scholarly journals Religious Studies Scholarship is Not Widely Available via Open Access, but Some Authors Share Their Work through Institutional Repositories or Social Networking Sites

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 102-104
Author(s):  
Elaine Sullo

A Review of: Avery, J. M. (2018). The open access availability of articles from highly ranked religious studies journals: A study of ten journals. Theological Librarianship, 11(1), 12-17. Retrieved from https://theolib.atla.com/theolib/index Abstract Objective – To examine the current state of open access scholarship among the most highly rated religious studies journals. Design – Quantitative analysis. Setting – Research articles published in 2014, in the ten most highly rated religious studies journals. Subjects – 377 peer-reviewed articles. Methods – Using the SCImago Journal & Country Rank, the researcher identified the top ten most cited religious studies journals from mid-2015. Articles published in these journals during 2014 were evaluated. The researcher identified 377 research articles through online databases and journal websites. The researcher then used both Google and Google Scholar to search for these articles using titles and authors. If the article was not found, other search strategies were employed, such as the use of additional search terms, limits, and quotes, as well as other search engines. Main Results – Open access (OA) versions were found for 132 of the 377 articles (35%), and the percent of OA articles by journal ranged from 5% to 100%. The researcher found 70 OA articles in institutional repositories (53%), 70 in Academia.edu or ResearchGate.net (53%), 19 from organizational websites (14.4%), 13 on personal websites (9.8%), and 4 on other sites (3%). The researcher found 44 articles in more than one location (33.3%). Of the 132 OA articles found, 87 (65.9%) were found by both Google and Google Scholar, and 43 (32.6%) articles were found by either Google or Google Scholar, but not both.    Conclusion – Overall, the research results reveal that finding OA content can be done via Google and Google Scholar. While articles in religious studies journals are not typically accessible through OA, authors who tend to publish in these journals who support OA may use institutional repositories or social networking sites to make their work available.

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-17
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Avery

Across the past decade, open access (OA) journal scholarship has seen a massive global increase. Scant research, however, has been done to examine the effect of this trend on religious studies journal scholarship. This article seeks to explore the current state of OA scholarship among journals covering religion. To examine the state of OA scholarship among journals of religious studies, the OA availability of articles from ten, peer-reviewed, religious studies journals were examined. Using the SCImago Journal & Country Rank, a portal that includes the journals and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus® database, the ten most highly rated journals in mid-2015, according to the SJR indicator, were selected for evaluation. Articles that appeared in the journal volumes published in 2014 were selected for analysis, and were identified through online research databases and journal websites which provided bibliographic information. Only articles and essays dealing with research were included. A total of 377 articles were included in the study. Of the 377 articles examined, OA versions were found for 132 (35%) of them. Approximately one third of articles (33.3%) were located in multiple locations, with more than half of all OA articles found (53.0%) on either Institutional or Subject repositories, or, on the social networking sites ResearchGate.net or Academia.edu. Of the total number of OA articles found, 87 (65.9%) were found by both Google and Google Scholar, and 43 (32.6%) were found by only Google or Google Scholar, but not both. The results indicate that religious studies journal scholarship is not widely archived and made available as OA, as a regular practice. Results also indicate that those scholars who publish in journals covering religious studies and who embrace open access, make strong use of either institutional or subject repositories and/or social networking sites to make their scholarship openly available. The relatively low rate of OA religious studies journal scholarship, has limited support in previous literature. While the results of this study indicate an increase in the OA availability of religious studies journal scholarship, as compared to previous findings, scholars and journals of religion still lag behind other disciplines in the output of OA research.


Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-54
Author(s):  
Wanyenda Leonard Chilimo

 There is scant research-based evidence on the development and adoption of open access (OA) and institutional repositories (IRs) in Africa, and in Kenya in particular. This article reports on a study that attempted to fill that gap and provide feedback on the various OA projects and advocacy work currently underway in universities and research institutions in Kenya and in other developing countries. The article presents the findings of a descriptive study that set out to evaluate the current state of IRs in Kenya. Webometric approaches and interviews with IR managers were used to collect the data for the study. The findings showed that Kenya has made some progress in adopting OA with a total of 12 IRs currently listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and five mandatory self-archiving policies listed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP). Most of the IRs are owned by universities where theses and dissertations constitute the majority of the content type followed by journal articles. The results on the usage and impact of materials deposited in Kenyan IRs indicated that the most viewed publications in the repositories also received citations in Google Scholar, thereby signifying their impact and importance. The results also showed that there was a considerable interest in Swahili language publications among users of the repositories in Kenya.


Author(s):  
Vladlena Benson

Based on the literature review of the theory of trust, this chapter aims to provide an insight into trust formation on social networking sites (SNS). An overview of the current state of cybercrime and known ways of threat mitigation helps shed some light on the reasons why social networks became easy targets for Internet criminals. Increasingly, personalisation is seen as a method for counteracting attacks perpetrated via phishing messages. This chapter aims to look specifically at trust in online social networks and how it influences vulnerability of users towards cybercrime. The chapter poses a question whether personalisation is the silver bullet to combat cyber threats on social networks. Further research directions are discussed.


2019 ◽  
pp. 089443931987356
Author(s):  
Ben Wasike

Altmetrics are a relatively new phenomenon in research. These metrics measure the attention that research articles receive from nontraditional venues such as social media and the Internet. This study examined how these metrics affect both the readership and citation of articles in communication research. The study examined citation data alongside altmetrics data from academic social networking sites ResearchGate and Mendeley, as well as mentions on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Results indicated that all altmetrics positively correlated with citation. Posting articles on sites such as ResearchGate and Mendeley not only impacted readership, it increased the likelihood of citation. Other variables that improved readership and citation were social media mentions, downloadable articles, coauthorship, and an active online presence among scholars.


Author(s):  
Suman Silwal ◽  
Dale W Callahan

Social Media (SM) is becoming a normal part of everyday life. The information generated from Social Media (SM) data is becoming increasingly utilized as a communication channel for market trend, brand awareness, breaking news, and online social interaction between person to person. SM is also rapidly growing and maturing [1]. Further, SM is becoming a reliable tool for interdisciplinary industries like banks, travel, healthcare, biotech, software, sports etc.SM data can also be used as a research tool to apply in different areas of Humanities, Art, Science and Engineering. There are unlimited possibilities using Social Networking Site (SNS) to collect, process and evaluate data. This paper reviews the current state of Social Networking Sites and Text-based Language Processes, and how it can be used to generate valuable information.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Williams

Objectives: This small-scale study explores the current state of connections between open data and open access (OA) articles in the life sciences. Methods: This study involved 44 openly available life sciences datasets from the Illinois Data Bank that had 45 related research articles. For each article, I gathered the OA status of the journal and the article on the publisher website and checked whether the article was openly available via Unpaywall and Research Gate. I also examined how and where the open data was included in the HTML and PDF versions of the related articles. Results: Of the 45 articles studied, less than half were published in Gold/Full OA journals, and while the remaining articles were published in Gold/Hybrid journals, none of them were OA. This study found that OA articles pointed to the Illinois Data Bank datasets similarly to all of the related articles, most commonly with a data availability statement containing a DOI. Conclusions: The findings indicate that Gold OA in hybrid journals does not appear to be a popular option, even for articles connected to open data, and this study emphasizes the importance of data repositories providing DOIs, since the related articles frequently used DOIs to point to the Illinois Data Bank datasets. This study also revealed concerns about free (not licensed OA) access to articles on publisher websites, which will be a significant topic for future research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Phillips ◽  
Drew Baker ◽  
Ann Hidalgo

This article introduces the Open Access Digital Theological Library (OADTL), a new, fully open access digital library for religious studies. The OADTL, curated by professional librarians and employing OCLC's integrated library system, seeks to apply the principles of professional librarianship to make all open access content in religious studies fully discoverable to a global audience. The initial collections contain over 100,000 ebooks and over 200,000 full text, peer-reviewed, articles. The project is funded by a not-for-profit corporation, the Digital Theological Library, a 501c3 charity. Collections include recently published OA content, dissertations, public domain documents, and books from institutional repositories--as well content for Open Access journals. Much of the content is cataloged as e-content for the first time in this library. There are no fees of any kind for use.


First Monday ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Tsou ◽  
Timothy D. Bowman ◽  
Thomas Sugimoto ◽  
Vincent Lariviere ◽  
Cassidy R. Sugimoto

Online self-presentation is of increasing importance in modern life, from establishing and maintaining personal relationships to forging professional identities. Academic scholars are no exception, and a host of social networking platforms designed specifically for scholars abound. This study used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service to code 10,500 profile pictures used by scholars on three platforms — Mendeley, Microsoft Academic Search, and Google Scholar — in order to determine how academics are presenting themselves to their colleagues and to the public at large and how they are perceived — particularly in relation to professionalism and attractiveness. The majority of the individuals on Mendeley, Microsoft Academic Search, and Google Scholar were Caucasian, male, and perceived to be over the age of 35. Females and younger individuals were perceived as less professional than male and older individuals, while women were more likely to be perceived as “attractive.” In addition, the Mechanical Turk coders were susceptible to framing; the individuals in the profile pictures were considered more “professional” if they were identified as “scholars” rather than merely as “individuals.” The results have far-reaching implications for self-presentation and framing, both for scholars and for other professionals. In the academic realm, there are serious implications for hiring and the allocation of resources and rewards.


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