Transformation and influencing factors of scholarly communication based on knowledge transfer: A case study of science and technology literature

Purpose: The process of scientific literature use can be regarded as that of knowledge transfer. With the help of the knowledge transfer theory and data from scientific literature databases, we explored the behavior of scientific researchers during their scholarly communication, and studied the factors that influenced the behavior of researchers under network environment. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the literature databases of CNKI, Elsevier Science Direct and Springer Link, we used the knowledge transfer theory to construct a model for describing the scholarly communication process, which attempts to find out factors that may influence the communication behavior of researchers. With a focus laid on the absorption behavior of researchers during the knowledge acceptance process, we defined the independent variables of the model and proposed hypotheses on the basis of a comprehensive literature study. Afterwards, college students were invited to participate in a questionnaire survey, which was designed to prove our research model and hypotheses.Findings: Our results showed that during the scholarly communication, it is not the professional knowledge, but the ability and willingness for knowledge acceptance, organizations’ importance and internal atmosphere as well as knowledge authority and relevance that have played a positive significant role in the knowledge transfer performance. In addition, our distance indicators showed that knowledge distance and knowledge transfer performance have significant negative correlations. Research limitations: This study is mainly based on a questionnaire survey of college students, which may limit the generalization of our research results. In addition, more resource types need be considered for further studies.Practical implications: Under network environment, scholarly communication performance based on knowledge transfer theory could greatly contribute to the enrichment of the contentof the knowledge transfer theory, and stretch out the range of the field. In addition, our result could help commercial scientific database providers to learn more about the users’ needs, which would not only benefit both scientific communities and content providers, but also promote scholarly communication effectively. Originality/value: Compared with existing researches which mainly emphasized the model construction of scholarly communication, our study focused the knowledge relevance during the scholarly communication and influence factors that impacted on the performance of knowledge acceptance under the network environment, which could provide helpful guides for further studies.

National Lists of Scholarly Publication Channels: An Overview and Recommendations for Their Construction and Maintenance

Purpose: This paper presents an overview of different kinds of lists of scholarly publication channels and of experiences related to the construction and maintenance of national lists supporting performance-based research funding systems. It also contributes with a set of recommendations for the construction and maintenance of national lists of journals and book publishers.Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on analysis of previously published studies, policy papers, and reported experiences related to the construction and use of lists of scholarly publication channels. Findings: Several countries have systems for research funding and/or evaluation, that involve the use of national lists of scholarly publication channels(mainly journals and publishers). Typically, such lists are selective(do not include all scholarly or non-scholarly channels) and differentiated(distinguish between channels of different levels and quality). At the same time, most lists are embedded in a system that encompasses multiple or all disciplines. This raises the question how such lists can be organized and maintained to ensure that all relevant disciplines and all types of research are adequately represented. Research limitation: The conclusions and recommendations of the study are based on the authors' interpretation of a complex and sometimes controversial process with many different stakeholders involved.Practical implications: The recommendations and the related background information provided in this paper enable mutual learning that may feed into improvements in the construction and maintenance of national and other lists of scholarly publication channels in any geographical context. This may foster a development of responsible evaluation practices.Originality/value: This paper presents the first general overview and typology of different kinds of publication channel lists, provides insights on expert-based versus metrics-based evaluation, and formulates a set of recommendations for the responsible construction and maintenance of publication channel lists.

Contribution of the Open Access Modality to the Impact of Hybrid Journals Controlling by Field and Time Effects

Purpose:Researchers are more likely to read and cite papers to which they have access than those that they cannot obtain.Thus,the objective of this work is to analyze the contribution of the Open Access(OA)modality to the impact of hybrid journals.Design/methodology/approach:The“research articles”in the year 2017 from 200 hybrid journals in four subject areas,and the citations received by such articles in the period 2017-2020 in the Scopus database,were analyzed.The hybrid OA papers were compared with the paywalled ones.The journals were randomly selected from those with share of OA papers higher than some minimal value.More than 60 thousand research articles were analyzed in the sample,of which 24%under the OA modality.Findings:We obtain at journal level that cites per article in both hybrid modalities(OA and paywalled)strongly correlate.However,there is no correlation between the OA prevalence and cites per article.There is OA citation advantage in 80%of hybrid journals.Moreover,the OA citation advantage is consistent across fields and held in time.We obtain an OA citation advantage of 50%in average,and higher than 37%in half of the hybrid journals.Finally,the OA citation advantage is higher in Humanities than in Science and Social Science.Research limitations:Some of the citation advantage is likely due to more access allows more people to read and hence cite articles they otherwise would not.However,causation is difficult to establish and there are many possible bias.Several factors can affect the observed differences in citation rates.Funder mandates can be one of them.Funders are likely to have OA requirement,and well-funded studies are more likely to receive more citations than poorly funded studies.Another discussed factor is the selection bias postulate,which suggests that authors choose only their most impactful studies to be open access.Practical implications:For hybrid journals,the open access modality is positive,in the sense that it provides a greater number of potential readers.This in turn translates into a greater number of citations and an improvement in the position of the journal in the rankings by impact factor.For researchers it is also positive because it increases the potential number of readers and citations received.Originality/value:Our study refines previous results by comparing documents more similar to each other.Although it does not examine the cause of the observed citation advantage,we find that it exists in a very large sample.

From Paper to Internet:Academic Libraries in Transition

This paper examines the current trends, challenges, and issues facing all libraries, and discusses the strategies that academic libraries, in particular, are taking to transform their services, manage their organizations, and preserve their digital assets. It demonstrates how a network of distributed services, resource sharing, co-investment, and access integration contributes to sustainable library development.