollflussbeschränkungen betrachtet. Hierzu werden die Grenzüberschreitungen von Links analysiert, die in die FCTE-Handler hinein- und aus diesen hinausgehen. Das Auftreten von Grenzverletzungen wird durch die Umstrukturierung der einzelnen FCTE-Handler gelöst

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)