Journal article publishing in the social sciences and humanities: A comparison of Web of Science coverage for five European countries.

This study compares publication pattern dynamics in the social sciences and humanities in five European countries. Three are Central and Eastern European countries that share a similar cultural and political heritage (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland). The other two are Flanders (Belgium) and Norway, representing Western Europe and the Nordics, respectively. We analysed 449,409 publications from 2013-2016 and found that, despite persisting differences between the two groups of countries across all disciplines, publication patterns in the Central and Eastern European countries are becoming more similar to those in their Western and Nordic counterparts. Articles from the Central and Eastern European countries are increasingly published in journals indexed in Web of Science and also in journals with the highest citation impacts. There are, however, clear differences between social science and humanities disciplines, which need to be considered in research evaluation and science policy.

[The Emerging Sources Citation Index and the internationalization of Spanish scientific journals, with special reference to Psychology journals].

The Emerging Sources Citation Index and the internationalization of Spanish scientific journals, with special reference to Psychology journals. BACKGROUND: Spain is among the countries that have added more scientific journals into the Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), a new product from the Central Collection of Web of Science. The aim of this paper is to analyze the implications of this and quantify the effects on Impact Factors. METHOD: The Spanish presence was quantified using the Master Journal List, converted to a spreadsheet for data processing. The implications were determined by analyzing the criteria "Journal Selection Process". The effect on impact factors was analyzed through a case study of Spanish JCR journals of Psychology. RESULTS: Until 2015, Spain represented 1.13% of the Central Collection. With the 568 journals included in the ESCI, that presence has increased to 3.37%. The areas benefitting most were Social Sciences and Humanities. As a general effect, citation in Psychology journals has increased by an average of 13.18%. CONCLUSIONS: The situation fostered by the ESCI will significantly improve the number and position of Spanish journals with impact factors in the short and medium term. Currently, their citations have already significantly influenced an increase of the impact of Spanish journals included in the Journal Citation Reports.

Use of mixed-methods approach to assess the impact of a pre-professional health humanities honors course on developing interpersonal skills.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to use a mixed-methods approach to provide evidence for growth in empathy, respect for patient autonomy, ability to relate to others, and self-awareness as a result of participating in a health humanities course. METHODS: The mixed-methods approach gathered quantitative data using a quasi-experimental design of a pre/post course survey and qualitative data from reflective writings and student papers. The reflective writings and student papers were evaluated using an adapted rubric to assess the quality of the reflections on measures of empathy, respect for patient autonomy, ability to relate to others, and self-awareness. RESULTS: Twenty-five students were enrolled in the course. Matched pair data was available from 22 students (88% response rate) for the quantitative survey data. Qualitative data was available from all 25 participants. The pre- and post-course surveys revealed a statistically significant increase in empathy (p < 0.001) as a result of completing the health humanities course. The final written report contained the highest quality of reflections compared to all other reflective writing assignments. Evidence for understanding empathy was prominent in the final written report. CONCLUSIONS: The evaluation of development of interpersonal skills through use of health humanities resources may be reproduced by using a mixed-methods assessment approach. The quantitative and qualitative data presented provide some evidence for enhancing awareness and understanding of empathy, particularly by utilizing health humanities resources in an undergraduate interdisciplinary seminar course.

Are natural scientists more masculine than humanists? The association patterns between 2D:4D ratio and field of study.

ABSTRACT: Natural sciences are still considered as typical male fields, while humanities are interpreted as typical female topics. Economic, social but also biological factors are discussed to influence the choice of study field. In the present study, the impact of prenatal sex hormone exposure - estimated by 2D:4D ratio - on the choice of study field was analyzed. Two hundred Viennese students between the ages 18 and 28 years were enrolled. Lengths of the index finger and the ring finger were measured directly from the hand of the participants. 2D:4D ratios were calculated. Male and female students differed significantly in 2D:4D ratio. As expected, female students showed significantly higher 2D:4D ratios than their male counterparts (p < 0.001). Male scientists and male humanists differed significantly in 2D:4D ratio. The 2D:4D of male humanists was significantly higher than that of scientists (p = 0.037). Female scientists and female humanists however, did not differ significantly in 2D:4D ratio. Both showed a typical female 2D:4D ratio. This was also true of male humanists. Consequently low prenatal androgen exposure may be associated with the choice of humanities among male students.

Medical Students' Exposure to the Humanities Correlates with Positive Personal Qualities and Reduced Burnout: A Multi-Institutional U.S. Survey.

BACKGROUND: Literature, music, theater, and visual arts play an uncertain and limited role in medical education. One of the arguments often advanced in favor of teaching the humanities refers to their capacity to foster traits that not only improve practice, but might also reduce physician burnout-an increasing scourge in today's medicine. Yet, research remains limited. OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that medical students with higher exposure to the humanities would report higher levels of positive physician qualities (e.g., wisdom, empathy, self-efficacy, emotional appraisal, spatial skills), while reporting lower levels of negative qualities that are detrimental to physician well-being (e.g., intolerance of ambiguity, physical fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and cognitive weariness). DESIGN: An online survey. PARTICIPANTS: All students enrolled at five U.S. medical schools during the 2014-2015 academic year were invited by email to take part in our online survey. MAIN MEASURES: Students reported their exposure to the humanities (e.g., music, literature, theater, visual arts) and completed rating scales measuring selected personal qualities. KEY RESULTS: In all, 739/3107 medical students completed the survey (23.8%). Regression analyses revealed that exposure to the humanities was significantly correlated with positive personal qualities, including empathy (p < 0.001), tolerance for ambiguity (p < 0.001), wisdom (p < 0.001), emotional appraisal (p = 0.01), self-efficacy (p = 0.02), and spatial skills (p = 0.02), while it was significantly and inversely correlated with some components of burnout (p = 0.01). Thus, all hypotheses were statistically significant, with effect sizes ranging from 0.2 to 0.59. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms the association between exposure to the humanities and both a higher level of students' positive qualities and a lower level of adverse traits. These findings may carry implications for medical school recruitment and curriculum design. "[Science and humanities are] twin berries on one stem, grievous damage has been done to both in regarding [them]... in any other light than complemental." (William Osler, Br Med J. 1919;2:1-7).

The first nationwide survey of MD-PhDs in the social sciences and humanities: training patterns and career choices.

BACKGROUND: While several articles on MD-PhD trainees in the basic sciences have been published in the past several years, very little research exists on physician-investigators in the social sciences and humanities. However, the numbers of MD-PhDs training in these fields and the number of programs offering training in these fields are increasing, particularly within the US. In addition, accountability for the public funding for MD-PhD programs requires knowledge about this growing population of trainees and their career trajectories. The aim of this paper is to describe the first cohorts of MD-PhDs in the social sciences and humanities, to characterize their training and career paths, and to better understand their experiences of training and subsequent research and practice. METHODS: This paper utilizes a multi-pronged recruitment method and novel survey instrument to examine an understudied population of MD-PhD trainees in the social sciences and humanities, many of whom completed both degrees without formal programmatic support. The survey instrument was designed to collect demographic, training and career trajectory data, as well as experiences of and perspectives on training and career. It describes their routes to professional development, characterizes obstacles to and predictors of success, and explores career trends. RESULTS: The average length of time to complete both degrees was 9 years. The vast majority (90%) completed a clinical residency, almost all (98%) were engaged in research, the vast majority (88%) were employed in academic institutions, and several others (9%) held leadership positions in national and international health organizations. Very few (4%) went into private practice. The survey responses supply recommendations for supporting current trainees as well as areas for future research. CONCLUSIONS: In general, MD-PhDs in the social sciences and humanities have careers that fit the goals of agencies providing public funding for training physician-investigators: they are involved in mutually-informative medical research, clinical practice, and teaching - working to improve our responses to the social, cultural, and political determinants of health and health care. These findings provide strong evidence for continued and improved funding and programmatic support for MD-PhD trainees in the social sciences and humanities.

Assessing Individual Intellectual Output in Scientific Research: Mexico's National System for Evaluating Scholars Performance in the Humanities and the Behavioral Sciences.

Assessing the research of individual scholars is currently a matter of serious concern and worldwide debate. In order to gauge the long-term efficacy and efficiency of this practice, we carried out a limited survey of the operation and outcome of Mexico's 30-year old National System of Investigators or SNI, the country's main instrument for stimulating competitive research in science and technology. A statistical random sample of researchers listed in the area of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences-one of SNI's first and better consolidated academic divisions comprising a wide range of research disciplines, from philosophy to pedagogy to archaeology to experimental brain research-was screened comparing individual ranks or "Levels of distinction" to actual compliance with the SNI's own evaluation criteria, as reflected in major public databases of scholarly production. The same analysis was applied to members of a recent Review Committee, integrated by top-level researchers belonging to that general area of knowledge, who have been in charge of assessing and ranking their colleagues. Our results for both sets of scholars show wide disparity of individual productivity within the same SNI Level, according to all key indicators officially required (books issued by prestigious publishers, research articles appeared in indexed journals, and formation of new scientists), as well as in impact estimated by numbers of citations. Statistical calculation from the data indicates that 36% of members in the Review Committee and 53% of researchers in the random sample do not satisfy the official criteria requested for their appointed SNI Levels. The findings are discussed in terms of possible methodological errors in our study, of relevance for the SNI at large in relation to independent appraisals, of the cost-benefit balance of the organization as a research policy tool, and of possible alternatives for its thorough restructuring. As it currently stands SNI is not a model for efficient and effectual national systems of research assessment.

The number of scholarly documents on the public web.

The number of scholarly documents available on the web is estimated using capture/recapture methods by studying the coverage of two major academic search engines: Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. Our estimates show that at least 114 million English-language scholarly documents are accessible on the web, of which Google Scholar has nearly 100 million. Of these, we estimate that at least 27 million (24%) are freely available since they do not require a subscription or payment of any kind. In addition, at a finer scale, we also estimate the number of scholarly documents on the web for fifteen fields: Agricultural Science, Arts and Humanities, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics and Business, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geosciences, Material Science, Mathematics, Medicine, Physics, Social Sciences, and Multidisciplinary, as defined by Microsoft Academic Search. In addition, we show that among these fields the percentage of documents defined as freely available varies significantly, i.e., from 12 to 50%.

Estudio co-rrelacional del área socio-humanística en algunas instituciones de educación superior en Colombia / A correlational study of the socio-humanistic area in some higher educational institutions in Colombia

El siguiente texto presenta la descripción y análisis de la información obtenida a partir de la consulta documental y a expertos en las distintas instituciones universitarias. Hace una descripción comparativa de los componentes curriculares que integran la unidad en cada una de las seccionales USB Colombia y otras instituciones tenidas en cuenta para el presente estudio.

The following text introduces a description and analysis of the information obtained from documentary and statistical consultation in the various universities. It makes a comparative description of the curricular components that make up the unit in each of the Saint Bonaventure University branches, Colombia, and other higher institutions which are taken into consideration for the current study.

Clickstream data yields high-resolution maps of science.

BACKGROUND: Intricate maps of science have been created from citation data to visualize the structure of scientific activity. However, most scientific publications are now accessed online. Scholarly web portals record detailed log data at a scale that exceeds the number of all existing citations combined. Such log data is recorded immediately upon publication and keeps track of the sequences of user requests (clickstreams) that are issued by a variety of users across many different domains. Given these advantages of log datasets over citation data, we investigate whether they can produce high-resolution, more current maps of science. METHODOLOGY: Over the course of 2007 and 2008, we collected nearly 1 billion user interactions recorded by the scholarly web portals of some of the most significant publishers, aggregators and institutional consortia. The resulting reference data set covers a significant part of world-wide use of scholarly web portals in 2006, and provides a balanced coverage of the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. A journal clickstream model, i.e. a first-order Markov chain, was extracted from the sequences of user interactions in the logs. The clickstream model was validated by comparing it to the Getty Research Institute's Architecture and Art Thesaurus. The resulting model was visualized as a journal network that outlines the relationships between various scientific domains and clarifies the connection of the social sciences and humanities to the natural sciences. CONCLUSIONS: Maps of science resulting from large-scale clickstream data provide a detailed, contemporary view of scientific activity and correct the underrepresentation of the social sciences and humanities that is commonly found in citation data.

Symptoms of anxiety and depression in medical students and in humanities students: relationship with big-five personality dimensions and vulnerability to stress.

AIMS: To evaluate the prevalence of anxiety and depression in medical students and in humanities students. To assess the relationship between symptoms of anxiety, symptoms of depression and Big-Five personality dimensions and vulnerability to stress in medical students. METHODS: Randomly selected 338 medical students and 73 humanities students were evaluated for symptoms of anxiety and depression using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), for Big-Five personality dimensions using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), and for vulnerability to stress using the Stress Vulnerability Scale (SVS). RESULTS: Symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression were prevalent in medical students (43% and 14%, respectively) and in humanities students (52% and 12%, respectively). In medical students the score on the HADS anxiety subscale and the score on the HADS depression subscale correlated negatively with the score on the TIPI Emotional Stability scale (r = -0.39, p < 0.01 and r = -0.2, p < 0.01, respectively) and correlated positively with the score on the SVS (r = 0.38, p < 0.01 and r = 0.44, p < 0.01, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Symptoms of anxiety and depression are prevalent in medical students and in humanities students. Severity of symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression in medical students is negatively related to emotional stability and positively related to stress vulnerability.

Divergent fates of the medical humanities in psychiatry and internal medicine: should psychiatry be rehumanized?

OBJECTIVE: To determine the degree to which the medical humanities have been integrated into the fields of internal medicine and psychiatry, the authors assessed the presence of medical humanities articles in selected psychiatry and internal medicine journals from 1950 to 2000. METHODS: The journals searched were the three highest-ranking psychiatry and internal medicine journals on the Institute for Scientific Information's Impact Factor rankings that were published in English and aimed at a clinical audience. Operationalized criteria defining the medical humanities allowed the percentage of text in the selected journals constituting medical humanities to be quantified. Journals were hand searched at 10-year intervals from 1950 to 2000. Mixed effects models were used to describe the change in medical humanities over time. RESULTS: The percentage of text within psychiatry journals meeting the criteria for medical humanities declined from a peak of 17% in 1970 to a low of 2% in 2000, while the percentage of humanities articles in internal medicine journals roughly doubled from 5% to 11% over the same time period. A linear model increasing over time best fit the medical humanities in the internal medicine journals, while a cubic model decreasing over time best fit the psychiatry humanities data. Humanities articles in medical journals had a greater breadth and diversity than those in psychiatry journals. CONCLUSION: Medical humanities publications dramatically decreased over time in psychiatry journals while they more than doubled in internal medicine journals. These data suggest the need for further empirical research and discussion of the potential roles of the humanities in psychiatry.