A Lesson in Ethics

This article presents a mentor and student's journey into the world of undergraduate scholarly publication discover a number of unexpected ethical conundrums. The student builds her authority by leaning into her own expertise as a writer and owner of her own work. As the publishing site becomes a site of manipulation, she responds with her growing sense of the ethics of writing for the public. She gains authority in ways that few undergraduate writers can through her decision making.

Сочинение «Xamuq kilince namančilaqui sudur» («Сутра замаливания всех грехов») из астрологического сборника калмыцкого зурхачи

Introduction. The written heritage of Kalmyk Buddhist lamas has not been sufficiently discussed in scientific literature. Most of written documents from their personal libraries have not been published, hence they remain unavailable to researchers. Importantly, the scholarly publication of such texts contributes to the source database of Buddhist studies. The present article aims to describe, transliterate and translate “The Sutra of Atonement for All Sins” (Oir. Xamuq kilince namančilaxu sudur), which was part of the astrological collection that belonged to a Kalmyk zurkhachi, i. e. to introduce the document for the attention of scholars in the field. Materials. To clarify the translation of some difficult passages in the text of the Oirat Sutra written in “todo bichig” (“Clear Script”), Tibetan texts of similar content were used. One of them, created in the framework of the “terma” tradition, was published in French by E. Schlagintweit. The other text was taken from the collection “Sundui”. Results. The translation of the Oirat Sutra clearly indicates the character of Buddhist astrological collections in terms of their composition: in addition to specific tables, diagrams, and figures, they included the texts of prayers. Also, the textual analysis of the source shows the importance of such issues as the selection of equivalents of Buddhist terms and of the names of the deities of the Buddhist pantheon in translating Buddhist texts, which is directly related to the approaches and principles of translation of Oirat and Kalmyk translators of Tibetan texts.

Publishing ESTS

In our previous editorial (Khandekar et al. 2021), we noted the blackboxing of scholarly publication infrastructure that we encountered when we assumed editorship of the journal. We outlined several aspects of infrastructuring that we have undertaken since, with an explicit goal of supporting transnational workflows and participation in ESTS. In this editorial, we continue describing our infrastructural work, highlighting especially the work of content production at ESTS. We also discuss the relevance of our infrastructural work for open access (OA) scholarly publishing.

Nikolay Antsiferov. ‘That’s our life in letters’: Letters to family and friends (1900s — 1950s)

The collection prepared by IMLI RAN contains letters of the eminent specialist in local history N. Antsiferov and focuses on the biography of this St. Petersburg Imperial University alumnus, who, despite many arrests by the Soviet regime on trumped-up charges, incarceration in prisons and guarded camps and exile, preserved his inner freedom and, therefore, his scholarly potential. The book details the political context that brought about the outrageous persecution of this highly skilled and staunchly apolitical scholar aswell as the abrupt clearance of charges. Also included is a summary of his scholarly output in literary history, local history and cultural studies. The book lists the scholar’s acquaintances and correspondents, e. g., M. Bakhtin, V. Vernadsky, M. Lozinsky, A. Meyer, K. Chukovsky, B. Eichenbaum, and many other members of the intellectual elite. The book is celebrated as a landmark scholarly publication; highly praised are the text preparation efforts and explanatory notes.

Author-Suggested, Weighted Citation Index: A Novel Approach for Determining the Contribution of Individual Researchers

A novel scientometric index, named ‘author-suggested, weighted citation index’ (Aw-index) is proposed to indicate the scientific contribution of any individual researcher. For calculation of the Aw-index, it is suggested that during the submission of a scholarly article, the corresponding author would provide a statement, agreed upon by all the authors, containing weightage factors against each author of the article. The author who contributed more to the article would secure a higher weightage factor. The summation of the weightage factors of all the authors of an article should be unity. The citation points a researcher receives from a scholarly publication is the product of his/her weightage factor for that article and the total number of citations of the article. The Aw-index of any individual researcher is the summation of the citation points he/she receives for all his/her publications as an author. The Aw-index provides the opportunity to the group of authors of a multi-authored article to determine the quantum of partial citations to be attributed to each of them. Through an illustrative example, a comparison of the proposed index with the major scientometric indexes is presented to highlight the advantages of the Aw-index.

A Famine of Riches in Scholarly Publication

I have been editing for a while. Long enough to have witnessed the evolution from pre-digital journals to the post-digital pure play. I negotiated and obtained the first online review system for this fine journal, back in 2006 when I was building my first proposal to edit The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. I felt at the time that I might be a tad late coming to the digital field, seeing that the association I belonged to had already launched two digital pure-play publications which appeared to be destined for notice.

Visualizations with statistical details: The 'ggstatsplot' approach

Graphical displays can reveal problems in a statistical model that might not be apparent from purely numerical summaries. Such visualizations can also be helpful for the reader to evaluate validity of a model if the said analysis is reported in a scholarly publication/report. But, given the onerous costs involved, researchers can avoid preparing information-rich graphics and exploring several statistical approaches/tests available. The `ggstatsplot` package in R programming language provides a one-line syntax to create densely informative `ggplot2`-based visualizations with the results from statistical analysis embedded in the visualization itself. In doing so, the package helps researchers adopt a rigorous, reliable, and robust data exploratory and reporting workflow.

Quantum Leap beyond the Frontiers: ‘Currentism’ in Visual Arts Production in the Nsukka School

There exists no scholarly publication espousing on the driving force behind the restless aspirations of the Nsukka artists towards searching for and using commonplace materials that the potent environment provides for supports and media for studio art production. Following this, my intent is to discuss the Nsukka artists’ creative inclinations, bordering on styles, ideas, forms, materials and technique. Through hermeneutical analysis, I examine some useful insights in the formal and conceptual principles for which their recent and current artworks are foregrounded. Relying on historical, interpretative and analytical methods of data illumination, I engage some selected unusual artworks executed between 1999 and 2017 by some selected Nsukka artists to authenticate the fact that Nsukka artists have taken a quantum leap beyond the frontiers of the human consciousness and in so doing, have mastered their oeuvres, bringing about great ingenuity and some unprecedented innovations in the execution of breath-taking postmodernist artworks whose formal contents and thematic probing interrogate germane issues.