Intangible Capital: An opportunity for PhD students and junior researchers

El objetivo de esta editorial es exponer los hitos más importantes acontecidos durante el año 2008, en el que se publicó el volumen 4, los datos de visibilidad y por primera vez los resultados de una encuesta de satisfacción realizada a los autores que han enviado durante 2008 alguna publicación a evaluación. Además, en el anexo se expone la relación de revisores y miembros del Editorial Board que han hecho posible el cuarto volumen de Intangible Capital. También se informa sobre los aspectos que indican el principio de una consolidación de la revista, y la importancia de mantener los principios básicos que dieron origen a esta publicación. Concluimos la editorial animando a directores de tesis, estudiantes de doctorado y autores noveles a enviar sus primeros trabajos a evaluación.The aim of this editorial is to present the most important Intangible Capital milestones of 2008. During the last year, the intangible Capital published its 4th volume, together with information regarding the journal’s visibility and the first results of a satisfaction survey conducted among the authors, who submitted a paper for evaluation. In addition, the annex presents the list of reviewers and the Editorial Board members who have enabled the publication of the fourth volume of the Intangible Capital. This editorial also provides information regarding the aspects that indicate the beginning of the journal’s consolidation, and the importance of maintaining the basic principles that gave rise to this publication. The editorial concludes by encouraging PhD advisors, doctoral students and junior researchers the Intangible Capital a potential outlet for their work.

Measuring researchers' use of scholarly information through social bookmarking data: a case study of BibSonomy

This paper explores the possibility of using data from social bookmarking services to measure the use of information by academic researchers. Social bookmarking data can be used to augment participative methods (e.g. interviews and surveys) and other, non-participative methods (e.g. citation analysis and transaction logs) to measure the use of scholarly information. We use BibSonomy, a free resource-sharing system, as a case study. Results show that published journal articles are by far the most popular type of source bookmarked, followed by conference proceedings and books. Commercial journal publisher platforms are the most popular type of information resource bookmarked, followed by websites, records in databases and digital repositories. Usage of open access information resources is low in comparison with toll access journals. In the case of open access repositories, there is a marked preference for the use of subject-based repositories over institutional repositories. The results are consistent with those observed in related studies based on surveys and citation analysis, confirming the possible use of bookmarking data in studies of information behaviour in academic settings. The main advantages of using social bookmarking data are that is an unobtrusive approach, it captures the reading habits of researchers who are not necessarily authors, and data are readily available. The main limitation is that a significant amount of human resources is required in cleaning and standardizing the data.

P value and the theory of hypothesis testing: an explanation for new researchers.

In the 1920s, Ronald Fisher developed the theory behind the p value and Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson developed the theory of hypothesis testing. These distinct theories have provided researchers important quantitative tools to confirm or refute their hypotheses. The p value is the probability to obtain an effect equal to or more extreme than the one observed presuming the null hypothesis of no effect is true; it gives researchers a measure of the strength of evidence against the null hypothesis. As commonly used, investigators will select a threshold p value below which they will reject the null hypothesis. The theory of hypothesis testing allows researchers to reject a null hypothesis in favor of an alternative hypothesis of some effect. As commonly used, investigators choose Type I error (rejecting the null hypothesis when it is true) and Type II error (accepting the null hypothesis when it is false) levels and determine some critical region. If the test statistic falls into that critical region, the null hypothesis is rejected in favor of the alternative hypothesis. Despite similarities between the two, the p value and the theory of hypothesis testing are different theories that often are misunderstood and confused, leading researchers to improper conclusions. Perhaps the most common misconception is to consider the p value as the probability that the null hypothesis is true rather than the probability of obtaining the difference observed, or one that is more extreme, considering the null is true. Another concern is the risk that an important proportion of statistically significant results are falsely significant. Researchers should have a minimum understanding of these two theories so that they are better able to plan, conduct, interpret, and report scientific experiments.

Being Female: a handicap for researchers in the competion for NCCR.

The Swiss National Science Foundation made a call for National Centers fo Competence in Research (NCCR) for the first time in 1999 and 2004. Together, these announcements concerned all disciplines and led to 126 preproposals, which were put forward by 2134 men and women researchers. It can be assumed that this operation mobilised Swiss researchers who regarded themselves as particularly well qualified to conduct high-level research in their field. The article uses network analysis and regression analysis methods to examine to what extend women had a lower success rate than men in the two selection rounds because of their sex. On the whole, the findings attest the gender neutrality of the National Science Foundation's selection procedures. However, they also confirm the well-known fact that women scientists are less represented in the higher echelons of academia and concentrated in the social sciences and humanities, as well as showing that this concentration reduces women's chances of success in scientific competition. The article shows that unequal gender-specific success rates prior to the NCCR funding contest play a fairly significant role.

Speaking from the Inside: Challenges Faced by Communication Researchers Investigating Disease-Related Issues in a Hospital Setting.

This commentary came from within the framework of integrating the humanities in medicine and from accompanying research on disease-related issues by teams involving clinicians and researchers in medical humanities. The purpose is to reflect on the challenges faced by researchers when conducting emotionally laden research and on how they impact observations and subsequent research findings. This commentary is furthermore a call to action since it promotes the institutionalization of a supportive context for medical humanities researchers who have not been trained to cope with sensitive medical topics in research. To that end, concrete recommendations regarding training and supervision were formulated.

Proceedings from the conference Visibility and Collaboration of Researchers in Intercultural Communication in Finland - Visibilité et collaboration de la recherche en interculturel en Finlande

This document contains papers that were presented at the conference “Enhancing the Visibility and Collaboration of Researchers in Intercultural Communication in Finland” which took place at the University of Turku (Finland), on October 1st & 2nd 2004. A paper version of some of the following papers as well as articles by specialists in intercultural communication will be published by Peter Lang.

Providing Discourse Services for Researchers in a Repository Setting

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Visual Arts Data Skills for Researchers (VADS4R)

Workshop at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Digitization Project of Kindred Languages : materials, methods and tools for researchers

Presentation at "Soome-ugri keelte andmebaasid ja e-leksikograafia" at Eesti Keele Instituut (Institution of Estonian Languages) in Tallnn on the 18th of November 2014.

Canada’s new Open Access Policy: what does it mean for Brock researchers?

Presentation at Brock Library Spring Symposium 2015: What's really going on?