The purpose of this paper is to explore the opportunities altmetrics offer to library and information professionals as part of their research support provision. This paper…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the opportunities altmetrics offer to library and information professionals as part of their research support provision. This paper examines what altmetrics are and how they can offer another useful metric to help academics engage with a variety of interested parties over the web.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper considers the emergence of altmetrics as a research measurement and scholarly communication tool and the impact on academic libraries. It also identifies existing metrics and explores their shortcomings as well as how these can be bridged by altmetrics.
Findings
Altmetrics offer a wealth of opportunities for library and information professionals to make better strategic decisions, explore their own institution’s research output and provide scholarly communications intelligence to their research community.
Originality/value
The value in this paper lies in encouraging academic librarians and information professionals to explore altmetrics for themselves and align any new knowledge with existing services and skills, in particular around metrics and digital media.
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Keywords
The purpose of this paper is twofold, first, to discuss the current and future issues around post-publication open peer review. Second, to highlight some of the main protagonists…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold, first, to discuss the current and future issues around post-publication open peer review. Second, to highlight some of the main protagonists and platforms that encourages open peer review, pre-and post-publication.
Design/methodology/approach
The first part of the paper aims to discuss the facilitators and barriers that will enable and prevent academics engaging with the new and established platforms of scholarly communication and review. These issues are covered with the intention of proposing further dialogue within the academic community that ultimately address researchers’ concerns, whilst continuing to nurture a progressive approach to scholarly communication and review. The paper will continue to look at the prominent open post-publication platforms and tools and discuss whether in the future it will become a standard model.
Findings
The paper identifies several problems, not exclusive to open peer review that could inhibit academics from being open with their reviews and comments of other’s research. Whilst identifies opportunities to be had by embracing a new era of academic openness.
Practical implications
The paper summarises key platforms and arguments for open peer review and will be of interest to researchers in different disciplines as well as the wider academic community wanting to know more about scholarly communications and measurement.
Originality/value
This paper looks at many of the new platforms that have been previously ignored and discusses issues relating to open peer review that have only been touched on in brief by other published research.
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Margaret Coffey, Lindsey Dugdill and Andy Tattersall
The purpose of this paper is to present an evaluation of the design of a stress management intervention (rather than an evaluation of the implementation and outcomes of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an evaluation of the design of a stress management intervention (rather than an evaluation of the implementation and outcomes of the programme).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses data generated from a large study carried out in two social service departments in the UK. The study is carried out in three phases: first, a problem diagnosis phase, comprising the development of a questionnaire and survey (n=1,234); second, focus groups (n=16) to develop interventions in a participatory way from the baseline established; and finally, an evaluation of the processes involved in phases one and two.
Findings
Key barriers include: major changes are currently taking place within the organisations; staff are distrustful of management and sceptical of the value of the research; lack of resources; and difficulties translating the findings into actions. Key factors necessary for success include: strong commitment from senior management; willingness by staff to participate; realistic expectations, responsibilities and time‐frames agreed at the outset of the project. Key health promotion outcomes achieved include: improved health literacy; changes to organisational policies and practices and staff empowerment and participation.
Research limitations/implications
Future research designing and implementing stress management interventions can draw on the evidence from this study in order to improve intervention effectiveness.
Practical implications
Evaluating the design of the stress management intervention has identified: what worked well, what did not, and in what context; difficulties associated with managing change; and unanticipated successes.
Originality/value
This paper provides an overview of the conditions which need to be created in order to achieve potentially successful outcomes and improve intervention effectiveness.
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Abstract
Details
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Mathew Johnson, Eva Herman and Ceri Hughes
The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter – a top-down soft regulation initiative that has been framed as a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the development of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter – a top-down soft regulation initiative that has been framed as a “movement” to promote good employment across the local area.
Design/methodology/approach
The research draws on 24 semi-structured interviews with policy officers, trade unions, employers and civil society actors and various professional and employer bodies who have been involved in the charter since its inception. The interview data are complemented by documentary analysis.
Findings
The findings underline the importance of institutional factors such as political access points and the mobilising structures of the state in creating a space for progressive employment policies such as charters to emerge. We also find that the framing of the charter as a mechanism to achieve both social justice and improved productivity allows diverse actors to engage, but at the same time this results in a degree of ambiguity over the normative and substantive reference points for “good employment”.
Originality/value
The article contributes to our understanding of the changing nature of top-down political initiatives that seek to change business practices by engaging a wide range of stakeholders as Allies not adversaries. We argue that while charters are a potentially useful demand side intervention, in the absence of significant workplace or grassroots engagement and without coordinated mechanisms of monitoring and enforcement, their effects on low wage labour markets will be limited.
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Paul Stewart, Andy Danford and Edson Urano
The purpose of this paper is to assess difficulties facing the unionization of foreign workers focusing on the experience of trade unionists in Union MIE, an exemplar of what in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess difficulties facing the unionization of foreign workers focusing on the experience of trade unionists in Union MIE, an exemplar of what in Japan is known as a community union (sometimes described as a form of Minority union – Stewart, 2006). Union MIE is characterized by its orientation to the social and political agenda of Latin American workers, among whom Brazilians form the most numerous group. The paper also addresses the precarious nature of workers’ employment including the condition of labor. The increasing significance of community unions raises the question as to the possibility of the reregulation of worker interests in ways not fully encompassed by traditional labor market-focused unions.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper explores unique interviews using snowball technique and direct questionnaires to union membership of community union in Japan.
Findings
The increasing significance of community unions raises the question as to the possibility of the reregulation of worker interests in ways not fully encompassed by traditional labor market-focused unions. In addition to having relevance to the wider discussion on union decline, this paper contributes to the debate on migrant workers, their condition of labor and one form of labor organization responsive to their concerns.
Research limitations/implications
A comparative approach would add even more to the weight of evidence accrued in the paper.
Practical implications
Mainstream trade unions need to anticipate that the concerns of migrant and precarious workers will become increasingly common among their erstwhile “regularly” employed membership and so the activities of community and minority unions need to be taken on board in an organic, as opposed to an opportunistic, manner.
Originality/value
From unique interviews using snowball technique and direct questionnaires to union membership of community union in Japan, the paper presents original data not typically accessible in Anglo-Saxon research tradition.