Category: Open Access

COAR Roadmap: Future Directions for Repository Interoperability

COAR has released COAR Roadmap: Future Directions for Repository Interoperability.

Here's an excerpt:

Scholarly communication is undergoing fundamental changes, in particular with new requirements for open access to research outputs, new forms of peer-review, and alternative methods for measuring impact. In parallel, technical developments, especially in communication and interface technologies facilitate bi-directional data exchange across related applications and systems. The aim of this roadmap is to identify important trends and their associated action points in order for the repository community to determine priorities for further investments in interoperability.

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Managing Open Access Publication: A System Specification

JISC Monitor has released Managing Open Access Publication: A System Specification.

Here's an excerpt:

The purpose of this document is to provide a specification for a system to help UK HE institutions manage administrative data in relation to the publication of open access Academic Outputs. The document is intended to:

  • Describe the scope of such a system and the workflows it should support
  • Describe an appropriate data model given the scope and workflows
  • Provide illustrative wireframes for a user interface (UI) to such a system

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"One More Chunk of DOAJ"

Walt Crawford has published "One More Chunk of DOAJ" in Cites & Insights Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt:

Because there will be a published concise version of all this stuff—out this summer from ALA's Library Technology Reports, working title "Idealism and Opportunism: The State of Open Access Journals"—I went through 2,200-odd additional DOAJ journals with English as one of the language options (but not the first one), and was able to add 1,507 more entries to my DOAJ master spreadsheet, which now includes 6,490 journals qualifying for full analysis and 811 that don't. This essay offers some summary information on the 1,507 added journals and some overall notes on the full DOAJ set-including some new and replacement tables (there may be errors in tables 2.66 b and c and 2.67 b and c in earlier issues).

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"Who Should We Trust?"

Kevin Smith has published "Who Should We Trust?" in Scholarly Communications @ Duke.

Here's an excerpt:

It is not that we exactly trust commercial publishers, nor do we exactly distrust them. We may recognize that the values and goals of the commercial publishing business are different from, and even in conflict with, the best interests of scholarly authors and of scholarship itself. Perfectly nice people, working to advance their own interests as best they can, come in to conflict as the conditions for research and teaching change. And a real ambivalence is created because of how interwoven the parts of the academic enterprise are. More than just inertia is a work; important aspects of the academic enterprise remain interlocked with traditional forms of publication.

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"PeerJ—A PLOS ONE Contender in 2015?"

Phil Davis has published "PeerJ—A PLOS ONE Contender in 2015?" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

In my last post, I reported that PeerJ was growing, publishing more papers and attracting more authors, although it was not clear whether the company was moving toward financial stability. In a crowded market of multidisciplinary open access journals, I argued that the success (or failure) of PeerJ would be determined when it received its first Impact Factor, which will be announced in mid-June with the publication of Thomson Reuters' Journal Citation Report. The purpose of this post is to estimate PeerJ's first Impact Factor and discuss its implications.

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"Ask The Chefs: What Do You Think Will Have the Biggest Impact on Scholarly Publishing In 2015?"

Ann Michael has published "Ask the Chefs: What Do You Think Will Have The Biggest Impact on Scholarly Publishing In 2015" in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

According to the Chefs, we're looking at a year of mergers and acquisitions, the continuing growth of open access both in number of opportunities and in scale, the publication of data and objects (like multimedia, application code, etc.), and more start-ups.

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Bibliometric Study on Dutch Open Access

The Government of the Netherlands has released Bibliometric Study on Dutch Open Access.

Here's an excerpt:

In this text we will primarily focus on the way Open Access (OA from now on) publications are represented in the Web of Science database. We have collected data for this analysis in two different ways, which leads to different perspectives on OA publishing in the Netherlands. We focus on the output of three smaller scientific nations in Europe, next to the Netherlands we focus on Denmark and Switzerland, as these countries do contest the scientific runner up positions globally after the USA, and are more or less of comparable volume in economic terms.

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SciELO: 15 Years of Open Access

SciELO has released SciELO: 15 Years of Open Access.

Here's an excerpt:

The creation of SciELO 15 years ago and its further development were driven by two innovative and pioneering approaches: first, the indexing of national quality journals to complement international indexes and the publication of the full texts with free access on the Web in the modality known today as the "Golden Road", which took place about four years before the launch of the Budapest Declaration that is internationally agreed to as the beginning of the Open Access movement; and, second, the cooperative convergence of independent publishers, editors and national research agencies around a common objective to increase the visibility and quality of journals (Packer 1998; Meneghini, 2003; Packer 2009). During this development, SciELO became a standard of quality for the journals it indexes. As of June 2013, the SciELO network covers 15 Ibero-American countries plus South Africa, with each country publishing a national collection of journals in the network. There are also two multinational thematic collections in the network. Together these countries index about one thousand journal titles that publish more than 40 thousand articles per year. To date, the network has published a total of more than 400 thousand open access articles that receive a daily average of over 1.5 million article downloads, 65% as PDF files and 35% as HTML files.

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"The Open Access Citation Advantage"

SPARC Europe has released "The Open Access Citation Advantage."

Here's an excerpt:

The OpCit project has for many years kept up to date a list of studies on whether or not there is a citation advantage for Open Access articles. That project has now completed and the list is no longer being managed. SPARC Europe is pleased to maintain the list henceforth and has brought it up to date.

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Monographs and Open Access: A Report to HEFCE

The HEFCE has released Monographs and Open Access: A Report to HEFCE.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

  • Monographs are a vitally important and distinctive vehicle for research communication, and must be sustained in any moves to open access. The availability of printed books alongside the open-access versions will be essential.
  • Contrary to many perceptions, it would not be appropriate to talk of a crisis of the monograph; this does not mean that monographs are not facing challenges, but the arguments for open access would appear to be for broader and more positive reasons than solving some supposed crisis.
  • Open access offers both short- and long-term advantages for monograph publication and use; many of these are bound up with a transition to digital publishing that has not been at the same speed as that for journals.
  • There is no single dominant emerging business model for supporting open-access publishing of monographs; a range of approaches will coexist for some time and it is unlikely that any single model will emerge as dominant. Policies will therefore need to be flexible.

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Policy Recommendations for Open Access to Research Data

The RECODE project has released Policy Recommendations for Open Access to Research Data.

Here's an excerpt:

These policy recommendations are targeted at key stakeholders in the scholarly communication ecosystem, namely research funders, research institutions, data managers, and publishers. They will assist each of the stakeholders in furthering the goals of open access to research data by providing both over-arching and stakeholder-specific recommendations. These function, as suggestions to address and attend to central issues that RECODE identified through the research work.

The current report thus comprises:

  • summary of project findings
  • overarching recommendations
  • targeted policy recommendations for funders, research institutions, data managers, and publishers
  • practical guides for developing policies for funders, research institutions, data managers, and publishers
  • resources to expedite the process of policy development and implementation among stakeholders

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Making Open Access Work for Authors, Institutions and Publishers

The Copyright Clearance Center has released Making Open Access Work for Authors, Institutions and Publishers.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a global licensing and content solutions organization, recently brought together institutions from the UK and publishers from both the US and UK for an Open Access roundtable discussion to explore the implications of managing Open Access fees on a large scale. During this meeting, held at University College in London, the attendees examined a number of issues related to fragmentation, approach and processes, including ways vendors can play an expanded role in addressing the challenges. CCC published the group's findings in a report written by Rob Johnson, Founder and Director of Research Consulting.

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2014 Open Data Index

Open Knowledge has published the 2014 Open Data Index.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Index ranks countries based on the availability and accessibility of information in ten key areas, including government spending, election results, transport timetables, and pollution levels.

The UK topped the 2014 Index retaining its pole position with an overall score of 96%, closely followed by Denmark and then France at number 3 up from 12th last year. Finland comes in 4th while Australia and New Zealand share the 5th place. Impressive results were seen from India at #10 (up from #27) and Latin American countries like Colombia and Uruguay who came in joint 12th.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Towards a UK Digital Public Space—A Blueprint Report

The Strategic Content Alliance has released Towards a UK Digital Public Space—A Blueprint Report.

Here's an excerpt:

"Imagine … that much of the UK's publicly held cultural and heritage media assets could be found in a unified online space … connected together, searchable, open, accessible, visible and usable … in a way that allows individuals, institutions and machines to add additional material, meaning and context to each other's media, indexed and tagged to the highest level of detail … This emerging vision of a free-to-everyone, open access environment for learning and creative endeavour has been referred to as a digital public space."

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Fedora 4 Production Release

The international Fedora repository community and DuraSpace have released the Fedora 4 production release.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

This significant release signals the effectiveness of an international and complex community source project in delivering a modern repository platform with features that meet or exceed current use cases in the management of institutional digital assets. Fedora 4 features include vast improvements in scalability, linked data capabilities, research data support, modularity, ease of use and more.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

DOAJ Journal Analysis: "Intersections: The Third Half"

Walt Crawford has published "Intersections: The Third Half" in Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Most of this essay (pp. 7-19) is the "Third Half" of the two-part Journals and "Journals" examination in the October/November and December 2014 issues-adding another 1,200-odd bio/med journals from DOAJ and looking at overall patterns. The essay also includes four briefer discussions related to DOAJ and gold OA journals.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"A Living Open Book"

Peter Suber has published "A Living Open Book" in Ebooks in Education: Realising The Vision.

Here's an excerpt:

This is a case study of my short book, Open Access (Suber 2012a). The book is not "enhanced" in the way that a growing number of digital academic books are enhanced. It has no graphics, no multimedia, and no interactivity beyond links, and does not offer different layers or pathways for readers at different levels. From that point of the view the book is conventional and text-oriented. But it has two other enhancements worth highlighting. First, the full text is open access, which benefits authors and readers, and sometimes also publishers. Second, the book has a companion web site of open-access updates and supplements, which benefits all three groups.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"The Adoption of Open Access Funds among Canadian Academic Research Libraries, 2008-2012"

Crystal Hampson has published "The Adoption of Open Access Funds among Canadian Academic Research Libraries, 2008-2012" in Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research.

Here's an excerpt:

To examine academic libraries' responses to OA publishing charges, this article explores the adoption of OA funds among Canadian academic research libraries from 2008 to 2012 by analyzing results from a series of previously published surveys. The findings are then examined in light of Everett Rogers' Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) to consider the question of whether or not OA funds are becoming a standard service in Canadian academic research institutions. Adoption in Canada is briefly compared to that in the United States and United Kingdom. The paper concludes that, as of 2012, OA funds were becoming common but were not a standard service in Canadian academic research libraries and that libraries were actively participating in the development of OA funding models.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future

Martin Paul Eve has published Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future with Cambridge University Pres.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

I am extremely pleased to announce that my book, Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future has today been published by Cambridge University Press. The book offers a background to open access and its specifics for the humanities disciplines, as well as setting out the economics and politics of the phenomenon. It also has a very fine preface by Peter Suber! You can download the book for absolutely free (under a CC BY-SA license) at the official website (click the green "open access" button). You can also buy an extremely good value paperback copy, with all my royalties going to Arthritis Research UK, from the usual suspects.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Adopts Open Access Policy

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has adopted an open access policy.

Here's an excerpt:

As of January 1, 2015 our Open Access policy will be effective for all new agreements. During a two-year transition period, publishers will be permitted to apply up to a 12 month embargo period on the accessibility of the publication and its underlying data sets. This embargo period will no longer be allowed after January 1, 2017.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Bringing The DOAJ to a New Level"

Lars Bjørnshauge has published "Bringing The DOAJ to a New Level" in ScieCom info.

Here's an excerpt:

Most promising projects do not make the transition to a service, much effort and many great ideas are lost. DOAJ has managed this transition since years, but now we are coming closer to the moment of truth. Whether what had turned out to be a social, organizational and managerial experiment: a community funded, crowdsourced free service, really can meet the expectations from increasingly demanding stakeholders.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Sustainable Free: Lessons Learned from the Launch of a Free Service Supporting Publishing in Art History"

James Shulman has published "Sustainable Free: Lessons Learned from the Launch of a Free Service Supporting Publishing in Art History" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

Hilary Ballon and Mariet Westermann, writing about the struggles of publishing in art history noted that "It is a paradox of the digital revolution that it has never been easier to produce and circulate a reproductive image, and never harder to publish one." If publishing in general is in crisis because of the seismic re-ordering in a digital world, the field of art history is the extreme tail of the spectrum; rights holders are accustomed to licensing image content for limited edition print runs. Given this particularly challenging corner of the publishing work, a project initiated by the Metropolitan Museum offers some hope of a collaborative way forward. What sociological re-engineering enabled progress on this problem? It is possible that there are other lessons here too, that might throw at least streaks of light on other process re-engineering provoked by digital innovation in publishing?

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

Case Study of a Book Published under a Creative Commons License

Here's a brief case study of how one book under a Creative Commons license evolved and was accessed.

In 2005, the Association of Research Libraries published my book, the Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License. With ARL's agreement, I made an open access PDF available on Digital Scholarship.

In 2006, I converted the book into an open access XHTML website and published the Open Access Bibliography Author Index and the Open Access Bibliography Title Index.

In 2008, I worked with Open Access Directory staff to convert it to wiki format and publish it as the basis for the Bibliography of Open Access.

In 2010, I published Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography as an open access PDF file, an open access XHTML website, and a low-cost paperback. All versions of the bibliography were under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License. This derivative work was an updated version of the Open Access Bibliography that was more narrowly focused on scholarly treatments of open access.

Below are the Digital Scholarship use statistics for the two books as of October 31, 2014. In this analysis, only HTML files or PDF files are counted as "page views"; image files and other supporting website files are excluded. This analysis also excludes spider use.

  • Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals: over 355,000 page views.
  • Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: over 152,000 page views.

That's a total of over 507,000 page views. For the measured time period, about 7.9% of all file requests to Digital Scholarship failed. Consequently, I'll eliminate 7.9% of the above page views and estimate that there were over 466,000 successful page views. This tally does not include any access statistics from ARL or the OAD (nor does it include paperback sales).

If the multi-file HTML versions of the books are eliminated from consideration, the two books still had a total of over 173,000 PDF requests (excluding spider requests), adjusted to an estimated 159,000 plus successful PDF requests.

To put these use statistics in perspective, in 2005, Willis Regier (Director of the University of Illinois Press) estimated that the typical university press book sold between 400 to 800 copies.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Summary of SHARE Community Meeting, Fall 2014"

ARL has released "Summary of SHARE Community Meeting, Fall 2014."

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

On October 13-14, 2014, members of the SHARE community gathered in Crystal City, Virginia, for their first face-to-face meeting. Attendees included more than half the members of the SHARE working groups (communications, technical, repository, and workflow), as well as SHARE Notification Service prototype participants and other stakeholders. The two-day meeting was intended to showcase progress on the Notification Service; identify challenges and opportunities related to the Notification Service prototype; explore future SHARE projects; and delve into ways in which the higher education community can play a proactive role in the stewardship of research. The meeting was convened with the generous support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"

"Intersections: Journals and ‘Journals’: Taking a Deeper Look: Part 2: DOAJ Subset and Additional Notes"

Walt Crawford has published "Intersections: Journals and 'Journals': Taking a Deeper Look: Part 2: DOAJ Subset and Additional Notes" in Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt:

If you've been reading various commentaries about Gold OA journals-including Part 1-you may be wondering where all those supposed no-fee Gold OA journals are. This piece helps to tell that story. Specifically, of 2,843 journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals as of May 7, 2014 that have an English interface version, aren't from either OASPA members or Beall-list publishers, and are not about aspects of medicine or biology-and that actually published one or more articles between January 2011 and June 30, 2014-more than 78% do not charge fees of any sort, and those journals published 53% of the articles published by the whole group during that period. Those percentages grow to almost 92% and more than 81%, respectively, for 1,426 journals in the humanities and social sciences.

This article looks at the "DOAJ set" in depth, including new tables that show distribution of articles (and journals publishing articles during a year) on a year-by-year basis, including the percentage of free journals and articles from those journals for each year.

Digital Scholarship | "A Quarter-Century as an Open Access Publisher"