Serge

I did not make the distinction. Heather did. And there is a difference
between the sort of research that she was describing (survey and
interview-based) vs research that does not involve human ethics permissions
and involvement. What words would you use to describe the differences?

I have no idea what I am supposed to infer from your comment about
etymology.

I thought I was pointing out that many traditional (physical? mathematical?
biological?) scientists are not very statistics-literate. There are
exceptions, and you have just extended my examples. Good statistical ability
is an essential in the human ethics style of research, as are other branches
of mathematics.

Arthur Sale
Computer scientist, electronics engineer, bioinformatician, and OA advocate

-----Original Message-----
From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf
Of BAUIN Serge
Sent: Tuesday, 17 September 2013 6:50 PM
To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)'
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Open access research: some basics for scientists

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-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@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-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@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.morri...@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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