Jie Xu

Wuhan University | WHU · College of Information Management

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...

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...

Academic integrity has long been an issue of concern to the academic community, and in recent years has attracted attention worldwide. As the country with the world's largest research output, especially as shown during the recent pandemic, China is actively working to combat academic misconduct. To explore China's initiatives and actions in this re...

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...

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...

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...

This paper reports on a research study that aimed to understand and qualify the influences of interagency relationships on interagency government data sharing (IDS). Using a meta-analysis approach, 76 interviews previously collected from three city governments in China were analysed under the theoretical lens of a unified social network theory of i...

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 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...

This study investigates the attitudes of Chinese PhD students toward predatory journals. Data were gathered using an online questionnaire to which 332 Chinese PhD students responded. Our main conclusions are 1) in the sciences, technology, and medicine, respondents frequently confused predatory journals with open access journals; 2) in the humaniti...

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...

Children’s books involve a large number of topics. Research on them has been paid much attention to by both scholars and practitioners. However, the existing achievements do not focus on China, which is the fastest growing market for children’s books in the world. Studies using quantitative analysis are low in number, especially on the intellectual...

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...

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...

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This paper reports the results of a survey on Chinese researchers' perceptions and use of open access journals (OAJs). A total of 381 Chinese researchers from different universities and disciplines were investigated through an online questionnaire survey in August and September 2018. The results showed that most Chinese researchers are familiar wit...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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

This paper presents data regarding the publication of Chinese English‐language journals (CELAJs), building on previously published information to investigate the status, growth, and international penetration of these journals. The article also presents three case studies of CELJs to demonstrate different strategies for achieving internationalizatio...

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

This poster presents a research that examines the correlation between publishing delay and impact factor of academic journals.Data of 9,028 articles in 91 library and information sciences (LIS) and biology journals were collected from WoS Journal Citation Report (JCR 2016), and then analyzed and compared. The data analysis shows that LIS journals h...

Key points • Early career researchers (ECRs) consider journals the central form of communication – but are concerned about pressure to publish. • ECRs want to share but currently accept the closed publishing system because of the need to build a traditional reputation. • ECRs know – and appear to care – little about publishers but trust them as pu...

This paper presents research into the scholarly communication attitudes and behaviours of Chinese 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-structured in-depth interviews were conduc...

Partial results of first and second year of the research project: Early Career Researchers: the Harbingers of Change? Head of project: David Nicholas, CIBER Ltd.

Changing face of scholarly communication behaviour as exhibited by early career researchers. Year 2 results from a three-year longitudinal study

This research study aimed to investigate the lack of student engagement in Chinese library science (LS) undergraduate education. Specifically, this study aimed to identify and understand the causes of the lack of student engagement and to articulate effective and pragmatic resolving strategies. This study adopted an inductive approach and a single...

The study is a follow up of CIBER’s exploratory research on Trust and Authority in Scholarly Communications conducted in 2012-2013, investigating Malaysia, a country currently on the ‘periphery’ of the scholarly endeavor and comparing with China, now stands 2nd globally to the USA in terms of scientific output. Over 500 Malaysian researchers were s...

The study is a follow up of CIBER's exploratory research on Trust and Authority in Scholarly Communications conducted in 2012-2013, investigating Malaysia, a country currently on the 'periphery' of the scholarly endeavor and comparing with China, now stands 2 nd globally to the USA in terms of scientific output. Over 500 Malaysian researchers were...

For scholarly publishers, the social networking platform ResearchGate is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, when researchers post papers on the site journals’ brands are promoted and articles are used more widely. On the other hand, there is a potential loss in revenue and subscriptions if that sharing goes on outside publishers’ walls. As if t...

This paper presents selected findings from the first year of a 3-year longitudinal study of early career researchers (ECRs), which sought to ascertain current and changing habits in scholarly communication. Specifically, the aims of the paper are to show: (1) how much experience and knowledge ECRs had of peer review – both as authors and as reviewe...

Pierwsze (z zaplanowanych trzech) doniesienie z badań wśród 116 młodych (do 35 lat) naukowców z 7 krajów: Stanów Zjednoczonych, Wielkiej Brytanii, Francji, Hiszpanii, Malezji, Chin i Polski.

This study presents findings from the first year of the Harbingers research project, a 3-year longitudinal study of early career researchers (ECRs), which sought to ascertain current and changing habits in scholarly communication. The study recruited 116 science and social science ECRs from seven countries who were subject to in-depth interviews, a...

Early career researchers (ECRs) are of great interest because they are the new (and biggest) wave of researchers. They merit long and detailed investigation, and towards this end, this overarching paper provides a summary of the first-year findings of a 3-year, longitudinal study of 116 science and social science ECRs who have published nearly 1,20...

This article presents findings from the first year of the Harbingers research project started in 2015. The project is a 3-year longitudinal study of early career researchers (ECRs) to ascertain their current and changing habits with regard to information searching, use, sharing, and publication. The study recruited 116 researchers from seven countr...

To explore the influence of e-book format and reading device on users’ reading experience, this paper studied a group of graduate students’ reading speed and comprehension. The participants were asked to read same length content from the same monograph chapter in both fixed layout format file (PDF) and fluid format file (EPUB) on four different rea...

Early-career researchers constitute a vast pool of talent. They are the largest group of researchers and their numbers are growing fast. They are essential for enabling research to meet the needs of knowledge economies and, as the League of European Research Universities wrote in 2010, universities’ research crucially rests on their access “to the...

Early career researchers are of great interest not just because they are the new wave, but because they are also the biggest wave – they are by far the largest group of researchers (Jones, 2014). Therefore, they merit long, detailed and continuous investigation. Towards this end this report provides the first year findings (the foundation stone) fo...

A total of 686 Chinese researchers were surveyed about matters of trust arising from their scholarly use/reading, citing and publishing behavior. The questionnaire survey was proceeded and informed by two focus groups attended by two dozen Chinese researchers. The findings showed that Chinese researchers appeared lukewarm on the topic of OA journal...

Over 660 Chinese researchers were questioned about their scholarly use, citing, and publishing and how trust is exercised in these key activities. Research showed few signs of new forms of scholarly usage behaviour taking hold, despite multiple opportunities afforded by Science 2.0 developments. Thus, for determining trustworthiness for usage purpo...

This paper examines differences in Chinese and American researchers' uses of social networking sites (SNS). It compares their attitudes and behaviours as determined from data collected in an online survey and a semi-structured focus interview. For various reasons, most international SNS are blocked in China, and we were curious to see how this infl...

Mobile cloud streaming has become very popular recently. However, the centralized data-center structure may lead to high service delay, especially for real time and high bandwidth streaming services. Deploying cloud edge servers may improve the quality of mobile streaming services in theory, but it cannot well adapt to the user mobility. To deal wi...

In this letter, we propose a novel cooperative caching scheme for the next-generation Internet - content oriented networking (CON), trying to minimize the content access delay for mobile users. We formulate the caching problem as a mixed integer programming model and propose a heuristic solution based on Lagrangian relaxation. Simulation results sh...

This overview describes the general situation of online scholarly publishing in China from both the supply and demand points of view. Based on desk research, online survey, and face-to-face interviews, we identify scholars' perceptions as well as expectations of the current online publishing system. We offer some personal recommendations for change...

The rapid growth of government investment in scientific research in China over past decades has also caused the scholarly publishing industry to go through great changes. Nevertheless, there is a big gap between the state of China's scholarly publishing industry and the current demands of international scientific communication. Globalization and di...