Scientific Reputation Research Articles

Adaptive Rhetorical Strategies in Public Relations: Analyzing Scientific Deliberation and Reputation in Makassar Universities with Emphasis on Quality Education

Objective: This research examines the adaptive capacity of university public relations from a self-referential autopoiesis communication perspective. It explores how the university ecosystem and the rhetorical expressions produced by University- PR function as differentiation mechanisms within the organizational system in Makassar Regency Theoretical Framework: This dissertation uses Niklas Luhmann's (2002) self-referential autopoiesis communication perspective to explore the adaptive capacity of Public Relations through the meaning of the university ecosystem and the expression of governance and rhetoric produced as differentiation of organizational science function systems. Method: This research uses a radical constructivism paradigm with comparative case studies at three universities. Data collection techniques include observation, interviews, and focus group discussions with university leaders, directors, heads of Public Relations, and staff of Public Relations, while rhetorical production is tracked by media content analysis. Data were analysed by triangulation, reduction, presentation, and conclusion. Results and Discussion: The research findings indicate that Public Relations at Unhas identifies environmental challenges by interpreting university autonomy and the PTN BH League, enhancing human resources, and fostering research and innovation as a Maritime continent campus, while temporarily achieving a World Class University ranking of 500-1000. In contrast, UINAM's Public Relations addresses sustainability issues within the Public Service Agency, aligning with the Chancellor's vision and responding to digital transformation. UMI's Public Relations focuses on institutional competition, partnership development, and maintaining Islamic identity, targeting improvements in Tridharma and aiming for a 500-1000 Asian World Class University ranking. Differences in governance structures reflect universities' complexities, with distinct coordination lines across institutions. Research Implications: This study emphasizes that universities employ unique communication strategies that diverge from the conventional business and government focus in public relations research, revealing the need for a more nuanced understanding of their public relations practices. Originality/Value: The research reveals that Unhas Public Relations tackles environmental issues through university autonomy and innovation, achieving a temporary World Class ranking. UINAM focuses on sustainability and digital transformation, while UMI emphasizes competition and Islamic identity, aiming for academic excellence. Governance structures vary, reflecting the complexities of each institution.

Prilog proučavanju znanstvene i društvene aktivnosti Ferde Šišića na temelju korespondencije iz Arhiva HAZU-a u Zagrebu

On the basis of extensive archival materials related to the life, scientific and political activities of one of the most respected Croatian historians, Ferdo Šišić (1869–1940), which have been archived and kept in the Archives of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (HAZU) in Zagreb, the authors analyze his relations with his contemporaries. In this work, by processing material from Series A - Letters of various correspondents to Šišić, by analyzing the content of the letters, one can identify the circle of persons who addressed their letters to Šišić and especially the reasons for writing to him, one of the most respected members of the Croatian intellectual milieu at the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. The mentioned archival fund contains letters from the period 1895 to 1940, and reveals that Šišić maintained lively scientific and everyday connections with persons from different social strata and different professions. However, by far the highest number of letters is devoted to historiography and related sciences (auxiliary historical sciences, philology, egdotics), which he discussed with distinguished scientists from Croatia, Central Europe, Russia, and Western Europe, as well. In addition to his scientific reputation, which his contemporaries emphasize in their letters in the Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, Hungarian, German, French, English and Russian languages, many of them, especially the correspondents from Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, reveal his character virtues, specifically that he was respected as a scientific authority, as well as a moral and empathic individual, who was always willing to help younger scientists, friends, and acquaintances.

Wild Cats on the Internet: The Role of Social Media in Popularising Caracals in South Africa

ABSTRACT In the digital age online platforms provide new models of engagement between science and society. Garnering sufficient involvement in conservation relies largely on communicating the aims and findings of research projects. Here, the role of social media in understanding the ecology of an elusive wildcat, the caracal (Caracal caracal), in Cape Town, South Africa is explored. There has been sustained growth in the Urban Caracal Project’s social media following since its inception in 2014 (>16,800 followers on Facebook; > 7,300 on Instagram). The public has made valuable contributions to core research aims, including reporting of sightings and mortalities. Encounters with Cape Town’s caracals are positive experiences with social media revealing positive attitudes and care for the species. Social media has been a launchpad for other forms of media engagement, enhancing the project’s scientific and outreach reputation. The project’s success and appeal likely stems from the phenomenon of “cats on the internet,” relying on the use of domestic cats in popular meme culture. Using an aesthetic species, such as the caracal, is an effective way to capture public attention to communicate the importance of conserving urban wildlife. These findings highlight the use of smaller carnivores as flagship conservation species for rapidly urbanizing areas.

Academic Service Satisfaction and UNSOED Communication Science's Reputation: Insights from Mobility Students

Indonesian National Student Mobility or Program Pertukaran Mahasiswa Merdeka (PMM) is one of the initiatives of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology in order to improve the academic quality and diversity of students throughout Indonesia through an inter-island student exchange mechanism, either of the same type or across fields of science. Communication Studies Program at Jenderal Soedirman University (Unsoed) located in Purwokerto - Central Java, is one of those that has been mandated to receive and facilitate the program from 2022 to 2024. This research aims to identify the level of students satisfaction with the quality of academic services provided by the study program as a part of the projected reputation. Using a descriptive approach with the SERVQUAL method on 41 respondents (PMM students), the research shows: 1) 92.5% of respondents are satisfied with choosing the Communication Studies Program at Unsoed as a destination for the national student exchange program; 2) The level of satisfaction of PMM students with the academic services provided is quite good as evidenced by the difference score between performance and expectations in the range of -0.23 to -0.06 in the aspects of reliability, assurance, responsiveness, empathy and physical evidence; 3) Expectations for learning facilities and infrastructure are the highest expectations expected by students from outside the island regarding the quality of academic facilities at the destination campus. A university's reputation is enhanced by positive student experiences, which use social media narratives rather than paid publicity to create powerful public relations.

Prevailing predatory publishing: a critical evaluation of publications from Pakistan’s physical education and sport science domains

Abstract This study critically examined the increasing threat of predatory publications in academia, revealing how researchers at Pakistan’s Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) take advantage of this trend for academic gains. We examined the widespread trend of predatory publishing for Pakistani public and private HEIs, explicitly focusing on Physical Education and Sports Sciences (PESS). We carefully analysed a collection of (345) international articles from 48 faculty members of 26 HEIs (21 Public + 5 Private) until March 2024 extending by July 2024. We excluded 95 articles unrecognized by Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) plus 11 undecided publications. Our results revealed that 214 (89.53%) of 239 so-called recognized international papers were published in hijacked/predatory journals. The authenticity of publications was determined by checking the HEC, Elsevier’s Scopus, and Web of Science (WOS) databases, respectively. Leading predatory publications, the University of Punjab from the public sector has 108 contributions from 5 PESS faculty members with no recognized articles. The University of Lahore, from the private sector, has 104 predatory contributions by 4 PESS faculty members with only two recognized articles. Among all Pakistani universities, PESS researchers from Government College University Lahore won the lead for (15 of 28) recognized research paper contributions with no predatory publication. Predatory publishing affects the credibility of the researchers engaged, posing a threat to the nation’s scientific reputation in the PESS arena. We suggest immediate policy initiatives to address this unethical practice and stress the need to maintain research integrity.

Lack of Funds for Publications form a Threat to Young Medical Authors

Background: Young medical authors face several problems. One of them is their common limited access to funds that may be used to pay the Article Processing Charges (APC) of medical journals. Objectives: It is investigated whether the APCs are high, indeed, and – if so – how this problem for young authors can be tackled. Significance: It is important that good research is published in reliable and well-read journals. Measures should therefore be taken to avoid that young researchers publish in journals that are not or hardly read, only because they offer low APCs. Methodology: Analysis of the APCs of medical journals is carried out by searching for the APC on the website of the hundreds of journals that approached the present authors during one year with a request to submit a manuscript. Results: It is found that most journals have APCs that are too high for junior authors to pay personally. Almost all journals with an affordable APC have a quality below internationally acceptable standards and are not or hardly read (or cited). Young authors commonly see the advantages of publishing in low-APC journals on the short term, but they can difficultly overview the disadvantages on the longer term. This makes the ‘battle’ against low-quality journals difficult. Conclusions: Young authors should be warned that choosing a journal on the basis of a low APC may affect their scientific reputation. All medical institutes and organizations were research is carried out should develop a procedure that enables young authors to avoid publishing in low-quality journals, by supplying grants to cover the APC asked by appropriate high-quality journals.

Framework for scoring the scientific reputation of researchers

In the scientific community, there is no single, objective, and precise metric for ranking the work of researchers based on their scientific merit. Most existing metrics are based on the number of publications associated with an author along with the number of citations received by those publications. However, there is no standard metric officially used to evaluate the researchers’ careers. In this paper, the Framework for Reputation Estimation of Scientific Authors (FRESA) to address this issue is depicted. It is a system able to estimate the reputation of a researcher focusing on the achieved publications. It calculates two indexes making use of the relevance and the novelty concepts in the scientific domain. The system can depict the scientific trajectories of the researchers through the proposed indexes to illustrate their evolution over time. FRESA uses web information sources and applies similarity measures, text mining techniques, and clustering algorithms to also rank and group the researchers. The presented work is experimental, rendering promising results.

The use of scientific ranking in the Academic career. An exemplificative survey in an Italian relatively young University

Scientific ranking, usually involved in a metric evaluation of one’s own academic reputation, does not seem to even match with the career advancement in the University context. Paradoxically, members with a low ranking in bibliometric evaluation, usually expressed as number of publications (now known as “research products”), Hirsch’s index (Hind) and citations, cover responsibilities decisively higher than other members with a better ranking position. Although this research has been performed in a single exemplificative Italian Academy, this issue may be expanded to many further Italian Universities, representing a great concern for the advancement of science. Ideally, researchers in the field support the thesis that academic career and scientific rankings walk alongside following meritocratic rules [1], yet, sound analyses in the real world make this enthusiastic consideration somehow controversial [2-7]. Following Gelmini’s law, in 2010, a significant burden of “subjectivity” on the Expert Committee’s evaluation of academic careers, occurring once a candidate participated in earning the National Scientific Qualification for teaching in an Academy, led meritocracy to fail [7]. The apparently shareable consideration that a scientific crew should be empowered in selecting the best candidate suited for the defined project, often points at human and character features, empathy, promptness to obey without discussing head’s ideas, self-denial and a poor creative participation, in order to prevent any conflictual proposal, idea or debate. In this arrangement of skills, scientific rankings cannot bear any real support. Yet, Gelmini’s law introduced important novelties to the complete anarchy in selecting candidates for the Academic career, such as the so-called “medians”, in order to properly link the expertise of the candidate with his/her own scientific reputation, i.e., its scientific ranking compared to at least the half of current Academic experts in the same professional branch. Medians would be a paramount method to evaluate one’s own reputation on the basis that the candidate has exceeded the 50% of the confirmed experts in a nationwide assessment. Notwithstanding, other “personalized” items were involved in the selection route, just causing real perturbating bias in the correctness of the same selection. What have we lost in this dramatic drift far from a true, honest meritocracy? A first, maybe trivial, consideration would be to arrange a cut off of rankings to possibly select a candidate as worth of teaching in an Academy, either as Associate Professor or Full Professor. If rankings are recognized as the only reliable metric to categorize the expertise level of a researcher or a scholar, then primarily an Institution should consider rankings as the leading source of professionality for a defined field of research. In this Editorial, I will address this point.

Activity of the Tobacco Industry in Research and Scientific Literature.

Tobacco companies conduct and fund research. They are not always interested in open-ended research. They promote their interests through public relations campaigns. It's a proven fact that they influence the scientific community by impairing scientific reputation, especially in the case of health-related research. To obtain a comprehensive picture of research and funding activities of the tobacco industry as well as studies about the tobacco industry, respective scientific articles were analyzed in terms of temporal aspects, research areas, networking, and funding sources using established and advanced bibliometric methods. We found the foci of publications with tobacco industry involvement or funding were mainly in chemistry, toxicology, pharmacology, and agricultural sciences. Health-related scopes occurred much less frequently. In contrast, health and medical sciences were the main focus of publications on the tobacco industry. The Chinese state-owned CNTC was the most research-involved tobacco company and often networked with Chinese academic institutions. Whereas, Western universities, on the other hand, collaborated with tobacco companies to a much lesser extent. Conflicts of interest of researchers or academic institutions with the tobacco industry occur repeatedly. That is highly problematic and should not be ignored by the scientific community. The science and the public should be skeptical about tobacco industry-supported research.

Interdisciplinary Problem Solving in Hybrid Organizations: The Implications of Scientific Reputation and Disciplinary Knowledge Diversity

Interdisciplinary Problem Solving in Hybrid Organizations: The Implications of Scientific Reputation and Disciplinary Knowledge Diversity

Hunting for Creativity

Science communicators, including journalists and experts in the field of public relations in science, are often seen as an external and optional addition to the scientific community. Their influence on scientific practices and public perception of science is often underestimated, and their role is understood as a technical one: as a simple retelling of scientific research in a language understandable to the public. In this paper, using the example of such a criterion as “creativity”, we propose to reconsider the role of science communicators more broadly. The paper shows that it is science communicators, rather than representatives of the scientific community, who should be the primary subjects of evaluating articles according to the criterion of creativity. The authors argue that the creativity of scientific research is an essential element in the development of science as a social phenomenon, rather than just a component of its internal operation. Science communicators are not considered as “external” actors in relation to science – their work has a significant impact on the fundamental criteria for scientific success, such as the establishment of scientific reputation, and influences the perception of science among the general public. They do not just describe research, they form ideas about the value aspects of science in society and influence the image of science, which is broadcast into the public space, selecting articles according to certain criteria that are not always the most significant in science, endowing scientific results with a special, socially relevant significance that is not explicitly presented in the texts of scientific articles. The activities of science communicators can influence the funding and development of a scientific field, its public and government support, its popularity among applicants, students and young scientists – and, consequently, the quality of scientific personnel involved in this field. In fact, science communicators turn out to be key architects of public, and often intrascientific, ideas about science and various scientific fields.

The Primacy Position of the Comparison Question

Abstract A simple question for many, idle for others, but necessary to answer for everyone, is why the comparison question occupies a first position based on the relevant question when it comes to format sequences corresponding to deception polygraph techniques. Th is questioning is transcendent when it occurs in the context of the scientific, legal debate, or due to the scrutiny of polygraph consumers who make administrative decisions based on the diagnostic results. However, within the polygraphy union it seems that the answer has been dealt with in informal settings, in hallway talks or as a classroom topic, but the truth is that its documentary formality seems to be scarce, for this reason, this discussion has the intention of providing basic knowledge to field examiners about this procedural unknown, of which, we are convinced that they are the ones who must be prepared to answer this and other procedural questions in order to maintain the scientific reputation of our profession.

From academic to media capital: To what extent does the scientific reputation of universities translate into Wikipedia attention?

AbstractUniversities face increasing demands to improve their visibility, public outreach, and online presence. There is a broad consensus that scientific reputation significantly increases the attention universities receive. However, in most cases estimates of scientific reputation are based on composite or weighted indicators and absolute positions in university rankings. In this study, we adopt a more granular approach to assessment of universities' scientific performance using a multidimensional set of indicators from the Leiden Ranking and testing their individual effects on university Wikipedia page views. We distinguish between international and local attention and find a positive association between research performance and Wikipedia attention which holds for regions and linguistic areas. Additional analysis shows that productivity, scientific impact, and international collaboration have a curvilinear effect on universities' Wikipedia attention. This finding suggests that there may be other factors than scientific reputation driving the general public's interest in universities. Our study adds to a growing stream of work which views altmetrics as tools to deepen science–society interactions rather than direct measures of impact and recognition of scientific outputs.

How collections and reputation were built out of Tasmanian violence: thylacines (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and Aboriginal remains from Morton Allport (1830–1878)

Through European colonization, First Nations peoples were subjected to systematic and violent actions to dispossess them of their land and sovereignty. In Tasmania, this involved government-sponsored bounties as well as militaristic and diplomatic efforts to remove Indigenous peoples from the landscape. At the same time, and using similar rhetoric, thylacines ( Thylacinus cynocephalus (Harris, 1808)) suffered similarly from settler colonists. Thylacines (also known as Tasmanian tigers or Tasmanian wolves) were the largest marsupial carnivores of modern times, but became extinct in the twentieth century. There are several parallels between the treatment and representation of thylacines and Indigenous Tasmanian people, and how their remains were traded. This allows for analysis of how the environmental and human costs of the colonial project were enmeshed with practices of natural history. A central figure in the export of both thylacines and Indigenous remains from Tasmania was Morton Allport (1830–1878). This paper shows that Allport actively built his scientific reputation by exchanging specimens for honours. It asks whether this was a widespread model for other colonial figures who may have used specimen-based philanthropy to develop a form of soft power through associations with respected institutions such as learned societies, universities and museums. Figures like Allport played the role of a type of colonial settler-intermediary, valued for providing privileged access to specimens to the metropole. Allport also worked to augment scientific work in Tasmania and the economic reputation of the colony, demonstrating that the development of social networks and scientific reputations of colonial figures were entwined with the status and success of the colonies themselves.

Investor Intuition Promotes Gender Equality in Access to Reward-Based Crowdfunding

Our study challenges the notion that intuition is used to explain away gender biases in access to finance, arguing instead that women's success in crowdfunding is rooted in the use of intuition. We measured investors' intuition using self-reports and fast investment decision-making related to crowdfunding campaigns in three randomized controlled experiments involving 2,911 subjects from Europe and the United States. Our Bayesian analysis provides evidence for a gender equality effect, suggesting that intuition cannot be cited as the reason for gender biases in investment decisions. Our research highlights the importance of reassessing the scientific reputation of intuition.

Coordinating culture change across the research landscape.

Scientific integrity necessitates applying scientific methods properly, collecting and analyzing data appropriately, protecting human subjects rightly, performing studies rigorously, and communicating findings transparently. But who is responsible for upholding research integrity, mitigating misinformation, and increasing trust in science beyond individual researchers? We posit that supporting the scientific reputation requires a coordinated approach across all stakeholders: funding agencies, publishers, scholarly societies, research institutions, and journalists and media, and policy-makers.

Preface

Welcome to the Proceedings of the 8th International Scientific Conference of College of Science in Atmospheric Sciences (ISCCSAS-2023) May 3 – 4 2023, Mustansiriyah University, Baghdad, Iraq under the slogan “Sustainable lifestyle Development”. This is the second conference specializing in Atmospheric Sciences in Iraq. It aims to build scientific capabilities in atmospheric sciences, provide a scientific forum for researchers and specialists in the field of atmospheric sciences, and review the latest developments and research in this field. The Department of Atmospheric Sciences is the only unique department of this specialization among Iraqi universities. It has achieved many goals and contributed to the field of sustainable development and environmental systems; through the completion of the environmental park project, participation in afforestation campaigns, cultivation of green spaces, and the establishment of an educational weather observation station to monitor weather elements and an astronomical observatory followed by the Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) powered by solar energy and provides data on many weather elements and aerosols for the city of Baghdad, and the introduction of higher diploma studies in climate change, and work is continuing to achieve many strategic plans and to cooperate with government institutions such as the Ministry of Water Resources / National Water Center, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Transport and the Municipality of Baghdad. Today, the Department of Atmospheric Sciences concludes its achievements by holding its second specialized conference with the participation of many researchers from many Universities and research centers from inside and abroad in Iraq. All accepted papers will be published in the journal “IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science” which lies within the Scopus classification leading to improving the scientific reputation of the University. Because the conference included many participants, speakers, and researchers, from different countries of the world, some of the conference sessions were held online (virtual) using the google meet application and offline inside the halls of the Faculty of Science and the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. The conference shed light on some topics of atmospheric sciences to share views and experiences in the field of air pollution and weather events that occur all over the world due to climate change and to investigate the causes and how to adapt and mitigate them. The conference was also concerned with the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in atmospheric sciences for remote sensing, weather forecasts, and renewable energy. In conclusion, we are grateful for all the supporting, sponsoring, and supervising efforts of this conference, also we extend our gratitude to the preparatory, scientific, and electronic management committees and all the supporting committees that worked for a long time to success this conference a. Finally, we would like to thank all the researchers participated in this conference from inside and outside Iraq, wishing them success and for the conference to come up with recommendations that serve our society and country. May Allah grant everyone, peace, and Allah’s mercy and blessings be upon you. List of Editors Keynote Speakers, Scientific Committee, Organizing Committee are available in this pdf.

Protect your scientific reputation: Beware of predatory journals!

The Article Abstract is not available.

AI’s 10 to Watch, 2022

AI’s 10 to Watch, 2022

Citation metrics: To refuse or use?

The article analyzes the use of bibliometric indicators to evaluate the work of scientists. We answer the question of why bibliometric assessments of scientific work have become so widespread in recent decades; also, we consider the pros and cons of such assessments from the point of view of public welfare. The paper gives recommendations for reforming the current system of assessing the effectiveness of scientific work. It is necessary to minimize reporting on publications and citations and not create conditions for a race in the number of citations and articles. Since citations of scientific papers have a delay, the assessment of published articles based on bibliometrics should have a lag of 1 to 5 years, depending on the research area. Publication in a scientific journal should not be the only form of presenting the results of scientific work: conference reports, reports (including grants), monographs, etc. must also be taken into account. For effective organization of science, formal rules alone are not sufficient; informal institutions are no less important, primarily the institution of scientific reputation. In order to stimulate its development in the Russian scientific community, we offer using the formal institution of vicarious liability — the responsibility of employers for violations of employees. Liability, in this case, means the dependence of state funding of an organization on violations of scientific ethics committed by its researchers. Finally, it is necessary to reinforce the significance of the institution of peer review, making this process more public.