Journal Assessment
Farshid Danesh; Samaneh Kesht Karan; Lili Banihashemi; Somayeh GhaviDel
Abstract
Editorial board members (EBMs) of journals play a pivotal role in authentic international scientific journals. Editorial Board Interlocking (EBI) phenomenon reflects the effectiveness and importance of the scholarly journal's editorial boards in various scientific fields. The primary purpose of this ...
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Editorial board members (EBMs) of journals play a pivotal role in authentic international scientific journals. Editorial Board Interlocking (EBI) phenomenon reflects the effectiveness and importance of the scholarly journal's editorial boards in various scientific fields. The primary purpose of this paper is to conduct a Social Network Analysis (SNA) of EBI phenomena from the perspective of astronomy and astrophysics journals. The present study is applied research based on EBI, SNA, and the descriptive-analytical approach. The statistical population of this study consists of the editorial board members of all journals of astronomy and astrophysics indexed in the JCR and official journal websites. There are 1597 job positions in 67 astronomy and astrophysics journals occupied by the 1394 scholars. Data analysis shows EBI for 95 scholars and 79 organizations. "Aleksei A. Starobinsky" from Russia and the Russian Academy of Sciences, "Daniel J. Scheeres" from the United States, and the University of Colorado Boulder have the highest EBI contributions in five journals. "Daniel J. Scheeres," with a centrality of 39, has the highest degree of centrality measurement among the EBMs. The presence of more than five times as many men as women indicates that astronomy and astrophysics journals are considered "masculine" by the editorial board. The EBI phenomenon is observed in astronomy and astrophysics journals due to the limited number of peop le eligible for the editorial board. Due to EBI, a limited number of famous scholars are made macro-policies such as publishing the articles, referees selections, and the reviewing process. Astronomy and astrophysics journals have "elite" academic networks. Gender inequality exists among EBMs, and the majority of them are male. Accordingly, these journals are "men's journals."
Somayeh Ghavidel; Abbas Gilvari
Volume 14, Issue 2 , July 2016
Abstract
Success of an organization, more than anything else, depends on the human resources. Behavioral science emphasizes that organizational success mainly depends on efficient use of human resources. It is especially true in organizations such as libraries. To promote “positive thinking” ” among the ...
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Success of an organization, more than anything else, depends on the human resources. Behavioral science emphasizes that organizational success mainly depends on efficient use of human resources. It is especially true in organizations such as libraries. To promote “positive thinking” ” among the staff of libraries and information centers, training courses should be arranged. To improve librarians' efficiency, these training courses should be held within the framework of an overall continuous program. In this research, the degree of “positive thinking” of librarians in 13 central university libraries affiliated to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) in Tehran was assessed. Using random stratified sampling and random digits’ table, 144 employees were selected from among the total 218 employees working in these libraries as sample population. An author made checklist, which was based on Ingram and Wisnicki’s 5-factor questionnaire and consisted of 30 items, was applied as data-gathering tool. Descriptive survey was applied and the results showed the average values for positive daily functioning, positive self-evaluation, others evaluation of self, positive future expectations, and self-confidence were 3.737, 3.833, 3.965, 3.94, and 3,555 respectively. Among the five options of always, often, limited, sometimes and never, which are five options of Liker’s questionnaire, the tendency was toward choosing either often or always.
