Network Strategy for Entrepreneurs

Networks are an emerging area within the literature related to how entrepreneurs transfer knowledge, seek partnerships, and ultimately interact with others. Some terms with which this area has been defined are Business Networks, Knowledge Networks & Collaboration Networks. It is a cross-cutting phenomenon in various areas of knowledge, such as open innovation and entrepreneurship. However, the relevance of the use of networks for entrepreneurs and the development of global start-ups leads us to the need to propose a conceptual framework for the planning and administration of these business networks. It is an analytical investigation with a case study methodology. They are cases of the cities of Sao Paulo (Brazil) and Santiago (Chile) mainly of consulting and software services. From the models usually used in entrepreneurship, those with integrated tools and methodologies for the development of business networks by founders or administrators of start-ups.

El fact-checking hispanohablante: competencias, dificultades y propuestas de mejora desde la perspectiva de sus profesionales

Fact-checking has become a global journalism movement that is considered essential to fight against disinformation and address demands for new communication processes. Spanish-speaking fact-checking is constantly growing, with the number of platforms in Latin America and Spain increasing by more than 100% from 2018 to 2021. Collaboration networks between these platforms are also being implemented to address disinformation beyond national borders in the Spanish-speaking world. However, academic research regarding this phenomenon has mainly focused on fact-checking practices without paying much attention to the professionals themselves: the fact-checkers. Understanding the challenges faced by these professionals in Spanish-speaking contexts is key to contributing to the development of this activity beyond the Anglo-Saxon perspective. In this work, we conducted a survey (n = 52) among Spanish and Latin American fact-checkers. The professionals were asked about their perception on fact-checking’s link to journalism, the competences they believed necessary for fact-checking, the main difficulties they usually face, as well as their thoughts on proposals for potential improvements. The survey results were then enriched by conducting 13 in-depth interviews of Spanish-speaking professionals and academics with expertise in fact-checking. Studying these variables is key to design new, more adequate and attractive curricular proposals to improve the training of future journalists and help them face the enormous and complex but necessary and urgent task of fighting disinformation. Resumen La verificación de informaciones, o fact-checking, se ha convertido en un movimiento periodístico global fundamental para hacer frente a la desinformación y a las nuevas demandas de los ecosistemas comunicativos. El panorama hispanohablante no es ajeno al desarrollo del fact-checking: el número de plataformas de verificación en español ha crecido más de un 100% desde 2018 y las redes de colaboración entre iniciativas hispanas se han consolidado especialmente durante la pandemia por coronavirus. Sin embargo, la investigación ha puesto el foco principalmente en los procesos y las dinámicas de verificación, y no tanto en los protagonistas del fact-checking: los fact-checkers. Entender los retos a los que se enfrentan estos profesionales en el marco hispanohablante parece esencial para contribuir al desarrollo de esta especialidad más allá del contexto anglosajón, que ha recibido hasta ahora una mayor atención académica. En este trabajo se desarrolla una encuesta (n=52) entre verificadores de España y Latinoamérica para conocer su percepción sobre el grado de vinculación del fact-checking con el periodismo, las competencias que consideran necesarias para llevar a cabo su tarea profesional, las principales dificultades a las que se enfrentan, así como su visión sobre posibles propuestas de mejora. En una segunda fase, se enriquecieron los resultados con la realización de 13 entrevistas en profundidad a profesionales y estudiosos del fenómeno en el marco hispano. El estudio de estas variables resulta, además, de gran interés a la hora de diseñar propuestas curriculares acertadas y atractivas que mejoren la formación de los futuros periodistas en la titánica, compleja, necesaria y urgente tarea de combatir la desinformación.

Study of the Most Valuable Researcher: Bibliometric Indicators and Collaboration Networks

This work seeks to find the Most Valuable Researcher (MVR) within the academics of Faculties of Engineering and Business of a University in Chile, applying bibliometric indicators and collaboration networks. The methodology consisted in reviewing the literature referring to similar bibliometric studies from open databases, such as SciELO and Google Scholar. As a result of the study, a model was proposed based on the main bibliometric indicators used, with it was possible to filter the researchers from both faculties and establish a ranking with those academics with the best results and the current situation facing the research in each unit. This ranking indicates the standard that the most valuable researchers have, identifying that the variable “collaborative networks” has a direct relationship with the productivity of researchers and, also, the existence of correlations with indicators of network grade, co-authorship, and research area. This work seeks to deliver recommendations on the quantity and quality of scientific production within the University. Future research should include other databases and expand the scope by region, country, and area of expertise, and consider other factors such as the age of the researcher, forms of citation, and characteristics by area of knowledge, as well as deepen the concept of MVR, and its virtuous effect on the productivity of an academic unit.

Patterns of student collaborative learning in blended course designs based on their learning orientations: a student approaches to learning perspective

This study combines research methods from student approaches to learning research and social network analysis (SNA) to examine patterns of students’ collaborative learning based on their learning orientations amongst 193 postgraduates enrolled in a blended course. The study identified two distinct learning orientations, namely ‘understanding’ and ‘reproducing’, which differed in approaches to learning through inquiry, approaches to using online learning technologies, perceptions of the online workload, and academic outcomes. On the basis of students’ learning orientations and their choice of whether to collaborate and with whom to collaborate, five networks representing five patterns of collaborative learning were found. From these, two did not reveal any collaboration (Understanding Alone and Reproducing Alone networks); and three revealed collaborations (Understanding Collaboration, Mixed Collaboration, Reproducing Collaboration networks). A range of SNA measures were calculated and revealed different features of the three collaboration networks. Viewed together, the combined methodologies suggest that the Understanding Collaboration network has more desirable features of collaboration, such as the intensity of collaboration, having closely knitted groups who tended to seek out and welcome peers and who tended to engage more often in both face-to-face and online modes. The study suggests that helping students adjust their learning orientations, designing some compulsory collaborative assessment tasks, and configuring the composition of collaborative groups are productive strategies likely to improve students’ experiences of collaborative learning.

A large National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre facilitates impactful cross-disciplinary and collaborative translational research publications and research collaboration networks: a bibliometric evaluation study

Background The evaluation of translational health research is important for various reasons such as the research impact assessment, research funding allocation, accountability, and strategic research policy formulation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the research productivity, strength and diversity of research collaboration networks and impact of research supported by a large biomedical research centre in the United Kingdom (UK). Methods Bibliometric analysis of research publications by translational researchers affiliated with the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) from April 2012 to March 2017. Results Analysis included 2377 translational research publications that were published during the second 5-year funding period of the NIHR Oxford BRC. Author details were available for 99.75% of the publications with DOIs (2359 of 2365 with DOIs), and the number of authors per publication was median 9 (mean = 18.03, SD = 3.63, maximum = 2467 authors). Author lists also contained many consortia, groups, committees, and teams (n = 165 in total), with 1238 additional contributors, where membership was reported. The BRC co-authorship i.e., research collaboration network for these publications involved 20,229 nodes (authors, of which 1606 nodes had Oxford affiliations), and approximately 4.3 million edges (authorship linkages). Articles with a valid DOIs (2365 of 2377, 99.5%) were collectively cited more than 155,000 times and the average Field Citation Ratio was median 6.75 (geometric mean = 7.12) while the average Relative Citation Ratio was median 1.50 (geometric mean = 1.83) for the analysed publications. Conclusions The NIHR Oxford BRC generated substantial translational research publications and facilitated a huge collaborative network of translational researchers working in complex structures and consortia, which shows success across the whole of this BRC funding period. Further research involving continued uptake of unique persistent identifiers and the tracking of other research outputs such as clinical innovations and patents would allow a more detailed understanding of large research enterprises such as NIHR BRCs in the UK.

Local interactions and homophily effects in actor collaboration networks for urban resilience governance

Understanding actor collaboration networks and their evolution is essential to promoting collective action in resilience planning and management of interdependent infrastructure systems. Local interactions and choice homophily are two important network evolution mechanisms. Network motifs encode the information of network formation, configuration, and the local structure. Homophily effects, on the other hand, capture whether the network configurations have significant correlations with node properties. The objective of this paper is to explore the extent to which local interactions and homophily effects influence actor collaboration in resilience planning and management of interdependent infrastructure systems. We mapped bipartite actor collaboration network based on a post-Hurricane Harvey stakeholder survey that revealed actor collaborations for hazard mitigation. We examined seven bipartite network motifs for the mapped collaboration network and compared the mapped network to simulated random models with same degree distributions. Then we examined whether the network configurations had significant statistics for node properties using exponential random graph models. The results provide insights about the two mechanisms—local interactions and homophily effect—influencing the formation of actor collaboration in resilience planning and management of interdependent urban systems. The findings have implications for improving network cohesion and actor collaborations from diverse urban sectors.