Towards proper evaluation of book publishing in the social sciences

Books are important in the social sciences. Monographs and edited books allow for presenting original research based on methodologies or forms of collaboration that the format of the journal article does not serve as appropriately. Books are also used to engage directly with society. This chapter first introduces book publishing in the social sciences as a diversity of genres, purposes, and audiences. We then limit the scope to peer-reviewed scholarly book publishing and describe how publication patterns differ among the disciplines of the social sciences in the dimensions of books versus journal articles and national versus international publishing. Then we focus on the structure of the scholarly book publishing market with particular attention to developments towards open access publishing. The chapter ends with our suggestions for principles that can guide proper evaluation of book publishing in the social sciences.

Immunotherapy-Related Publications in Colorectal Cancer: A Bibliometric Analysis

Patients with microsatellite-instability-high (MSI-H) or mismatched repair-deficient colorectal cancer (CRC) appear to be responsive to checkpoint inhibitors. This study aimed to assess research trends in CRC immunotherapy. Publication patterns of articles covering immunotherapies in CRC in the Web of Science Core Collection database were retrospectively examined using VOS viewer software (version 1.6.16) prior to 25 May 2021. Ultimately, 3977 records were identified that were published between 1975 and 2021, which received a total of 128,681 citations (an average of 32.36 citations per item), with a noticeable rise in 2014. The majority of articles were published in the US (35.8%), China (17.7%), and Germany (9.4%). Publications mainly originated from the Institut National de la Santé Et De La Recherche Medicale Inserm, followed by the University of Texas System and Harvard University; however, Johns Hopkins University received the most citations (18,666 for 69 publications). The Journal of Clinical Oncology issued the most publications (n = 146), while the most referenced item (7724 citations) was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012. The most common keywords were associated with tumors (expression and microsatellite instability) or immune system components (t-cells/dendritic cells). The findings demonstrate the scientific community’s interest in the MSI-H subtype of colorectal tumors and how immunotherapy may be employed more successfully to treat metastatic CRC.

Publication practices in the Humanities

This paper is a case study of research publication practices at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Linnaeus University, a young, mid-sized university in the south-east of Sweden. Research output was measured from publications in the local institutional repository following the guidelines of local research policy as defined in university documentation. The data collection comprised 3,316 metadata records of publications self-registered by authors affiliated with the faculty during the period of 2010–2018. A statistical analysis of research output was conducted, focusing on preferred publication types, disciplinary specificity, level of co-authorship, and the language of the publication as registered in the local repository. The analysis focused on two main research questions: 1) how do the local research practices stand in relation to traditional publication patterns in the humanities? 2) how do the observed publication patterns relate to local university policy on publication and research evaluation? The empirical results suggest a limited correlation between publication practices and research incentives from university management, a finding that is corroborated by previous research on the scholarly character of the humanities and university policies. Overall, traditional humanities publication patterns were largely maintained throughout the period under investigation.

The COVID problem reflected by economics – A bibliometric analysis

COVID-19 has been the “hottest” topic in many fields of research during 2020–2021. Our analysis focuses on the publications related to the pandemic in the business and economics area. Using the Web of Science database, the main international research patterns in this field have been analysed. Our research covers less than two years (2020 and part of 2021), but the number of publications is large (more than 1,000) in this limited time span. The publication patterns of the CEE countries have also been examined. Bibliometric and social network analysis was used to assess which countries and institutions published the most during this period. For analysing the main trends in the given field, keyword analysis was performed.

Trianon in Popular History in Late-Socialist and Post-Transition Hungary: A Case Study

The main purpose of this article is to show how the changing dynamics of governmental memory politics and shifting institutional frameworks influenced the space for and type of discourses about Trianon in popular historiography in the decades spanning 1979 to 2010. I first introduce the way academic historiography addressed the issue of the peace treaty and its consequences. Second, I situate popular historical discussions about Trianon within the broader landscape of historical knowledge production. Analyzing publication patterns of História (1978) and Rubicon (1989), the two most widely read mainstream popular historical journals, complemented with a discussion of Trianoni Szemle, a journal established for the purpose of discussing this single topic, I reflect both on the journals’ (self-)positioning under changing currents and the intensity of governmental interest and control. As the centennial of the signing of the peace treaty draws near, such a case study provides an opportunity to observe symptomatic mechanisms of illiberal memory politics in juxtaposition to its authoritarian and democratic predecessors.

Scientific Publication Patterns of Interactive Mobile Technologies for Psychological, Social, Medical and Business Interventions for Mental and Physical Health: Bibliometric Analysis

<p align="justify"><strong>Abstract -</strong> There has been emerging interest in the effectiveness of interactive mobile technology usage in psychological, social, medical and business interventions. However, the field still lacks holistic overviews of the role of technology for psychological, social, medical and business interventions. </p><p align="justify">The present bibliometric study was employed to identify and synthesize the results from studies exploring domains of interactive mobile technology used in applied psychology and counseling, supporting health professionals, managing mental and physical health, humanizing technology and improving its efficiency in the business field, as well as in the social field including vocational education, safeguarding, communities and ethnic minorities. An author analyzed the papers published in highly ranked and cited journals which were indexed and ranked in the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus, in the period of 2020 to 2021. The results demonstrated high interest in studied domains within various subjects and fields of study, demonstrating the interest in the opportunities which provide the technology for professional education and developing methodological competences.</p>

Research Productivity and Citation Impact of Indian institutes of Science Education and Research

The paper’s main objective is to investigate the trends of basic science research in India using a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches. It examines the publication patterns and impact of research productivity of five basic science institutions, i.e., “Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research” (IISER), namely IISER Kolkata, IISER Pune, IISER Mohali, IISER Bhopal, and IISER Thiruvananthapuram. The research output indexed in the SCOPUS bibliographic database of these five established IISERs was obtained from 2015 to 2019. A total number of 7329 research publications were analysed using various scientometric dimensions. This paper makes a concerted effort to present a comprehensive picture of the assessment of research outcomes at the five older IISERs, which are ostensibly India’s most active and prominent basic science research institutions. The findings reveal that these institutions are accountable for important research outcomes, such as a high number of citations, preferences towards open access (OA) publications, a rise in research publication year over year, a strong author network, a high degree of collaboration, and a high impact in terms of other scientometrics indicators. This paper discusses the findings of the research publications on the position of IISERs in basic sciences research and draws some conclusions about their effects.

Ensuring Quality and Status: Peer Review Practices in Kriterium, A Portal for Quality-Marked Monographs and Edited Volumes in Swedish SSH

Although established forms of peer review are often criticized for being slow, secretive, and even unfair, they are repeatedly mentioned by academics as the most important indicator of quality in scholarly publishing. In many countries, the peer review of books is a less codified practice than that of journal articles or conference papers, and the processes and actors involved are far from uniform. In Sweden, the review process of books has seldom been formalized. However, more formal peer review of books has been identified as a response to the increasing importance placed on streamlined peer-reviewed publishing of journal articles in English, which has been described as a direct challenge to more pluralistic publication patterns found particularly in the humanities. In this study, we focus on a novel approach to book review, Kriterium, where an independent portal maintained by academic institutions oversees the reviewing of academic books. The portal administers peer reviews, providing a mark of quality through a process which involves reviewers, an academic coordinator, and an editorial board. The paper studies how this process functions in practice by exploring materials concerning 24 scholarly books reviewed within Kriterium. Our analysis specifically targets tensions identified in the process of reviewing books with a focus on three main themes, namely the intended audience, the edited volume, and the novel role of the academic coordinator. Moreover, we find that the two main aims of the portal–quality enhancement (making research better) and certification (displaying that research is of high quality)–are recurrent in deliberations made in the peer review process. Consequently, we argue that reviewing procedures and criteria of quality are negotiated within a broader discussion where more traditional forms of publishing are challenged by new standards and evaluation practices.

Research productivity of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) from 2003 to 2020

Purpose This study aims to examine the quantitative research productivity of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) globally by using the bibliometric approach. The method was applied to articles indexed in the Scopus database to analyze the publication patterns, trends and research productivity of the selected papers. Design/methodology/approach Bibliometric analysis is applied to analyze research productivity of IFRS from 2003 to 2020. The method was applied to articles indexed in the Scopus database to analyze the publication patterns and research productivity of the selected papers. Findings This study finds that a good number of articles have been published on IFRS, the top five countries are the USA, UK, Australia, Germany and Canada. This clearly shows that developed markets have the highest number of publications on IFRS. This could be as a result of the early adoption of IFRS by those economies and owing to the interest of researchers in those markets. Most of the studies are quantitative in nature; this study indicates that publication on accounting standards is popular as the number of citations is significant; most of the articles have two or more authors and were published in top-ranking journals. Practical implications This study provides up-to-date literature on the global research productivity of IFRS; as a result, it supports the development of policies by the users of this accounting standards. The findings of this study also serve as a reference point for firms and regulators around the world. Given the thoroughness of the methodology of this study, the results make it easier to effectively identify the direction of research on the implementation of IFRS in organizations. Originality/value This study provides a more comprehensive bibliometric analysis on the growth of IFRS literature (2003–2020) in the Scopus database; most of the prior studies have covered relatively few areas of focus as well as a fewer number of high impact factor journals. The relevance of this finding is in uncovering different areas of IFRS research productivity globally.

Exploring Topics in Bibliometric Research Through Citation Networks and Semantic Analysis

This article surveys topic distributions of the academic literature that employs the terms bibliometrics, scientometrics, and informetrics. This exploration allows informing on the adoption of those terms and publication patterns of the authors acknowledging their work to be part of bibliometric research. We retrieved 20,268 articles related to bibliometrics and applied methodologies that exploit various features of the dataset to surface different topic representations. Across them, we observe major trends including discussions on theory, regional publication patterns, databases, and tools. There is a great increase in the application of bibliometrics as science mapping and decision-making tools in management, public health, sustainability, and medical fields. It is also observed that the term bibliometrics has reached an overall generality, while the terms scientometrics and informetrics may be more accurate in representing the core of bibliometric research as understood by the information and library science field. This article contributes by providing multiple snapshots of a field that has grown too quickly beyond the confines of library science.