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EUA Publishes Roadmap on Research Assessment

EUA Publishes Roadmap on Research Assessment

Supporting the EUA membership with the development of research assessment approaches that focus on research quality, potential and future impact, and that take into account Open Science practices.

Scientists on Twitter: Preaching to the Choir or Singing from the Rooftops?

Scientists on Twitter: Preaching to the Choir or Singing from the Rooftops?

Asking whether Twitter allows scientists to promote their findings primarily to other scientists ("inreach"), or whether it can help them reach broader, non-scientific audiences ("outreach"). Results should encourage scientists to invest in building a social media presence for scientific outreach.

Guerrilla Open Access

In the 1990s, the Internet offered a horizon from which to imagine what society could become, promising autonomy and self-organization next to redistribution of wealth and collectivized means of production. While the former was in line with the dominant ideology of freedom, the latter ran contrary to the expanding enclosures in capitalist globalization.

A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions

A simple proposal for the publication of journal citation distributions

Although the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is widely acknowledged to be a poor indicator of the quality of individual papers, it is used routinely to evaluate research and researchers. Here, we present a simple method for generating the citation distributions that underlie JIFs. Application of this straightforward protocol reveals the full extent of the skew of these distributions and the variation in citations received by published papers that is characteristic of all scientific journals. Although there are differences among journals across the spectrum of JIFs, the citation distributions overlap extensively, demonstrating that the citation performance of individual papers cannot be inferred from the JIF. We propose that this methodology be adopted by all journals as a move to greater transparency, one that should help to refocus attention on individual pieces of work and counter the inappropriate usage of JIFs during the process of research assessment.

Faculty Service Loads and Gender: Are Women Taking Care of the Academic Family?

Faculty Service Loads and Gender: Are Women Taking Care of the Academic Family?

This paper investigates the amount of academic service performed by female versus male faculty. We use 2014 data from a large national survey of faculty at more than 140 institutions as well as 2012...

How Persistent Identifiers Can Save Scientists Time

How Persistent Identifiers Can Save Scientists Time

Persistent identifiers (PIDs) provide unique keys for people, places, and things, which supports the research process by facilitating search, discovery, recognition, and collaboration. This article reviews the main PIDs used in research (DOIs, ORCIDs, ...), as well as demonstrating how they are being used, and how, in combination, they can increase trust in research and the research infrastructure.

Does Bibliometric Research Confer Legitimacy to Research Assessment Practice? a Sociological Study of Reputational Control, 1972-2016

Does Bibliometric Research Confer Legitimacy to Research Assessment Practice? a Sociological Study of Reputational Control, 1972-2016

A growing gap exists between an academic sector with little capacity for collective action and increasing demand for routine performance assessment by research organizations and funding agencies. This gap has been filled by database providers. By selecting and distributing research metrics, these commercial providers have gained a powerful role in defining de-facto standards of research excellence without being challenged by expert authority.

Diversity Begets Diversity: A Global Perspective on Gender Equality in Scientific Society Leadership

Diversity Begets Diversity: A Global Perspective on Gender Equality in Scientific Society Leadership

A checklist and recommendations for societies to contribute to global gender equality in science.

Editors of Major Political Science Journals Demonstrate No Systematic Bias Against Female Authors

Editors of Major Political Science Journals Demonstrate No Systematic Bias Against Female Authors

Study says editors of major political science journals demonstrate no systematic bias against female authors. Yet women authors remain underrepresented in the field. Why?

Science Europe Reaction to the European Commission Proposal on Horizon Europe

Science Europe Reaction to the European Commission Proposal on Horizon Europe

Science Europe recognises the proposed budget increase for the period 2021-2027 but remains disappointed that this increase does not live up to the ambitious scenarios that the European Commission defended in front of the Heads of States and Governments in March 2018.

No Race or Gender Bias in a Randomized Experiment of NIH R01 Grant Reviews

No Race or Gender Bias in a Randomized Experiment of NIH R01 Grant Reviews

A randomized experiment of NIH R01 grant reviews finds no evidence that White male PIs receive evaluations that are any better than those of PIs from the other social categories.

Open Science and Its Role in Universities: A Roadmap for Cultural Change

Open Science and Its Role in Universities: A Roadmap for Cultural Change

LERU's paper discussing the eight pillars of Open Science identified by the European Commission: the future of scholarly publishing, FAIR data, the European Open Science Cloud, education and skills, rewards and incentives, next-generation metrics, research integrity, and citizen science.

Citation Analysis Reveals the Game Changers

Citation Analysis Reveals the Game Changers

A study identifies papers that stand the test of time.  Fewer than two out of every 10,000 scientific papers remain influential in their field decades after publication, finds an analysis of five million articles published between 1980 and 1990.

Prestige Drives Epistemic Inequality in the Diffusion of Scientific Ideas

Prestige Drives Epistemic Inequality in the Diffusion of Scientific Ideas

The role of faculty hiring networks in shaping the spread of ideas in computer science, and the importance of where in the network an idea originates: research from prestigious institutions spreads more quickly and completely than work of similar quality originating from less prestigious institutions.

Peer Review and Citation Data in Predicting University Rankings, a Large-Scale Analysis

Peer Review and Citation Data in Predicting University Rankings, a Large-Scale Analysis

When citation-based indicators are applied at the institutional or departmental level, rather than at the level of individual papers, surprisingly large correlations with peer review judgments can be observed.

Effectiveness of Anonymization in Double-Blind Review

Effectiveness of Anonymization in Double-Blind Review

In a controlled experiment with two disjoint program committees, the ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM'17) found that reviewers with author information were 1.76x more likely to recommend acceptance of papers from famous authors, and 1.67x more likely to recommend acceptance of papers from top institutions.

Getting Scientists Ready for Open Access: The Approaches of Forschungszentrum Jülich

Getting Scientists Ready for Open Access: The Approaches of Forschungszentrum Jülich

Case report looking at two approaches taken by the Central Library of Forschungszentrum Jülich in 2017.

Scientists Get More Bang for Their Buck If Given More Freedom

Scientists Get More Bang for Their Buck If Given More Freedom

Scientists are more efficient at producing high-quality research when they have more academic freedom, according to a recent study of 18 economically advanced countries. Researchers in the Netherlands are the most efficient of all.  The existence of a national evaluation system that is not tied to funding was also associated with efficiency.