Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge of academic publications in medical journals in early 2020. A concern has been that the methodological quality of this research is poor, due to the large volume of publications submitted to journals and the rapidity of peer review. The aim of the present study was to examine the COVID-19 papers that appeared in 15 top-ranked generalist public health journals in 2020. The COVID-19 related publications contributing to each journal’s h5 index were identified and the following data were collected: publication type (research report versus nonresearch); number of citations; length of peer review; registration of the study; and type of study design. Of 962 articles that contributed to the journals’ h5-index scores 109 pertained to COVID-19. Three journals accounted for about 70% of the total COVID-19 articles and the subgroup of 74 research reports. Two journals accounted for 18 of the 25 research reports, with over 200 citations. Nearly two-thirds of research reports were cross-sectional surveys (mostly using convenience samples), narrative reviews or analyses of internet data. Median time in peer review was 21.5 days. Only one study was registered. Dissemination of research that has undergone insufficient peer review can lead to misguided public health practice.
{"title":"COVID-19 publications in top-ranked public health journals during the first phase of the pandemic","authors":"D. Gorman","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00257","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge of academic publications in medical journals in early 2020. A concern has been that the methodological quality of this research is poor, due to the large volume of publications submitted to journals and the rapidity of peer review. The aim of the present study was to examine the COVID-19 papers that appeared in 15 top-ranked generalist public health journals in 2020. The COVID-19 related publications contributing to each journal’s h5 index were identified and the following data were collected: publication type (research report versus nonresearch); number of citations; length of peer review; registration of the study; and type of study design. Of 962 articles that contributed to the journals’ h5-index scores 109 pertained to COVID-19. Three journals accounted for about 70% of the total COVID-19 articles and the subgroup of 74 research reports. Two journals accounted for 18 of the 25 research reports, with over 200 citations. Nearly two-thirds of research reports were cross-sectional surveys (mostly using convenience samples), narrative reviews or analyses of internet data. Median time in peer review was 21.5 days. Only one study was registered. Dissemination of research that has undergone insufficient peer review can lead to misguided public health practice.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"535-546"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42706515","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract We investigate the interplay between open access (OA), coauthorship, and international research collaboration. Although previous research has dealt with these factors separately, there is a knowledge gap in how these interact within a single data set. The data includes all Scopus-indexed journal articles published over 11 years (2009–2019) where at least one of the authors has an affiliation to a United Arab Emirates institution (30,400 articles in total). To assess the OA status of articles, we utilized Unpaywall data for articles with a digital object identifier, and manual web searches for articles without. There was consistently strong growth in publication volume counts as well as shares of OA articles across the years. The analysis provides statistically significant results supporting a positive relationship between a higher number of coauthors (in particular international) and the OA status of articles. Further research is needed to investigate potentially explaining factors for the relationship between coauthorship and increased OA rate, such as implementation of national science policy initiatives, varying availability of funding for OA publishing in different countries, patterns in adoption of various OA types in different coauthorship constellations, and potentially unique discipline-specific patterns as they relate to coauthorship and OA rate.
{"title":"Open access and international coauthorship: A longitudinal study of the United Arab Emirates research output","authors":"Mohamed Boufarss, Mikael Laakso","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00256","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00256","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We investigate the interplay between open access (OA), coauthorship, and international research collaboration. Although previous research has dealt with these factors separately, there is a knowledge gap in how these interact within a single data set. The data includes all Scopus-indexed journal articles published over 11 years (2009–2019) where at least one of the authors has an affiliation to a United Arab Emirates institution (30,400 articles in total). To assess the OA status of articles, we utilized Unpaywall data for articles with a digital object identifier, and manual web searches for articles without. There was consistently strong growth in publication volume counts as well as shares of OA articles across the years. The analysis provides statistically significant results supporting a positive relationship between a higher number of coauthors (in particular international) and the OA status of articles. Further research is needed to investigate potentially explaining factors for the relationship between coauthorship and increased OA rate, such as implementation of national science policy initiatives, varying availability of funding for OA publishing in different countries, patterns in adoption of various OA types in different coauthorship constellations, and potentially unique discipline-specific patterns as they relate to coauthorship and OA rate.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"372-393"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46771300","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
According to Peter Galison, the coordination of different “subcultures” within a scientific field happens through local exchanges within “trading zones”. In his view, the workability of such trading zones is not guaranteed, and science is not necessarily driven towards further integration. In this paper, we develop and apply quantitative methods (using semantic, authorship, and citation data from scientific literature), inspired by Galison’s framework, to the case of the disunity of high-energy physics. We give prominence to supersymmetry, a concept that has given rise to several major but distinct research programs in the field, such as the formulation of a consistent theory of quantum gravity or the search for new particles. We show that “theory” and “phenomenology” in high-energy physics should be regarded as distinct theoretical subcultures, between which supersymmetry has helped sustain scientific “trades”. However, as we demonstrate using a topic model, the phenomenological component of supersymmetry research has lost traction and the ability of supersymmetry to tie these subcultures together is now compromised. Our work supports that even fields with an initially strong commitment to unity may eventually generate diverging research programs and demonstrates the fruitfulness of the notion of trading zones for informing quantitative approaches to scientific pluralism. https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1162/qss_a_00262
{"title":"How research programs come apart: the example of supersymmetry and the disunity of physics","authors":"Lucas Gautheron, E. Omodei","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00262","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 According to Peter Galison, the coordination of different “subcultures” within a scientific field happens through local exchanges within “trading zones”. In his view, the workability of such trading zones is not guaranteed, and science is not necessarily driven towards further integration. In this paper, we develop and apply quantitative methods (using semantic, authorship, and citation data from scientific literature), inspired by Galison’s framework, to the case of the disunity of high-energy physics. We give prominence to supersymmetry, a concept that has given rise to several major but distinct research programs in the field, such as the formulation of a consistent theory of quantum gravity or the search for new particles. We show that “theory” and “phenomenology” in high-energy physics should be regarded as distinct theoretical subcultures, between which supersymmetry has helped sustain scientific “trades”. However, as we demonstrate using a topic model, the phenomenological component of supersymmetry research has lost traction and the ability of supersymmetry to tie these subcultures together is now compromised. Our work supports that even fields with an initially strong commitment to unity may eventually generate diverging research programs and demonstrates the fruitfulness of the notion of trading zones for informing quantitative approaches to scientific pluralism.\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1162/qss_a_00262\u0000","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44457318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicholas Fraser, A. Hobert, N. Jahn, Philipp Mayr, Isabella Peters
Abstract In 2014, a union of German research organizations established Projekt DEAL, a national-level project to negotiate licensing agreements with large scientific publishers. Negotiations between DEAL and Elsevier began in 2016, and broke down without a successful agreement in 2018; during this time, around 200 German research institutions canceled their license agreements with Elsevier, leading Elsevier to restrict journal access at those institutions. We investigated the effect on researchers’ publishing and citing behaviors from a bibliometric perspective, using a data set of ∼400,000 articles published by researchers at DEAL institutions during 2012–2020. We further investigated these effects with respect to the timing of contract cancellations, research disciplines, collaboration patterns, and article open-access status. We find evidence for a decrease in Elsevier’s market share of articles from DEAL institutions, with the largest year-on-year market share decreases occurring from 2018 to 2020 following the implementation of access restrictions. We also observe year-on-year decreases in the proportion of citations, although the decrease is smaller. We conclude that negotiations with Elsevier and access restrictions have led to some reduced willingness to publish in Elsevier journals, but that researchers are not strongly affected in their ability to cite Elsevier articles, implying that researchers use other methods to access scientific literature.
{"title":"No deal: German researchers’ publishing and citing behaviors after Big Deal negotiations with Elsevier","authors":"Nicholas Fraser, A. Hobert, N. Jahn, Philipp Mayr, Isabella Peters","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00255","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00255","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In 2014, a union of German research organizations established Projekt DEAL, a national-level project to negotiate licensing agreements with large scientific publishers. Negotiations between DEAL and Elsevier began in 2016, and broke down without a successful agreement in 2018; during this time, around 200 German research institutions canceled their license agreements with Elsevier, leading Elsevier to restrict journal access at those institutions. We investigated the effect on researchers’ publishing and citing behaviors from a bibliometric perspective, using a data set of ∼400,000 articles published by researchers at DEAL institutions during 2012–2020. We further investigated these effects with respect to the timing of contract cancellations, research disciplines, collaboration patterns, and article open-access status. We find evidence for a decrease in Elsevier’s market share of articles from DEAL institutions, with the largest year-on-year market share decreases occurring from 2018 to 2020 following the implementation of access restrictions. We also observe year-on-year decreases in the proportion of citations, although the decrease is smaller. We conclude that negotiations with Elsevier and access restrictions have led to some reduced willingness to publish in Elsevier journals, but that researchers are not strongly affected in their ability to cite Elsevier articles, implying that researchers use other methods to access scientific literature.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"325-352"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74277359","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An article by Macháček and Srholec titled “Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences” was recently withdrawn by the journal Scientometrics (Macháček & Srholec, 2021). The motivations were the lack of a “control group,” and the restriction of the analysis “to publications in four languages.” Moreover, a letter from the Frontiers editor-inchief largely criticized the use of the famous Jeffrey Beall’s list to identify predatory publishers.
{"title":"Proscription lists and predatory publishers: Pointing to careful certifications","authors":"M. Cascella, A. De Cassai, P. Navalesi","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00251","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00251","url":null,"abstract":"An article by Macháček and Srholec titled “Predatory publishing in Scopus: evidence on cross-country differences” was recently withdrawn by the journal Scientometrics (Macháček & Srholec, 2021). The motivations were the lack of a “control group,” and the restriction of the analysis “to publications in four languages.” Moreover, a letter from the Frontiers editor-inchief largely criticized the use of the famous Jeffrey Beall’s list to identify predatory publishers.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"489-490"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46469654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Intergovernmental Economic Organizations usually leverage the scientific capacity of their member countries to ensure economic prosperity through consensual science policies. The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation is an intergovernmental economic forum constituting eight developing Muslim-majority countries with a host of recent initiatives toward encouraging interstate scientific and technological collaborations. This study presents an overview of the forum’s overarching science policies and the research performance in the member countries in the past two decades. The individual D-8 countries’ performance over a set of STI indicators is analyzed to examine the driving forces of the STI system in the member countries. The findings revealed marked disparities among the countries in economic prosperity, R&D expenditure, and the stock of researchers in their STI systems. Although the aggregate research volume of the D-8 countries almost quadrupled over the 2010s compared with the previous decade, there are salient differences in the research capacity and scientific impact among these countries. GDP, R&D expenditure, human development index, GNI per capita, and the number of researchers (FTE per million inhabitants) contribute to explain the growth of publications in some of the D-8 countries. Knowledge sharing, transfer of technology, research collaboration, and investment in R&D infrastructure among the member countries underline the recent overarching scientific policy initiatives of the D-8 organization.
{"title":"Science and research landscapes across D-8 organization member countries from a historical perspective: The policy context and collective agendas","authors":"Javad Hayatdavoudi, W. Kaltenbrunner, R. Costas","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00249","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Intergovernmental Economic Organizations usually leverage the scientific capacity of their member countries to ensure economic prosperity through consensual science policies. The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation is an intergovernmental economic forum constituting eight developing Muslim-majority countries with a host of recent initiatives toward encouraging interstate scientific and technological collaborations. This study presents an overview of the forum’s overarching science policies and the research performance in the member countries in the past two decades. The individual D-8 countries’ performance over a set of STI indicators is analyzed to examine the driving forces of the STI system in the member countries. The findings revealed marked disparities among the countries in economic prosperity, R&D expenditure, and the stock of researchers in their STI systems. Although the aggregate research volume of the D-8 countries almost quadrupled over the 2010s compared with the previous decade, there are salient differences in the research capacity and scientific impact among these countries. GDP, R&D expenditure, human development index, GNI per capita, and the number of researchers (FTE per million inhabitants) contribute to explain the growth of publications in some of the D-8 countries. Knowledge sharing, transfer of technology, research collaboration, and investment in R&D infrastructure among the member countries underline the recent overarching scientific policy initiatives of the D-8 organization.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"466-488"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44372465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract With increasing availability of near-complete, structured bibliographical data, the past decade has seen a rise in large-scale bibliometric studies attempting to find universal truths about the scientific communication system. However, in the search for universality, fundamental differences in knowledge production modes and the consequences for bibliometric assessment are sometimes overlooked. This article provides an overview of article and author characteristics at the level of the OECD minor and major fields of science classifications. The analysis relies on data from the full Web of Science in the period 2000–2020. The characteristics include document type, median reference age, reference list length, database coverage, article length, coauthorship, author sequence ordering, author gender, seniority, and productivity. The article reports a descriptive overview of these characteristics combined with a principal component analysis of the variance across fields. The results show that some clusters of fields allow inter-field comparisons, and assumptions about the importance of author sequence ordering, while other fields do not. The analysis shows that major OECD groups do not reflect bibliometrically relevant field differences, and that a reclustering offers a better grouping.
{"title":"Field-level differences in paper and author characteristics across all fields of science in Web of Science, 2000–2020","authors":"J. Andersen","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00246","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00246","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract With increasing availability of near-complete, structured bibliographical data, the past decade has seen a rise in large-scale bibliometric studies attempting to find universal truths about the scientific communication system. However, in the search for universality, fundamental differences in knowledge production modes and the consequences for bibliometric assessment are sometimes overlooked. This article provides an overview of article and author characteristics at the level of the OECD minor and major fields of science classifications. The analysis relies on data from the full Web of Science in the period 2000–2020. The characteristics include document type, median reference age, reference list length, database coverage, article length, coauthorship, author sequence ordering, author gender, seniority, and productivity. The article reports a descriptive overview of these characteristics combined with a principal component analysis of the variance across fields. The results show that some clusters of fields allow inter-field comparisons, and assumptions about the importance of author sequence ordering, while other fields do not. The analysis shows that major OECD groups do not reflect bibliometrically relevant field differences, and that a reclustering offers a better grouping.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"394-422"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41580794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Romero-Frías, D. Torres-Salinas, Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado
Abstract The growing importance of public innovation has been manifested through the creation of policy labs: spaces for policy experimentation and innovation that work for or within a government entity. The rise of this phenomenon in Europe was evidenced by the creation of a policy lab by the European Commission (EC) in 2016 and the publication by the EC of a report identifying policy labs and their influencers in Europe. Public innovation is increasingly based on national and international networks, giving rise to complex ecosystems involving participation by multiple actors from countries with different administrative approaches. Our study uses social network analysis of these labs’ Twitter profile data to map the European Union’s (EU) public innovation ecosystem and identify the major influencers. Policy labs and their influencers are analyzed by administration style by using a large geographical database. The results reveal a complex global network of influencers and a strong predominance of the Anglo-Saxon administration style. From an EU perspective, our systematic analysis of influence is particularly important in the post-Brexit context, helping to foster a genuine public innovation ecosystem that is both autonomous and interconnected with the aim of facing challenges such as the Sustainable Development Agenda and COVID-19 crisis recovery.
{"title":"Who influences policy labs in the European Union? A social network approach","authors":"E. Romero-Frías, D. Torres-Salinas, Wenceslao Arroyo-Machado","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00247","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00247","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The growing importance of public innovation has been manifested through the creation of policy labs: spaces for policy experimentation and innovation that work for or within a government entity. The rise of this phenomenon in Europe was evidenced by the creation of a policy lab by the European Commission (EC) in 2016 and the publication by the EC of a report identifying policy labs and their influencers in Europe. Public innovation is increasingly based on national and international networks, giving rise to complex ecosystems involving participation by multiple actors from countries with different administrative approaches. Our study uses social network analysis of these labs’ Twitter profile data to map the European Union’s (EU) public innovation ecosystem and identify the major influencers. Policy labs and their influencers are analyzed by administration style by using a large geographical database. The results reveal a complex global network of influencers and a strong predominance of the Anglo-Saxon administration style. From an EU perspective, our systematic analysis of influence is particularly important in the post-Brexit context, helping to foster a genuine public innovation ecosystem that is both autonomous and interconnected with the aim of facing challenges such as the Sustainable Development Agenda and COVID-19 crisis recovery.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"423-441"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47653375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Current implementations of Open Access (OA) publishing frequently involve article processing charges (APCs). Increasing evidence has emerged that APCs impede researchers with fewer resources in publishing their research as OA. We analyzed 1.5 million scientific articles from journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals to assess average APCs and their determinants for a comprehensive set of journal publications across scientific disciplines, world regions, and through time. Levels of APCs were strongly stratified by scientific fields and the institutions’ countries, corroborating previous findings on publishing cultures and the impact of mandates of research funders. After controlling for country and scientific field with a multilevel mixture model, however, we found small to moderate effects of levels of institutional resourcing on the level of APCs. The effects were largest in countries with low GDP, suggesting decreasing marginal effects of institutional resources when general levels of funding are high. Our findings provide further evidence on how APCs stratify OA publishing and highlight the need for alternative publishing models.
{"title":"The APC-barrier and its effect on stratification in open access publishing","authors":"Thomas Klebel, T. Ross-Hellauer","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00245","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00245","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Current implementations of Open Access (OA) publishing frequently involve article processing charges (APCs). Increasing evidence has emerged that APCs impede researchers with fewer resources in publishing their research as OA. We analyzed 1.5 million scientific articles from journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals to assess average APCs and their determinants for a comprehensive set of journal publications across scientific disciplines, world regions, and through time. Levels of APCs were strongly stratified by scientific fields and the institutions’ countries, corroborating previous findings on publishing cultures and the impact of mandates of research funders. After controlling for country and scientific field with a multilevel mixture model, however, we found small to moderate effects of levels of institutional resourcing on the level of APCs. The effects were largest in countries with low GDP, suggesting decreasing marginal effects of institutional resources when general levels of funding are high. Our findings provide further evidence on how APCs stratify OA publishing and highlight the need for alternative publishing models.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"22-43"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44680647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Retractions warn users against relying on problematic evidence. Until recently, it has not been possible to systematically examine the influence of retracted research on policy literature. Here, we use three databases to measure the extent of the phenomenon and explore what it might tell us about the users of such evidence. We identify policy-relevant documents that cite retracted research, we review and categorize the nature of citations, and we interview policy document authors. Overall, we find that 2.3% of retracted research is policy-cited. This seems higher than one might have expected, similar even to some notable benchmarks for “normal” nonretracted research that is policy-cited. The phenomenon is also multifaceted. First, certain types of retracted research (those with errors, types 1 and 4) are more likely to be policy-cited than other types (those without errors, types 2 and 3). Second, although some policy-relevant documents cite retracted research negatively, positive citations are twice as common and frequently occur after retraction. Third, certain types of policy organizations appear better at identifying problematic research and are perhaps more discerning when selecting and evaluating research.
{"title":"The spread of retracted research into policy literature","authors":"D. Malkov, O. Yaqub, Josh Siepel","doi":"10.1162/qss_a_00243","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00243","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Retractions warn users against relying on problematic evidence. Until recently, it has not been possible to systematically examine the influence of retracted research on policy literature. Here, we use three databases to measure the extent of the phenomenon and explore what it might tell us about the users of such evidence. We identify policy-relevant documents that cite retracted research, we review and categorize the nature of citations, and we interview policy document authors. Overall, we find that 2.3% of retracted research is policy-cited. This seems higher than one might have expected, similar even to some notable benchmarks for “normal” nonretracted research that is policy-cited. The phenomenon is also multifaceted. First, certain types of retracted research (those with errors, types 1 and 4) are more likely to be policy-cited than other types (those without errors, types 2 and 3). Second, although some policy-relevant documents cite retracted research negatively, positive citations are twice as common and frequently occur after retraction. Third, certain types of policy organizations appear better at identifying problematic research and are perhaps more discerning when selecting and evaluating research.","PeriodicalId":34021,"journal":{"name":"Quantitative Science Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"68-90"},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44740047","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：