✍️ Práticas da História: Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past has a permanent call for papers. It is an #OpenAccess jounal indexed in #Scopus. It accepts proposals for articles, bibliographical essays, interviews, critical reviews, issues and thematic dossiers. The texts must be unpublished and can be written in Portuguese, English, Spanish or French.
👉 https://praticasdahistoria.pt/
#Histodons #CFP #TheoryOfHistory #Historiography #UsesOfThePast #Methodology
Geographical and disciplinary coverage of open access journals: OpenAlex, Scopus, and WoS
#AbdelghaniMaddi #ChrifaBoukacemZeghmouri #MarionMaisonobe #OpenAccess #OpenAccessJournals #OpenAlex #ScholarlyPublishing #ScientificCommunication #Scopus #WoS
ResearchFish Again
One of the things I definitely don’t miss about working in the UK university system is the dreaded Researchfish. If you’ve never heard of this bit of software, it’s intended to collect data relating to the outputs of research grants funded by the various Research Councils. That’s not an unreasonable thing to want to do, of course, but the interface is – or at least was when I last used it several years ago – extremely clunky and user-unfriendly. That meant that, once a year, along with other academics with research grants (in my case from STFC) I had to waste hours uploading bibliometric and other data by hand. A sensible system would have harvested this automatically as it is mostly available online at various locations or allowed users simply to upload their own publication list as a file; most of us keep an up-to-date list of publications for various reasons (including vanity!) anyway. Institutions also keep track of all this stuff independently. All this duplication seemed utterly pointless.
I always wondered what happened to the information I uploaded every year, which seemed to disappear without trace into the bowels of RCUK. I assume it was used for something, but mere researchers were never told to what purpose. I guess it was used to assess the performance of researchers in some way.
When I left the UK in 2018 to work full-time in Ireland, I took great pleasure in ignoring the multiple emails demanding that I do yet another Researchfish upload. The automated reminders turned into individual emails threatening that I would never again be eligible for funding if I didn’t do it, to which I eventually replied that I wouldn’t be applying for UK research grants anymore anyway. So there. Eventually the emails stopped.
Then, about three years ago, ResearchFish went from being merely pointless to downright sinister as a scandal erupted about the company that operates it (called Infotech), involving the abuse of data and the bullying of academics. I wrote about this here. It then transpired that UKRI, the umbrella organization governing the UK’s research council had been actively conniving with Infotech to target critics. An inquiry was promised but I don’t know what became of that.
Anyway, all that was a while ago and I neither longer live nor work in the UK so why mention ResearchFish again, now?
The reason is something that shocked me when I found out about it a few days ago. Researchfish is now operated by commercial publishing house Elsevier.
Words fail. I can’t be the only person to see a gigantic conflict of interest. How can a government agency allow the assessment of its research outputs to be outsourced to a company that profits hugely by the publication of those outputs? There’s a phrase in British English which I think is in fairly common usage: marking your own homework. This relates to individuals or organizations who have been given the responsibility for regulating their own products. Is very apt here.
The acquisition of Researchfish isn’t the only example of Elsevier getting its talons stuck into academia life. Elsevier also “runs” the bibliometric service Scopus which it markets as a sort of quality indicator for academic articles. I put “runs” in inverted commas because Scopus is hopelessly inaccurate and unreliable. I can certainly speak from experience on that. Nevertheless, Elsevier has managed to dupe research managers – clearly not the brightest people in the world – into thinking that Scopus is a quality product. I suppose the more you pay for something the less inclined you are to doubt its worth, because if you do find you have paid worthless junk you look like an idiot.
A few days ago I posted a piece that include this excerpt from an article in Wired:
Every industry has certain problems universally acknowledged as broken: insurance in health care, licensing in music, standardized testing in education, tipping in the restaurant business. In academia, it’s publishing. Academic publishing is dominated by for-profit giants like Elsevier and Springer. Calling their practice a form of thuggery isn’t so much an insult as an economic observation.
With the steady encroachment of the likes of Elsevier into research assessment, it is clear that as well as raking in huge profits, the thugs are now also assuming the role of the police. The academic publishing industry is a monstrous juggernaut that is doing untold damage to research and is set to do more. It has to stop.
#bibliometrics #Elsevier #Infotech #ResearchAssessment #Researchfish #SCOPUS #UKRI
Nach Beendigung der erfolgreichen Testphase steht die multidisziplinäre Abstract- und Zitationsdatenbank Scopus inkl. Zusatzmodul "Scopus AI" bis 31.12.2025 im Netz der @UniKoeln zur Recherche bereit! Zur Verfügung stehen verschiedene Tools zur Verfolgung, Analyse und Visualisierung von Forschungsinformationen aus allen Fachgebieten: https://katalog.ub.uni-koeln.de/portal/databases/id/dbis/titles/id/3636.html?l=de #Scopus #Datenbanken #EMedien #ScopusAI #Forschungsliteratur
📢 #Scientometric indicators in #research evaluation and research #misconduct: analysis of the Russian #university excellence initiative
👉 "The results showed that #RUEI #universities had a significantly higher number of retracted #publications in #WoS - and #Scopus -indexed #journals, suggesting that pressure to meet quantitative scientometric #indicators may have encouraged unethical research practices and #researchmisconduct."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-025-05269-3
New #preprint 📢 - Can #OpenAlex compete with #Scopus in bibliometric analysis?
👉 https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.18427
@OpenAlex has broader coverage and shows higher correlation with certain expert assessments.
At the same time, it has issues with metadata completeness and document classification.
❗ Most intriguingly: it turns out that raw #citation counts perform just as well, and in some cases even better, than normalized indicators, which have long been considered the standard in #scientometrics.
📢 Seminar: Quantitative Auswertung von Daten
📅 4. + 6. März, 9:30-13:00
📍 Online mit Dr. Dirk Tunger
🔍 Lernen Sie, Publikationsdaten mit #WebofScience + #Scopus auszuwerten – auch ohne eigene Lizenzen. Fokus auf praktische Übungen mit bereitgestellten Datensätzen und Vergleich zu kostenfreien Alternativen wie #googlescholar Ideal für Bibliotheksmitarbeiter*innen, die häufige Anfragen zu Publikationsanalysen bearbeiten.
🔗 Anmeldung + Infos: https://dgi-info.de/event/quantitative-auswertung-von-daten-aus-web-of-science-und-scopus-fuer-bibliotheksanwendungen/
Finally, our paper has an official issue number and page range! Our study Ukrainian Arts & Humanities Research in #Scopus is now officially published in Library Hi Tech!
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-05-2023-0180
Key findings:
📈 Ukrainian A&H research is growing but struggles with impact
📉 Over half of publications remain uncited
🌍 International collaboration & English boost visibility
📰 Many papers appear in local or Russian-oriented journals
#Bibliometrics #AcademicPublishing #OpenScience #UkrainianResearch
𝗪𝗜𝗞𝗜𝗣𝗘𝗗𝗜𝗔 𝗣𝗜𝗖𝗧𝗨𝗥𝗘 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗔𝗬
✧ hamerkop ✧
The hamerkop (Scopus umbretta) is a medium-sized wading bird. It is the only living species in the genus Scopus and the family Scopidae. Its closest relatives are thought to be the pelicans and the shoebill, in the order Pelecaniformes. The shape of its head with a long bill and crest at the back is reminiscent of a hammer, which has given this specie...
#Scopus #LakeBaringo #Arabia #Kenya #Africa #Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamerkop
Earlier this week an opinion piece authored by me and a number of great colleagues was published on the @upstream blog. Our piece introduces criteria for innovation-friendly bibliographic databases https://doi.org/10.54900/d3ck1-skq19.
We express our deep concerns about the treatment of @eLife by the #WebOfScience and #Scopus databases. We see this as an example of databases hindering rather than supporting innovation in scholarly communication and research assessment.
Good news at #CNRS Open Science Day:
"CNRS's cancellation of #Scopus subscription will help support its full transition to open, non-commercial model, a point reiterated by Antoine Petit ... 'We will eventually need to stop using commercial databases for bibliometrics and bibliography'. In the meantime CNRS has maintained subscription to Clarivate's #WebOfScience database while free bibliographic databases are being developed like open access not-for-profit solution @OpenAlex."
The #bibliometrics databases #WebofScience and #Scopus "are not global databases of knowledge" but lead to a decrease of epistemic diversity. A call for "a more globally representative, non-profit, community-controlled infrastructure for the global pool of research knowledge" https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/qhvgr
Open Science Alternatives to Scopus and the Web of Science: A Case Study in Regional Resilience
#AMiner #Dimensions #IrinaDTurgel #OlgaAChernova #OpenScience #OpenAlex #ScientificCommunication #Scientometrics #Scopus #TheLens #WebOfScience #Wizdomai
Today being Hallowe’en, it seems an appropriate time to tell you a horror story. A few weeks ago I posted about the inaccuracy of the Scopus bibliographic database. I’ve contacted Scopus multiple times to supply them with correct data about the Open Journal of Astrophysics, but the errors persist. It seems I’ll have to take legal action to get them to correct the false and misleading information Scopus is displaying.
I was recently told about a paper with the title The museum of errors/horrors in Scopus. Written by F. Franceschini, D. Maisano & L. Mastrogiacomo and published in 2016, it demonstrates that people have known how poor Scopus is for many years. Yet still it is used.
Here is part of the abstract:
Recent studies have shown that the Scopus bibliometric database is probably less accurate than one thinks. As a further evidence of this fact, this paper presents a structured collection of several weird typologies of database errors, which can therefore be classified as horrors. Some of them concern the incorrect indexing of so-called Online-First paper, duplicate publications, and the missing/incorrect indexing of references. A crucial point is that most of these errors could probably be avoided by adopting some basic data checking systems.
DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2015.11.006
Eight years on, there’s no sign of scopus adopting “basic data systems” but they don’t really have an incentive to improve do they? It seems the world of research assessment refuses to question the reliability of the product. Critical thinking is an alien concept to the bean counters.
P.S. Oíche Shamhna shona daoibh go léir!
I think it’s time to provide an update on the continuing (lack of) progress getting The Open Journal of Astrophysics properly indexed in Scopus (which markets itself as a purveyor of “metrics you can trust”). You might recall back in June that I reported that OJAp had been included in the index, but unfortunately the Scopus team messed up very badly by omitting about one-third of our papers and most of our citations. I reported a month ago that Scopus had committed to fixing the issue within two weeks. Now almost FIVE WEEKS later they haven’t done a thing.
Here’s the problem:
In the column marked Documents 2020-23 you will see the number 67. In fact we published 99 articles between 2020 and 2023, not 67. This is easily established here. The number 67 relates to the period 2022-23 only. Accidentally or deliberately, Scopus has omitted a third of our papers from its database. But the error doesn’t end there. Papers published in OJAp between 2020 and 2023 have actually been cited 959 times, not 137. If you restrict the count to papers published in 2022-23 there are 526 citations. It’s no wonder that OJAp has such a low CiteScore, and consequently appears so far down the rankings, when the citation information is so woefully inaccurate.
“Metrics you can trust?” My arse!
If you want accurate bibliometric information about the papers published in the two years that Scopus has chosen to ignore you can look here.
This all merely demonstrates the folly that so many institutions place so much trust in Scopus. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that Scopus listing is such a reliable indicator of quality that any article not published in a Scopus journal is worthless. Knowing that it has a monopoly, Scopus has no incentive to put any effort into its own quality assurance. It can peddle any error-ridden tripe to its subscribers, most of them paying for the product with taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately the bean-counters at Maynooth University are as credulous as any, mindlessly parroting spurious announcements based on the Scopus database.
Maynooth University is proud to offer undergraduates a course in Critical Skills. I suggest it that the gullible members of its management team would do well to take it.
https://telescoper.blog/2024/10/14/failures-of-scopus/
#CriticalSkills #journal #MaynoothUniversity #OpenJournalOfAstrophysics #research #SCOPUS
Academic writing in the age of AI: Comparing the reliability of ChatGPT and Bard with Scopus and Web of Science
#AcademicWriting #AsadAhmad #Bard #ChatGPT #DagivindMadsen #Gemini #ScientificCommunication #Scopus #SwatiGarg #WebOfScience
[Veille] "A study of nearly 400,000 scientists across 38 countries finds that one-third of them quit science within five years of authoring their first paper, and almost half leave within a decade."
#science #scientometrics #scopus https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03222-7
🎉Great news! EPJ Web of Conferences has been indexed in #Scopus !
This achievement reflects the high standards of quality and impact of our publications.
Find out more➡️ https://buff.ly/3Nb8v9G
#OpenAccess #OA #Physics
#EPJWebOfConferences
#ScienceMastodon
#ScientificPublishing
@ScienceScholar @academia @academicsunite @academicchatter @phdlife @phdstudents
Datenbanken wie #Scopus und #WebOfScience indexieren Forschungsliteratur und sind unverzichtbar für die Recherche nach relevanter wiss. Literatur. Zu beiden haben wir mit der Universität Hamburg eine Umfrage gestartet (bis 30.9.) und bieten einen Zoom-Termin am 16.9., um 16 Uhr an: https://blog.sub.uni-hamburg.de/?p=38588
I think it’s time to provide an update on the (lack of) progress getting The Open Journal of Astrophysics properly indexed in Scopus (which markets itself as a purveyor of “metrics you can trust”).
You might recall back in June that I reported that OJAp had been included in the index, but unfortunately the Scopus team messed up very badly by omitting about one-third of our papers and most of our citations. Here’s what they did:
In the column marked Documents 2020-23 you will see the number 67. In fact we published 99 articles between 2020 and 2023, not 67. This is easily established here. The number 67 relates to the period 2022-23 only. Accidentally or deliberately, Scopus has omitted a third of our papers from its database. But the error doesn’t end there. Papers published in OJAp between 2020 and 2023 have actually been cited 959 times, not 137. If you restrict the count to papers published in 2022-23 there are 526 citations. It’s no wonder that OJAp has such a low CiteScore, and consequently appears so far down the rankings, when the citation information is so woefully inaccurate. “Metrics you can trust?” My arse!
If you want accurate bibliometric information about the papers published in the two years that Scopus has chosen to ignore you can look here.
I sent this information to Scopus on 15th June, soon after noticing the error, but I then got shunted around. I eventually got a reply on 23rd August, acknowledging the mistake and including this:
I want to assure you that your request has been promptly forwarded to our technical team for the addition of the paper to our database. While we strive to resolve this as swiftly as possible, please be aware that this correction process may take up to four weeks to be completed.
I think they’re using some definition of “promptly” with which I am unfamiliar. I’m not optimistic that they will actually correct it in four weeks, either, since it took 5 months to get the initial 67 papers indexed.
This all merely demonstrates the folly that so many institutions place so much trust in Scopus. Based on my interactions with them, I wouldn’t trust them with anything at all. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that Scopus listing is such a reliable indicator of quality that any article not published in a Scopus journal is worthless. Knowing that it has a monopoly, Scopus has no incentive to put any effort into its own quality assurance. It can peddle any error-ridden tripe to its subscribers, most of them paying for the product with taxpayers’ money.
(I might add that if OJAp were a commercial journal, then the willful publication of demonstrably false information about it would be actionable as it is potentially damaging to business. )
Presumably at the instigation of senior management, IT services at Maynooth University are still banning access to this blog from campus. It would make far more sense for them to ban Scopus.
https://telescoper.blog/2024/09/05/scopus-should-be-banned/
#censorship #MaynoothUniversity #OpenJournalOfAstrophysics #SCOPUS
