Érudit

Abstract Clarivate's Web of Science (WoS) and Elsevier's Scopus have been for decades the main sources of bibliometric information. Although highly curated, these closed, proprietary databases are largely biased toward English‐language publications, underestimating the use of other languages in research dissemination. Launched in 2022, OpenAlex promised comprehensive, inclusive, and open‐source research information. While already in use by scholars and research institutions, the quality of its metadata is currently still being assessed. This paper contributes to this literature by assessing the completeness and accuracy of OpenAlex's metadata related to language, through a comparison with WoS, as well as an in‐depth manual validation of a sample of 6836 articles. Results show that OpenAlex exhibits a far more balanced linguistic coverage than WoS. However, language metadata are not always accurate, which leads OpenAlex to overestimate the place of English while underestimating that of other languages. If used critically, OpenAlex can provide comprehensive and representative analyses of languages used for scholarly publishing, but more work is needed at infrastructural level to ensure the quality of metadata on language.

Northern peatlands are a major component of the global carbon (C) cycle. Widespread climate-driven ecohydrological changes in these ecosystems can have major consequences on their C sequestration function. Here, we synthesize plant macrofossil data from 33 surficial peat cores from different ecoclimatic regions, with high-resolution chronologies. The main objectives were to document recent ecosystem state shifts and explore their impact on C sequestration in high-latitude undisturbed peatlands of northeastern Canada. Our synthesis shows widespread recent ecosystem shifts in peatlands, such as transitions from oligotrophic fens to bogs and Sphagnum expansion, coinciding with climate warming which has also influenced C accumulation during the last ~100 years. The rapid shifts towards drier bog communities and an expansion of Sphagnum sect. Acutifolia after 1980 CE were most pronounced in the northern subarctic sites and are concurrent with summer warming in northeastern Canada. These results provide further evidence of a northward migration of Sphagnum-dominated peatlands in North America in response to climate change. The results also highlight differences in the timing of ecosystem shifts among peatlands and regions, reflecting internal peatland dynamics and varying responses of vegetation communities. Our study suggests that the recent rapid climate-driven shifts from oligotrophic fen to drier bog communities have promoted plant productivity and thus peat C accumulation. We highlight the importance of considering recent ecohydrological trajectories when modelling the potential contribution of peatlands to climate change. Our study suggests that, contrary to expectations, peat C sequestration could be promoted in high-latitude non-permafrost peatlands where wet sedge fens may transition to drier Sphagnum bog communities due to warmer and longer growing seasons.

Global scholarly publishing has been dominated by a small number of publishers for several decades. This paper revisits the data on corporate control of scholarly publishing by analyzing the relative shares of scholarly journals and articles published by the major publishers and the "long tail" of smaller, independent publishers, using Dimensions and Web of Science (WoS). The reduction of expenses for printing and distribution and the availability of open-source journal management tools may have contributed to the emergence of small publishers, while recently developed inclusive databases may allow for the study of these. Dimensions' inclusive indexing revealed the number of scholarly journals and articles published by smaller publishers has been growing rapidly, especially since the onset of large-scale online publishing around 2000, resulting in a higher share of articles from smaller publishers. In parallel, WoS shows increasing concentration within a few corporate publishers. For the 1980-2021 period, we retrieved 32% more articles from Dimensions compared to the more selective WoS. Dimensions' data showed the expansion of small publishers was most pronounced in the Social Sciences and the Arts and Humanities, but a similar trend is observed in the Natural Sciences and Engineering, and the Health Sciences. A major geographical divergence is also revealed, with English-speaking countries and/or those located in northwestern Europe relying heavily on major publishers for the dissemination of their research, while the rest of the world being relatively independent of the oligopoly. Finally, independent journals publish more often in open access in general, and in Diamond open access in particular. We conclude that enhanced indexing and visibility of recently created, independent journals may favour their growth and stimulate global scholarly bibliodiversity.

For two decades, open access (OA) has gained momentum worldwide. However, adoption of OA in Canada is lagging compared with other countries. Using data from Dimensions and Érudit, this paper provides an overview of OA dissemination in Canada, focusing on the effect of institutions, language, and funding. Papers in French, and from Quebec universities, are more likely to be OA, while papers from engineering-oriented institutions are less likely to be OA. Regarding funders, those in health sciences have higher OA compliance. The paper concludes discussing disciplinary differences in OA dissemination, low compliance to OA mandates in Canada, and the role of Érudit.

Bibliometrics in the social sciences, humanities and arts (SSHA) are hampered by the limited presence of scholarly journals in analysis tools traditionally used. We analyzed the level of indexing of Canadian journal author affiliations in Dimensions.ai and OpenAlex to assess effects on bibliometric research. Annually, around 3,500 articles signed by Canadian researchers and published in Canadian journals remained irretrievable. Incomplete indexing particularly affects journals associated with not-for-profit publishers and those publishing in French. A fair representation of national SSHA research could enhance our understanding of publishing trends and contribute to the sustainability of the Canadian journals.

Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire dont la mission est la promotion et la diffusion des résultats de la recherche. L’infrastructure et les services d’Érudit assurent l’édition et la diffusion numérique de plusieurs dizaines de milliers de publications et de documents qui sont consultés par des millions de visiteurs chaque année. Cet article retrace la courte histoire et la première décennie des développements de cette jeune institution. Les aspects de politique publique, les besoins de la communauté des chercheurs, le modèle économique ainsi que les choix de structure de partenariats sont d’abord présentés. Suit une description des services éditoriaux numériques et des choix technologiques, dont l’utilisation du XML comme fondement des infrastructures documentaires pour la production et la diffusion. Finalement, l’infrastructure technologique d’Érudit est décrite ainsi que quelques avenues des développements futurs quant à sa plateforme éditoriale.

Abstract Language is a major source of systemic inequities in science, particularly among scholars whose first language is not English. Studies have examined scientists' linguistic practices in specific contexts; few, however, have provided a global analysis of multilingualism in science. Using two major bibliometric databases (OpenAlex and Dimensions), we provide a large‐scale analysis of linguistic diversity in science, considering both the language of publications ( N = 87,577,942) and of cited references ( N = 1,480,570,087). For the 1990–2023 period, we find that only Indonesian, Portuguese, and Spanish have expanded at a faster pace than English. Country‐level analyses show that this trend is due to the growing strength of the Latin American and Indonesian academic circuits. Our results also confirm the same‐language preference phenomenon (particularly for languages other than English), the strong connection between multilingualism and bibliodiversity, and that social sciences and humanities are the least English‐dominated fields. Our findings suggest that policies recognizing the value of both national‐language and English‐language publications have had a concrete impact on the distribution of languages in the global field of scholarly communication.

La plateforme Érudit ( http://www.erudit.org/ ) est une institution phare dans le domaine de la documentation au Québec. Ses collections, comme sa consultation, sont en progression continue. Malgré cela, le financement d’Érudit reste problématique. Il s’agira d’abord, dans cet article, de dresser un portrait des principaux défis auxquels fait face une structure comme Érudit au moment de revoir son modèle d’affaires, et de souligner, ensuite, l’impact des modes de financement de l’accès libre, non seulement sur la libre circulation des résultats de la recherche, mais aussi sur la recherche elle-même, sur les domaines qu’elle défriche et sur l’indépendance avec laquelle elle est conduite.

Despite being considered as key indicators of research impact, citations are shaped by factors beyond intrinsic research quality-such as including prestige, social networks, and research topics. While the Matthew Effect explains how prestige accumulates, our study contextualizes this by showing that other mechanisms also play a role in citation accumulation. Analyzing a large dataset of U.S. economic (N = 43,467) and their citation linkages (N = 264,436), we find that close ties in the collaboration network are the strongest predictor of citations, closely followed by semantic similarity between citing and cited papers. This suggests that citations are not only driven by prestige but are strongly affected by f social networks and intellectual proximity. Prestige remains an important factor affecting citations for highly cited papers, but for most papers, proximity-both social and semantic-plays a more significant role. These findings redirect focus from extreme cases of highly cited research to the overall citation distribution, which influences most scientists' career paths and knowledge production. Recognizing the diverse factors influencing citations is critical for science policy and for developing a reward system of science that is fairer and reflects a diversity of contributions to science.

This article aims at understanding the biographical dynamics of mobility—academic, institutional, geographic, and disciplinary—and its effect on scientific recognition. We draw on a comprehensive data collection on career progression, publications, and funding for all biology professors in Switzerland active between 2008 and 2020. Data sources combine CV information, data from the Web of Science and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Thanks to multiple-sequence analysis, we are able to consider six career types and their effect on scientific recognition. Our main finding is that different combinations of mobility have different effects on scientific recognition. Disciplinary mobility, however, has a very limited effect on shaping scientific careers, although we also observe a positive effect of disciplinary mobility in cases when it occurs early in the career. Professors who became interdisciplinary very early are also those who are the youngest at tenure and who benefit from the highest level of citations when considering their entire career. Because the effects of mobility on career success depend on specific combinations of academic, geographic, institutional, and disciplinary mobility, as well as ascriptive characteristics, we argue that biographical process should be considered in studies on scientific careers. • This article proposes a cross-fertilization of bibliometrics and scientific careers. • Focus on combinations of academic, institutional, geographic and disciplinary mobility • Effect on scientific recognition depends on different combinations of mobility. • Organizational and international mobility matter more than disciplinary mobility. • Early-career disciplinarity mobility has a positive effect on scientific recognition.

Au cours des deux dernières décennies, le libre accès a pris de l’importance à travers le monde. Toutefois, son adoption au Canada est à la traîne par rapport à d’autres pays. À l’aide des données de Dimensions et Érudit, cet article donne un aperçu de la diffusion en libre accès au Canada, en se concentrant sur l’effet des institutions, de la langue et du financement. Les articles en français et ceux des universités québécoises sont plus susceptibles d’être en libre accès, tandis que ceux des établissements axés sur le génie sont moins susceptibles d’être disponibles en libre accès. En ce qui concerne les bailleurs de fonds, ceux en sciences de la santé ont une conformité plus élevée au libre accès. L’article conclut en discutant des différences disciplinaires dans la diffusion en libre accès, de la faible conformité aux mandats de libre accès au Canada et du rôle d’Érudit.

À la fin des années 1990,Criminologieest l’une des premières revues savantes québécoises à passer au format numérique. Cet article dresse un portrait de l’usage numérique de la revue, basé sur l’analyse de 858 894 téléchargements extraits des logs du serveur de la plateforme Érudit, de 2010 à 2015. Dans l’ensemble, le lectorat de la revue semble bien établi, l’essentiel des usagers provenant d’Amérique du Nord et d’Europe. L’importance croissante de l’utilisation de la plateforme Érudit dans les pratiques de recherche des usagers, de pair avec l’effet positif de la suppression de la barrière mobile sur la diffusion de la recherche, sont également dignes de mention. Une asymétrie importante dans la distribution des consultations d’articles et de numéros thématiques a également pu être observée, une proportion importante de téléchargements étant l’affaire de quelques articles et numéros thématiques. Enfin, l’analyse des mots clés des articles téléchargés permet de souligner l’importance des problématiques locales ainsi que de la thématique autochtone en général.

This study investigates the relationship between interdisciplinary research and technological change, using paper-patent citations. Technological change is defined as the extent to which a technology consolidates or disrupts existing technologies, patents can be categorized into three types: destabilizing, consolidating, and moderating. Drawing on all journal articles published in 2002 and indexed in the Web of Science database and all patents from the USPTO, our study reveals that research papers have a relatively minor impact on destabilizing patents compared to moderating and consolidating patents. Particularly noteworthy is the significant contribution of papers in the field of Biomedical Research to technological advancements. Analyzing distinct dimensions of interdisciplinary research—variety, balance, disparity, and the Rao-Stirling index—we find that destabilizing patent citations decrease with both variety and the Rao-Stirling index increase. The correlation with balance exhibits a U-shaped relationship, but we observe no significant relationship with disparity. Moreover, consolidating patent citations demonstrate an increase with disparity and the Rao-Stirling index, while showing a decrease in relation to balance, but no negligible association is found with variety. Moderate patent citations increase with both variety and balance, and decrease with both disparity and the Rao-Stirling index. • We study the relationship between interdisciplinary research and technological change, using paper-patent citations. • Interdisciplinary research has a significant impact on technological change compared to non-interdisciplinary research. • Dimensions of interdisciplinarity display considerable variations in terms of their effects on technological change.

Abstract Clinical trials are fundamental to the production of medical evidence and determine who gains access to experimental therapies. Although prior work has long documented inequalities in global clinical trial participation, a systematic quantification of the relative contributions of country-level factors and disease burden remains absent. This paper analyzes inequality in participation across 78,117 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) spanning 16 major disease categories from 2000 to 2024. Linking 185.6 million RCTs participants to country-level disease burden, the paper shows that inequalities in RCTs participation are predominantly explained by country-level factors rather than disease burden. Country-level factors account for 88.9% of the variation in participation, whereas disease and temporal effects contribute marginally. Removing entire disease categories, including those traditionally underfunded, has little effect on overall inequality. Instead, participation is highly concentrated geographically, with a small group of Global North countries enrolling a disproportionate share of participants across nearly all diseases. These patterns persist despite decades of disease-targeted funding and increasing alignment between research efforts and disease burden. Findings also show that without parallel horizontal investments in research capacity, health infrastructure, and governance, even well-funded disease programs are insufficient to reduce inequality in clinical trial participation.

Favoriser l'excellence et l'intégrité dans la diffusion des résultats de recherche en santé : les faits saillants des débats lors

Céspedes and Maggio turn a lens on publication practices in their contribution to this special issue's focus on cross‐cultural dialogue.

This presentation sought to reflect upon the prefixes historically used to name those entities which cannot be bounded to a single, fixed, discreet category. Contributions from Linguistics were taken as a starting point to then extrapolate its concepts to the analysis of scientific practice in general. Thus, first, different conceptions of linguistic relations were compared and contrasted: from mono to bi, multi, inter, and finally, translingualism, with special attention to power issues, border demarcation, and speaker characterization in each of these paradigms. Second, a correspondence between analogous categories which describe and study contacts among scientific disciplines (multi, inter and transdiscipline) was tried out. Finally, the reach and limitations of applying this linguistic metaphor to the analysis of hybridization and exchanges within the scientific field were assessed, as well as its potential to induce changes in knowledge classification and production practices

Un survol des 50 ans d’histoire de la Revue des sciences de l’éducation (RSE) montre son rôle central dans la diffusion de la recherche en éducation, tant au Québec qu’à l’international. La RSE a été créée dans le contexte de la formalisation des sciences de l’éducation au Québec et de la nécessité de diffuser la recherche dans la francophonie. En s’adaptant à l’évolution des paradigmes éducatifs au fil des décennies, la RSE constitue une plateforme importante pour le débat scientifique, la professionnalisation des acteur·rice·s de l’éducation et la définition des sciences de l’éducation. L’article passe en revue les travaux de recherche publiés dans la RSE depuis sa création et examine notamment certaines caractéristiques de leurs auteur·e·s ainsi que leurs thématiques abordées dans différents domaines, tels que la didactique, la pédagogie et l’administration scolaire.

Voici une expérience aussi exemplaire que fructueuse. Depuis 1998, le consortium interuniversitaire canadien Érudit ( erudit.org ) soutient et valorise près de 200 revues de Sciences humaines et sociales (SHS). Vingt ans plus tard, en 2018, Érudit, devenu une véritable infrastructure de recherche au service de la science ouverte, a établi un partenariat avec le consortium français Couperin pour favoriser le libre accès. Corédigé par Érudit et Couperin, cet article présente le modèle partenarial et le chemin parcouru pour le déployer en France, ses impacts positifs (économiques notamment) et les défis à venir pour assurer sa pérennité.