Collective monograph: attempt for a formalized evaluation of scientific values

The problem of reducing the quality of scientific publications in recent years has been more and more actively discussed in professional literature. If in case of journal publication, one can immediately identify spam features basing on such characteristics as payment for the publication of an article and a very rapid publication (i.e., the actual lack of reviewing) then in case of monographs it is not so obvious. The question arises: what formal parameters could be used by an expert reader, a librarian, an information worker to judge about it? We assume that a collective monograph (a scientific book) is a scholar work reflecting research results of theoretical, applied, methodological or predictive nature, conducted by a team of researchers working in one institution or temporary research group according to a pre-established program of research. The following hypothesis was tested: formal distinctions between a true scientific collective monograph and such, not carrying new scientific knowledge should be sought on the basis of a comparison of the following pairs of characteristics: 1) a publisher does not invite (invites) authors to send materials for publishing a collective monograph in the framework of a given theme; 2) the authors work in one, two, or a large number of institutions; 3) the authors of the collective monograph work (do not work) on one project (program); 4) the authors have (have not) a joint publication and refer (do not refer) to each other; 5) the monograph can (cannot) be found in the open access; 6) Monographs are (are not) in the libraries receiving the Legal Deposit (reflected in electronic catalogues). To test the hypothesis collective scientific monographs (written by more than two authors) published in 2013 - 2026 were chosen. They were issued by three different types of publishers: 1) scientific publishers, having a good scientific reputation; 2) publishers, "established" themselves by publishing spam journals; 3) research institutions and universities having printing base. To obtain the necessary characteristics sites of publishing houses and publishing organizations were also analysed, searches in RISC and SPSL SB RAS electronic catalogues were made, substantial analysis of publishing annotations was performed. The analysis showed that a reader could recognize a collective monograph of low quality, if he knew: -who is the initiator of the collective monograph (a publisher); - on what means it is published (authors' means); - is there co-citation and co-authorship in other publications (co-citaion and co-authorship are absent). This information would have to be reflected in a publishing annotation.

Keywords

Authors

References