Joy is an experienced award-winning Founding Director, skilled in team building, management, data analysis, and business strategy. She has experience in Research Capacity, Higher Education, Research Analytics, and Donor and Government Relations. She is the Executive Director of the Training Centre in Communication, based in the University of Nairobi, Kenya. The centre provides capacity support in improving researchers output and visibility through training in scholarly and science communication.

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If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

–

African proverb

This proverb rings true as we celebrate Africa Day and highlight the way that partnerships have been instrumental in supporting the accessibility and visibility of African research through Open Access.

The TCC Africa team were recently invited by Kenya’s grants council, the National Research Fund, to train researchers from 15 universities from this region on open science and how it helps in improving research output and increasing visibility. Going by road made so much sense as I needed time and inspiration to write this blog, and what better inspiration is there than the beautiful Kenyan countryside. As we drove down the Great Rift Valley, we passed lush green hills, the air fresh from last night’s rain. It is a long 400 km drive from Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, to Kisumu, another city located by Lake Victoria, the world’s ninth-largest continental lake.

One of the Goals and Priority Areas of Agenda 2063, is “A Prosperous Africa, based on Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development” and is a principle of UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 17, which focuses on partnerships for the goals. Since 2018 and the launch of Plan S, the increased use of Open Access has been evident, with the need for effective access and usage of various Open Access research solutions. At the heart of this process is a paradigm shift with the rise of Open Access research discovery citation databases, which have taken over similar traditionally paywalled options.

The result of these developments has led to a demand for access and effective usage of Open Access citation databases in the Global South, and the best way to effectively action this is through collaboration.

African researchers have taken advantage of open science and Open Access, as evidenced by the increase of Open Access publications. Open science publishing infrastructures like the Africa Academy of Sciences Open Research Platform and African community led preprint repository AfricArxiv has led to innovative Open Access publishing offering rapid publication and open review whilst supporting data deposition, with the former supporting African Academy of Sciences fellows, and the latter supporting research done by Africans or non-Africans conducting research on and about Africa.

Since 2018, African researchers have produced over 400 thousand publications, with 50% of these being Open Access. It is also clear that year on year African research output has been steadily increasing. In Africa, TCC Africa’s approach to effectively working with Digital Science in providing support in accessibility of the Open Access research discovery solution Dimensions is multifold. Dimensions has partnered with Research4Life, a charity research organization providing Open Access research solutions to researchers in the Global South, to allow its community to discover research information and enable its users to gain actionable insights into research trends using the Dimensions platform. What we did as a centre was go a step further and work with the higher education stakeholders in Sub-Saharan countries to make sure users in African countries were comfortable in accessing and using Dimensions.

The reason we did this is that, for the longest time, higher education stakeholders worked in silos. Each higher education institute (HEI) has an expectation of researchers to produce good quality outputs and increase their visibility. By bringing them together they can seamlessly provide uniform access to Dimensions in their respective countries. We brought together research councils, granting councils, university commissions and library consortia and trained them in using Dimensions to support their academic and research communities using open science.

How does this work? As gatekeepers, library consortia are responsible for the negotiation and access to literary resources used in their institutes, while research councils regulate and monitor output done by research institutes, and granting councils fund research and the university commissions are responsible for regulating and monitoring universities performance. All these HEIs and other higher education stakeholders agree on the importance of open science, its philosophy, and how Open Access can support increasing research output and visibility coming out of their countries.

In order to make a change to the whole research lifecycle, these different stakeholders understood that they had to work together and be of one voice when it came to open science and seamlessly implementing an Open Access citation database such as Dimensions across each of their respective countries.

Though you may expect such a process to be difficult, it has been received positively, predominantly based on the underlying premise about how open science can support the academic and research ecosystem in each of these countries.

In Kenya, the National Research Fund grants council and the Kenya Libraries and Information Services Consortium have joined forces to support the Kenyan academic community in seamless access to Dimensions, with the former providing research capacity support on training researchers on how to use the database and the latter providing easier access within their institutes and also training their respective institutes. The National Council for Science and Technology, Malawi’s research council, works closely with the Malawi Library Consortium in supporting their academic community in accessing and using Dimensions for research discovery.

The Zambia Library Information Consortium and the research and granting council National Science and Technology Council have agreed to work together to support their academic community in providing seamless access and effective use of Dimensions. This began with a national webinar explaining the process in March 2021.

In Botswana the Department of Research, Science and Technology (DRST) through the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology and the Botswana Library Consortium have agreed to work together in supporting their academic community in providing access to Dimensions, complete with capacity building resource. Similar discussions are ongoing with more HEIs in the continent, as they are keen to look at ways in which they can support their academic communities.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has taught us the importance of collaboration and of Open Access, and demonstrated how both are beneficial to scientific advancement, and necessary to move science forward to combat current and future challenges. Last year’s Digital Science report, How COVID-19 is Changing Research Culture, showed how many more preprints have been published since the start of the pandemic compared to before, and the impact that this has had on the speed of medical innovation, and the potential lasting impact this will have on how research is carried out in the future. By forging partnerships across African HEIs to foster open science and collaboration, we can help researchers make the greatest possible impact through their work.

This 54 country continent is a geographical jigsaw, with a land area of 30.4 million sq km (11.7 million sq mi) – enough to accommodate the U.S., China, India, Japan, Mexico, and many European nations, combined. The African continent is mired with a varied political economy, and is united under the African Union’s edict on partnerships. Working towards SDG 17 has been essential in conducting research building global relationships and nationally breaking down HEI silos in a bid to provide seamless access and use of Open Access solutions. By working together in such partnerships, African research will make an even greater impact on the global research landscape.

The post Supporting Accessibility and Visibility of African Research Through Open Access appeared first on Digital Science.

Simon Porter is Digital Science’s Director of Innovation. Simon came to Digital Science from the University of Melbourne, where he has worked for the past 15 years in roles spanning the Library, Research Administration, and Information Technology. Beginning from a core strength in the understanding of how information on research is collected, Simon has forged a career transforming university practices in how data about research is used, both from administrative and eResearch perspectives. In addition to making key contributions to research information visualization and discovery within the university, Simon is well known for his advocacy of Research Profiling Systems and their capability to create new opportunities for researchers. Over the past three years, Simon has established and run the annual Australasian conference on research profiling. In 2012, Simon was the program chair of the third annual VIVO conference.

In over a decade of creating research university collaboration diagrams, the response that I’ve come to expect when presenting them is usually, “Pretty isn’t it…”, followed by a pause, and then, “…what does it mean?” – which is fair enough. Collaboration graphs without any surrounding narrative can really only be encountered as art. Identifying interesting features in a network requires some knowledge of how they were made.

That said, research collaboration graphs do play a productive role in highlighting the cultural differences between different types of disciplines and institutions. In our 2019 project, ‘What does a University look like?’, we showed that a large-scale comprehensive institution looks very different to an institution focused on science and engineering. Country-level differences in culture can also be seen. For example, two related posters in this project highlight the differences between a distributed system of institutions in New Zealand that focuses on different and complementary areas of research, and a larger university sector in Australia that produces many more comprehensive and competing institutions. Coming soon after the launch of Dimensions, the original 2019 project showcased both the quality of the research network and research classifications within Dimensions, while demonstrating how much it was possible to do with the Dimensions API – though it did take a while to download all the data! With the launch of Dimensions on Google BigQuery and the ability to gather the data for networks in

seconds rather than hours, I thought I would revisit the project again, this time with a focus on narrative. Imagine you are in a gallery, standing in front of a large framed picture of a network diagram.   What story does it tell you? It is most likely to be a story about the interplay and size of disciplines within an institution. How does physics interact with medicine? How does engineering connect with both the biological sciences and pure chemistry? Where are the intersections with education? In exploring these questions we also gain a sense of distance between disciplines. In this way, network diagrams act as a map as our eyes wander across a landscape of cooperation.

A story that tells us how disciplines are connected requires knowledge of where researchers are from. Using Dimensions we can assign a discipline to an individual by looking for the research classification that they most commonly publish in. Dimensions has many different classifications to choose from however, as the human eye can only differentiate a limited number of colours, I chose to use the Units of Assessment classification created in the UK for the Research Excellence Framework (the REF) as a high level, yet sufficiently broad scheme. Exploring interconnecting disciplines also requires a way to group researchers that are working together. To shift focus from individuals to groups within the network I used the Leiden algorithm from CWTS (also used in VOSviewer) to identify well-connected clusters of researchers. Having already used colour to indicate discipline, clusters are highlighted on the graph by hiding the links between clusters and accentuating the links within a cluster through the use of edge bundling. Clusters that are related to each other can be inferred by their proximity on the network, as well as the discipline mix of researchers within the cluster.   In an analogous method to assigning a discipline to each researcher, I assigned a colour to the edges within a cluster based on the majority discipline of the researchers within it.

Playing with edge bundling, as it can help reveal structure in graphs, but how much is too much? For me, it looks like setting a (hammer_bundle) initial param of .3 seems about right. Thoughts? (animation @matplotlib w camera) 1/3 pic.twitter.com/On13C8A64f

— Simon Porter (@sjcporter) November 28, 2020

As clusters have been derived independently from the algorithm that lays out the network, the final challenge is to differentiate between clusters that overlap across the network. Indeed, it is often interesting to identify instances when they do. To handle this, I chose to animate the graph, highlighting each cluster above a certain size in sequence, starting with Clinical Medicine (A01), and moving progressively through the Units of Assessment through science, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities. In this way, the network is presented as a tour through the disciplines providing a narrative structure for the entire network.  As Units of Assessments are quite broad, I also used the Fields of Research categorisation at the 4 digit level to provide another description for each cluster. By highlighting the four researchers within a cluster that have published the most, each cluster gains a further identity. To help identify clusters from different disciplines that overlap with one another, I created a 3-dimensional model of the network and gave each Unit of Assessment a different layer in the representation. Unit of Assessment A01 (Clinical Science) forms the base of the diagram. From there the layers move up through medicine, engineering, sciences, and humanities. The end result, created in this case for the University of Cambridge, is presented below. Pretty isn’t it? Although hopefully now the story it has to tell is embedded in the encounter.

Some Additional Technical Things of Note This project makes use of a new graph layout engine called BatchLayout, which I use in conjunction with Graphviz to reduce the number of overlapping nodes. Edge bundling is achieved using the Datashader library. Although the end result is rendered in Blender, all of the 2D development was rendered using matplotlib. You can find a Google Colab Notebook with all the steps up to 3D rendering here. The code for the whole project, including the Python script that builds the network in Blender can be found in my Gigantum repository here. Gigantum was really helpful here, as it made it easy to switch between my local computer for development, and a more powerful machine that didn’t mind being on for several days for 3D rendering. Have a go yourself, and tell us how you get along!

The post Bringing Narrative to Research Collaboration Networks in 3D appeared first on Digital Science.

In this paper published in Frontiers Research Metrics and Analytics, Daniel W Hook, Simon J Porter, Hélène Draux and Christian T Herzog propose the concept of “real-time” bibliometrics as a new capability for researchers, policymakers and analysts across the sector.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a different set of needs to analyze trends in scholarship as they occur: Real-time bibliometrics. The combination of full-text search, daily data updates, a broad set of scholarly objects including pre-prints and a wider set of data fields for analysis, broadens opportunities for a different style of analysis. A subset of these emerging capabilities is discussed and three basic analyses are presented as illustrations of the potential for real-time bibliometrics.

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The post Dimensions as a Resource for Analyzing COVID-19 appeared first on Digital Science.

One in every 25 publications that appeared on Dimensions in 2020 refers to COVID-19. Daniel Hook and Simon Porter look at where the resources to support all this research activity have come from, and which research fields are losing out. You can read the full article published in Nature Index.

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The post The COVID brain drain appeared first on Digital Science.

Building Institutional Collaboration Diagrams

Institutional collaboration diagrams can quickly facilitate discussions on an institution’s collaborative practices and are a common request of research analysts. Without access to an API to retrieve the required information, the process of building collaboration diagrams can often be tiresome and repetitive.

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Use our solutions to improve your collaboration strategy

Increased international collaboration produces higher-quality research

Overleaf

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Dimensions

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Symplectic

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ReadCube

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Increased international collaboration produces higher-quality research

Introducing the Ohio Innovation Exchange

A project that enabled six Ohio universities to make their expertise accessible to interested parties from industry.

The Connected Culture of Collaboration #OverleafReport

This report looks at real-time global research collaboration for the first time, uncovering a new picture of collaborative research.

Overleaf accelerates into new era

Overleaf Co-founder and CEO John Hammersley is moving on to take up a broader role within parent company Digital Science.

Overleaf reaches 10 million users worldwide

Cloud-based software company Overleaf has reached 10 million users in 189 countries around the world.

The post Advancing Research Collaboration appeared first on Digital Science.

CERN wanted a single, collaborative authoring tool to provide to their researchers and after a year-long trial of three platforms, Overleaf emerged as the best fit for them.

“The subsequent launch of Overleaf at CERN has been a huge success, with usage in the first year and a half growing by over 800% to include more than 3,600 CERN members across many different departments and specialities.”

Nikos Kasioumis, Software Engineer in the IT department at CERN and leader of the CERN authoring trial.

Read more about the goals, approach and results over on the Overleaf blog.

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The post Supporting Thousands of Research Collaborations appeared first on Digital Science.

Dimensions is an advanced insights platform that re-imagines discovery and access to research. It provides grants, publications, citations, clinical trials and patents all together in one place, allowing you to find and access relevant information faster, analyse the academic and broader outcomes of research, and gather insights for future strategy.

This document provides an overview of the Dimensions content. Feel free to reach out to the Dimensions team if you want to discuss further whether the content scope and coverage of Dimensions can help in your specific situation and use case.

The post A Guide to the Dimensions Data Approach appeared first on Digital Science.

The Symplectic team needed a new way to manage and produce technical documentation for their clients. After exploring a number of options, which did not meet their needs, they chose Overleaf because it provided an easy-to-use, flexible and scalable solution they were looking for. Overleaf enabled them to create and maintain complex technical documentation: keeping it up-to-date, which, coupled with Overleaf’s excellent formatting/layout capabilities, delivered an improved service to their clients and end-users.

With Overleaf, the Symplectic team finally had a solution that “stuck” and have been using it since January 2018, with great results.

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The post Using Overleaf for Technical Documentation appeared first on Digital Science.

Academia-industry partnerships are usually a win-win situation. The institution receives funding and recognition; the company gets innovative products backed by scientific research. These partnerships allow companies to access to the expertise of highly qualified individuals. And we know that strong R&D teams form the foundation of every innovative organization. But small businesses often lose out here. SMEs, startups and small to mid-size labs do not have access to specialized talent. Hiring experts in-house, especially for short-term projects, can be impractical and unaffordable.

When it comes to collaboration within academia, we have proof that individual researchers also no longer want to work in isolation. As science becomes increasingly interdisciplinary, there are multiple overlaps in the skills and knowledge required for different fields of studies. According to a UNESCO report,

“One in four scientific articles produced around the world were cosigned by a foreign collaborator in 2014, compared to one in five a decade earlier.”

Countries all over the world are joining hands to help fuel research and innovation, in a political climate that is becoming alarmingly anti-science. Under Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation programme, academia in the EU and the USA will be able to work together closely. An article published in Nature last year says that:

“The leading edge of scientific discovery is now in the realm of international collaboration networks rather than individuals, institutions or nations.”

So where are the platforms that allow individual researchers to collaborate? Nature breaks down the usage of digital tools such as social media networks, Research Gate, Academia.edu and Mendeley. But do these platforms help in forming collaborative partnerships?

Nature found that a majority of scientists simply wanted to maintain a digital presence in case anyone wanted to reach out to them.Typically, researchers and postdocs still network at traditional academic conferences. But attending a scientific conference can be an expensive and time-consuming affair.  While reliable statistics are hard to come by, a report published by IEEE in 2007 finds that their average conference registration fee was $451. However, the registration fee only accounts for 24% of total costs, while airfare and hotel costs take up 26% and 24% respectively. And attending a conference is only the first step – you have to be in the right place at the right time and get the right person to notice your work. And most importantly, you need the right social skills.Researchers, who already spend a bulk of their time trying to achieve results and get them published, often dread having to network in person.

Kolabtree is an online platform that is helping to bridge this gap, by making scientific talent more affordable and accessible. We connect businesses and labs to PhD-qualified experts for short-term projects, helping them overcome geographical barriers, limited funding and restrictive policies. We believe that there is a real need, now more than ever, for scientists and industries to collaborate with each other and among themselves. Kolabtree’s 2700+ global pool of experts include scientists, data analysts, statisticians, writers and editors from institutions such as NASA, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Cambridge, Oxford, and more. Our platform allows you to upload a project, receive bids from experts and work with the the expert of your choice. You choose the budget and release a payment only if you’re satisfied with the outcome. Our interface allows you to also interact with each expert who’s bid for your project before selecting one who’s best suited for your requirements.

We’ve been surprised and thrilled at the kind of projects we’ve received. Through Kolabtree, a social science researcher in the USA successfully worked with an astrophysicist in the UK to analyze huge data sets. An Amazon reseller in the US hired a data analyst from the Netherlands who helped him predict his sales over a period of time. A Brazilian open access journal was able to hire a team of global peer reviewers at short notice. Kolabtree’s become the one-stop shop for postdoc expertise across various subject areas, from biotechnology to mathematics.

We live in a time when we’re experiencing uncertainty, fear and hostility on a global level. With countries shutting down their borders, and the risk of reduced funding and freedom for science, we feel the need to encourage cross-border collaborations even more. We’ve also launched the initiative, #researchwithoutborders, that aims to showcase collaborative science and tech projects from around the world. We hope to help individuals and businesses the world over access the talent they’re seeking through our platform. It’s one step towards better collaboration and better innovation.

Ramya Sriram is a freelance writer and cartoonist. She currently manages digital content at Kolabtree (www.kolabtree.com), a London-based startup that connects labs and businesses to scientists from all over the world. Kolabtree’s experts include 2700+ PhD-qualified specialists across a wide range of subject areas from institutions like NASA, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, and more. Their mission is to accelerate academia-business and academia-academia collaboration across multiple communities.

The post How Academia Can Use the Power of Digital Technology for Cross-border Collaboration appeared first on Digital Science.

A selection of analyses and articles about collaborative scholarly writing, curated by Overleaf.

Overleaf, a collaborative writing and publishing platform that makes the process of writing, editing and publishing academic papers quicker and easier, has released this report which takes an in-depth look at active collaborative research patterns. Rather than examining post-published collaboration patterns, “The Connected Culture of Collaboration” explores new, real-time information on collaboration to provide insights on collaboration patterns on national, state and institution-level scales.

The report features a number of thought leadership contributions and includes a foreword from Laurel Haak, Executive Director, ORCID. The report focuses on the varying aspects of collaboration: how collaboration is valued in science, the role of university libraries in research communication, and how the growth of open access facilitates collaboration. A webinar recording can be found here.

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The post The Connected Culture of Collaboration appeared first on Digital Science.