Collapsing Ivory Towers? A hyperlink analysis of the German academic blogosphere

In a substantial analysis of over 500 German-speaking science blogs, Jonas Kaiser and Benedikt Fecher look at what hyperlinks are used within prominent science blogs to investigate how scientists link to each other and outside sources. Using visualisation and mapping software, their results show how science blogs form new networks beyond traditional disciplines and interact with the wider general blogosphere

Open Science: digging deeper into the assumptions that underpin openness and Web 2.0

Benedikt Fecher and Sascha Friesike take a closer look at the assumptions that underpin perspectives on scholarly communication and the benefits of communicating more openly with non-experts. Ultimately, the use of novel communication tools depends on quite a few variables and challenges remain on how best to adapt to more open practices

Could Blockchain provide the technical fix to solve science’s reproducibility crisis?

Blockchain technology has the capacity to make digital goods immutable, transparent, and provable. Sönke Bartling and Benedikt Fecher look at the technical aspects of blockchain and also discuss its application in the research world. Blockchain could strengthen science’s verification process, helping to make more research results reproducible, true, and useful

Open Science: One Term, Five Schools of Thought

Open Science is an umbrella term that encompasses a multitude of assumptions about the future of knowledge creation and dissemination. Based on a literature review, this paper aims at structuring the overall discourse by proposing five Open Science schools of thought: The infrastructure school (which is concerned with the technological architecture), the public school (which is concerned with the accessibility of knowledge creation), the measurement school (which is concerned with alternative impact measurement), the democratic school (which is concerned with access to knowledge) and the pragmatic school (which is concerned with collaborative research)

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

Credit where credit is due: research parasites and tackling misconceptions about academic data sharing

Benedikt Fecher and Gert G. Wagner look at a recent editorial which faced considerable criticism for typecasting researchers who use or build on previous datasets as “research parasites”. They argue that the authors appear to miss the point, not only of data sharing, but of scientific research more broadly. But as problematic as the editorial may be, it points to a wider issue for the scientific community, which is adequate mechanisms for credit and contribution. We could be doing more to provide proper recognition for researchers’ data sharing, data production and data curation efforts

Tautology, antithesis, rallying cry, or business model? "Open science" is open to interpretation

The term "open science" is often deployed in the scholarly discourse without much thought about its meaning and use. Benedikt Fecher and Tony Ross-Hellauer unpack the term and find it to be understood in a variety of ways; as a new framework for what has always been expected of science, as a political slogan to motivate change, as a business model to market scientific output in the digital era, and as a rhetorical contrast of ideas

Flipping journals to open: Rethinking publishing infrastructure in light of Lingua/Glossa case

The resignation of the editorial board of an Elsevier-owned linguistics journal and its open access reorganization could get the ball rolling for other journals to follow suit. Benedikt Fecher and Gert Wagner argue this case is a reminder that open access means more than just providing access to an article; it means rethinking the whole process of publishing. Open access also raises important questions about who owns the critical information infrastructure for online publishing

Journal flipping or a public open access infrastructure? What kind of open access future do we want?

Open access debates are increasingly focused on “how” rather than “why”. Tony Ross-Hellauer and Benedikt Fecher present two possible scenarios for an open access future, consider the relative merits and viability of each, and invite your input to the discussion

Flipping journals to open: Rethinking publishing infrastructure

The resignation of the editorial board of an Elsevier-owned linguistics journal and its open access reorganization could get the ball rolling for other journals to follow suit. This case is a reminder that open access means more than just providing access to an article; it means rethinking the whole process of publishing. Open access also raises important questions about who owns the critical information infrastructure for online publishing