[GOAL] Re: Open access research: some basics for scientists

[BAUIN Serge]

Arthur,

I am amazed... Do you mean that social scientists are not scientists?
You might recall the etymology of the word "statistics" (e.g. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=statistics ).
A (regrettably) large majority of economists are actual mathematicians. Demographers... what do they do all day long? Quantitative sociologists, geographers? Are they all in literature?

Serge Bauin
Formerly sociologist, initial training in engineering
CNRS


-----Message d'origine-----
De : goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] De la part de Arthur Sale
Envoyé : mardi 17 septembre 2013 00:42
À : 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)'
Objet : [GOAL] Re: Open access research: some basics for scientists

Heather

I agree with you and endorse your comments. However, there is a caveat: some questions addressed in open access are indeed scientific, and not social scientific. I think of measuring adoption rates, deposit delays, bibliometrics, etc from analyses of public data on the Internet or services such as ISI and Scopus.  

To be sure (and this I think you missed and should have mentioned) a reasonably good knowledge of statistics is also necessary (generally). Many agricultural scientists and medical scientists would meet this criterion far better than most social scientists. Many engineers would also have a better grasp of using complex mathematical tools such as chaos theory, fractals, and fourier analysis. It isn't black vs white.

Arthur Sale
University of Tasmania

-----Original Message-----
From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Heather Morrison
Sent: Tuesday, 17 September 2013 2:04 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Open access research: some basics for scientists

As the OA movement continues to gain steam, we are seeing scholars with a background in sciences take a keen interest and even develop surveys and such. While the enthusiasm is welcome, from what I am seeing in several instances now, is that scientists do not necessarily understand how to go about social science research.

A scholar with a background in chemistry doing social science research with no training is not unlike a social scientist with no training in chemistry walking into a lab and playing about (although the potential damages are generally of a different nature).

Scientists doing social science research:

-	should be aware of research ethics requirements - at universities in
North America, for example, you must get a research ethics clearance to conduct survey or interview research
-	should understand the methodology used and its limitations
-	should know the area. A poorly conducted survey by someone who is
not an expert on the topic surveyed may be more damaging than helpful. For example, the way questions are framed shapes how people understand the topic. Before you develop a survey on open access, you should be aware that there are least two basic approaches (green and gold), and if asking questions about gold, you should be aware that this is not equivalent to the article processing fee business model

best,

--
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies University of Ottawa

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca

ALA Accreditation site visit scheduled for 30 Sept-1 Oct 2013 / Visite du comité externe pour l'accréditation par l'ALA est prévu le 30
sept-1 oct 2013

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html
http://www.esi.uottawa.ca/accreditation.html




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