Research data stewardship at the University of Hong Kong

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to look at the journey and experience of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Research Data Management (RDM) practice to respond to the needs of researchers in an academic library.Design/methodology/approachThe research data services (RDS) practice is based on the FAIR data principle. And the authors designed the RDM Stewardship framework to implement the RDS step by step.FindingsThe HKU Libraries developed and implemented a set of RDS under a research data stewardship framework in response to the recent evolving research needs for RDM amongst the academic communities. The services cover policy and procedure settings for research data planning, research data infrastructure establishment, data curation services and provision of online resources and instructional guidelines.Originality/value This study provides an example of an approach to respond to the needs of the academic libraries about how to start the RDS including the data policy, data repository, data librarianship and data curation.

MAPPING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT RESEARCH: A BIBLIOMETRIC OVERVIEW

In recent years, knowledge management (KM) has consistently attained considerably growing research attention. Consequently, several literature reviews have been performed addressing different topic areas of KM. This paper seeks to present a comprehensive bibliometric and network analysis on KM to understand its development from the perspective of academic communities. Subsequently, it seeks to identify the structure of associations between prior and current themes, predict emerging trends and offer a longitudinal perspective on KM research. This study used web of science database and the initial sample was trimmed down by considering only the articles contributing to KM literature, and further 8,721 KM papers published in the last 30 years were systematically evaluated. The descriptive statistics and science mapping methods employing co-citation analysis were performed with VOSviewer software. In the descriptive analysis, we have analysed publication trends over time, geographical localization of the contributing institutions, journals, most prolific authors, top-performing institutions and most cited articles. Science mapping analysis is based on co-word analysis and co-citations analysis, namely articles’ co-citations and authors’ co-citations. The main findings of this paper will help researchers and academicians to develop knowledge in a specific sub-field by analysing the research outcomes of the papers included in the body of literature.

Biotech value chain and technologies for COVID-19 research areas for collaboration on cost quality tradeoff with tool companies

BACKGROUND: Technologies for COVID-19 are in high demand, and supply chains from biotech and pharma industries face critical supply issues. OBJECTIVE: This paper discusses the case on mRNA technologies and quality assurance issues. METHODS: Interviews with managers of biotech companies were performed. These helped to prepare biotech panels at a roundtable on quality of medicine, organized by the Polish Academy of Sciences in Paris (PAN) in 2021. RESULTS: This paper analyzes the new mRNA technology and shows the importance of emerging new biotech firms, especially tool companies providing services in quality assurance. It highlights research areas and types of survey instruments with academic collaborators, to better understand the economics of mRNA technology platforms. CONCLUSIONS: A future research agenda for collaboration with academic communities is proposed on cost-quality trade-offs and clinical quality attributes for such genomic technologies.

Intertextuality as an Integral Component of the Modern Ukrainian Discourse (on the Example of Literary and Journalistic Styles)

The article highlights the impact of globalization processes on formation of dominant worldviews and guidelines, as well as ways and means of representing the latter. The state and prospects of studying intertextuality as an important element of modern world discourses in the projection on the national cultural background are studied. Attention is drawn to the high degree of development of both theoretical and applied aspects of intertextuality of discourses by representatives of academic communities of different countries and fields of knowledge, which gave grounds to establish the polydiscursive and interdiscursive nature of the object of analysis. Orientation of domestic experts on parameterization of mainly specific manifestations of intertextuality within certain discourses at the level of isolated intertexts and presence of gaps in the theoretical description of the phenomenon in the context of national specificity is stated. Emphasis is placed on the definite variability of the terminology due to the interdisciplinary nature of discursiveness and, accordingly, intertextuality. A complementary link has been established between postmodernism as the dominant philosophical worldview and the intertextuality of discourses. The specifics of the intertextuality of contemporary Ukrainian literary discourse with regard to various scientific studies are clarified. The concept of “intertextual memory” is introduced and justification of its use is given. The need to apply the term “postmodern intertextuality” in relation to contemporary literary discourse is considered. The common and distinctive features of the manifestation of intertextuality in literary and journalistic discourses are traced. The specifics of intertextuality of Ukrainian journalistic discourse are described. It is established that the precedent character of the communicative act is of exceptional importance for realization of intertextuality in journalistic discourse.

“Trickle-Down” Racial Empathy in American Higher Education: Moving Beyond Performative Wokeness and Academic Panels to Spark Racial Equity

Recent racial justice protests in response to police-related brutality in the U.S. illuminate tensions reflective of persistent power differentials and social and racial traumas of which the U.S. education system has played a pronounced role in both historically producing and, more recently, reproducing by trafficking in an ethos of “trickle-down” racial empathy. Asking questions of the reader, this reflection explores how institutions of higher education persistently fail to accurately diagnose and problematize systemic racism and their role in mediating it, thus failing to engender impactful policy toward diversity, equity, and inclusion within and outside of their academic communities.

Differential retention contributes to racial/ethnic disparity in U.S. academia

Several racial and ethnic identities are widely understood to be under-represented within academia, however, actual quantification of this under-representation is surprisingly limited. Challenges include data availability, demographic inertia and identifying comparison points. We use de-aggregated data from the U.S. National Science Foundation to construct a null model of ethnic and racial representation in one of the world’s largest academic communities. Making comparisons between our model and actual representation in academia allows us to measure the effects of retention (while controlling for recruitment) at different academic stages. We find that, regardless of recruitment, failed retention contributes to mis-representation across academia and that the stages responsible for the largest disparities differ by race and ethnicity: for Black and Hispanic scholars this occurs at the transition from graduate student to postdoctoral researcher whereas for Native American/Alaskan Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander scholars this occurs at transitions to and within faculty stages. Even for Asian and Asian-Americans, often perceived as well represented, circumstances are complex and depend on choice of baseline. Our findings demonstrate that while recruitment continues to be important, retention is also a pervasive barrier to proportional representation. Therefore, strategies to reduce mis-representation in academia must address retention. Although our model does not directly suggest specific strategies, our framework could be used to project how representation in academia might change in the long-term under different scenarios.

Editorial: Building Healthy Academic Communities in this Post-Pandemic Brave New World

No abstract available.

Virtual Education in English Literature Courses during Pandemic COVID-19: Merits and Demerits, and Needs

Distance education and e-learning became widespread and necessary with the miracle of the internet and its increasing influence among the individuals much within the days of a pandemic outbreak of COVID-19. Many universities, institutions, and learners encourage using e-learning and begin growing in this field. This paper examines the merits and demerits of distance and online education teaching for English literature educators and students. Technology and increasing demand for education, traditional strategies do not meet the growing requirements of academic communities and virtual education and e-learning with all their benefits and drawbacks attempt to meet these needs. This paper investigates e-teaching and e-learning infrastructure, needs, benefits, and limitations, in addition to opportunities and challenges of online education within the days of the coronavirus occurrence. The research method of the current study was conducted through a library study along with empirical study and descriptive analysis. New challenges of English literature educators and students in pandemic COVID-19 were identified and new approaches to remove the constraints are suggested. The results confirm online education is a constant educational need not limited to pandemic period and have to be compelled to develop productivity and creativity in learning with the appearance of recent technologies such as computers, the web, and social networks. These skills development can assist educators to find solutions for these difficulties in various areas of educational, cultural, and social issues. Blended learning can contribute to post-pandemic English literature classes and sustainable higher education.

English language teaching to young learners in the socially distanced classroom

It is understood by the academic communities that they take responsibility for their online learning with the help of the necessary technical equipment during the lockdown times, and manage their schedules. They have no choice but to find a solution to their problems on their own when their classmates and their language teachers are around. As the detention is partially lifted in some places, young students are starting to attend their language classes. In a way, they are released from the sense of isolation they felt at home during this time of Lockdown that was coming to an end. But things have changed. Now they find the common space of the classroom again, but in the socially distant classroom and also referred by some as a virtual classroom. This is a challenging time for an English teacher too. The communicative classroom has changed. How it would be possible to regain the enthusiasm of students who work together and share broad and meaningful interaction? Group discussions and pairwork can be very difficult, and young students may need to find new ways to combine these activities.

Co-authorship network structure analysis

The analysis of networks of collaboration between scientists reveals features of academic communities that help in understanding the specifics of collaborative scientific work and identifying the notable researchers. In these networks, the set of nodes consists of authors and there exists a link between two authors if they have coauthored one or more papers. This article presents an analysis of the co-authorship network based on bibliometric data retrieved from the distributed economic database. Here we use the simple network model without taking into account the strength of collaborative ties. The data were analyzed using statistical techniques in order to get such parameters as the number of papers per author, the number of authors per paper, the average number of coauthors per author and collaboration indices. We show that the largest component occupies near 90 % of the network and the node degree distribution follows a power-law. The study of typical distances between nodes and the degree of clustering makes it possible to classify the network as a ‘small world’ network.