Search

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the perspectives and to adapt the analysis of "underdevelopment whirlpools" to the current needs of state management of digital modernization of the regional market of educational services in the aspect of determination and assessment of its disproportions as a tool of managing the regional market of education and managing the process of reorganization of regional universities in the conditions of transition to Industry 4.0. Design/methodology/approach: Analysis of "underdevelopment whirlpools", adapted by the authors to the specifics of the regional market of educational services, is used. The statistical basis for this paper includes the information and analytical materials as a result of monitoring the effectiveness of activities of educational organizations of higher education and the materials of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation. Findings: "Underdevelopment whirlpools" of the Kirov branch of St. Petersburg University of the Humanities and Social Sciences are analyzed, and reorganization of this university is recommended. "Underdevelopment whirlpools" in Kirov Oblast are analyzed, and an increase of regulation of this market is recommended. Originality/value: It is substantiated that the method of analysis of "underdevelopment whirlpools" could be a tool of managing the regional educational market and managing the process of reorganization of regional universities in the conditions of transition to Industry 4.0. The advantage of analysis of "underdevelopment whirlpools", as compared to the existing similar methods of assessment of disproportions in the development of the regional market of educational services (e.g. comparative analysis and plan-fact analysis), is the possibility not only to evaluate the static underrun from the model/plan but also to study its dynamics (depth and speed of sucking into "underdevelopment whirlpool"), which allows achieving high precision of the results of assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Much has been written about the crisis in the Humanities even as student interest in the Humanities continues to decline. In the so-called "post-truth," "post-COVID19" period," however, the Humanities deserve attention for the important role they must play in preparing students for the world during a period of dramatic change. Design/methodology/approach: Discussion focuses on the "post-truth" period and how the Humanities have a role in confronting misinformation and "fake news." It provides specific actions for how those in the Humanities might address the current situation. It relies on the author's considerable background as a university Dean and President over a period of over 40 years and draws on a variety of written material addressing the future of the Humanities. Findings: In a period when the world confronts unprecedented change, when misinformation is confused with the truth and when social media exercises so much influence, students more than ever need the insight and context of the Humanities to mitigate the cant, bogus claims and questionable ethics that so much shape the world. Responsibility falls to faculty as they must make clear to their students how the Humanities provide a perspective that allows students to work through the big questions of their time. Research limitations/implications: Much has been written about the challenges facing the Humanities. It is hoped that this paper will generate additional discussion on how the Humanities might assert themselves during what are troubling times in higher education. Originality/value: The author's long experience as a senior university administrator provides a perspective that faculty and administrators might find useful as they consider the future of the Humanities at their institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution in terms of shares of scholarly book publications in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in five European countries, i.e. Flanders (Belgium), Finland, Norway, Poland and Slovenia. In addition to aggregate results for the whole of the social sciences and the humanities, the authors focus on two well-established fields, namely, economics & business and history.Design/methodology/approach Comprehensive coverage databases of SSH scholarly output have been set up in Flanders (VABB-SHW), Finland (VIRTA), Norway (NSI), Poland (PBN) and Slovenia (COBISS). These systems allow to trace the shares of monographs and book chapters among the total volume of scholarly publications in each of these countries.Findings As expected, the shares of scholarly monographs and book chapters in the humanities and in the social sciences differ considerably between fields of science and between the five countries studied. In economics & business and in history, the results show similar field-based variations as well as country variations. Most year-to-year and overall variation is rather limited. The data presented illustrate that book publishing is not disappearing from an SSH.Research limitations/implications The results presented in this paper illustrate that the polish scholarly evaluation system has influenced scholarly publication patterns considerably, while in the other countries the variations are manifested only slightly. The authors conclude that generalizations like “performance-based research funding systems (PRFS) are bad for book publishing” are flawed. Research evaluation systems need to take book publishing fully into account because of the crucial epistemic and social roles it serves in an SSH.Originality/value The authors present data on monographs and book chapters from five comprehensive coverage databases in Europe and analyze the data in view of the debates regarding the perceived detrimental effects of research evaluation systems on scholarly book publishing. The authors show that there is little reason to suspect a dramatic decline of scholarly book publishing in an SSH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the body of knowledge on how research evaluation in different national and organisational contexts affects, often in unintended ways, research and publication practices. In particular, it looks at the development of book publication in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the Czech Republic since 2004, when a performance-based system of evaluation was introduced, up to the present.Design/methodology/approach The paper builds upon ethnographic research complemented by the analysis of Czech science policy documents, data available in the governmental database “Information Register of R&D results” and formal and informal interviews with expert evaluators and other stakeholders in the research system. It further draws on the authors’ own experience as scholars, who have also over the years participated in a number of evaluation procedures as peers and experts.Findings The number of books published by researchers in SSH based at Czech institutions has risen considerably in reaction to the pressure for productivity that is inscribed into the evaluation methodology and has resulted in the rise of in-house publishing by researchers’ own research institution, “fake internationalisation” using foreign low-quality presses as the publication venue, and the development of a culture of orphaned books that have no readers.Practical implications In the Czech Republic robust and internationally harmonised bibliometric data regarding books would definitely help to create a form of research evaluation that would stimulate meaningful scholarly book production. At the same time, better-resourced and better-designed peer review evaluation is needed.Originality/value This is the first attempt to analyse in detail the conditions and consequences the Czech performance-based research evaluation system has for SSH book publication. The paper demonstrates that often discussed harming of SSH and book-writing in particular by performance-based IF-centred research evaluation does not necessarily manifest in declining numbers of publications. On the contrary, the number of books published may increase at the cost of producing more texts of questionable scholarly quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the information behaviour of early career academics (ECAs) within humanities and social sciences (HSS) disciplines who are starting their first continuing academic position. The proposed grounded theory of Systemic Managerial Constraints (SMC) is introduced as a way to understand the influence of neoliberal universities on the information behaviour of ECAs.Design/methodology/approach This qualitative research used constructivist grounded theory methodology. Participants were 20 Australian and Canadian ECAs from HSS. Their information practices and information behaviour were examined for a period of five to seven months using two interviews and multiple “check-ins”. Data were analysed through two rounds of coding, where codes were iteratively compared and contrasted.Findings SMC emerged from the analysis and is proposed as a grounded theory to help better understand the context of higher education and its influence on ECAs’ information behaviour. SMC presents university managerialism, resulting from neoliberalism, as pervasive and constraining both the work ECAs do and how they perform that work. SMC helps to explain ECAs’ uncertainty and precarity in higher education and changing information needs as a result of altered work role, which, in turn, leads ECAs to seek and share information with their colleagues and use information to wield their personal agency to respond to SMC.Originality/value The findings from this paper provide a lens through which to view universities as information environments and the influence these environments can have on ECAs’ information practices and information behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the collection development practices regarding e-books among librarians who manage French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (Romance) materials. The authors aim to describe factors that influence acquisition of e-books for Romance language collections to confirm librarians' perception that humanities researchers prefer print and library administrators' attitudes toward e-books. Design/methodology/approach: This study collected data using a mixed-method approach of a survey and focus groups. Findings: This study confirms that user preference is the primary consideration of Romance librarians in selecting e-books. Contrary to librarians' perceptions, this study found that humanities faculty and students are not averse to using e-books for specific purposes such as searching, targeted reading and course materials. While restrictions on lending e-books are a concern, Romance librarians are focused primarily on serving the needs of their core constituencies. Research limitations/implications: The practice of adding call numbers to individual e-books varies among institutions. Individual e-book titles in large packages do not necessarily get added to the catalog, thus making it very difficult to compare e-book collections between institutions. Originality/value: This study endeavors to unify the anecdotal narratives and factors that influence the acquisition of e-books by Romance librarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Science is subject to a normative structure that includes how the contributions and interactions between scientists are rewarded. Authorship and citations have been the key elements within the reward system of science, whereas acknowledgements, despite being a well-established element in scholarly communication, have not received the same attention. The purpose of this paper is to put forward the bearing of acknowledgements in the humanities to bring to the foreground contributions and interactions that, otherwise, would remain invisible through traditional indicators of research performance.Design/methodology/approach The study provides a comprehensive framework to understanding acknowledgements as part of the reward system with a special focus on their value in the humanities as a reflection of intellectual indebtedness. The distinctive features of research in the humanities are outlined and the role of acknowledgements as a source of contributorship information is reviewed to support these assumptions.Findings “Peer interactive communication” is the prevailing support thanked in the acknowledgements of humanities, so the notion of acknowledgements as “super-citations” can make special sense in this area. Since single-authored papers still predominate as publishing pattern in this domain, the study of acknowledgements might help to understand social interactions and intellectual influences that lie behind a piece of research and are not visible through authorship.Originality/value Previous works have proposed and explored the prevailing acknowledgement types by domain. This paper focusses on the humanities to show the role of acknowledgements within the reward system and highlight publication patterns and inherent research features which make acknowledgements particularly interesting in the area as a reflection of the socio-cognitive structure of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine researchers’ motivations to publish by comparing different career stages (PhD students; temporarily employed postdocs/new professors; scholars with permanent employment) with regard to epistemic, pragmatic, and personal motives.Design/methodology/approach This qualitative analysis is mainly based on semi-structured narrative interviews with 91 researchers in the humanities, social, and natural sciences, based at six renowned (anonymous) universities in Germany, the UK, and the USA. These narratives contain answers to the direct question “why do you publish?” as well as remarks on motivations to publish in relation to other questions and themes. The interdisciplinary interpretation is based on both sociological science studies and philosophy of science in practice.Findings At each career stage, epistemic, pragmatic, and personal motivations to publish are weighed differently. Confirming earlier studies, the authors find that PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in temporary positions mainly feel pressured to publish for career-related reasons. However, across status groups, researchers also want to publish in order to support collective knowledge generation.Research limitations/implications The sample of interviewees may be biased toward those interested in reflecting on their day-to-day work.Social implications Continuous and collective reflection is imperative for preventing uncritical internalization of pragmatic reasons to publish. Creating occasions for reflection is a task not only of researchers themselves, but also of administrators, funders, and other stakeholders.Originality/value Most studies have illuminated how researchers publish while adapting to or growing into the contemporary publish-or-perish culture. This paper addresses the rarely asked question why researchers publish at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to dissect key issues and debates in digital humanities, an emerging field of theory and practice. Digital humanities stands greatly to impact the Information and Library Science (ILS) professions (and vice versa) as well as the traditional humanities disciplines.Design/methodology/approach This paper explores the contours of digital humanities as a field, touching upon fundamental issues related to the field’s coalescence and thus to its structure and epistemology. It looks at the ways in which digital humanities brings new approaches and sheds new light on manifold humanities foci.Findings Digital humanities work represents a vital new current of interdisciplinary, collaborative intellectual activity both in- and outside the academy; it merits particular attention from ILS.Research limitations/implications This paper helps potential stakeholders understand the intellectual and practical framework of the digital humanities and “its relationship” to their own intellectual and professional work.Originality/value This paper critically synthesizes previous scholarly work in digital humanities. It has particular value for those in ILS, a community that has proven especially receptive to the field, as well as to scholars working in many humanities disciplines. Digital humanities has already made an important impact on both LIS and the humanities; its impact is sure to grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the current state of debates surrounding Open Access (OA) in non-STEM disciplines. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a selective literature review and discussion methodology to give a representative summary of the state of the art. Findings – Non-STEM disciplines persistently lag behind scientific disciplines in their approach to OA, if the teleology towards open dissemination is accepted. This can be attributed to a variety of economic and cultural factors that centre on the problem of resource allocation with respect to quality. Originality/value – This paper will be of value to policymakers, funders, academics and publishers. The original aspect of the paper pertains to the identification of an anxiety of irrelevance in the humanities disciplines and a focus on “quality” in Open-Access publishing debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the value of Goodreads reader ratings for measuring the wider impact of scholarly books published in the field of History. Design/methodology/approach – Book titles were extracted from the reference lists of articles that appeared in 604 history journals indexed in Scopus (2007-2011). The titles were cleaned and matched with WorldCat.org (for publisher information) as well as Goodreads (for reader ratings) using an API. A set of 8,538 books was first filtered based on Dewey Decimal Classification class 900 “History and Geography”, then a subset of 997 books with the highest citations and reader ratings (i.e. top 25 per cent) was analysed separately based on additional characteristics. Findings – A weak correlation (0.212) was found between citation counts and reader rating counts for the full data set (n=8,538). An additional correlation for the subset of 997 books indicated a similar weak correlation (0.190). Further correlations between citations, reader ratings, written reviews, and library holdings indicate that a reader rating on Goodreads was more likely to be given to a book held in an international library, including both public and academic libraries. Originality/value – Research on altmetrics has focused almost exclusively on scientific journal articles appearing on social media services (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). In this paper we show the potential of Goodreads reader ratings to identify the impact of books beyond academia. As a unique altmetric data source, Goodreads can allow scholarly authors from the social sciences and humanities to measure the wider impact of their books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to critically discuss how the psy-sciences have been, and continue to be, typified by some critics, as colonizers and are credited with Imperialistic motivations. However, rarely are these critiques developed beyond a pejorative characterisation. Design/methodology/approach -- This paper reviews the criticisms of psychiatry as colonial and outlines the tensions in taking different frames of reference in the mental health field, before going on to suggest theoretical and research perspectives arising from postcolonial theory that might advance these critical positions more coherently and the implications of doing so. Findings -- This study suggests an engagement with humanities-based methods and fields such as postcolonial scholarship. Social implications -- This argument is timely, especially given recent controversies over the publication of DSM5, the scaling up agenda for mental health in the Global South and increased attention to the agenda of Big Pharma. Originality/value -- Postcolonial intersections with psy-science remains a relatively undeveloped area in the critical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Alternative metrics (altmetrics) are non-traditional metrics to measure the social impact of research results, which were unable to be assessed by the previous methods, by calculating how research results are reflected in various social media. The purpose of this paper is to measure and compare the impact of Korean study results in four fields that were published in international journals using altmetrics.Design/methodology/approach This study analysed the impact of 383 Korean research articles published by international journals in the field of medical science, engineering, social science and arts and humanities through altmetrics and compared it with bibliometrics.Findings As a result, the frequency of research articles which are “discussed” through social media such as Twitter was shown to be highest in the medical science than in other fields. In addition, the frequency of research articles which were “saved” through reference management tool such as Mendeley was shown to be higher in the social science and the arts and humanities than in other fields. Furthermore, as a result of a correlation analysis between altmetrics and bibliometrics, it is found that there exists a positive correlation between the number of articles which were “saved” in Mendeley and “cited” in follow-up studies.Originality/value This study examined the impact of the articles originating in non-English-speaking nations; it could be referred by other non-English-speaking nations that are trying to identify invisible impact of their research output on global society. By finding the academic field which are receiving special attention from global community using altmetrics, researchers could prospect country’s overall research impact and utilize it to make a future R&D plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]