Learned Publishing最新文献

During the COVID pandemic, some commentators thought that early career researchers (ECRs) would become a ‘lost generation’. Yet the Harbingers (H-2) longitudinal study, which followed ECRs for 2 years during the pandemic found that ECRs took things in their stride. More than 2 years on, we returned, as part of the AI stage of the Harbingers study (H-3), to see what has transpired and interviewed nearly 70 ECRs from six countries as part of an exploratory study. We found that: (1) only one in six ECRS thought they were suffering from the residual impacts of the pandemic, with increased workload creating the greatest stress; (2) working remotely, digitally and more flexibly was thought by many to be the biggest dividend delivered, making the job more desirable and competitive; (3) an apparent growth in jobs and promotions (tenures) confirmed the bounce-back. Given the modest size of the study, analysis by country has to be undertaken with caution, but China, where political and economic factors have stifled any bounce-back, stands out for special attention in a future full-blown study. Finally, the study yielded informed and considered views that the long-term impact of the pandemic appears to be beneficial rather than disadvantageous.

Starting from July 2020 at the University of Milan, one of the largest and most important Italian universities, the first transformative agreements with some major international scientific publishers have come into effect. These agreements allow corresponding authors to publish in open access without directly bearing the publication costs. From the perspective of corresponding authors, these agreements could increase the dissemination of their scientific output and, thereby, the impact on the scientific community. However, transformative agreements are part of a rapidly changing publishing market that already includes open access articles in both so-called ‘Diamond’ and ‘Gold’ journals. The aim of our study is to understand to what extent the positioning of journals in impact rankings, the disciplinary field of the article, together with the career stage of the corresponding author, influence the choice to publish in a journal covered by transformative agreements rather than in other open access or hybrid journals. The results of our investigation draw attention to the importance of rules in Italy governing scientific careers in different disciplinary fields and potential unforeseen effects of policies favouring open access.

This extensive literature review is not a stand-alone paper, as it was conducted to help set the scene for the third and current stage of the Harbinger of Change project (H-3), which is focusing on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on early career researchers (ECRs). Its purpose is to inform the design, scope and question-forming of the ongoing interview project (2024–). The overarching aim of the review is to establish what we know of the already extant and/or predicted opportunities and challenges that AI-driven technologies present to researchers, in general, and the cohort of junior researchers among them, in particular. It was found that very little empirical evidence exists of what is happening to ECRs on the ground, and that tends to be drowned in a sea of forecasts and prognostications. However, down the road there are clear benefits accruing to ECRs and, arguably, the most appealing for novice researchers must be the benefits of enhancing their productivity, the key to all scholarly rewards, inclusive of career advancement.

Studies of early career researchers need to define and operationalize what qualifies as an early career researcher. Regrettably, consensus on this matter remains elusive, leading to the emergence of diverse approaches in the literature. This study provides an overview of the various ways this concept has been defined and operationalized in previous studies. Four publication-based approaches are identified and tested with the purpose of exploring the possible consequences arising from different publication-based definitions for early career researchers. The four proxies for defining an early career researcher are tested using two samples of authors having published in the fields of library and information science (LIS) and economics. The share of early career researchers seems to be decreasing over time although it depends on the field and definition. The four approaches return quite different results. In LIS, the four different definitions are highly correlated and therefore depict similar pictures over time. This is not the case in Economics, indicating that the choice of approach when defining an early career researcher may have an impact on the results of the analysis in this field. Defining early career researchers through proxies may influence the outcomes of the study, emphasizing the importance of thoughtful consideration when formulating the definition.

This article explores the spillover effects of economic sanctions against Russia on research in neighbouring countries. The assumption of the paper is that such effects should take place given the high level of regional integration in the post-Soviet area. The study uses bibliometric data retrieved from the Web of Science for analysis; more specifically, the data on publications during 2019, 2021 and 2023 from each of the four countries of interest – Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and graphs. The results clearly point to the potential presence of negative externalities of economic sanctions on research systems of neighbouring countries not directly involved in the war. The paper discusses implications of the effects and recommendations, which can be used by policy makers to alleviate the effects on the neighbouring countries and by scholars to further investigate the phenomenon.

The field of nursing has consistently upheld a strong sense of ethical awareness, which can be assumed to be reflected in the performance of nursing research. Adhering to sound research principles involves prioritizing research integrity. This entails being clear and open in detailing the methods used, allowing others to have confidence in both the methods and the resulting outcomes. This methodological review aimed to provide an overview of how statistical software programs have been reported in nursing studies. We screened articles published in the year 2023 in the five top-ranking and the five bottom-ranking nursing journals and found 311 that were eligible for this review; that is, quantitative/mixed-methods/meta-analyses. The most commonly used statistical software programs in these articles was IBM SPSS Statistics, followed by R. However, one out of 10 studies did not report the software used. Among those that reported the software, the software version was not always reported. Our findings suggest that there is insufficient reporting on the statistical software used for analysing quantitative data in nursing journal publications. From a perspective of maintaining research integrity, this presents an issue, as it jeopardizes transparency, sincerity, and, consequently, the ability to replicate methods and have confidence in the results.

Comparing research performance across distinct subject domains is not recommended unless proper treatments are applied to normalize the domain-specific characteristics. Except for limited research aimed at exploring the field-dependent behaviours of specific research performance indicators, it is difficult to find comprehensive research examining both conventional and altmetric indicators for their influence on journals, articles, and authors in distinct subject domains. This research used Scopus and PlumX as sources to collect conventional and altmetric data, respectively. In addition to descriptive statistics, the Mann–Whitney U test, cluster plots, and correlation analysis were employed for data analysis. The results reveal that all three levels of indicators behave in notably different ways in Medicine compared with that of the Physical and Social Sciences. Most indicators in all three levels attain higher maximum and average values in Medicine. For instance, the maximum values for most indicators, except for citations and documents, are significantly higher in Medicine than in the Physical and Social Sciences. However, the citations and productivity of Physical Sciences journals surpass the two in other domains. SNIP deviates lightly across subject domains compared with that of other journal-level indicators. Further, citations do not have a large influence on SNIP and SJR as they do Journal Impact Factor and CiteScore. All article-level indicators show significant differences between Medicine and the Physical Sciences. Between the Physical and Social Sciences, all indicators except page count show significant differences. Further, article-level indicators in the Social Sciences behave in nearly the same way as in the Physical Sciences. Citation counts positively influence captures. In addition, Medicine authors are likely to make more impact and be more productive in their field than authors in other fields. Collaboration was also found to improve both the productivity of authors and the impact of their research, irrespective of the domain they work in. These findings are important to authors, research evaluators, and publishers from different viewpoints. Discouraging performance comparisons based on raw indicator values can protect researchers from inaccurate assessments, enabling them to fully realize their potential for conducting cutting-edge research. Finally, this research indicates different directions along which this area of research can be extended.