Where Arab social science and humanities scholars choose to publish: Falling in the predatory journals trap

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study of publishing behaviour among a group of Arab scholars in social science and humanities disciplines. The paper also investigated the number of Arab scholars who are publishing in predatory journals and the reasons that drive them to select these journals to share their scholarly findings. The study adopted a mixed methods approach. Eighteen journals that were categorized as predatory journals were scanned to find the number of Arab scholars who published in them. Then, a questionnaire was sent to Egyptian and Saudi scholars as they were found to be the top Arab contributors in these journals. The questionnaire was followed by semi‐structured interviews to gain an in‐depth understanding of the publishing behaviour. The data showed that many Arab scholars prefer publishing in predatory journals as these journals are easier and faster. The results also indicate that there is a need to raise the awareness of the harm that predatory journals can cause to the scholars and how they can avoid these journals. This study was conducted with social science and humanities scholars in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The publishing behaviour may differ in other scholarly disciplines and other Arabic countries.     

Scholarly Publishing in Korea: Language,Perception, Practice of Korean University Faculty

This study reports how internationalization of academic knowledge is reflected in the language choice of Korean academic journals across disciplines and examines perceptions and practices of eighty two faculty from various disciplines at three Korean universities concerning publishing in English journals. The results indicate that natural science has the highest percentage of English-medium journals whereas those in humanities and social science predominantly use Korean as a medium of publication. Similar disciplinary patterns are observed in the responses to survey questions about frequency of publication as well as desire and preference for publishing papers in English. The biggest motivation for Korean scholars to publish in English was the desire to reach global scholarly communities. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

The role of learned societies in national scholarly publishing

This study examines the role of learned societies as publishers in Finland based on bibliographic information from two Finnish databases. We studied the share of learned societies' peer‐reviewed publication channels (serials with ISSNs and book publishers with distinct ISBN roots) and outputs (journal articles, conference articles, book articles, and monographs) in Finland. We also studied the share of learned societies' open access (OA) publications. In 2018, there were 402 peer‐reviewed publication channels in Finland. In 2011–2017, the number of peer‐reviewed publications from scholars working in Finnish universities and published in Finland was 17,724. Learned societies publish around 70% of these channels and publications, mostly in the fields of humanities and social sciences. Learned societies in Finland focus on journal publishing, whereas university presses and commercial publishers focus on book publishing. In 2016–2017, 38.4% of the learned societies' outputs were OA. This study concludes that Finnish learned societies play an integral part in national scholarly publishing. They play an especially important role in journal publishing, as commercial publishers produce only 2.6% of Finnish journals and book series, and only 1.4% of the journal articles from scholars working in Finnish universities.     

Interactive journal concept for improved scientific publishing and quality assurance

Many scientific publications are careless, useless or false, and inhibit scholarly communication and scientific progress. This is caused by the failure of traditional journal publishing and peer review to provide efficient scientific exchange and quality assurance in today's highly diverse world of science. The most promising way to improve matters is a two‐stage (or multi‐stage) publication processes with interactive peer review and public discussion in new and traditional scientific journals. A concept for such interactive scientific journals is outlined, and its applicability is demonstrated by the open access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.     

Scholarly communication and open access: Perspectives from Korea

This article reports on scholarly communication and open access (OA) in Korea. Drawing on a range of databases, articles, and reference sources, it provides unique insights. In contrast to the UK/US model of scholarly communication, in Korea, most scholarly journals are published by discipline‐based scholarly societies and research institutes affiliated to universities. Payment for publication is the norm, and typically features article processing charges and scholarly society membership fees for both OA and toll access (TA) journals. Online access to journals in Korea is provided by commercial vendors who enter into contracts with the scholarly societies for exclusive use. Three online access models apply – TA, gold OA, and dual access – with the use of these models varying between disciplines. In parallel with this access provided by commercial vendors, there are a number of government‐funded open access repositories (OARs) to which university researchers are requested to deposit their research outputs, as well as OARs run by universities and other research institutes.     

Scholarly publishing and open access in the Nordic countries

This study examines aspects of scholarly journal publishing in the Nordic countries. On average half of Nordic journals publish online. In most Nordic countries, commercial publishers predominate; however, in Finland the majority are society publishers. The number of open access journals is low, in line with international figures. There is concern to maintain local languages in journal publishing. A majority of the journals publishing in local languages are within social science, humanities, and arts; the STM sector publishes in English. English‐language publications are favoured in research assessments, international recognition, and impact, while the visibility of local‐language scholarly journals in international databases is low. The Nordbib program supports Nordic scholarly journals and fosters co‐operation with publishing companies and learned societies over migration to e‐publishing; it also supports open access. The article discusses future challenges for journal publishing, pointing out the problems of small journal publishers and the need for co‐operation between stakeholders.     

Road to international publications: an empirical study of Chinese communication scholars

This paper examines factors motivating Chinese communication scholars to publish in international journals and how these factors shape their knowledge production. We also investigate these scholars’ treatment of particularity, which is central to debates on Asian approaches to communication scholarship. Based on in-depth interviews with 22 Chinese communication scholars, this study finds that Chinese scholars choose to publish overseas both as a result of institutional incentives and an attempt to relieve themselves from institutional and sociopolitical constraints in China. While promoting international publications, these institutional and sociopolitical factors also markedly influence the knowledge production process, leading to the segregation of international and local knowledge production; scholars’ active self-censorship; and their efforts to subject to perceived international biases. The study also demonstrates that while adopting an eclectic and pragmatic attitude toward particularity, Chinese communication scholars are generally cautious of advocating particularity. The attitudinal and behavioral eclecticism and institutional and sociopolitical constraints jointly result in a fragmented particularity in the international publication of Chinese communication scholars. The findings’ implications for Asian approaches to communication studies are discussed.     

Author perceptions of journal quality

One of the most important issues facing scholarly communication today is what constitutes quality in the publishing and dissemination of research findings; the aim of this exploratory research study was to investigate author‐perceived quality characteristics of science, technology and medicine journals. We triangulated data from a small number of volunteer full‐time faculty members of Long Island University, using three different research techniques: (1) questionnaire survey, (2) focus groups, and (3) semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews. The study identified some significant differences by discipline, gender, and tenure status. Overall, the three most important attributes were the reputation of the journal, the estimated length of time to article publication, and the readership of the journal. Our findings bring new insight into this area for the scholarly research community as a whole.     

Scholarly journal use and reading behavior of social scientists in Taiwan

This paper reports on a study of social scientists’ information seeking and use of scholarly journals to support scholarly communication and information needs. The goals of the study are: to explore the characteristics of information needs for social scientists; to discuss the importance of scholarly journals to social scientists and their information seeking and access means; to identify article reading patterns of social scientists; and to make comparisons between scholarly journals use and reading patterns of social scientists and other scientists in Taiwan and the USA. The author used a questionnaire survey and interview methods to investigate the information seeking, use and reading of scholarly journals, and article deep reading patterns of social scientists. The target population was social science faculty members from National Cheng-chi University in Taiwan. The article explores the characteristics of information needs for social scientists and shows that scholarly journals are important information resources for university social science faculty. Social science faculty in Taiwan use scholarly journals in multiple languages, mainly English, Chinese, German, and Japanese, which is different from scientists in the United States. In addition, they use electronic journals more than print journals. The number of article readings by social science faculty members was approximately 195 readings per year and nearly 440 h were spent reading per year. In contrast to scientists in the United States, the social scientists in Taiwan read fewer readings, spent more time reading, and read older articles. In addition, the study identifies article reading patterns of social scientists and proposes a six-type taxonomy of article deep reading. The study reports the scholarly journal use and reading behavior model of social scientists and shows there are some differences in scholarly journal seeking and use by social science faculty in Taiwan and scientists in the United States. Further studies of scholarly journal and electronic journal use and reading by social scientists across countries, subject disciplines, and languages of journals are needed.     

Chinese and non‐Chinese scholars’ contributions to communication research on greater China, 1978–98

This content‐analytical study investigates, over a two‐decade period, the contribution of ethnic and non‐ethnic scholars to communication research on Greater China. Although its findings show a significant increase in research publications on China over the years by both Chinese and non‐Chinese scholars, Chinese scholars are much more productive than non‐Chinese scholars. In addition, mixed ethnicity scholars have published more comparative studies than single ethnicity scholars. Telecommunications and advertising are the two fastest growing areas in communication research on China.     

The effects of open access on un-published documents: A case study of economics working papers

The use of scholarly publications that have not been formally published in e.g. journals is widespread in some fields. In the past they have been disseminated through various channels of informal communication. However, the Internet has enabled dissemination of these un-published and often unrefereed publications to a much wider audience. This is particularly interesting seen in relation to the highly disputed open access advantage as the potential advantage for low visibility publications has not been given much attention in the literature. The present study examines the role of working papers in economics during a 10-year period (1996–2005). It shows that working papers are increasingly becoming visible in the field specific databases. The impact of working papers is relatively low; however, high impact working paper series have citation rate levels similar to the low impact journals in the field. There is no tendency to an increase in impact during the 10 years which is the case for the high impact journals. Consequently, the result of this study does not provide evidence of an open access advantage for working papers in economics.     

基于信息共享的网络科学交流

本文对基于信息共享的网络科学交流模式进行了初步的勾勒,讨论了交流新方式、研究与发布过程整合及交流参与者角色重塑等问题,认为对于网络科学交流的研究,应注重交流活动的社会属性。     

The publishing imperative: the pervasive influence of publication metrics

This article summarizes the effects of the increasing global trend towards measuring research quality and effectiveness through, in particular, publication‐based metrics, and its effects on scholarly communication. Such metrics are increasingly influencing the behaviour patterns of administrators, publishers, librarians, and researchers. Impact and citation measures, which often rely solely on Thomson Scientific data, are examined in the context of university league tables and research assessment exercises. The need to establish alternate metrics, particularly for the social sciences and humanities, is emphasized, as is an holistic approach to scholarly communication agenda.     

Toward a Sustainable Method for Core Journal Lists: A Test Case Using Journals in Social Work

Determining the core journals in a discipline serves an important role for both academic librarians and departmental faculty. In addition to helping librarians build or weed journal collections, especially in difficult budget years, core lists help departments seeking accreditation, committees evaluating a candidate’s scholarship for tenure and promotion, and faculty choosing publications for their research. They also assist faculty guiding student research in the discipline. However, because of the inexorable changes that have occurred, and will continue to occur, in scholarly communication, no such list can be considered immutable. The purpose of this study is to identify a method by which individual librarians and/or libraries can create a list of journals considered important to a discipline, one that accurately reflects the state of scholarly communication in a field as it relates to the currency and quality of journal literature, and that is sustainable over time. More specifically, our purpose is twofold. First, to develop a sustainable method for defining the universe of potential core titles; and, second, to identify the core titles within that universe. As the result of discussions on this issue with a social work faculty member, the authors used social work journals for developing a methodology that may be applied to other disciplines.     

Should scientists communicate--and if so, with whom?

The contemporary criterion of professional success for an academic scientist is primarily his rate of publication in scholarly journals. This distorted and relatively uncritical valuation of the communication aspects of science has promoted an increasing deluge of increasingly redundant, dilute, and trivial publications. In a modern well-equipped research laboratory, producing publishable new observations can be a fairly simple process in many fields, especially if the relevance of the observations to either the advancement of the scientific world view or to a social need is inconsequential. This easy currency of rampant new observations has obscured the creative process of formulating new scientific concepts which are the ultimate refined product of the scientific enterprise. Perhaps scientists should talk less and think more.     

国外学术出版道德建设最新进展及其启示

通过简要梳理近年来国外学术出版道德建设相关的进展和经验,以及科学共同体所面临的科研不端行为、发表论文的质量参差不齐和掠夺性期刊等方面挑战,可以发现我国虽然面临许多同样的问题,但科技社团和期刊等有关方面采取的对策相对比较有限.通过参考和分析国外相关实践活动的主要特点和影响,探讨我国科技期刊如何通过编辑政策和流程的改革创新...     

The Serials Revolution: Vision,Innovation, Tradition

Summary

The objectives of this presentation are to: outline important developments influencing the publication of scholarly journals, describe several electronic scholarly communication models now in development, summarize the goals and current status of Project Muse at Johns Hopkins, and share some preliminary findings and observations drawn from this experiment in scholarly publishing.     

The Web impact of open access social science research

For a long time, Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) journal citations have been widely used for research performance monitoring of the sciences. For the social sciences, however, the Social Sciences Citation Index® (SSCI®) can sometimes be insufficient. Broader types of publications (e.g., books and non-ISI journals) and informal scholarly indicators may also be needed. This article investigates whether the Web can help to fill this gap. The authors analyzed 1530 citations from Google™ to 492 research articles from 44 open access social science journals. The articles were published in 2001 in the fields of education, psychology, sociology, and economics. About 19% of the Web citations represented formal impact equivalent to journal citations, and 11% were more informal indicators of impact. The average was about 3 formal and 2 informal impact citations per article. Although the proportions of formal and informal online impact were similar in sociology, psychology, and education, economics showed six times more formal impact than informal impact. The results suggest that new types of citation information and informal scholarly indictors could be extracted from the Web for the social sciences. Since these form only a small proportion of the Web citations, however, Web citation counts should first be processed to remove irrelevant citations. This can be a time-consuming process unless automated.