Re-use of research data in the social sciences. Use and users of digital data archive

The aim of this paper is to investigate the re-use of research data deposited in digital data archive in the social sciences. The study examines the quantity, type, and purpose of data downloads by analyzing enriched user log data collected from Swiss data archive. The findings show that quantitative datasets are downloaded increasingly from the digital archive and that downloads focus heavily on a small share of the datasets. The most frequently downloaded datasets are survey datasets collected by research organizations offering possibilities for longitudinal studies. Users typically download only one dataset, but a group of heavy downloaders form a remarkable share of all downloads. The main user group downloading data from the archive are students who use the data in their studies. Furthermore, datasets downloaded for research purposes often, but not always, serve to be used in scholarly publications. Enriched log data from data archives offer an interesting macro level perspective on the use and users of the services and help understanding the increasing role of repositories in the social sciences. The study provides insights into the potential of collecting and using log data for studying and evaluating data archive use.

The disconnect between researcher ambitions and reality in achieving impact in the Earth & Environmental Sciences – author survey

Background: There is an increasing desire for research to provide solutions to the grand challenges facing our global society, such as those expressed in the UN SDGs (“real-world impact”). Herein, we undertook an author survey to understand how this desire influenced the choice of research topic, choice of journal, and preferred type of impact. Methods: We conducted a survey of authors who had published in >100 of our Earth & Environmental Science journals. The survey was sent to just under 60,000 authors and we received 2,695 responses (4% response rate).   Results: Respondents indicated that the majority of their research (74%) is currently concerned with addressing urgent global needs, whilst 90% of respondents indicated that their work either currently contributed to meeting real-world problems or that it would be a priority for them in the future; however, the impetus for this research focus seems to be altruistic researcher desire, rather than incentives or support from publishers, funders, or their institutions. Indeed, when contextualised within existing reward and incentive structures, respondents indicated that citations or downloads were more important to them than contributing to tackling real-world problems. Conclusions: At present, it seems that the laudable and necessary ambition of researchers in the Earth & Environmental Sciences to contribute to the tackling of real-world problems, such as those included in the UN SDGs, is seemingly being lost amidst the realities of being a researcher, owing to the prioritisation of other forms of impact, such as citations and downloads.

The pandemic and changes in early career researchers' career prospects, research and publishing practices

INTRODUCTION

As part of the Harbnger-2 project, this study aimed to discover the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on junior researchers' work-life, career prospects, research and publishing practices and networking.

METHODS

An online international survey of 800 early career researchers (ECRs) was conducted in 2022. A questionnaire was developed based on three rounds of interviews and distributed using multiple channels including publishers, social media, and direct email to ECRs.

RESULTS

The impact of the pandemic on career prospects, morale, job security, productivity, ability to network and collaborate, and quality and speed of peer review has on the whole been more negative than positive. A quarter of ECRs shifted their research focus to pandemic-related topics and half of those who did, benefited largely due to increased productivity and impact. The majority worked remotely/from home and more than two-thirds of those who did so benefitted from it. While virtual or hybrid conferences have been embraced by the majority of ECRs, around a third still preferred face-to-face only conferences. The use of library online platforms, Sci-Hub, ResearchGate, Google Scholar and smartphone to search and access full-text papers increased. ECRs prioritised journals with fast submission procedures for the publishing of their papers and spent more time on increasing the visibility of their research. Fees were a problem for publishing open access.

CONCLUSION

Although, generally, the pandemic negatively impacted many aspects of ECRs' work-life, certain research areas and individuals benefited from being more appreciated and valued, and, in some cases, resulted in increased resources, better productivity and greater impact. Changes, such as the use of digital technologies and remote working created new opportunities for some ECRs. While continuing work flexibility and hybrid conferences might benefit some ECRs, institutions should also take measures to help those ECRs whose career and productivity have been adversely impacted.

The ecosystem of research tools for scholarly communication

Purpose

Numerous research tools exist but their usage among researchers across the different phases of the research cycle of scholarly communication remains unknown. This research aims to address this knowledge gap by mapping the research tools frequently used by global researchers against the various phases of the research cycle of scholarly communication.

Design/methodology/approach

This research adopts a descriptive research design and conducts a cross-tabulation of secondary data consisting of 20,663 useable responses in a global survey of research tools for scholarly communication. This research also administered a survey to academic experts to classify the research tools according to traditional, modern, innovative and experimental categories.

Findings

This research reveals the six phases of the research cycle (i.e. discovery, analysis, writing, publication, outreach and assessment) and the research tools of scholarly communication frequently used by researchers worldwide in each phase as a whole and by roles, disciplines, regions and career stages. Notably, this research indicates that most of the research tools used by researchers are classified as “modern” and “innovative”.

Originality/value

The original insights herein should be useful for both established and early career researchers to gain and share research insights, as well as policymakers and existing and aspiring service providers who wish to improve the utility and usage of research tools for scholarly communication. Notably, this research represents a seminal endeavor at enhancing a global survey (secondary research) using a follow-up expert survey (primary research), which enabled the organization of research tools for scholarly communication into four refined categories. In doing so, this research contributes finer-grained insights that showcase the importance of keeping up with the advancement of technology through the use of modern, innovative and experimental research tools, thereby highlighting the need to go beyond traditional research tools for scholarly communication.

The disconnect between researcher ambitions and reality in achieving impact in the Earth & Environmental Sciences – author survey

Background: There is an increasing desire for research to provide solutions to the grand challenges facing our global society, such as those expressed in the UN SDGs (“real-world impact”). Herein, we undertook an author survey to understand how this desire influenced the choice of research topic, choice of journal, and preferred type of impact. Methods: We conducted a survey of authors who had published in >100 of our Earth & Environmental Science journals. The survey was sent to just under 60,000 authors and we received 2,695 responses (4% response rate).   Results: Respondents indicated that the majority of their research (74%) is currently concerned with addressing urgent global needs, whilst 90% of respondents indicated that their work either currently contributed to meeting real-world problems or that it would be a priority for them in the future; however, the impetus for this research focus seems to be altruistic researcher desire, rather than incentives or support from publishers, funders, or their institutions. Indeed, when contextualised within existing reward and incentive structures, respondents indicated that citations or downloads were more important to them than contributing to tackling real-world problems. Conclusions: At present, it seems that the laudable and necessary ambition of researchers in the Earth & Environmental Sciences to contribute to the tackling of real-world problems, such as those included in the UN SDGs, is seemingly being lost amidst the realities of being a researcher, owing to the prioritisation of other forms of impact, such as citations and downloads.

Benefits and detriments of interdisciplinarity on early career scientists’ performance. An author-level approach for U.S. physicists and psychologists

Is the pursuit of interdisciplinary or innovative research beneficial or detrimental for the impact of early career researchers? We focus on young scholars as they represent an understudied population who have yet to secure a place within academia. Which effects promise higher scientific recognition (i.e., citations) is therefore crucial for the high-stakes decisions young researchers face. To capture these effects, we introduce measurements for interdisciplinarity and novelty that can be applied to a researcher’s career. In contrast to previous studies investigating research impact on the paper level, hence, our paper focuses on a career perspective (i.e., the level of authors). To consider different disciplinary cultures, we utilize a comprehensive dataset on U.S. physicists (n = 4003) and psychologists (n = 4097), who graduated between 2008 and 2012, and traced their publication records. Our results indicate that conducting interdisciplinary research as an early career researcher in physics is beneficial, while it is negatively associated with research impact in psychology. In both fields, physics and psychology, early career researchers focusing on novel combinations of existing knowledge are associated with higher future impact. Taking some risks by deviating to a certain degree from mainstream paradigms seems therefore like a rewarding strategy for young scholars.

Relación entre descargas y citas de revistas científicas en el ámbito de la documentación: el caso de las universidades públicas de Castilla y León

Se indaga en la utilidad de las revistas electrónicas de los big deals contratados por las universidades públicas de la Comunidad Autónoma de Castilla y León (Universidad de Burgos, Universidad de León, Universidad de Salamanca y Universidad de Valladolid) a partir del análisis de las descargas y citas realizadas por sus investigadores. El análisis se circunscribe a la producción científica presente en Scopus en la categoría Library & Information Science (LIS) durante el periodo 2011-2017 y a las estadísticas de descargas que Emerald, IEEExplore, ScienceDirect, Springer y Wiley han proporcionado a las cuatro universidades públicas. Los resultados muestran que las revistas de LIS se adscriben además a otras categorías y, por tanto, recogen una investigación pluridisciplinar. Los investigadores de Documentación no colaboran, sin embargo, de manera extensiva con otras disciplinas. Se confirma que los proveedores analizados distribuyen títulos que interesan a las comunidades académicas investigadas, aunque las preferencias no son homogéneas. Se constata, finalmente, la correlación entre descargas y citas lo que demuestra que ambas métricas sirven para identificar las revistas prioritarias para los académicos.

Challenges of College Students' Ideological and Political and Psychological Education in the Information Age

The purpose of the study is to analyze the current situation of ideological and political education and psychological education of college students, and explore the challenges faced by these two kinds of education in the information age. First, different research methods, such as literature research, questionnaire survey, and interdisciplinary research, are used to investigate and study the current situation of ideological and political education and psychological education of college students. Second, the survey data are analyzed to reveal the challenges they have encountered. The results show that there are many problems in ideological and political education, which need to be improved and strengthened. The Internet has a strong attraction for college students, but the purpose of getting online of many college students is not clear. Although it plays an important role in improving teaching quality by helping college students establish correct attitudes toward their study, values, life, and society, ideological and political education lack strong pertinence and effectiveness due to the professionalism of the teachers. And the negative impact of network information on ideological and political education of college students is also obvious. About 11.4% of the respondents believe that network information affects their physical and mental health. About 8.4% of the respondents believe that harmful information on the network is easy to induce students to behave wrongly. About 41% believe that computer games distract them from learning, which indicates that the negative impact of network information on college students cannot be underestimated, and it is imperative to strengthen the ideological and political education of college students. The research provides a useful reference for the ideological and political and psychological education in the information environment and helps to solve the problem in the ideological and political education and psychological education of college students.

Research on the action mechanism of circular economy development and green finance based on entropy method and big data

Purpose

By calculating the information entropy of the indicator and measuring the amount of information in the data, this paper determines the weight of the indicator according to the impact of the relative change of the indicator on the whole.

Design/methodology/approach

In order to study the action mechanism of circular economy development and green finance, based on the entropy method, this paper constructs a system analysis model based on event research.

Findings

Moreover, this paper uses the analytic hierarchy process to obtain subjective weights based on expert opinions and then uses the entropy method to obtain objective weights and finally combines the two. In addition, an intelligent model is constructed based on the action mechanism of circular economy development and green finance to improve the system structure.

Originality/value

Finally, this paper designs experiments to verify the performance of the system model. The research results show that the system model constructed in this paper meets the actual situation.