Scientometrics special issue 'Open Research Information'
lin zhang
Dear ISSI members, colleagues, and friends,
We are delighted to announce the formal launch of our Scientometrics special issue Open Research Information. This special issue invites the scientometrics community to explore the great potential and challenges of open research information.
Please find our call for papers below. We look forward to receiving your high-quality submissions.
Many thanks and all best,
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Call for Papers
Scientometrics Dedicated Issue on
Open Research Information
Background
Open research information (ORI) is information on scientific research that is freely available to the public to access, use, and reuse. This includes but is not limited to bibliographic data and metadata regarding research publications, software, tools, and information about research processes like funding and project details. Open research information has begun to transform the way research is conducted and its results are published. By being openly accessible, open research information aims to promote transparency, reproducibility, collaboration, and innovation in the research community. ORI not only fosters a culture of reproducibility but also a culture of accountability and public engagement in science. It also fuels innovative research, enabling researchers, institutions, policymakers, educators, and the public to freely access, use, and build upon scientific knowledge and thereby advancing research and its societal impact.
Open research information, its technical infrastructures and social architectures that support management, delivery, and preservation of research information, constitute a bedrock of open science. It acts as shared resources, slicing across disciplinary and geographic boundaries, benefiting stakeholders and constituents in the scientific ecosystem. ORI forms a critical pillar of the open science movement and transformation, especially in light of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information proclaimed in April 2024. However, it also presents significant challenges in terms of management, curation, design, maintenance, governance, ethics, sustainability, and impact measurement. Recognizing both the vast potential and the complexities, as well as the challenges inherent in open research information, we invite submissions for this call.
Topics
This special issue aims to capture the pulse of the discussions centered on open research information, providing a platform to advance current thinking and inspire future strategies. It also aims to inspire scholarly discourse addressing these themes and charting the path forward. We are particularly interested in contributions exploring novel design principles of the scholarly infrastructure for open research information, practical implications of using open databases and infrastructures such as OpenAlex and OpenAIRE in scientometric studies, in coverage and quality assessments of open research information infrastructures, analyses of open peer review reports, best practices in ORI data management, curation, stewardship, and analysis of its practical, ethical, and policy dimensions.
This special issue calls on the scientometric community and researchers in related fields to submit high-quality research studies on this broad topic highlighting the potential and challenges of open research information.
Topics include but are not limited to:
· Scientometric analyses focusing on open research information, especially their strengths but also gaps in data coverage and quality as well as their comparative advantages and challenges relative to traditional sources like the multidisciplinary abstract and citation databases Web of Science and Scopus
· Emerging trends and future directions of open research information
· Scholarly infrastructures of open research information
· Challenges and solutions in managing and preserving open research information
· Ethical, legal, policy, and societal aspects of open research information
· Methodologically underpinned case studies on implementations of open research information
· Role of open research information in promoting transparency and replicability in research
· Strategies for funding and sustaining open research information infrastructures
· Approaches, policies, protocols, and guidelines for data sharing and fostering responsible reuse of open research information
· Best practices in maintaining data quality, integrity and security in open research information infrastructures
· Design and application of robust metadata standards and data harmonization in open research information infrastructures
· Incentives and barriers to the adoption of open research information in different academic fields
Submission Types
Two types of submissions will be considered. We invite a group of researchers active in this topic to submit. Apart of the invited papers, we call for submission of contributed papers. Acceptable document types are research articles and reviews. A limited number of discussion and opinion papers will also be taken into consideration.
All submissions will undergo the journal’s standard reviewing procedure.
Estimated Submission Timelines
Submission system opens: October 15, 2024
Submission system closes: May 31, 2025
Publication of the special issue: January 1, 2026
In order to submit your manuscript:
1. Open the journal’s Editorial Manager (http://www.edmgr.com/scim/default.asp) and login as author. If you do not yet have a username and password, please, register first.
2. Click on “Submit New Manuscript”.
3. Choose “Article type”: ‘S.I.: ORI-2024’. This is important since your paper would otherwise, in case of acceptance, be published in a regular issue.
4. From this point on, submit your paper as you usually do.
Note that all submissions will be processed individually, without waiting for the system to close. Accepted manuscripts will be available online upon acceptance individually. The print version will be published as a physical dedicated issue along with the Editorial note introducing this special issue.
Guest Editors
Robin Haunschild
Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany
Email: r.haun...@fkf.mpg.de
Erjia Yan
Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Email: erji...@drexel.edu