Do New Forms of Scholarly Communication Provide a Pathway to Open Science?

Do New Forms of Scholarly Communication Provide a Pathway to Open Science? A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2015 Yimei Zhu School of Social Sciences 2 Table of Contents Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 2 List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. 7 List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. 8 Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 9 Declaration ................................................................................................................................... 10 Copyright Statement .................................................................................................................... 10 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 11 Peer Reviewed Publication .......................................................................................................... 12 1. Chapter One: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 13 1.1 Research problems and rationales .................................................................................... 13 1.2 Structure of the thesis ....................................................................................................... 16 2. Chapter Two: Background and Literature Review ................................................................... 19 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 19 2.2 Traditional forms of scholarly communication .................................................................. 19 2.2.1 Reward system and recognition ................................................................................. 20 2.2.2 Discipline, seniority and gender differences .............................................................. 22 2.2.3 Peer review and ‘black box’ ........................................................................................ 23 2.2.4 Communicating academic research ............................................................................ 25 2.3 New forms of scholarly communication ............................................................................ 27 2.3.1 Open science ............................................................................................................... 27 2.3.2 Academic use of social media ..................................................................................... 53 2.4 Conclusions and research questions .................................................................................. 61 3. Chapter Three: Research Methodology and Scoping Study Findings ...................................... 63 3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 63 3.2 The rationale of the mixed-methods approach ................................................................. 63 3.3 Scoping studies .................................................................................................................. 64 3 3.3.1 Observation of social media sites ............................................................................... 65 3.3.2 Exploratory interviews ................................................................................................ 65 3.3.3 A case study of #phdchat on Twitter .......................................................................... 67 3.3.4 Key findings from scoping studies on social media use .............................................. 68 3.4 Online survey of academics ............................................................................................... 72 3.4.1 Initial questionnaire design ........................................................................................ 72 3.4.2 Developing and piloting the survey ............................................................................ 73 3.4.3 Sample justification and strategies ............................................................................. 74 3.4.4 Email address harvesting and data cleaning ............................................................... 75 3.4.5 Distribution of the survey ........................................................................................... 76 3.4.6 Closing of the survey and responses rate ................................................................... 76 3.4.7 Coding of survey responses ........................................................................................ 78 3.4.8 Data analysis methods ................................................................................................ 81 3.4.9 Limitation of the survey .............................................................................................. 82 3.5 Ethical issues ...................................................................................................................... 82 4. Chapter Four: To What Extent do Academics Support Open Science? ................................... 84 4.1 Research question A: To what extent do academics support and use open access publishing? .................................................................................................................................... 84 4.1.1 Overall attitudes and experience of OA publishing .................................................... 84 4.1.2 Differences in OA publishing by academic discipline ................................................. 90 4.1.3 Differences in OA publishing by gender ..................................................................... 92 4.1.4 Differences in OA publishing by age, job grade and research experience ................. 93 4.2 Research question B: To what extent do academics share primary research data online? ...................................................................................................................................................... 94 4.2.1 Overall attitudes and experience of sharing data online............................................ 94 4.2.2 Differences in using and sharing data by academic discipline.................................... 99 4.2.3 Differences in using and sharing data by gender...................................................... 100 4.2.4 Differences in using and sharing data by age, job grade and research experience . 101 4 4.3 Research question C: To what extent do academics publish ongoing research updates on social media?............................................................................................................................... 101 4.3.1 Overall attitudes and experience of publishing ongoing research updates on social media ...................................................................................................................................... 101 4.3.2 Differences in publishing ongoing research updates on social media by academic discipline ................................................................................................................................. 105 4.3.3 Differences in publishing ongoing research updates on social media by gender .... 105 4.3.4 Differences in publishing ongoing research updates on social media by age, job grade and research experience ............................................................................................... 106 4.4 Conclusion and discussion ............................................................................................... 107 5. Chapter Five Research Question D: To What Extent do Academics Support the Use of Social Media for Research? ....................................................................................................................... 113 5.1. To what extent do academics use social media services in their research work? ......... 113 5.1.1 Overall experience of using social media in research work ...................................... 113 5.1.2 Differences in using social media in research work by academic discipline............. 116 5.1.3 Differences in using social media in research work by gender ................................. 118 5.1.4 Differences in using social media in research work by age, job grade and research experience ............................................................................................................................... 118 5.2 To what extent do academics use social media to promote their publications? ............ 119 5.2.1 Overall experience of using Twitter, blogs and social networking sites to promote publications ............................................................................................................................. 119 5.2.2 Differences in using social media to promote publications by academic discipline 121 5.2.3 Differences in using social media to promote publications by gender .................... 122 5.2.4 Differences in using social media to promote publications by age, job grade and research experience

Load more