Documents published in Scipedia

• Digital transparency and political communication

  E. Campos-Domínguez, M. Díez-Garrido

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (6), 132

  
  

  Abstract

  The academic debate on transparency has experienced a boom in recent decades. A review of the scientific literature allows us to identify two key moments in the discussion on digital transparency: the declaration of Barack Obama’s Memorandum on transparency and open government in 2009 and the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. The first was linked to a groundswell of enthusiasm for the concept of government transparency, with the promise that it would boost accountability, eliminate corruption, and promote political efficiency in a crisis of institutional legitimacy. The second altered the digital transparency agenda and catalysed a discussion about the need for technology and social media companies (Facebook, Twitter, or Google) to make transparency commitments because of their role in generating a public conversation and the democratic implications. This paper reviews the idea of digital transparency in the scientific literature framed in the field of political communication and tries to reflect the need for more research on its political, social, and cultural implications.

  Abstract
  The academic debate on transparency has experienced a boom in recent decades. A review of the scientific literature allows us to identify two key moments in the discussion [...]

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• Universities and knowledge transfer in the communication field. Letter

  A. Genaut-Arratibel, J. Suárez-Villegas, M. Cantalapiedra

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (6), 131

  
  

  Abstract

  “What is the role of universities nowadays?” is one of the questions that those of us who work there should be asking ourselves. Knowledge transfer has emerged as academia’s third mission and must drive social change and development. Specifically, this paper aims to analyze knowledge transfer’s significance in the social sciences and, more specifically, in communication sciences, by looking at the call for the six-year academic research period on knowledge transfer in 2018 and taking into account what is happening in other disciplines. The contributions of the Spanish university community in terms of knowledge transfer fall behind other countries in our field. Only approximately 1% of international patents result from Spanish research. This disparity between these two realms demonstrates the need to promote knowledge transfer as the third helix of the triple helix of an interactive and dynamic university model in communication with institutions and social agents.

  Abstract
  “What is the role of universities nowadays?” is one of the questions that those of us who work there should be asking ourselves. Knowledge transfer has emerged as academia’s [...]

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• Women in the documentary industry: Continuing inequality in the streaming age

  J. Izquierdo-Castillo, E. Torres-Romay

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (6), 130

  
  

  Abstract

  Assessing women’s role in the audiovisual industry provides us with negative data regarding the number of women in the industry, which are also confirmed when factors such as their prominence or leadership in these audiovisual projects are considered. A quantitative and qualitative analysis was thus undertaken based on the need to examine this problem in depth to determine what is happening in the documentary or nonfiction genre, which has exhibited significant growth thanks to the demand for content from subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) streaming platforms. This research analyzes data on the number, prominence, and leadership of women through a review of the 35 Spanish productions in this genre that were produced and/or distributed exclusively on the three leading platforms in Spain between 2016 and 2021. Accordingly, the 2,099 jobs created by these productions have been evaluated, providing data on the occupations and level of responsibility that women had. The research findings confirm the overall data. In addition, they allow us to determine why, although the documentary genre has been associated with greater opportunities for women, this has not held true within the streaming market, where this genre has achieved a greater impact. This underrepresentation of women is especially prominent in the area of leadership.

  Abstract
  Assessing women’s role in the audiovisual industry provides us with negative data regarding the number of women in the industry, which are also confirmed when factors such [...]

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• How to reform research evaluation in Spain. Institutional accreditation as a response to the European Agreement on research assessment. Letter

  I. Ràfols, J. Molas-Gallart

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (6), 129

  
  

  Abstract

  The reform of evaluation proposed at European level in the recent Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment represents a window of opportunity to reform the Spanish evaluation system, at a moment when the new Organic Law of the University System (LOSU) is being debated. This agreement establishes the primacy of peer review based on qualitative criteria in order to be able to recognize the diversity of contributions and research careers, and advocates to stop the inappropriate use of journal-based metrics. How can evaluation in Spain, heavily based on these metrics, be reformed to align with these principles? In this letter we propose that it is not possible to move towards the principles of the European agreement without making structural changes in the governance of evaluation, with a return of autonomy to the universities. We advocate that individual evaluations by agencies outside the university should be limited, and that, instead, institutional evaluation should be encouraged. We collect a proposal for ‘institutional accreditation’ as a public control mechanism for the hiring and promotion of professors at the university. 

  Abstract
  The reform of evaluation proposed at European level in the recent Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment represents a window of opportunity to reform the Spanish evaluation [...]

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• Trajectories and regimes in research versus knowledge evaluations: Contributions to an evolutionary theory of citation

  L. Leydesdorff, L. Zhang, P. Wouters

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (6), 128

  
  

  Abstract

  Citation analysis can provide us with models of the evolutionary dynamics in scholarly and scientific communication. We propose to distinguish between institutional research evaluation (usually, ex post) and knowledge evaluation ex ante, in relation to directionality in citation analysis. We discuss the theoretical literature on communication systems which distinguishes between information and meaning, in which the concept of redundancy plays an important role as measure of the potential of a communication system. This is the basis for a model of knowledge dynamics which differentiates between observable variation and latent selection environments. We use indicators at the journal level and analyze the citation environments of journals in both the cited and citing directions. Among journals, the citing direction can be analyzed by co-citation and indicates the integration of knowledge from different fields. The cited direction can analogously be analyzed by bibliographic coupling and represents the extent to which the cited journal has become relevant for different disciplines, hence indicates knowledge diffusion. We apply this analysis on three different case studies of journal-journal relations: a small scale study of the journal Public Understanding of Science, a random sample of 100 journals, and a large-scale analysis of the set of JCR 2016 journals. Combined, the results seem to confirm the hypothesis that interdisciplinarity cannot be captured by one-dimensional citation analysis. Both citing and cited directions are relevant for knowledge and research evaluations, respectively. We raise the question whether indicators of interdisciplinarity can be developed by combining both directions in citation analysis, indicate further research, and discuss the normative implications of our preliminary results.

  Abstract
  Citation analysis can provide us with models of the evolutionary dynamics in scholarly and scientific communication. We propose to distinguish between institutional research [...]

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• Information and communication technology (ICT) skills and job satisfaction of primary education teachers in the context of Covid-19. Theoretical model

  V. Barba-Sanchez, R. Gouveia-Rodrigues, A. Meseguer Martinez

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (6), 127

  
  

  Abstract

  The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that educational systems must have an online component or even a substitute. However, the efforts for this necessary transition fall largely on the teaching staff, who have been forced to quickly adapt their activities to a virtual environment. In this study, a theoretical model for analyzing how teachers’ information and communications technology (ICT) skills and the integration of these technologies influence the improvement of teaching and teacher job satisfaction is introduced. The model also pays special attention to the gender gap related to the use of ICT in teaching. At the empirical level, the model is validated on a sample of 257 Spanish primary school teachers, using the partial least squares (PLS) structural equation method. The results of the analysis show that, although the teachers’ ICT skills help them improve their teaching activities, such skills do not have a direct impact on teachers’ job satisfaction. However, teachers who integrate ICTs into their teaching activities not only improve their results and lighten their workload but also enjoy higher job satisfaction, which translates into more motivated and committed teachers. In addition, teachers’ ICT skills influence job satisfaction in different ways depending on gender. Although, for female teachers, the integration of ICT increases their job satisfaction, the results show that, for male teachers, this integration should generate improvements in teaching to yield enhanced job satisfaction. As the main implication, it is recommended to invest in teachers’ ICT skills, as these lead to enhanced efficiency and motivation and enable the change toward an ICT-based teaching model.  

  Abstract
  The Covid-19 pandemic has shown that educational systems must have an online component or even a substitute. However, the efforts for this necessary transition fall largely [...]

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• Cómo mejorar el alcance de las bibliotecas públicas para tener un mayor impacto en la comunidad. Una experiencia de biblioteca personalizada

  T. Valdez, F. Gutiérrez

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (5), 126

  
  

  Abstract

  A lo largo de los años, Innovative Interfaces ha implementado y apoyado los sistemas de bibliotecas públicas de todo el mundo, desde los más grandes a los más pequeños. Innovative siempre ha luchado por una comunicación óptima entre los desarrolladores de programas, las bibliotecas y los usuarios. Esto ha hecho posible obtener productos y soluciones que funcionan a escala de cada usuario. Los avances conseguidos han sido clave para redefinir los estándares de la automatización y la función de descubrimiento de las bibliotecas en las próximas décadas.   Encuesta a bibliotecarios Uno de los métodos usados por Innovative para conocer la opinión del sector bibliotecario es el estudio anual realizado junto a Witt Associates LLC, una empresa de investigación independiente que lleva más de cuarenta años diseñando, ejecutando y analizando encuestas sobre política pública. La última encuesta (de octubre de 2021) ha proporcionado información muy interesante sobre nuestro sector, el de la biblioteconomía, durante la pandemia.

  Abstract
  A lo largo de los años, Innovative Interfaces ha implementado y apoyado los sistemas de bibliotecas públicas de todo el mundo, desde los más grandes a los más pequeños. [...]

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• Early career researchers in the pandemic-fashioned ‘new scholarly normality’: voices from the research frontline

  D. Nicholas, E. Herman, C. Boukacem-Zeghmouri, A. Watkinson, D. Sims, B. Rodríguez-Bravo, M. Świgoń, A. Abrizah, J. Xu, G. Serbina, H. Jamali, C. Tenopir, S. Allard

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (5), 125

  
  

  Abstract

  After two-years of talking to around 170 early career science/social science researchers from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US about their work life and scholarly communications during the pandemic, the Harbingers-2 project is in possession of a mountain of verbatim data. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the kinds of comments ECRs are raising, with a focus on those that provide a particular interesting and illuminating take on ECRs’ experiences under difficult times. Comments, for instance, that might challenge the established order of things or that presage big changes down the line. The selection of comments presented here were made by the national interviewers shortly after the completion of the last of three rounds of interviews (two interviews in the case of Russia). The understandings, appreciations and suggestions thus raised by the ECRs are insightful and constructive, which is what we might have expected from this cohort who are very much at the forefront of the research enterprise and veritable research workhorses. Sixteen broad scholarly topics are represented by quotes/comments, with the main focus of the comments on a subset of these: research performance and assessment, scholarly communication transformations, networking and collaboration, social media and access to information/libraries, which suggests, perhaps, where the action, concerns and interest mainly lie.

  Abstract
  After two-years of talking to around 170 early career science/social science researchers from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US about their work life [...]

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• Audio communication in the face of the renaissance of digital audio

  T. Piñeiro-Otero, L. Pedrero-Esteban

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (5), 124

  
  

  Abstract

  In recent years, digital audio has undergone an explosion. The transformation of radio and its expansion to new channels and consumer devices, added to the rise of podcasts and streaming music platforms, have led to the transformation of the audio ecosystem. This transition from the audio medium to audio media has involved an integral change in content, as well as in its production and reception processes. In this regard, the aim of this paper is to approach the present digital audio scene from the standpoint of its content, formats, and broadcasting models as well as of the new professional profiles, business models, and consumer–relationship practices, providing a snapshot that is completed with a prospective reflection on the challenges facing radio in this new ecosystem.

  Abstract
  In recent years, digital audio has undergone an explosion. The transformation of radio and its expansion to new channels and consumer devices, added to the rise of podcasts [...]

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• Integrated research model for web interfaces: toward a taxonomy of quantitative and qualitative analysis for digital native media

  S. Tejedor, L. Romero-Rodríguez, L. Codina

  El profesional de la información (2022). Vol. 31, (6), 123

  
  

  Abstract

  In a context marked by the emergence of new platforms and interfaces, digital native media face the challenge of organizing and presenting their content in an effective and eloquent way. This milestone requires ongoing work toward the identification and conceptualization of the dimensions that map the structural and formal requirements necessary for fluid communication with audiences and adequate visibility in the digital ecosystem. This study, which adopts a quantitative–qualitative methodological design, proposes, describes, and applies a taxonomy for the analysis of digital media web interfaces. Based on a review of the literature, two rounds of expert judgment, and a pilot test, the research identifies 14 thematic dimensions, 36 indicators, and 69 variables. The study focuses on the importance of renewing research about taxonomy related to structural dimensions that address narrative, quality, usability, information search, and content redissemination and socialization, among other aspects. The study of web interfaces applied to journalism demands long-term research work with a holistic approach that, at a conceptual and practical level, can offer proposals for analysis and diagnosis on the basis of an integrated method. 

  Abstract
  In a context marked by the emergence of new platforms and interfaces, digital native media face the challenge of organizing and presenting their content in an effective and [...]

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