[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
Thank you Andrew. Exactly true, but that simply says that the task is harder; it does not make it undesirable. I simply am not interested in counting articles except as this helps in establishing the question I asked. Counting articles has been done many times by people with more money than I have and the estimates are still quite wide-spread, though satisfactory as engineering estimates. Similar problems arise win publications with the fake journals and the quality spectrum (exactly the same problem you referred to in relation to counting researchers). To tease out another category you did not mention I have coined the terms (1)'producing researcher' to be a person who adds to the scholarly literature as an author or co-author at least once every three years, and (2)'non-productive researcher' as a person who researches the scholarly literature but has no intention of adding to the corpus, such as a teacher (school to university-level), a science journalist, most undergraduate students, or a member of the general public. The words 'active' vs 'non-active' simply will not do. I have been pointed to a UNESCO Report which is proving very useful. I'll post something when I have more to write and a better estimate than 1M N 10M. Best wishes Arthur Sale University of Tasmania, Australia -Original Message- From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Odlyzko Sent: Wednesday, 4 January 2012 12:02 AM To: goal at eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Arthur, There is far more difficulty in counting researchers than in counting articles. The problem is the inherent ambiguity in the term researcher. Who qualifies? How do you tell the difference between research and development? What do you do about all the support staff (such as the technicians who run the often ultra-sophisticated equipment)? How do you count students (graduate and undergraduate) who get involved in researchy projects? One can certainly do something, but one needs to define the terms one uses with some precision. Andrew Arthur Sale ahjs at ozemail.com.au wrote: Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will download and look through your thesis asap. However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how many active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it will be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publication practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some disciplines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs widely, and journal prestige varies at least as much. There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article production rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is the frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publish rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year. There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I mention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI journals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cause to reflect! That's over 4:1, too big to gloss over. I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles were written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in the right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Arthur, You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf - http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf (defended and submitted this fall) - Article 50 million - http://www.mendeley.com/research/article
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
Thank you Andrew. Exactly true, but that simply says that the task is harder; it does not make it undesirable. I simply am not interested in counting articles except as this helps in establishing the question I asked. Counting articles has been done many times by people with more money than I have and the estimates are still quite wide-spread, though satisfactory as engineering estimates. Similar problems arise win publications with the fake journals and the quality spectrum (exactly the same problem you referred to in relation to counting researchers).  To tease out another category you did not mention I have coined the terms (1)   'producing researcher' to be a person who adds to the scholarly literature as an author or co-author at least once every three years, and (2)   'non-productive researcher' as a person who researches the scholarly literature but has no intention of adding to the corpus, such as a teacher (school to university-level), a science journalist, most undergraduate students, or a member of the general public. The words 'active' vs 'non-active' simply will not do.  I have been pointed to a UNESCO Report which is proving very useful. Iâll post something when I have more to write and a better estimate than 1M N 10M.  Best wishes  Arthur Sale University of Tasmania, Australia  -Original Message- From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Odlyzko Sent: Wednesday, 4 January 2012 12:02 AM To: goal@eprints.org Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?  Arthur,  There is far more difficulty in counting researchers than in counting articles. The problem is the inherent ambiguity in the term researcher. Who qualifies? How do you tell the difference between research and development? What do you do about all the support staff (such as the technicians who run the often ultra-sophisticated equipment)? How do you count students (graduate and undergraduate) who get involved in researchy projects?  One can certainly do something, but one needs to define the terms one uses with some precision.  Andrew     Arthur Sale a...@ozemail.com.au wrote:  Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will download and look through your thesis asap.    However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how many active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it will be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publication practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some disciplines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs widely, and journal prestige varies at least as much.    There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article production rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is the frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publish rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year. There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I mention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI journals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cause to reflect! That's over 4:1, too big to gloss over.    I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles were written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in the right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate.    Arthur Sale  University of Tasmania      From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?    Arthur,    You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf - http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf (defended and submitted this fall)  - Article 50 million - http
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
about the nature of reality, all of which were rejected by modern physics 50 years ago. University today is oppression by debt and drudgery and old white folks who feel g guilty about global decline. This will be the case until it is occupied by th e love of wisdom again. Access to scholarship and Open Science marks the end of exclusivity to scholarship reserved for elites who are members of rich institut ions, and ends the cultural hegemony of accreditated knowledge. Tomorrow's researchers are going to take knowledge into vast new dimensions of i ntegrated understanding together with the need to raise children in a world that one must admit is schizoprhenic, bipolar and personality-disordered! It is chao tic and it can only be tolerated by a student who becomes a Master, who grounds themselves in enlightenment - intellectual, spiritual, mystical and devotional. My child's studies in Sufism will be as important as their studies in maths. Th ere is no university today that understands any of this. Because the OA trend is irreversible and people do not require nor reasonably sh ould place trust in peer-review anymore, all of the topics we are now interested in quickly fade, and we become interested in the action of sharing knowledge an d being their own filter, doing it rather than letting institutions do it. It w ould be unwise for today's university teachers to place great emphasis on publis hing in journals anyway, but it would be wise for them to teach their students h ow to be leaders in contemporary thought, how to navigate truth and reality, and to be informationally wise, and to be fearless about the Openness paradigm - sh are your work! For me it's like the Blues Brothers - 'I'm on a mission from God' . lol. Now that I've finished my MA, I don't have to conform anymore and I can be mysel f again - mystic-philosopher-entrepreneur-occupier. There is a lot of bitternes s I need to transform into beauty, which is why I Occupy myself with the Creativ e Arts at the moment. Poetry, literature, music, visual art, photography, creati ve capitalism and mutual aid. This was dashed off quickly, and I really ought t o be on my zafu doing anapasati (that's Buddhist for 'sitting around'). Do you think, though, that there will ever space in the future for the Bohemian at univ ersity - the Alan Watts type? I hope so. Otherwise, you'll just say to people ' I got this strange letter from this student who is probably mentally ill or on d rugs'. Ugggh. That is the Brave New World we are in. If this stuff is less fun and interesting to read than my thesis, I've lost you! I wish you greatness in life, the depth of being human, and a good death. 'I believe that unconditional love and unarmed truth will have the final say in reality' - MLK. all the best, Arif yo - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 11:43 PM Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will d ownload and look through your thesis asap. However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how ma ny active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it w ill be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publi cation practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some discip lines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs wi dely, and journal prestige varies at least as much. There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article productio n rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is t he frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publis h rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year . There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I m ention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI jo urnals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cau se to reflect! That's over 4:1, too big to gloss over. I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles wer e written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in t he right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
anymore and I can be myself again - mystic-philosopher-entrepreneur-occupier. There is a lot of bitterness I need to transform into beauty, which is why I Occupy myself with the Creative Arts at the moment. Poetry, literature, music, visual art, photography, creative capitalism and mutual aid. This was dashed off quickly, and I really ought to be on my zafu doing anapasati (that's Buddhist for 'sitting around'). Do you think, though, that there will ever space in the future for the Bohemian at university - the Alan Watts type? I hope so. Otherwise, you'll just say to people 'I got this strange letter from this student who is probably mentally ill or on drugs'. Ugggh. That is the Brave New World we are in. If this stuff is less fun and interesting to read than my thesis, I've lost you! I wish you greatness in life, the depth of being human, and a good death. 'I believe that unconditional love and unarmed truth will have the final say in reality' - MLK. all the best, Arif yo - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 11:43 PM Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will download and look through your thesis asap. However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how many active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it will be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publication practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some disciplines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs widely, and journal prestige varies at least as much. There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article production rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is the frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publish rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year. There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I mention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI journals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cause to reflect! That's over 4:1, too big to gloss over. I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles were written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in the right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-bounces at eprints.org [mailto:goal-bounces at eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Arthur, You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis - http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf (defended and submitted this fall) - Article 50 million - http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholarly-articles-existence-6/ Methods and data are based chiefly on: Bjork et al's studies on OA share growth 2006 to current Mabe and Amin, Tenopir and King - works 1990s to early 2000s Derek De Sallo Price - 1960s - the 'father of scientometrics. - you can get the number of article from Bjork's methods and data and mine. - you can get the number of researchers from UN data but there is ratio of researchers to publishing researchers, and publishing researchers publish an average of 1 article per year, so if you can determine good estimate for that ratio you are on your way. You have good data on growth rates of researchers, articles and journals, but growth rates have increased dramatically since 2000 as demonstrated in my thesis. It got a bit complex and I tried to sort it best I could in my thesis. all the best, Arif - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 6:25 PM Subject: [GOAL] How many researchers
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will download and look through your thesis asap.  However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how many active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it will be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publication practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some disciplines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs widely, and journal prestige varies at least as much.  There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article production rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is the frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publish rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year. There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I mention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI journals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cause to reflect! Thatâs over 4:1, too big to gloss over.  I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles were written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in the right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate.  Arthur Sale University of Tasmania   From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?  Arthur,  You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis -http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf (defend ed and submitted this fall) - Article 50 million -http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholarly-a rticles-existence-6/ Methods and data are based chiefly on: Bjork et al's studies on OA share growth 2006 to current Mabe and Amin, Tenopir and King - works 1990s to early 2000s Derek De Sallo Price - 1960s - the 'father of scientometrics. - you can get the number of article from Bjork's methods and data and mine. - you can get the number of researchers from UN data but there is ratio of researchers to publishing researchers, and publishing researchers publish an average of 1 article per year, so if you can determine good estimate for that ratio you are on your way. You have good data on growth rates of researchers, articles and journals, but growth rates have increased dramatically since 2000 as demonstrated in my thesis. It got a bit complex and I tried to sort it best I could in my thesis.  all the best,  Arif    - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 6:25 PM Subject: [GOAL] How many researchers are there?  I am trying to get a rough estimate of the number of active researchers in the world. Unfortunately all the estimates seem to be as rough as the famous Drake equation for calculating the number of technological civilizations in the universe: in other words all the factors are extremely fuzzy. I seek your help. My interest is that this is the number of people who need to adopt OA for us to have 100% OA. (Actually, we will approach that sooner, as the average publication has more than one author and we need only one to make it OA.  To share some thinking, let me take Australia. In 2011 it had 35 universities and 29,226 academic staff with a PhD. Let me assume that this is the number of research active staff. The average per institution is 835, and this spans big universities down to small ones. Australia produces according to the OECD 2.5% of the worldâs research, so letâs estimate the number of active researchers in the world (taking Australia as âtypicalâ of researchers) as 29226 / 0.025 = 1,169,040 researchers in universities. Note that I have not counted non-university research organizations (theyâll make a small difference) nor PhD students (there is usually a supervisor listed in the author list of any publication they produce).  Letâs take another tack. I have read
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
Arthur, There is far more difficulty in counting researchers than in counting articles. The problem is the inherent ambiguity in the term researcher. Who qualifies? How do you tell the difference between research and development? What do you do about all the support staff (such as the technicians who run the often ultra-sophisticated equipment)? How do you count students (graduate and undergraduate) who get involved in researchy projects? One can certainly do something, but one needs to define the terms one uses with some precision. Andrew Arthur Sale a...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will download and look through your thesis asap. However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how many active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it will be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publication practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some disciplines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs widely, and journal prestige varies at least as much. There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article production rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is the frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publish rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year. There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I mention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI journals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cause to reflect! That's over 4:1, too big to gloss over. I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles were written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in the right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Arthur, You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf - http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf (defended and submitted this fall) - Article 50 million - http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholar ly-articles-existence-6/ http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholarl y-articles-existence-6/ Methods and data are based chiefly on: Bjork et al's studies on OA share growth 2006 to current Mabe and Amin, Tenopir and King - works 1990s to early 2000s Derek De Sallo Price - 1960s - the 'father of scientometrics. - you can get the number of article from Bjork's methods and data and mine. - you can get the number of researchers from UN data but there is ratio of researchers to publishing researchers, and publishing researchers publish an average of 1 article per year, so if you can determine good estimate for that ratio you are on your way. You have good data on growth rates of researchers, articles and journals, but growth rates have increased dramatically since 2000 as demonstrated in my thesis. It got a bit complex and I tried to sort it best I could in my thesis. all the best, Arif - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale mailto:a...@ozemail.com.au To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' mailto:goal@eprints.org Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 6:25 PM Subject: [GOAL] How many researchers are there? I am trying to get a rough estimate of the number of active researchers in the world. Unfortunately all the estimates seem to be as rough as the famous Drake equation for calculating the number of technological civilizations in the universe: in other words all the factors are extremely fuzzy. I seek your help. My interest is that this is the number of people who need to adopt OA for us to have 100% OA. (Actually, we
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
to conform anymore and I can be myself again - mystic-philosopher-entrepreneur-occupier. There is a lot of bitterness I need to transform into beauty, which is why I Occupy myself with the Creative Arts at the moment. Poetry, literature, music, visual art, photography, creative capitalism and mutual aid. This was dashed off quickly, and I really ought to be on my zafu doing anapasati (that's Buddhist for 'sitting around'). Do you think, though, that there will ever space in the future for the Bohemian at university - the Alan Watts type? I hope so. Otherwise, you'll just say to people 'I got this strange letter from this student who is probably mentally ill or on drugs'. Ugggh. That is the Brave New World we are in.  If this stuff is less fun and interesting to read than my thesis, I've lost you! I wish you greatness in life, the depth of being human, and a good death.  'I believe that unconditional love and unarmed truth will have the final say in reality' - MLK.  all the best,  Arif  yo  - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 11:43 PM Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will download and look through your thesis asap.  However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how many active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it will be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publication practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some disciplines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs widely, and journal prestige varies at least as much.  There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article production rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is the frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publish rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year. There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I mention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI journals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cause to reflect! That?s over 4:1, too big to gloss over.  I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles were written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in the right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate.  Arthur Sale University of Tasmania   From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?  Arthur,  You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis -http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf (defend ed and submitted this fall) - Article 50 million -http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholarly-a rticles-existence-6/ Methods and data are based chiefly on: Bjork et al's studies on OA share growth 2006 to current Mabe and Amin, Tenopir and King - works 1990s to early 2000s Derek De Sallo Price - 1960s - the 'father of scientometrics. - you can get the number of article from Bjork's methods and data and mine. - you can get the number of researchers from UN data but there is ratio of researchers to publishing researchers, and publishing researchers publish an average of 1 article per year, so if you can determine good estimate for that ratio you are on your way. You have good data on growth rates of researchers, articles and journals, but growth rates have increased dramatically since 2000 as demonstrated in my thesis. It got a bit complex and I tried to sort it best I could in my thesis.  all the best,  Arif    - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 6:25 PM Subject: [GOAL] How many researchers are there?  I am trying to get a rough estimate of the number of active researchers in the world
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
dimensions of i ntegrated understanding together with the need to raise children in a world that one must admit is schizoprhenic, bipolar and personality-disordered! It is chao tic and it can only be tolerated by a student who becomes a Master, who grounds themselves in enlightenment - intellectual, spiritual, mystical and devotional. My child's studies in Sufism will be as important as their studies in maths. Th ere is no university today that understands any of this. Because the OA trend is irreversible and people do not require nor reasonably sh ould place trust in peer-review anymore, all of the topics we are now interested in quickly fade, and we become interested in the action of sharing knowledge an d being their own filter, doing it rather than letting institutions do it. It w ould be unwise for today's university teachers to place great emphasis on publis hing in journals anyway, but it would be wise for them to teach their students h ow to be leaders in contemporary thought, how to navigate truth and reality, and to be informationally wise, and to be fearless about the Openness paradigm - sh are your work! For me it's like the Blues Brothers - 'I'm on a mission from God' . lol. Now that I've finished my MA, I don't have to conform anymore and I can be mysel f again - mystic-philosopher-entrepreneur-occupier. There is a lot of bitternes s I need to transform into beauty, which is why I Occupy myself with the Creativ e Arts at the moment. Poetry, literature, music, visual art, photography, creati ve capitalism and mutual aid. This was dashed off quickly, and I really ought t o be on my zafu doing anapasati (that's Buddhist for 'sitting around'). Do you think, though, that there will ever space in the future for the Bohemian at univ ersity - the Alan Watts type? I hope so. Otherwise, you'll just say to people ' I got this strange letter from this student who is probably mentally ill or on d rugs'. Ugggh. That is the Brave New World we are in. If this stuff is less fun and interesting to read than my thesis, I've lost you! I wish you greatness in life, the depth of being human, and a good death. 'I believe that unconditional love and unarmed truth will have the final say in reality' - MLK. all the best, Arif yo - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 11:43 PM Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Thank you Arif. I have read the article this afternoon (3 January) and will d ownload and look through your thesis asap. However I feel compelled to re-emphasize to the list that I am not looking for an estimate of how many articles are published annually, or ever. The first of those pieces of data is useful for estimating what I really want to know: how ma ny active researchers are employed in year y? Particularly 2011. Of course, it w ill be useful to have article counts by discipline, however rough, because publi cation practices differ widely between disciplines. A publication in some discip lines is worth far less than in others, the number of authors/article differs wi dely, and journal prestige varies at least as much. There are many other confusing factors in estimates based on article productio n rates which I touched on in my reply to Stevan Harnad, not least of which is t he frequency of publication of equally highly respected researchers. Some publis h rarely (say once every three years), others produce multiple articles per year . There are distributions in all these things which we should understand. If I m ention just one, the huge disparity between articles/title in ISI and non-ISI jo urnals listed in your article (111 vs 26, from Bjork et al) must give anyone cau se to reflect! That's over 4:1, too big to gloss over. I know of course that I cannot determine exactly the number of researchers in the world, any more than anyone else can determine exactly how many articles wer e written or published. As an engineer in a previous career, absolute precision in these matters is not required, rather sufficient confidence that we are in t he right ballpark. Anyway, thank you very much for your help and links, which I greatly appreciate. Arthur Sale University of Tasmania From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Arif Jinha Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012 5:26 AM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there? Arthur, You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in th e world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relations hips between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annuall y and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis - http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
Thanks Stevan. Unfortunately that does not answer the question I posed, but a different question which is not relevant in the research being undertaken to see the adoption of OA practices amongst researchers, as opposed to the application of OA to articles which you have ably handled.  As you have recognized, it only needs one author of a multi-author article to make the whole paper OA; however as we approach 100%, single-author articles will require that sole author to make his or her paper OA. (The question is irrelevant to Gold OA because all authors jointly agree to make the article OA, once.) It would be an interesting study to see amongst Green OA, whether the rate of making articles OA improves as the number of authors does. Hypothesis A: it will, but not linearly. Secondly one could look at the number of times an article is OA (ie the number of OA copies there are on the Internet). Hypothesis B: this measure should increase with the number of authors, though probably not linearly. Zipfâs law is more likely in these cases as earlier-listed authors are probably the more likely to take OA action. Is your crawled data capable of being re-interpreted this way?  I propose to do the following:  (1)  Estimate the total number of papers P published per year y, Py (2)  Estimate the average number of authors per paper for this corpus, m. (3)  Compute m x Py = N, an estimate of the number of active researchers.  The expected errors in N are: ·      The value of Py is not certain â neither ISI nor Scopus are complete. This leads to an under-estimate. ·      Not all researchers publish every year. This means that the number of researchers is again under-estimated. ·      Some researchers publish more than once per year. This is double-counting and results in an over-estimate. ISI or Scopus may be able to provide disambiguated estimates from their databases. ·      Unfortunately aggregating the number of years causes both the above errors to change â the first reducing, the second increasing. I have seen statements to the effect that an active researcher publishes at least once every three years, so the effective limit is 3 successive years.  Still, the information will be interesting and perhaps useful. It may be useful to do a pilot study in a single institution. Australian universities have complete citation databases of their publications, so it may be possible to check this type of data for a single institution. If it is a big one, the data may extrapolate.  Best wishes  Arthur  From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad Sent: Sunday, 1 January 2012 8:52 PM To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) Subject: [GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?  Some suggestions:  (1) Estimate the total number of papers P published per year y, Py, rather than the number of researchers.  (2) Start with the Thompson-Reuters-ISI-indexed (or SCOPUS-indexed) subset.  (3) For Py, sample the web (Google Scholar) to see what percentage of it is freely available (OA).  Our latest rough estimate with this method, using a robot, is about 20%.  (Using estimates of the number of researchers, if the margin of error for the total is 1M - 10M then the margin of error for the percentage OA would be 10% - 100%, which is too big. Using known, published papers as the estimator also eliminates the multi-author problem.)  Cheers, Stevan  On 2011-12-31, at 6:25 PM, Arthur Sale wrote: I am trying to get a rough estimate of the number of active researchers in the world. Unfortunately all the estimates seem to be as rough as the famous Drake equation for calculating the number of technological civilizations in the universe: in other words all the factors are extremely fuzzy. I seek your help. My interest is that this is the number of people who need to adopt OA for us to have 100% OA. (Actually, we will approach that sooner, as the average publication has more than one author and we need only one to make it OA.  To share some thinking, let me take Australia. In 2011 it had 35 universities and 29,226 academic staff with a PhD. Let me assume that this is the number of research active staff. The average per institution is 835, and this spans big universities down to small ones. Australia produces according to the OECD 2.5% of the worldâs research, so letâs estimate the number of active researchers in the world (taking Australia as âtypicalâ of researchers) as 29226 / 0.025 = 1,169,040 researchers in universities. Note that I have not counted non-university research organizations (theyâll make a small difference) nor PhD students (there is usually a supervisor listed in the author list of any publication they produce).  Letâs take another tack. I have read the number of 10,000 research universities in the world bandied about. Letâs regard â
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
Arthur,  You're not going to be able to determine the exact number of researchers in the world and you will have to make good estimates. But there are direct relationships between the number of researchers, the number of articles published annually and the number of active peer-reviewed journals. Good sources for methodology are my thesis -http://arif.jinhabrothers.com/sites/arif.jinhabrothers.com/files/aj.pdf (defend ed and submitted this fall) - Article 50 million -http://www.mendeley.com/research/article-50-million-estimate-number-scholarly-a rticles-existence-6/ Methods and data are based chiefly on: Bjork et al's studies on OA share growth 2006 to current Mabe and Amin, Tenopir and King - works 1990s to early 2000s Derek De Sallo Price - 1960s - the 'father of scientometrics. - you can get the number of article from Bjork's methods and data and mine. - you can get the number of researchers from UN data but there is ratio of researchers to publishing researchers, and publishing researchers publish an average of 1 article per year, so if you can determine good estimate for that ratio you are on your way. You have good data on growth rates of researchers, articles and journals, but growth rates have increased dramatically since 2000 as demonstrated in my thesis. It got a bit complex and I tried to sort it best I could in my thesis.  all the best,  Arif    - Original Message - From: Arthur Sale To: 'Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)' Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 6:25 PM Subject: [GOAL] How many researchers are there? I am trying to get a rough estimate of the number of active researchers in the world. Unfortunately all the estimates seem to be as rough as the famous Drake equation for calculating the number of technological civilizations in the universe: in other words all the factors are extremely fuzzy. I seek your help. My interest is that this is the number of people who need to adopt OA for us to have 100% OA. (Actually, we will approach that sooner, as the average publication has more than one author and we need only one to make it OA.  To share some thinking, let me take Australia. In 2011 it had 35 universities and 29,226 academic staff with a PhD. Let me assume that this is the number of research active staff. The average per institution is 835, and this spans big universities down to small ones. Australia produces according to the OECD 2.5% of the world?s research, so let?s estimate the number of active researchers in the world (taking Australia as ?typical? of researchers) as 29226 / 0.025 = 1,169,040 researchers in universities. Note that I have not counted non-university research organizations (they?ll make a small difference) nor PhD students (there is usually a supervisor listed in the author list of any publication they produce).  Let?s take another tack. I have read the number of 10,000 research universities in the world bandied about. Let?s regard ?research university? as equal to ?PhD-granting university?. If each of them have 1,000 research active staff on average, then that implies 1 x 1000 = 10,000,000 researchers.  That narrows the estimate, rough as it is, to         1.1M no of researchers 10M I can live with this, as it is only one power of ten (order of magnitude) between the two bounds. The upper limit is around 0.2% of the world?s population.  Another tactic is to try to estimate the number of people whose name appeared in an author list in the last decade. Disambiguation of names rears its ugly head. This will also include many non-researchers in big labs, some of them will be dead, and there will be new researchers who have just not yet published, but I am looking for ball-park figures, not pinpoint accuracy. I haven?t done this work yet.  Can we do better than these estimates, in the face of different national styles? It is even difficult to get one number for PhD granting universities in the US, and as for India and China @$#!  Arthur Sale University of Tasmania, Australia   ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal [ Part 2: Attached Text ] ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
[GOAL] Re: How many researchers are there?
Some suggestions: (1) Estimate the total number of papers P published per year y, Py, rather than the number of researchers. (2) Start with the Thompson-Reuters-ISI-indexed (or SCOPUS-indexed) subset. (3) For Py, sample the web (Google Scholar) to see what percentage of it is freely available (OA). Our latest rough estimate with this method, using a robot, is about 20%. (Using estimates of the number of researchers, if the margin of error for the total is 1M - 10M then the margin of error for the percentage OA would be 10% - 100%, which is too big. Using known, published papers as the estimator also eliminates the multi-author problem.) Cheers, Stevan On 2011-12-31, at 6:25 PM, Arthur Sale wrote: I am trying to get a rough estimate of the number of active researchers in the world. Unfortunately all the estimates seem to be as rough as the famous Drake equation for calculating the number of technological civilizations in the universe: in other words all the factors are extremely fuzzy. I seek your help. My interest is that this is the number of people who need to adopt OA for us to have 100% OA. (Actually, we will approach that sooner, as the average publication has more than one author and we need only one to make it OA.  To share some thinking, let me take Australia. In 2011 it had 35 universities and 29,226 academic staff with a PhD. Let me assume that this is the number of research active staff. The average per institution is 835, and this spans big universities down to small ones. Australia produces according to the OECD 2.5% of the worldâs research, so letâs estimate the number of active researchers in the world (taking Australia as âtypicalâ of researchers) as 29226 / 0.025 = 1,169,040 researchers in universities. Note that I have not counted non-university research organizations (theyâll make a small difference) nor PhD students (there is usually a supervisor listed in the author list of any publication they produce).  Letâs take another tack. I have read the number of 10,000 research universities in the world bandied about. Letâs regard âresearch universityâ as equal to âPhD-granting universityâ. If each of them have 1,000 research active staff on average, then that implies 1 x 1000 = 10,000,000 researchers.  That narrows the estimate, rough as it is, to         1.1M no of researchers 10M I can live with this, as it is only one power of ten (order of magnitude) between the two bounds. The upper limit is around 0.2% of the worldâs population.  Another tactic is to try to estimate the number of people whose name appeared in an author list in the last decade. Disambiguation of names rears its ugly head. This will also include many non-researchers in big labs, some of them will be dead, and there will be new researchers who have just not yet published, but I am looking for ball-park figures, not pinpoint accuracy. I havenât done this work yet.  Can we do better than these estimates, in the face of different national styles? It is even difficult to get one number for PhD granting universities in the US, and as for India and China @$#!  Arthur Sale University of Tasmania, Australia   ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal [ Part 2: Attached Text ] ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
