MY CANDIDATURE DEFENSE EXPERIENCE

The Candidature Defence for my PhD was initially scheduled to hold October, 2018. However, it was for shifted three more times and finally come to past on Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Prior to the defence, I was made to present before my two supervisors (Prof. Abrizah, Abdullah and Associate Prof. Noorhidawati Abdullah.) which was very awesome and immediately 14th day of May, was fixed authentically. 

The day came, I had three panels, a chairperson (Dr. Samsul Farid Samsuddin), Panel members are (Dr. Yanti Idaya Aspura Mohd Khalid and Associate. Prof. Dr. Kiran Kaur Gurmit Singh). The presentation took about 30 minutes with additional 30 minutes for questioning and answering.

My topic is on Scholarly Communication Readiness of Academic Researchers in Open Science: A Study of Cognitive, Conative and Affective.  

The presentation was outlined as: 


o Introduction

o Literature Review

o Statement of Problem
o Objective of the study
o Research Questions

o Scope and Limitations
o Definition of Terms
o Methodology
o Theoretical Framework
o Answering RQ/Data Analysis
o Readiness Index of Scholarly Communication
o Contribution of the study
o References

The issues in this study (i.e. the problem statement) were as follows:

•Researchers display little understanding of the concept of 

Open  Science and Open Access  (Nicholas et al., 2015)

•Confused about practicing open science as read, cite, disseminate 

research data (BOAI, 2002; Nicholas et al., 2015)

•a disconnect of a scholarly system that does not adequately 

incentivize open research (Campbell et al., 2006; Tony Ross, 2017)

•disciplinary, and practical understandings are not as evident (Xia, 

2013)

•Scholars argue that most researchers have withholding data 

behaviours (Witt et al., 2009; Kim & Stanton, 2016)

•While researchers, publishers and funders warm to data sharing, 

issues over misuse, citation and credit remain challenge (Research Info, 2018).

•Peer review was still with its own flaws –such as recent scandals 

involving peer review rings, falsified research data, sloppy 

editorial practices, reviewing services and paper mills (Grieneisen and Zhang, 2012)

•No much revelations of new forms of scholarly behaviour taking 

strong hold among scholars (such as open identities, open 

interactions, open reports, open post publications, open 

participation etc) Tony Ross (2017)

Therefore, in order to address these issues, we need to understand 

the readiness of scholars in terms of awareness, practices & 

perception. Readiness here refers to preparedness of scholars in 

terms of mental awareness, practices & feelings towards Open 

Scholarly Communication. And so, the main objective of the study 

is to investigate the awareness, practices and perception of open 

scholarly communication among Malaysian academic researchers 

in Open Science. The research questions were as follows:

1. To what extent are Malaysian academic researchers aware of open scholarly communication as regards to open access, open data and open peer review?

2. What are the practices exhibited by Malaysian academic researchers towards open access, open data and open peer review?



3. To what extent do Malaysian academic researchers perceived the capability and ability of open access, open data and open peer review for open scholarly communication?

4. Is there a significant difference between gender, academic discipline, and type of researchers among Malaysian academic researchers in open scholarly communication ?

The Methodology used is Quantitative method, the research design is survey research. The pilot test was done with 30 respondents. The corrections pointed out were made in the original version of the instrument before the final distributions. This is done to show the reliability of the instrument. An e-questionnaire sent (from February - August, 2018) using google forms. ( In February 12 responses were received; After continuous reminders, calls and appealing to researchers to help me fill and complete the survey online; March 54; April, 16; In May I equally sent paper based instrument to the academic staff with postage stamp and envelops, I received 25 in May; Between June and August, 2018, I got additional 28 respondents). In Total I got 135 respondents. The sample size was determined as 375 (confidence level =95%, Margin of error =2.5%) Krejcie and Morgan, 1970. Oversampling was performed and a total of 400 were sampled in each institutions. To satisfy the guidelines of stratified sampling techniques, and to achieve the desired sample size of 80 each i.e. 40 males, discipline and type of researchers and 40 females, discipline and type of researchers in each of the university as our sample size. Also, Validity of the instrument was done involving 5 experts in scholarly communication particularly those that have knowledge, practice and believes in Open Scholarly Communication as well as advocating open science in their fields.  A minimum of 33.75% response from the researchers were selected for the entire survey e.g. Gravetter and Forzano (2009) 18%; Krejcie and Morgan’ (1970) 20%. 

To sum up the outcome of the findings: 

1. On Cognitive/Awareness of Open Access by the scholars, it was 

found out that Malaysian researchers are Moderately Ready for OA. Also, their perceptions of OA are Moderately Ready; while in the area of practices OA, they are Somewhat Ready.

2. Their Open Data Readiness Index shows that Malaysian scholars are Somewhat Ready for Open Data Cognitive/Awareness, Conation/Practices and Affective/Perception respectively. Similarly, for their Open Peer Review Readiness Index, shows that they are Somewhat ready too in terms of awareness, practices and perception of OPR based on their weighted scores. The researcher, therefore, concludes that Malaysian Scholars are Somewhat ready for Open Science

3. To categorizing the researchers -based on their readiness index on levels of cognitive, conative and affective towards open science, the researcher used a modified method from Wagayan-Alicmas, and Ramos (2015), Shaizimah (2011), Ramachandran (2010) and Dalenius and Hodges (1959) to gauge their readiness and concludes that Malaysian scholars are Strollers. They are moving on with the trends of open science but not-consistent in terms of awareness, on practices, they sometimes practice open scholarly communication while in terms of perception, they are neutral on it.

Scope and Limitation of the Study

1. It is limited to only 5 research universities (UM, USM, UKM, UPM, UTM), this is used because these universities have demonstrated over the years to be research universities in Malaysia for over a decades (Malaysia Higher Education, 2017).

2. It is also limited for the generalization of the findings. The data collected and the finding may not be applicable to other researchers’ views or perception and practices about open scholarly communication, however, universities in Malaysia who share the same values and scholarly communication culture may benefit from the findings of this study.

3. The number of respondents towards the data collection and analysis were small, further study can be carried out to include more scholars through constant reminder for online survey, phone calls, personal emails and visiting through paper-based method.

4. It is also limited in the scope of Open Science. Other aspects of open science such open educational resources, open notebooks, open source, scientific social network, and citizen science may be included to have broad knowledge of the topic.

5. Albeit limitations in this research, the present study still manages to share an acceptable amount of contribution to the literature and methodology with a new insight with better understanding towards open scholarly communication among scholars

Study Contributions

1. Academic contribution/significance: since no evidence was found through literature review relating to framework of open science -open access, open data and open peer review, this research will provide useful information for scholars on the gaps that exists between what is currently available and what scholars needs to satisfy their curiosity in academe. Also, highlight major obstacles and way forwards (interventions) of solving the issues in open scholarly communications.

2.Methodological contribution/significance: this study is significant as it contributes to the current research in methodological terms by rigorously developed an instrument for open scholarly communication. The development and the assessment of the validity and reliability of the survey instrument developed in this study adds to the body of knowledge on instrument building. The measurement of the readiness index of the scholars also offers a new approach into scholarly communication and useful insights regarding readiness level of scholars towards open science.

3. Societal contribution/significance: the study will equally enlighten the users and researchers on the new trends in scholarship as well as advocating more awareness towards practicing open scholarships.

4. Institutional benefits: the university authorities are not left behind as they will be aware of new trends in open scholarship and how to benefits from its existence. It will also help the administrators to formulate policies that make it obligatory for researchers to make use of open access to research work and data for easy reproducibility

5. Economic contribution/ significance i.e. Benefits to funding agencies and publishers as they would be aware on the increased knowledge of the scholars and what they are sponsor or spending the tax payers money on. It will also provide funders, publishers and scholars themselves with the understanding of the changing patterns in scholarly communication and model to concentrate on by the publishers.

Future study and recommendations

1. This results have shown that Malaysian researchers did not totally

 reject Openness in research, however, how might authors

and reviewers be motivated to engage in open participation

processes and what ways are they different from the traditional peer

review?

2. Future studies should also look into the importance or rewards for 

data sharing among scholars’ institutions, also, studies bridging 

the gap between policy and practices of open data sharing should

be examined

3. Future work should further look into what is disincentivize

scholars from open peer review research and data and how to

encourage it by the researchers.