Research Articles (Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST))
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- ItemDo open access journal articles experience a citation advantage? Results and methodological refections of an application of multiple measures to an analysis by WoS subject areas(Springer, 2021) Basson, Isabel; Blanckenberg, Jaco P.; Prozesky, H. E. (Heidi Eileen)This study is one of the first that uses the recently introduced open access (OA) labels in the Web of Science (WoS) metadata to investigate whether OA articles published in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed journals experience a citation advantage in comparison to subscription journal articles, specifically those of which no self-archived versions are available. Bibliometric data on all articles and reviews indexed in WoS, and published from 2013 to 2015, were analysed. In addition to normalised citation score (NCS), we used two additional measures of citation advantage: whether an article was cited at all; and whether an article is among the most frequently cited percentile of articles within its respective subject area (pptopX %). For each WoS subject area, the strength of the relationship between access status (whether an article was published in an OA journal) and each of these three measures was calculated. We found that OA journal articles experience a citation advantage in very few subject areas and, in most of these subject areas, the citation advantage was found on only a single measure of citation advantage, namely whether the article was cited at all. Our results lead us to conclude that access status accounts for little of the variability in the number of citations an article accumulates. The methodology and the calculations that were used in this study are described in detail and we believe that the lessons we learnt, and the recommendations we make, will be of much use to future researchers interested in using the WoS OA labels, and to the field of citation advantage in general.
- ItemReflections from emerging evaluators in shaping Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation capacity-building initiatives(AOSIS, 2020) Ngwabi, Nozipho T.; Mpyana, Obakeng G.; Mapatwana, AmkelwaVoluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation (VOPEs) are increasingly realising the importance of ‘mainstreaming’ emerging evaluators (EEs) in capacity-building initiatives for sustaining the evaluation profession. This article aimed to address the importance and role of VOPEs in developing EEs. The article describes the global key issues shaping VOPEs’ interventions for EEs, South African Monitoring and Evaluation Association’s Emerging Evaluators Programme and reflections by two EEs from different sectors on the future of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) in South Africa. The views from the EEs’ reflections show the differences and similarities across their different sectors. Recommendations are proposed on the importance of developing EE programmes that are contextually relevant. This article is valuable for all VOPEs and stakeholders with the intent of supporting emerging evaluators.
- ItemEvaluation education in South Africa : characteristics and challenges in a changing world(AOSIS, 2020) Wildschut, Lauren; Silubonde, Tikwiza R.Background: South Africa and other developing countries are facing an ever-increasing demand for competent evaluators. In addition, increasing demands are being placed on those who become evaluators. What does this mean for evaluation education in its current form and state in South Africa? In addition, what possible responses can be there to the diverse drivers of change within the dynamic social context in which evaluators operate? Objectives: This article aims to address some of the questions related to the supply and demand profile of evaluation in South Africa, which may be useful for other developing countries. Method: A literature review and key informant interviews were carried out to answer the key research questions. Results: The article describes the provision of formal evaluation education and the challenges currently facing university-based offerings. The study provides a framework for considering the interaction between the supply and demand elements in the field of evaluation. Strategies are proposed for strengthening the supply of evaluators and ensuring that these evaluators can respond to the growing demands being placed on them. Conclusion: This article is valuable for all evaluation stakeholders as it provides insight into the academic landscape of evaluation in a developing context and explores practical ways to support and strengthen capacity building efforts in similar contexts.
- ItemPublic engagement with science : origins, motives and impact in academic literature and science policy(Public Library of Science, 2021-07-07) Weingart, Peter; Joubert, Marina; Connoway, Karien‘Public engagement with science’ has become a ‘buzzword’ reflecting a concern about the widening gap between science and society and efforts to bridge this gap. This study is a comprehensive analysis of the development of the ‘engagement’ rhetoric in the pertinent academic literature on science communication and in science policy documents. By way of a content analysis of articles published in three leading science communication journals and a selection of science policy documents from the United Kingdom (UK), the United States of America (USA), the European Union (EU), and South Africa (SA), the variety of motives underlying this rhetoric, as well as the impact it has on science policies, are analyzed. The analysis of the science communication journals reveals an increasingly vague and inclusive definition of ‘engagement’ as well as of the ‘public’ being addressed, and a diverse range of motives driving the rhetoric. Similar observations can be made about the science policy documents. This study corroborates an earlier diagnosis that rhetoric is running ahead of practice and suggests that communication and engagement with clearly defined stakeholder groups about specific problems and the pertinent scientific knowledge will be a more successful manner of ‘engagement’.
- ItemTowards a second generation of social media metrics : characterizing Twitter communities of attention around science(Public Library of Science, 2019) Diaz-Faes, Adrian A.; Bowman, Timothy D.; Costas, Rodrigo'Social media metrics’ are bursting into science studies as emerging new measures of impact related to scholarly activities. However, their meaning and scope as scholarly metrics is still far from being grasped. This research seeks to shift focus from the consideration of social media metrics around science as mere indicators confined to the analysis of the use and visibility of publications on social media to their consideration as metrics of interaction and circulation of scientific knowledge across different communities of attention, and particularly as metrics that can also be used to characterize these communities. Although recent research efforts have proposed tentative typologies of social media users, no study has empirically examined the full range of Twitter user’s behavior within Twitter and disclosed the latent dimensions in which activity on Twitter around science can be classified. To do so, we draw on the overall activity of social media users on Twitter interacting with research objects collected from the Altmetic.com database. Data from over 1.3 million unique users, accounting for over 14 million tweets to scientific publications, is analyzed. Based on an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, four latent dimensions are identified: ‘Science Engagement’, ‘Social Media Capital’, ‘Social Media Activity’ and ‘Science Focus’. Evidence on the predominant type of users by each of the four dimensions is provided by means of VOSviewer term maps of Twitter profile descriptions. This research breaks new ground for the systematic analysis and characterization of social media users’ activity around science.