Getting cited is important for scholars and for the institutions in which they work. Whether because of the influence on scientific progress or because of the reputation of scholars and their institutions, understanding why some articles are cited more often than others can help scholars write more highly cited articles. This article builds upon earlier literature which identifies seemingly superficial factors that influence the citation rate of articles. Three Journal Citation Report subject categories are analyzed to identify these effects. From a set of 2,016 articles in Sociology, 6,957 articles in General & Internal Medicine, and 23,676 articles in Applied Physics, metadata from the Web of Knowledge was downloaded in addition to PDFs of the full articles. In this article number of words in title, number of pages, number of references, sentences in the abstract, sentences in the paper, number of authors and readability were identified as factors for analysis.

Criteria for the evaluation of most scholars’ work have recently received wider attention due to high-profile cases of scientific misconduct which are perceived to be linked to these criteria. However, in the competition for career advancement and funding opportunities almost all scholars are subjected to the same criteria. Therefore these evaluation criteria act as ‘switchmen’, determining the tracks along which scholarly work is pushed by the dynamic interplay of interests of both scholars and their institutions. Currently one of the most important criteria is the impact of publications. In this research, the extent to which publish or perish, a long standing evaluation criterion, led to scientific misconduct is examined briefly. After this the strive for high impact publications will be examined, firstly by identifying the period in which this became an important evaluation criterion, secondly by looking at variables contributing to the impact of scholarly papers by means of a non-structured literature study, and lastly by combining these data into a quantitative analysis.

\Electronic portfolios offer many advantages to their paper-based counterparts, including, but not limited to working on ICT skills, adding multimedia and easier sharing of the portfolio. Previous research showed that the quality of a portfolio does not depend on the medium used. In this article the perceived support for self-reflection of an electronic portfolio and a paper-based portfolio in the same ecological setting are compared. We made use of the fact that during this study about half of the first year medical students was using an electronic portfolio (n = 157) and the other half a paper-based portfolio (n = 190). Nine questions were added to the standard end of the block evaluation, which is handed to 25 percent of year one educational groups. Findings suggest that perceptions about the support for self-reflection, and the usefulness of compiling a portfolio, do not differ between students using an electronic portfolio and students using a paper-based portfolio. Résumé : Les portfolios électroniques offrent de nombreux avantages comparativement à leurs homologues de papier, entre autres la possibilité de perfectionner les compétences liées aux TIC, d’ajouter des éléments multimédias et de partager plus facilement le portfolio. Des études précédentes ont montré que la qualité d’un portfolio ne dépend pas du support utilisé. Dans le présent article, nous comparons l’aide à l’autoréflexion perçue pour un portfolio électronique et un portfolio sur support papier dans le même environnement. Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous avons profité du fait qu’environ la moitié des étudiants de première année en médecine utilisait un portfolio électronique (n = 157) et l’autre moitié, un portfolio sur support papier (n = 190). Neuf questions ont été ajoutées à l’évaluation normale remise à 25 pour cent des groupes de première année à la fin du bloc de formation. Les résultats suggèrent que les perceptions des étudiants à l’égard de l’aide à l’autoréflexion et de l’utilité de compiler un portfolio ne diffèrent pas entre les utilisateurs de portfolios électroniques et les utilisateurs de portfolios sur support papier.

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Scholars spend much of their time processing words with the help of a computer. Yet not too long ago, scholars would have typed or even written their lectures and articles by hand, and often a secretary would have (re)typed the final version.This paper examines the transition from one set of socio-technical relationships to another, focusing on resistance to change and the closure that has led to the current ubiquity of word processors. The article draws on insights from Science and Technology Studies (STS), and on material from email and telephone interviews conducted with older and retired members of university sociology departments in the English-speaking world.