Emanuel Kulczycki

Predatory journals recruit fake editor

An investigation finds that dozens of academic titles offered ‘Dr Fraud’ — a sham, unqualified scientist — a place on their editorial board. Katarzyna Pisanski and colleagues report.

Toward an excellence-based research funding system: Evidence from Poland

This article discusses the metrics used in the national research evaluation in Poland of the period 2009–2012. The Polish system uses mostly parametric assessments to make the evaluation more objective and independent from its peers. We have analysed data on one million research outcomes and assessment results of 962 scientific units in the period 2009–2012. Our study aims to determine how much data the research funding system needs to proceed with evaluation. We have used correlation analysis, multivariate logistic regressions models and decision trees to show which metrics of the evaluation played a major role in the final results. Our analysis revealed that many metrics taken into account in the evaluation are closely correlated. We have found that in the Polish system, not all the collected data are necessary to achieve the main goal of the system, namely the categorization of scientific units in terms of their research performance. Our findings highlight the fact that there is a high correlation between performance in terms of publications and the scientific potential of a given scientific unit. We conclude with recommendations and a suggestion of a transition from a system in which the scientific units report all their metrics to a system in which they show only the most important metrics that meet the requirements of excellence in research.

Does an expert-based evaluation allow us to go beyond the Impact Factor? Experiences from building a ranking of national journals in Poland

This article discusses the Polish Journal Ranking, which is used in the research evaluation system in Poland. In 2015, the ranking, which represents all disciplines, allocated 17,437 journals into three lists: A, B, and C. The B list constitutes a ranking of Polish journals that are indexed neither in the Web of Science nor the European Reference Index for the Humanities. This ranking was built by evaluating journals in three dimensions: formal, bibliometric, and expert-based. We have analysed data on 2035 Polish journals from the B list. Our study aims to determine how an expert-based evaluation influenced the results of final evaluation. In our study, we used structural equation modelling, which is regression based, and we designed three pairs of theoretical models for three fields of science: (1) humanities, (2) social sciences, and (3) engineering, natural sciences, and medical sciences. Each pair consisted of the full model and the reduced model (i.e., the model without the expert-based evaluation). Our analysis revealed that the multidimensional evaluation of local journals should not rely only on the bibliometric indicators, which are based on the Web of Science or Scopus. Moreover, we have shown that the expert-based evaluation plays a major role in all fields of science. We conclude with recommendations that the formal evaluation should be reduced to verifiable parameters and that the expert-based evaluation should be based on common guidelines for the experts.

Publication patterns in the social sciences and humanities: evidence from eight European countries

This study investigates patterns in the language and type of social sciences and humanities (SSH) publications in non-English speaking European countries to demonstrate that such patterns are related not only to discipline but also to each country’s cultural and historic heritage. We investigate publication patterns that occur across SSH publications of the whole of the SSH and of economics and business, law, and philosophy and theology publications in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Flanders (Belgium), Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. We use data from 74,022 peer-reviewed publications from 2014 registered in at least one of the eight countries’ national databases and for 272,376 peer-reviewed publications from the period of 2011–2014 registered in at least one of the seven countries’ national databases (for all countries except Slovakia). Our findings show that publication patterns differ both between fields (e.g. patterns in law differ from those in economics and business in the same way in Flanders and Finland) and within fields (e.g. patterns in law in the Czech Republic differ from patterns in law in Finland). We observe that the publication patterns are stable and quite similar in West European and Nordic countries, whereas in Central and Eastern European countries the publication patterns demonstrate considerable changes. Nevertheless, in all countries, the share of articles and the share of publications in English is on the rise. We conclude with recommendations for science policy and highlight that internationalization policies in non-English speaking countries should consider various starting points and cultural heritages in different countries.

Information and Media Literacy of Polish Children According to the Results of “Children of the Net” and “Children of the Net 2.0” Studies

No empirical multidimensional research investigated media and information literacy (MIL) of Polish children and youth until 2012. To fill that gap, we executed two projects: “Children of the Net: Communication Competencies of Children” (2012) and “Children of the Net 2.0: Communication Competencies of Youth” (2013). This paper presents our research findings. The studies aimed to identify the MIL level in students aged 9-13 and 13-16, respectively, and to explore competencies development contexts. We adopted a qualitative approach called a methodological bricolage which was described by Denzin and Lincoln. Central to the studies was competence assessment based on a structured qualitative interview (group 9-13) and a survey (group 13-16). Other research tasks based on different methods referred to the common framework, i.e. our MIL model. The findings provided knowledge about actual MIL competencies in the studied groups and helped establish where particular MIL competencies develop and children’s attitudes to new technology-mediated communication are shaped.

Uczelnie wyższe na Twitterze. Raport 2014

Raport prezentujący, w jaki sposob uczelnie wyzsze w Polsce uzywają Twittera. Zakres przebadanych danych: 2013 rok; 441 uczelni wyzszych; 66 kont na Twitterze.