David Nicholas

CIBER Research · Harbingers group

A brief summary of the Harbingers (ECR) research project, with future AI research project described and a full list of Harbinger collaborators and publications

The Harbingers project, which studied the working lives and scholarly communication behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs) over 6 years, found evidence of changing attitudes to questionable (grey) publishing. Thus, whilst predatory publishers have come to be treated with equanimity, as a problem easily dealt with, there was growing concern w...

Investigates whether junior researchers believe that the scholarly communication system is changing in a significant way, whether they have contributed to the changes they envisaged, whether the pandemic has fast-forwarded change and what they thought a transformed system might look like. The data are drawn from the Harbingers-2 project, which inve...

This study's research aim is to discover how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts early career researchers' work lives, prospects , and scholarly communication behavior. Early career researchers (ECRs), including doctoral students, post-docs, and pre-tenure faculty, are the next generation of scientists, researchers, scholars, teachers, and academic leade...

Explores science and social science early career researchers' (ECRs) perceptions and experiences of peer review, seeking also to identify their views of any pandemic-associated changes that have taken place. Data are drawn from the Har-bingers-2 project, which investigated the impact of the pandemic on scholarly communications. Peer review, one of...

The outbreak of COVID-19 has changed the world in many aspects, and global scientific research has also been challenged. Early-career researchers (ECRs) who just start academic careers are prominently affected by the pandemic. To explore how Chinese ECRs have been affected, longitudinal qualitative interviews were conducted with twenty-four Chinese...

After two-years of repeat interviewing early career sciences/ social sciences researchers from around the world about their work life and scholarly communications in pandemic-times, the Harbingers-2 project is in a position to release quantitative data on the pandemic's overall impact. The data comes from around 50 questions asked in the third and...

Key points 170 early career researchers interviewed three times over 2 years, have uniquely contributed towards a stress test of scholarly communications and cracks have been identified. The perfect storm created by the convergence of millennial values and the pandemic appears to have fast‐forwarded the cracking process, perhaps, for the good. The...

Introduction: As part of the Harbnger-2 project, this study aimed to discover the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on junior researchers' work-life, career prospects, research and publishing practices and networking. Methods: An online international survey of 800 early career researchers (ECRs) was conducted in 2022. A questionnaire was developed...

Presents findings from a study into the attitudes and practices of pandemic-era early career researchers (ECRs) in regard to obtaining access to the formally published scholarly literature, which focused on alternative providers, notably ResearchGate and Sci-Hub. The study is a part of the Harbingers project that has been exploring the work lives a...

Around 170 early career researchers (ECRs) from 8 countries were interviewed about the whole range of their scholarly communication attitudes/behaviours during pandemic times and this paper analyses what they said about predatory journals in a wide range of scholarly communication contexts. Because of the delicacy of the topic there was just one qu...

The relationship between early career researchers and academic libraries This article examines the evolving attitudes and practices of early career researchers (ECRs) towards the library, in particular its role as a source of discovery and access to information, the use of institutional repositories, and their predicted future for the library. The...

Changing business models in scholarly publishing means that researchers have increased choices as to where to submit their articles. Choices are made on the basis of perceived quality of the journal, the speed of publishing, and how close a match there is between the journal scope and the article topic. Additionally, there is an increasing concern...

After two-years of talking to around 170 early career science/social science researchers from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US about their work life and scholarly communications during the pandemic, the Harbingers-2 project is in possession of a mountain of verbatim data. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the kinds...

After two-years of repeat interviewing around 170 early career science/social science researchers from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Russia, Spain, UK and US about their work life and scholarly communications in pandemic-times, the Harbingers project is now in possession of a mountain of data on what constitutes a very important academic topic....

Early career researchers have both been the most directly effected by the COVID-19 pandemic and responsible for some of the most innovative responses to it. Reporting on findings from the Harbingers-2 study, Discusses how the international cohort followed by the study has adapted to an emerging ‘new scholarly normality’

Presents early data from an investigation of the work lives and scholarly communication practices of 177 early career researchers (ECRs) from eight countries. Utilizing mainly coded and textual data from interviews, the paper reports on the findings that pertain to publishing papers in peer reviewed journals. We examine which factors are taken into...

In a blogpost from this time last year, we introduced Harbingers-2, a longitudinal qualitative research project, which seeks to understand the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the early career researcher (ECR) community. One year on, halfway into the project, it seems appropriate to revisit the oft-heard 'horror' scenario: the predi...

The study presents comparative qualitative findings from a longitudinal exploration of the impact of the pandemic on early career researchers (ECRs) from the sciences and social sciences. Using qualitative methodologies, it focuses on the increasing demands of remote teaching made on ECRs and the potentially negative effects these had on their rese...

The study presents comparative qualitative findings from a longitudinal exploration of the impact of the pandemic on early career researchers (ECRs) from the sciences and social sciences. Using qualitative methodologies, it focuses on the increasing demands of remote teaching made on ECRs and the potentially negative effects these had on their rese...

Abstract: The aim is to investigate the attitudes and practices of Spanish Early Career Researchers (ECRs) towards open science. Their interest in sharing openly publications and data, in collaborating with other researchers and stakeholders, in disseminating their research and in looking for results’ impact is analyzed. The methodology is based...

W artykule omówiono wyniki międzynarodowych badań nad komunikacją naukową prowadzonych w 2019 roku wśród naukowców na wczesnym etapie kariery. Szczególną uwagę poświęcono polskim respondentom, na co zabrakło miejsca w zbiorczych artykułach wieńczących międzynarodowy projekt Harbingers i opublikowanych w zagranicznych czasopismach. Polscy badacze z...

Międzynarodowy zespół badaczy współpracujący z CIBER Research oraz University of Tennessee, przy wsparciu fundacji Alfreda P. Sloana, rozpoczyna w listopadzie 2020 roku realizację projektu badawczego Harbingers 2. Jest to kontynuacja zrealizowanego wcześniej projektu Harbingers, czyli wywiadów z naukowcami na wczesnym etapie kariery na temat ich po...

The paper draws on evidence of predatory publishing obtained from the 4 year-long Harbingers research study of the changing scholarly communication attitudes and behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs). The project featured longitudinal interviews for its first 3 years with 116 ECRs researching science and social sciences who came from China,...

In order to take account of the impact of the pandemic on the already changing scholarly communications and work-life of early career researchers (ECRs), the 4-year long Harbingers study was extended for another two years. As a precursor to the study (featuring interviews and a questionnaire survey), currently underway, an analytic review of the pe...

Resumen. El estudio analiza las opiniones y prácticas de los investigadores españoles noveles (Early Career Researchers o ECRs) respecto a la coautoría y a la revisión por pares según datos obtenidos de una encuesta. Se observa que los ECRs contribuyen a todas las tareas de una investigación aunque no siempre se les reconozca suficientemente el mér...

Discusses the challenges facing early career researchers as a result of the pandemic and outlines how a new longitudinal, qualitative study involving 160 Early Career Researchers (ECRs) from 8 countries will seek to understand how they fare over the next two years.

The study investigates the attitudes and practices of Chinese early career researchers (ECRs) in regard to all scholarly aspects, providing the findings in the context of the academic assessment policies change in China over the last decade. The data were gathered by means of an online questionnaire survey, which obtained 263 Chinese ECRs' response...

This study explores early career researchers’ (ECRs) appreciation and utilisation of open access (OA) publishing. The evidence reported here results from a questionnaire-based international survey with 1600 participants, which forms the second leg and final year of a four year long, mixed methods, longitudinal study that sought to discover whether...

This study explores early career researchers’ (ECRs) appreciation and utilisation of open access (OA) publishing. The evidence reported here results from a questionnaire-based international survey with 1600 participants, which forms the second leg and final year of a four year long, mixed methods, longitudinal study that sought to discover whether...

The paper draws on evidence of predatory publishing obtained from the 4 year-long Harbingers research study of the changing scholarly communication attitudes and behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs). The project featured longitudinal interviews for the first 3 years with 116 international ECRs researching science and social sciences who cam...

Międzynarodowy zespół badaczy współpracujący z CIBER Research oraz University of Tennessee, przy wsparciu fundacji Alfreda P. Sloana, rozpoczyna w listopadzie 2020 roku realizację projektu badawczego Harbingers 2. Jest to kontynuacja zrealizowanego wcześniej projektu Harbingers, czyli wywiadów z naukowcami na wczesnym etapie kariery na temat ich po...

The scientific communication habits and practices of the new wave of Spanish researchers are analyzed based on the results of an international survey (2019). The results obtained from 100 participants support those previously obtained from interviews conducted between 2016 and 2018 in Spain under the Harbingers Project, and show similarities to and...

The paper compares the scholarly communication attitudes and practices of early career researchers (ECRs) in eight countries concerning discovery, reading, publishing, authorship, open access, and social media. The data are taken from the most recent investigation in the 4‐year‐long Harbingers project. A survey was undertaken to establish whether t...

The study investigates the attitudes and practices of early career researchers (ECRs) in regard to citation-based metrics and altmetrics, providing the findings in the light of what might be expected of the millennial generation and in the context of what we already know about researchers in today’s ‘culture of counting’ governed scholarly world. T...

This article presents an up‐to‐date portrayal of the greatly changed landscape of scholarly journal publishing and identifies the emerging trends characterising it. We consider the attributes, novelty, and disruptive potential of different models, which range from improvements to the extant model to attempts at reconfiguration and transformation. W...

This article describes an international study informed by a 3-year-long qualitative longitudinal project, which sought to discover the scholarly communication attitudes and behaviour of early career researchers (ECRs). Using a combination of small-scale interviews and a larger-scale survey, ECRs were questioned on their searching and reading behavi...

This article reports on the findings of an international online survey of early career researchers (ECRs) with regard to their authorship and peer review, attitudes , and practices, which sought to discover how the new wave of researchers were utilizing these key aspects of the scholarly communications system. A questionnaire was developed on the b...

A study from the Harbingers research project provides a comprehensive assessment of the main features of the scholarly communications system as viewed by early career researchers (ECRs) in the final year of the study (2018). Aspects covered are: discovery and access, authorship practices, peer review, publishing strategies, open access publishing,...

This paper examines changes in attitudes and behaviours of the new wave of researchers (early career researchers) regarding the academic library and its functions in seven countries around the world. It documents trends and establishes the direction in which things are heading. Data were collected from over 100 researchers from the sciences and soc...

Reports on the findings on the open science attitudes and behaviours of early career researchers (ECRs) from the Harbingers research project, which sought to determine whether they are the agents of change when it comes to scholarly communications. Nearly 120 science and social science researchers from 7 countries were questioned, longitudinally ov...

Presenting evidence from the Harbingers Study, a three-year longitudinal study of Early Career Researchers (ECRs), David Nicholas assesses the extent to which the new wave of researchers are driving changes in scholarly practices. Finding that innovative practices are often constrained by institutional structures and precarious employment, he sugge...

Publication ethics are rarely taught. This paper presents research into the knowledge of scholarly publishing ethics among Malaysian early-career researchers (ECRs). This research comes from year two of a projected three-year-long study of ECRs from seven countries (China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, the UK, and the US), for which semi-structu...

Three years ago, the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) commissioned a highly ambitious, international study, the like of which has not been seen in the scholarly communications field. More than a hundred science and social science early career researchers (ECRs) from seven countries were depth-interviewed annually for three-years (2016-2018) in...

The situation of Spanish early career researchers is investigated based on the results obtained from the international project: Early career researchers: The harbingers of change? The project sought to discover their habits in scientific communication, what role Science 2.0 plays in their behaviour and to what extent the indicators of evaluation of...

This article provides the final results of a 3‐year study that sought to discover whether early career researchers (ECRs) were the harbingers of change with respect to scholarly communications. Over a hundred science and social science ECRs from seven countries, spanning three continents, were depth‐interviewed annually for 3 years (2016–2018) abou...

How do early career researchers (ECRs) use Sci-Hub and why? In this post David Nicholas assesses early career researcher attitudes towards the journal pirating site, finding a strong preference for Sci-Hub amongst French ECRs. He raises the question, will Sci-Hub prove the ultimate disruptor and bring down the existing status quo in scholarly commu...

Seeking to understand how today’s scholars may, indeed should go about building, maintaining and showcasing their professional reputation, the literature review presented here explores the reputational opportunities available to them in the increasingly open-values based, digital and networked environment of Science 2.0. Using a conceptual framewor...

The paper presents the early findings from the first two years of the Harbingers research project , a 3-year-long study of early career researchers (ECRs), the new wave of researchers, which sought to ascertain their current and changing habits with regard to scholarly communications. The study recruited a convenience sample of 116 researchers from...

Представляется исследование, цель которого понять, как сегодня ученые могут, и на самом деле должны подходить к созданию, сохранению и распространению своей профессиональной репутации. Предлагаемый здесь обзор литературы анализирует доступные ученым репутационные возможности, имеющиеся во все больше расширяющейся, основанной на ценностях, цифровой...

A three year research study of early career researchers (Harbingers study) recently completed provides solid evidence that commentators are right to think that ECRs could be disadvantaged by Plan S.

Three years ago, the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) commissioned a highly ambitious, international study, the like of which has not been seen in the scholarly communications field. More than a hundred science and social science early career researchers (ECRs) from seven countries were depth-interviewed annually for three-years (2016-2018) in...

The Harbinger project was a 3-year-long international study of the changing attitudes and behaviours of early career researchers (ECRs). One of the aims of the project was to discover if ECRs were adopting disrupting platforms that, legitimately or illegitimately, promote openness and sharing. It has been alleged that such an adoption appeals to th...

Breaking research findings from the final year of the Harbinger project

Early-career researchers—that is, those without tenure and typically in their 20s and 30s—make up the largest group of researchers in most countries and universities. They are the fuel that powers the world’s research projects. They are tomorrow’s Nobel prizewinners. They were born digital, and bring with them the millennials’ belief in openness, s...

The purpose of this article is twofold: a) to describe and compare methods of early career researcher (ECR) assessment/appraisal; b) to explain how ECRs build, showcase, and monitor their reputation in an era of novel developments in scholarly communications. In all, 116 ECRs from China, France, Malaysia, Poland, Spain, the UK, and the US were ques...

The younger generation sees a collaborative system as key to discovery and advancement, a three-year tracking project reveals. See https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/early-career-researchers-herald-change

Early career researchers and whether they will be the harbingers of change in respect to scholarly communication behaviour.

An Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is a patient's database record that can be transmitted securely. There are a diversity of EMR systems for different medical units to choose from. The structure and value of these systems is the focus of this qualitative study, from a medical professional's standpoint, as well as its economic value and whether it s...

Cambridge Core - General - Is Digital Different? - edited by Michael Moss

User Studies for Digital Library Development - edited by Milena Dobreva June 2012

Cambridge Core - General - Digital Consumers - edited by David Nicholas