sennoma's Feed

University of Toronto Press - Journal Article

sennoma — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:42:00 -0500

Recession is currently causing a resurgence of the academic serials crisis. Profit-mongering by commercial publishers is once again denounced as the key driver of the crisis. However, a critical analysis of institutional and bibliometric data does not reveal excessive corporate greed in recent years; instead, it suggests that the present hurdles stem largely from years of inadequate budget allocations to academic libraries and from a publishing frenzy fuelled by simplistic methods of evaluating faculty productivity. To prevent what is likely to be the publishing equivalent of a tsunami in the next few years, universities and research institutions urgently need to re-emphasize quality over quantity in the publishing process, and they must find ways to include peer-reviewing efficiency among their criteria for productivity and impact. Tagged by sennoma under scholarlycommunication, peerreview, publishing,

Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age

sennoma — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:07:00 -0500

As digital technologies are expanding the power and reach of research, they are also raising complex issues. These include complications in ensuring the validity of research data; standards that do not keep pace with the high rate of innovation; restrictions on data sharing that reduce the ability of researchers to verify results and build on previous research; and huge increases in the amount of data being generated, creating severe challenges in preserving that data for long-term use. Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age examines the consequences of the changes affecting research data with respect to three issues - integrity, accessibility, and stewardship-and finds a need for a new approach to the design and the management of research projects. The report recommends that all researchers receive appropriate training in the management of research data, and calls on researchers to make all research data, methods, and other information underlying results publicly accessible in a timely manner. The book also sees the stewardship of research data as a critical long-term task for the research enterprise and its stakeholders. Individual researchers, research institutions, research sponsors, professional societies, and journals involved in scientific, engineering, and medical research will find this book an essential guide to the principles affecting research data in the digital age. Tagged by sennoma under opendata, oaos.review,

Words of Advice for NIH-Funded Authors

sennoma — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:55:00 -0400

• Does the manuscript apply under the NIH Public Access Policy? • Which NIH grant awards supported the manuscript? Use the NIH Grants Lookup Tool to confirm grant award numbers. • Which journal will the manuscript be submitted to? • Which method of submission does the journal fall under? See the NIH chart on submission methods. • If a Method C or D form of submission journal, which author will be assigned as the responsible author for the review and approval tasks? See the short video: Approving Submission of an Article to PubMed Central which outlines the process for authors in response to an email from NIHMS asking for approval of a submission done by a publisher or third party. • Which author will be responsible for making sure that the work has a PMCID within three months post publication of the manuscript, and notifying all authors and PIs associated with the manuscript of the most current means of documentation of compliance with the NIH Policy (“PMC Journal – In Process,” or NIHMS ID) until the PMCID is assigned? Tagged by sennoma under oa, oa.mandates,

SSRN-Whose Metrics? On Building Citation, Usage and Access Metrics as Information Service for Scholars by Chris Armbruster

sennoma — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:39:00 -0400

As the Internet has enhanced the collection and provision of citation, usage and access metrics, the challenge lies neither in the technology nor the method, but in constructing databases that deliver services of value to the scholar. However, the development of metrics has hitherto been driven by the needs of external research assessment (governments and funders), while publishers and libraries have focused on their own needs (e.g. journal impact and usage factors). Scholars often criticize research assessment and the use of particular metrics as a zero-sum game whose undesirable consequences far outweigh the benefits. However, this is not to be confused with a general prejudice against metrics, which are principally compatible with the scholarly recognition and rewards system. But it does indicate that current metric information services often do not serve the needs of scholars. The question everybody should be asking is: What kind of metric information services would serve scholars? The argument proceeds in six steps. First, the problematic and controversial nature of assessment metrics is discussed. Second, the limited value of current metric information services is outlined. Third, the notion of metrics as research information services is clarified. Fourth, some examples of such services are offered. Fifth, the potential value is sketched from the perspective of a postdoc. Sixth, it is indicated that societies and publishers could begin building more metric information services since tried-and-tested technology and methods are available already. Tagged by sennoma under scientometrics, bibliometrics, scholarlycommunication, publishing,

Against Monopoly

sennoma — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:56:00 -0400

Examples of Outrageous Patents and Judgments Examples of (at least apparently) ridiculous patents and patent applications abound (more at PatentLawPractice): * Amazon's "one-click" patent, asserted against rival Barnes & Noble * Cendant's assertion that Amazon violated Cendant's patent monopoly on recommending books to customers (since settled) * The attempt of Dustin Stamper, Bush's Top Economist, to secure a patent regarding an application for a System And Method For Multi-State Tax Analysis, which claims "a method, comprising: creating one or more alternate entity structures based on a base entity structure, the base entity structure comprising one or more entities; determining a tax liability for each alternate entity structure and the base entity structure; and generating a result based on comparing each of the determined tax liabilities" * Apple's patent application for digital Karaoke * the suit against Facebook by the holder of a patent for a "system for creating a community for users with common interests to interact in" * the "absurdly broad patent [issued to Blackboard] for common uses of technology if that technology is employed in the context of education" (see also Patent Office Rejects Blackboard E-Learning Patent One Month After It Wins Lawsuit, Techdirt (Mar. 31, 2008) * Compton's (now Encyclopedia Britannica's) patent that "broadly cover[s] any multimedia database allowing users to simultaneously search for text, graphics, and sounds basic features found in virtually every multimedia product on the market" * Carfax's patent on a "method for perusing selected vehicles having a clean title history" * Acacia's patent for putting a unique transaction number on a receipt[26] * Pat. No. 6,368,227, covering swinging sideways on a swing Tagged by sennoma under intellectualproperty,

The Un-Scientific Method: or, how good science becomes bad press

sennoma — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:14:00 -0400

Tagged by sennoma under lostart,

Communicating knowledge: How & why UK researchers publish & disseminate their findings : JISC

sennoma — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:09:00 -0400

Researchers are driven by a desire to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the world we inhabit, and to communicate their findings to others. But both governments and other funders are increasingly interested in demonstrating the social and economic returns from their investments in research, and in assessing research performance. The many different criteria for success, and the lack of any consensus on how success should be assessed or measured, however, mean that researchers often find themselves in receipt of confused or conflicting messages. And they are pulled in different directions in deciding which channels of communication they should adopt. This report is complimented by four supporting papers which provide detailed descriptions of the methods used, a full analysis of the data, and further details of the findings. Tagged by sennoma under RIN, JISC, scholarlycommunication,

How citation distortions create unfounded authority: analysis of a citation network -- Greenberg 339: b2680 -- BMJ

sennoma — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 04:21:00 -0400

Objective To understand belief in a specific scientific claim by studying the pattern of citations among papers stating it. Design A complete citation network was constructed from all PubMed indexed English literature papers addressing the belief that β amyloid, a protein accumulated in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease, is produced by and injures skeletal muscle of patients with inclusion body myositis. Social network theory and graph theory were used to analyse this network. Main outcome measures Citation bias, amplification, and invention, and their effects on determining authority. Results The network contained 242 papers and 675 citations addressing the belief, with 220 553 citation paths supporting it. Unfounded authority was established by citation bias against papers that refuted or weakened the belief; amplification, the marked expansion of the belief system by papers presenting no data addressing it; and forms of invention such as the conversion of hypothesis into fact through citation alone. Extension of this network into text within grants funded by the National Institutes of Health and obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed the same phenomena present and sometimes used to justify requests for funding. Conclusion Citation is both an impartial scholarly method and a powerful form of social communication. Through distortions in its social use that include bias, amplification, and invention, citation can be used to generate information cascades resulting in unfounded authority of claims. Construction and analysis of a claim specific citation network may clarify the nature of a published belief system and expose distorted methods of social citation. Tagged by sennoma under scientometrics, oa, oaos.need,

On the Design and Implementation of a Market Mechanism for Peer Review and Publishing

sennoma — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:38:00 -0400

Traditional methods of peer review are coming under strain as the volume of manuscripts and the number of forums for manuscript submission rise. These pressures can result in poorer quality reviews, extended publication times, and higher costs to the organisations that fund research. In this paper we describe a method for reducing reviewing burden, expediting feedback and shortening publication times. Furthermore, by its nature, the method produces leading (as opposed to lagging/trailing) publication metrics for authors and the manuscripts they write, and we show how these metrics can be used by search engines to provide more useful orderings of search results. Finally, we briefly discuss the potential to apply the underlying mechanism of the method to application domains beyond research publishing, such as the web as a whole. Tagged by sennoma under scholarlycommunication, publishing.models, peerreview, readthis,

OA-barometer 2009

sennoma — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:37:00 -0400

In 2007-2008 a research team at Hanken developed an emperical method to measure the total amount of peer reviewed articles published globally as well as their OA availability. In this project they will renew and further develop the study as well as carry out a regional study of the Nordic countries. The Nordic part of the study will answer the following questions: * What share of scientific articles published in the Nordic countries is available open access? * What portion of the output of Nordic scholars is available as open access? * The project will also construct a list of the between 500-1000 scholary journals that are published in the Nordic countries and check their total article output as well as which part is available open access. The project can also see what kind of impact the establishment of institutional repositories in the Nordic countries has on the open access availabelity of Nordic scholary output. The target results of the project is a precise measure of how large a share of the overall volume of scientific journal litterature is available openly. By repeating a study from 2008 it will be possible to see trends concerning a possible increase in OA. The results concerning the Nordic journals and their open access availability would be interesting information for all participants in the OA discussion. Hanken and Lund university library are commited to repeating the study in 2011. Tagged by sennoma under oa.numbers, bochristerbjoerk,

In search of pragmatism and mixed methods : Christina's LIS Rant

sennoma — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 11:54:00 -0400

Bryman, A. (2007). Barriers to integrating quantitative and qualitative research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(1), 8-22. doi:10.1177/2345678906290531 Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (find in a library) Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (find in a library) Teddlie, C., & Tashakkori, A. (2009). Foundations of mixed methods research :Integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches in the social and behavioral sciences. Los Angeles: Sage. (find in a library) Tagged by sennoma under research.methods, mixedmethods,

Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis (Scarecrow Press, Inc.)

sennoma — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:09:00 -0400

Can the methods of science be directed toward science itself? How did it happen that scientists, scientific documents, and their bibliographic links came to be regarded as mathematical variables in abstract models of scientific communication? What is the role of quantitative analyses of scientific and technical documentation in current science policy and management? Bibliometrics and Citation Analysis: From the Science Citation Index to Cybermetrics answers these questions through a comprehensive overview of theories, techniques, concepts, and applications in the interdisciplinary and steadily growing field of bibliometrics. Tagged by sennoma under scientometrics, bibliometrics,

» An economic solution to reviewing load The Occasional Pamphlet

sennoma — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:43:00 -0400

There is an economic solution to the problem that bears consideration: Charge for submission. This would induce self-selection; authors would be loathe to submit unless they thought the paper had a fair chance of acceptance. Consider a conference or journal with a 25% acceptance rate that charged, say, $50 per submission. (The right amount may be different; I use this figure just as an example.) Authors who tended to write and submit average quality papers would be confronted with a cost of some $200 (in expectation) per published paper. If they wanted to reduce that cost, the expedient method would be to submit fewer papers and papers with higher average quality. The most plausible approach is to refrain from submitting the lowest quality papers, but other methods of improving quality would work as well. This has several positive effects: reduced reviewing load, higher average submission quality, less “salami-slicing“, and revenue generation to boot. To avoid disenfranchisement of scholars with more limited means, fee waivers should be supplied in exigent circumstances, as they are for page, figure, and other publication charges by many journals. The application process for the fee waiver would be separated from the editorial process to prevent mercenary considerations from affecting editorial decisions. Submission fees have a further benefit over publication fees in eliminating any economic incentive for lowering quality standards as a means for increasing revenue, as discussed in detail by McCabe and Snyder. Tagged by sennoma under peerreview, stuartshieber,

The OpenScience Project » Scientific Software Wants To Be Free

sennoma — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:55:00 -0400

# We should create an open central repository location at which authors can release software and documentation. # Software release should be an integral and funded part of projects. # Software release should become an integral part of the publication process. # The barriers to publication of methods and descriptive papers should be lower. # Programming, statistics and data analysis should be an integral part of the curriculum. # There should be more opportunities to fund grass-roots software projects of use to the wider community. # We should develop institutional support for science programs that attract and support talented scientists who generate software for public release. Tagged by sennoma under opendata, openscience,

eScience: A Transformed Scientific Method

sennoma — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:23:00 -0400

Tagged by sennoma under oaos.talks,

OAN: Slowdown in STM market will encourage move to OA

sennoma — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:35:00 -0400

Archan Venkatraman, STM growth takes hit, Information World Review, March 9, 2009. The European scientific, technical and medical information market grew 4.5% in 2008, its weakest year-on-year figure since 2001, according to the latest IRN Research report. But the market remains upbeat, and focused on consolidation and flexibility to survive the downturn. ... Robert Parker, managing director for publishing at Research Councils UK, was also optimistic about the sector. He said the large European STM players had enough reserves to see them through lean times. He added: “The emerging methods of information output and sharing, such as open access and social networking, will also have an impact on the role of leading players as they will increasingly embrace these new models to maintain their market share.” ... Tagged by sennoma under oa.money,

PEG DNA maxiprep

sennoma — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 01:34:00 -0500

Tagged by sennoma under methods, work,

Literature Citations in the Internet Era -- Gingras et al. 323 (5910): 36a -- Science

sennoma — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 04:43:00 -0500

J. A. Evans's Report "Electronic publication and the narrowing of science and scholarship" (18 July, p. 395) suggests that (i) the average age of citations to scientific papers dropped over the years as more electronic papers became accessible and (ii) the citations are concentrated on a smaller proportion of papers and journals. Such conclusions are not warranted by Evans's data. To measure the evolution of the average (or median) age of the references contained in papers, one has to look at all the references in all published papers and observe the evolution of their age over time. As we have shown using Thomson Reuters's Web of Science data for the period 1900 to 2004 (for a total of 500 million references in 25 million papers), the average (and median) age of all references began to decrease in 1945 but has increased steadily since the mid-1960s. This trend is visible in all sciences, including the social sciences and the humanities (1, 2). The median age of references in fields of science and engineering moved from 4.5 years in 1955 to more than 7 years in 2004, and in medical sciences it increased from 4.5 to 5.5 during the same period (1). In fact, Evans's conclusions only reflect a transient phenomenon related to recent access to online publications and to the fact that the method used does not take into account time delays between citation year and publication year. Our data also show that in disciplines in which online access has been available the longest (such as nuclear physics and astrophysics), the age of references declines for a number of years in the 1990s but then increases from 2000 to 2007, the last available year of our data set. We have also measured the concentration of citations (and journals) by three different methods, including the one used by Evans. All three measures clearly show that concentration is in fact declining for papers as well as for journals (3). Although many factors affect citation practices, two things are clear: Researchers are increasingly relying on older science, and citations are increasingly dispersed across a larger proportion of papers and journals. Tagged by sennoma under oa, openscience, bibliometrics, scientometrics,

Discovering Biology in a Digital World : A general method and good student project for finding interesting anomalies in GenBank

sennoma — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:21:00 -0400

Tagged by sennoma under oaos.examples,

Open Up

sennoma — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:45:00 -0400

MCM is a novel interview technique that allows for an array of views and opinions on a particular policy or technological issue to be expressed, and their specific effect identified. Like other types of multicriteria analysis,[7] MCM allows one to understand the importance of individual criteria—the issues, beliefs, and values deemed relevant—upon a particular policy choice, or “option” in the language of the method. What makes MCM distinct is that it is highly transparent and, though mediated through a structured process, is sensitive and accommodating to the unique views of individual participants. Tagged by sennoma under organising, meetings, methods, tools,