Information Literacy in Russia: Survey of DIREKT Project

In this work, we analyze responses of the Russian universities, research institutes and public libraries to survey questionnaire aimed to study the level of understanding and estimate the role of information literacy (IL) in the practices of Russian higher education. The survey was conducted in 2019 among 122 Russian organizations in 30 cities. In this work we study four reference groups: faculty, librarian, student/graduate student and others. We report that 90 % of the respondents emphasize the importance of IL for their organizations, 69 % agree that IL can be easily integrated into training courses of their organization, and 72 % consider such integration necessary. At the same time, only 24 % of respondents confirmed that IL was already well-integrated into the curricula of their organizations in 2019. and 53 % - that this was implemented at the level of individual modules. The majority (80 %) of the survey participants highly appreciate the participation of teachers and librarians of their organization in the development of IL and note the high level of their cooperation. Russian specialists highly estimate their competence in terms of knowledge and skills in the field of IL: 72 % of those who answered this question gave themselves good and very good ratings. Meanwhile, 80 % of the survey participants rated the ability to teach IL only as good and satisfactory.

The ultimate publication activity of the Russian authors of the scientific journals

The paper deals with an approach to finding the ultimate number of papers Russian authors deliver to scientific journals. The approach is based on an assessment of the entire audience interested in publications in scientific journals, an assumption that each author personally pursues a research and writes a paper for the scientific journal, as well as an account for the co-authorship indicator, i.e. the involvement of colleagues into the research performed by the author. The research employs data by Rosstat, Higher School of Economics and Scientific Electronic Library to reveal all the authors interested in publication. This indicator is then multiplied by a value of co-authorship. The number of papers the authors publish per year is recommended to be taken as a random value, to be used later as a basis for building a probabilistic distribution of the ultimate number of papers among all authors. The distribution is built by the Monte Carlo method, and the analysis employs the apparatus of the probability theory and linear algebra. The obtained data and data from the Scientific electronic library have been exposed to comparative analysis. The work revealed that for the annual amount of more than one article the distribution of the number of papers received from the Russian audience can be approximated by a normal distribution, with all its parameters depending on maximum annual number of papers, scope of audience and co-authorship indicator. This gives the ultimate number of papers for any section (group of disciplines or a particular discipline). The article considers the examples of obtaining the distribution for the ultimate number of papers. The results can be used for correcting the research policy of an organization or an institute of higher education in the directions of activity being researched, and can serve as a guide to the necessary number of papers in various fields of science.

Digital Repository of the Southern Federal University in the Scientific and Educational Space of the University

The article reveals the experience of creating a Digital Repository by the Zonal Scientific Library of the Southern Federal University. It is organized and technically supported as the central repository of the SFedU intellectual property objects. Having studied the experience of other universities, it was decided to develop its own software platform built in Python. As a result, a high level of service was provided for the use of the repository not only by librarians and users, but also by other structural divisions of the university. The repository contains the intellectual products of the university, provides access to the results of scientific research of the university, has the ability to exchange metadata through the API interface, has a customized search interface, ensures the safety of content, and minimizes the labor costs of users and service personnel.

Map of educational resources used by medical students. Competitiveness of resources of HE institution (comparison of the 2020 and 2021 results)

Introduction. Educational resources for medical students are not limited to traditional resources available in the university electronic environment of (subscribed or created at the university). Studies of the usage statistics of the university information-educational environment cannot give a reliable answer to the question of what resources students use. The study analyzes the survey data on the use of publicly available and commercial educational services along with the university resources. In result, we determine how the structure of the information and educational environment of the university meets the identified needs of students.Methods. In April 2021, we conducted an online survey of 1,765 students from 10 medical universities. Respondents were proposed to indicate the frequency with which they use different educational resources. We compare the 2021 results with the data of the 2020 survey using the methods of statistical analysis. Comparison of the use of the same type of university resources, publicly available and purchased are performed. The risks of the use of information resources of the university are assessed. Relationships between the use of different resources have been determined. Clusters of respondents demonstrating similar informational behavior are identified.Results. No significant changes in the frequency of use of information resources have been registered since 2020. Students prefer to use free resources regardless of their source. Frequent viewing of teachers’ online lectures reduces interest in face-to-face lectures, and frequent use of paid video resources or mobile applications reduces interest in the university resources as a whole. Close links have been found between the use of different commercial resources. 42.3 % of students prefer the university-created resources, whereas 38.6 % of students are focused at the publicly available resources and 19.1 % prefer technological resources from any source.Conclusion. The information resources of the university compete for the attention of students with a huge number of third-party resources. High-quality video content can significantly increase the use of university resources. An expert assessment of popular medical resources and an increase in students’ awareness of the quality of these resources is needed.

On relations in science: the case of the scientific journal editorial board

This article analyses the connections between members of the editorial board of a scientific journal which are formed based on their reviews of scientific articles. It is shown that the connections can be represented as a graph. The research uses the data for six years of article reviewing in the scientific and technical Journal of "Almaz — Antey" Air and Space Defence Corporation.The methods of analysis are combinatorics and graph theory, as well as the relevant graph characteristics: adjacency matrix, incidence matrix, reachability matrix, graph fullness and connectivity, nearest neighbours graph and graph spanning tree.It is shown that cooperation of the reviewers of the Journal helps plot a connected graph with links between any two vertices, i.e. between any reviewers.The graph is analysed and the methods of its application to calculate the Journal’s scientometric indicators are demonstrated. As the research reveals, a journal that publishes articles in numerous disciplines forms connections between all reviewers and this parameter can be indicative of interchangeability within the scientific fields or, conversely, of a joint work in this scientific field when reviewing manuscripts. Based on the research results, it is possible to search for new reviewers in the areas where competencies are underdeveloped. And by the areas where competencies are strong, we can determine the core competence of the reviewers of a scientific journal, reflecting the main focus of the evaluated scientific research.The work resulted in the formulated scientometric indicators of the journal, which can be used to search for and involve new reviewers or to represent data on a strong team of reviewers on a specific topic, as well as on a new scientific field just emerging for research.

Scientific infrastructure of social sciences and humanities in European Union

The concept of scientific infrastructure in the interpretation adopted in the European Union is considered. It is indicated that this is a modern form of organization of scientific information services. The structure of European organizations and projects forming the scientific infrastructure of European organizations is described. The activities of European consortia of scientific infrastructure of social and humanitarian profile, including information resources and services implemented in these consortia, are described in particular detail. It is concluded that the European experience can be very useful for the development of scientific information services in Russia.

Forecast of the Development of Russian Scientific Journals: Open Access Journals

The article analyzes Russian open access scholarly journals in the context of improving the presentation of the results of scientific research of Russian scientists. The advantages and problems of supporting open access publications are considered, taking into account the analysis of the interests of the stakeholders of scientific publications, examples of state policy for supporting open access publications are presented, and options for adapting the open access model in Russia are formulated. The analysis of the representation of information on the terms of open access for Russian journals is carried out. The citation rate of open access journals was investigated in comparison with the citation rate of traditional subscription publications taking into account the types of open access and the country of the author of the publication. Proposals for adjusting the editorial policy in order to promote Russian journals, improve their quality and accessibility are presented. The final conclusions are made for the entire series of articles devoted to the forecast of the development of Russian journals.

Scientific Reviews in Web of Science Core Collection Data Base

Scientific reviews are a publications type, which is very important for the world scientific community. This article considers reviews positions in the world publication flow (within the database «Wed of Science Core Collection» (WoS CC) array) for six natural sciences research areas (physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, biology, computer science) during the period 2010–2019 for the leading countries of the world and Russia. The article considers additionally this type documents citation specialties depending on the research area.By means of the WoS CC database, bibliometric parameters of publication flows of scientific reviews for the six mentioned research natural sciences areas were determined: the number of records, it’s percentage in the total publication flow, the place of Russian reviews in the world flow, the average citation rate, the proportion of not cited records, the period of active citation. The dynamics of changes for these parameters over time (2010–2019) is considered.The article establishes the following features of scientific reviews, as a specific publication type:the percentage of reviews in both the world and Russian information flow is relatively small, it significantly depends on the research area, but over time it increases for all research areas;the trends of changes for the Russian reviews flow over time and in all research areas, follows world trends;Russian reviews occupy places, in terms of quantity, from 6–9 to a place in the fifth ten in the world array of WoS CC documents (depending on the year and research area), but they show a large spread in average citation terms. Sometimes, Russian reviews average citation is approaching and even exceeds the world average citation for some years and some research areas (and sometimes significantly);the non-cited reviews publications share is significantly lower than even for articles (the most cited type of publications);the reviews active citation period reaches 9–10 years and is significantly longer than (from some publications opinion) for scientific publications in general.

Russian Publications in «Informatics»: Trends of Development

This article considers the current state and evolution of the Russian publication flow in the field of Computer Science in the Web of Science (WOS) database. In this article, we use the term "Informatics" for "Computer Science". The study analyzes the Russian flow to determine its position in the world Computer Science publication flow and its compliance to the National project "Science" requirements.We analyzed the Russian publication flow in 2010–2019 and compared it with other countries. The structure of the flow by the document type and its temporal dynamics was studied as well as the impact on citation metrics. Compliance of the flow characteristics to the requirements of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of the Russian Federation (Ministry) requirements was analyzed.The analysis indicates an increase in the number of Russian computer science publications within 2010-2019,which outstrips the increase in the total number of world publications in Computer Science. This allowed Russia to move from 34 to 15 positions in the world rating in the studied research area. However, this position is not sufficient to achieve the goal of the "Science" National Project, namely, at least, the fifth position in the world rating.According to the methodic requirements of the Ministry, four types of documents were studied: Journals Articles, Conferences Proceeding Papers, Book Chapters, and Reviews. All journals have been classified into the WOS journal quartiles. Our analysis shows that the percentage of publications in the journals of higher quartiles (first and second) increases constantly and made 42 % in 2019.An increase in the number of the Conference Proceeding Papers was the highest among the studied document types.The number of citations of the published documents was studied for each document type. It was shown thatthe citing of the Journal Articles is by the order of magnitude higher than that of the Conference Proceeding Papers. This result indicates the very low interest of the Scientific Society to the Conference Proceeding Papers as compared with the Journal Articles. We conclude that an increase in the number and relative share of the Conference Proceeding Papers together with their low citation results in the low numbers of the overall citation of the Russian publication flow in comparison with other countries neighboring Russia in the world rating.The "Quality Coefficient" was calculated according to the Ministry’s methodic requirements. It was shown that the contribution of Conference Proceedings Papers to this coefficient is much lower than Journals Articles despite the number of the Conference Proceeding Papers is significantly higher.As a result, the flow of Russian publications in the field of Informatics demonstrates significant, though insufficient, growth within the analyzed period. Special attention should be paid to the document type structure of the flow.

Preprints: Background and Current Trends

The paper analyzes various viewpoints on applicability of preprints used to exchange data on the following: how a non-peer-reviewed paper affects the way preprints are perceived in various sciences, how the academic community tackles the issue of evaluating preprints, how publishers treat preprints, how external factors affect the development of preprints, and who is responsible for the quality of preprints. The timeline has been identified for the development of preprints between 1940s and 2020. The development of preprints has been analyzed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data has been provided on current platforms and tools that can be used to work with preprints and to evaluate them.