"The Role of Author Identities in Peer Review"


There is widespread debate on whether to anonymize author identities in peer review. The key argument for anonymization is to mitigate bias, whereas arguments against anonymization posit various uses of author identities in the review process. The Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS) 2023 conference adopted a middle ground by initially anonymizing the author identities from reviewers, revealing them after the reviewer had submitted their initial reviews, and allowing the reviewer to change their review subsequently. We present an analysis of the reviews pertaining to the identification and use of author identities. Our key findings are: (I) A majority of reviewers self-report not knowing and being unable to guess the authors’ identities for the papers they were reviewing. (II) After the initial submission of reviews, 7.1% of reviews changed their overall merit score and 3.8% changed their self-reported reviewer expertise. (III) There is a very weak and statistically insignificant correlation of the rank of authors’ affiliations with the change in overall merit; there is a weak but statistically significant correlation with respect to change in reviewer expertise. We also conducted an anonymous survey to obtain opinions from reviewers and authors. The main findings from the 200 survey responses are: (i) A vast majority of participants favor anonymizing author identities in some form. (ii) The “middle-ground” initiative of ITCS 2023 was appreciated. (iii) Detecting conflicts of interest is a challenge that needs to be addressed if author identities are anonymized. Overall, these findings support anonymization of author identities in some form (e.g., as was done in ITCS 2023), as long as there is a robust and efficient way to check conflicts of interest.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286206

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Requires Registration: "Clarivate Report Urges Shift from Single Metrics to Visual Research Profiles"


The report focuses on four key areas:

  • Individuals and their publications: The issue of excessive self-citation in research publications is addressed, with identification of outliers following examination of the distinctive patterns of self-citation observed among Highly Cited Researchers, while considering variations in citation rates between fields.
  • Future research trends: Research Fronts identifies current areas of research attention by analyzing frequently cited, recent papers that cluster together, providing valuable insights for research planning, resource management and policy decisions.
  • Journals and their characteristics: The profile and value of a journal in the Web of Science is more than its Journal Impact Factor. We explore how the indicator of national orientation (INO) offers new perspectives on journals, helping researchers choose the best venues for their papers.
  • Influence of international collaboration: Simple metrics mask the influence of well-cited, internationally co-authored papers, so cannot be properly used to assess them. Collaborative Citation Impact (Collab-CNCI) allows deconstruction of impact, enabling better evaluation of domestic and international activity.

https://tinyurl.com/4vetr6px

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Plan S: "Transformative Journals: Analysis from the 2022 Reports"


However, despite these positive developments, it is clearly disappointing that over two thirds (68%) of the journals in the TJ programme failed to meet their OA growth targets. And, as made clear last year, titles which do not meet their targets will be removed from the TJ programme. . . .Looking at the performance of individual publishers, the data shows that some 77% (1329) of titles published by Springer Nature — by far the largest publisher in the programme with some 1721 TJ titles — failed to meet their TJ targets. For Elsevier and the America Chemical Society (ACS) the figures were 63% (115 titles) and 56% (36 titles), respectively.

https://tinyurl.com/yh8rhyex

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"Diamonds in the Rough: Societies Shine under Pressure"


Overall, 18% of fully open journals appear to be sponsored [diamond], but their proportion and number have been decreasing. . . . Among society-run journals, sponsored titles account for more than double the market average, for non-society (commercial) journals they account for just under half. Societies’ greater proportion of sponsored titles and their not-for-profit status could therefore place them in a stronger position than their commercial competitors if we see a large scale move by funders to require publication in journals without publisher fees and — as some noises from European funders suggest — which are not for profit.

https://tinyurl.com/yc4k2j9m

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"Significant Acceleration of Humanities and Social Sciences Open Access through Taylor & Francis and Jisc Transformative Agreement"


A wealth of additional detail about open access articles supported by the Jisc agreement is presented in the report, including:

  • 432% increase in OA articles between 2020 and 2022.
  • 16.2 million article downloads, including 3.5 million in the US.
  • Articles published OA via the agreement received an average of 2.18 scholarly citations, whereas non-OA articles by researchers at the same institutions had 1.33 citations.

https://tinyurl.com/39urswyj

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"Factors Affecting Publication Impact and Citation Trends Over Time"


Based on the results, researchers should seek out grant funding and generously incorporate literature into their co-authored publications to increase their publications’ potential for future impact. These factors may influence article quality, resulting in more citations over time. Further research is needed to better understand their influence and the influence of other factors.

https://doi.org/10.18438/eblip30206

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"The Value of a Diamond: Understanding Global Coverage of Diamond Open Access Journals in Web of Science, Scopus, and OpenAlex to Support an Open Future"


Diamond OA journals present a publishing model that is free for both authors and readers, but their lack of indexing in major bibliographic databases such as Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus presents challenges in assessing the usage of these journals. This paper provides a global picture of the coverage of diamond OA journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in three data sources. Results show their low coverage in WoS and Scopus and higher coverage in OpenAlex, as well as the generally smaller and local scope of diamond OA journals.

https://tinyurl.com/2mt9sydd

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"Open(ing) Access: Top Health Publication Availability to Researchers in Low- and Middle-Income Countries"


Introduction: Improving access to information for health professionals and researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is under-prioritized. This study examines publication policies that affect authors and readers from LMICs.

Methods: We used the SHERPA RoMEO database and publicly available publishing protocols to evaluate open access (OA) policies, article processing charges (APCs), subscription costs, and availability of health literature relevant to authors and readers in LMICs. Categorical variables were summarized using frequencies with percentages. Continuous variables were reported with median and interquartile range (IQR). Hypothesis testing procedures were performed using Wilcoxon rank sum tests, Wilcoxon rank sum exact tests, and Kruskal-Wallis test.

Results: A total of 55 journals were included; 6 (11%) were Gold OA (access to readers and large charge for authors), 2 (3.6%) were subscription (charge for readers and small/no charge for authors), 4 (7.3%) were delayed OA (reader access with no charge after embargo), and 43 (78%) were hybrid (author’s choice). There was no significant difference between median APC for life sciences, medical, and surgical journals ($4,850 [$3,500–$8,900] vs. $4,592 [$3,500–$5,000] vs. $3,550 [$3,200–$3,860]; p = 0.054). The median US individual subscription costs (USD/Year) were significantly different for life sciences, medical, and surgical journals ($259 [$209–$282] vs. $365 [$212–$744] vs. $455 [$365–$573]; p = 0.038), and similar for international readers. A total of seventeen journals (42%) had a subscription price that was higher for international readers than for US readers.

Conclusions: Most journals offer hybrid access services. Authors may be forced to choose between high cost with greater reach through OA and low cost with less reach publishing under the subscription model under current policies. International readers face higher costs. Such hindrances may be mitigated by a greater awareness and liberal utilization of OA policies.

https://doi.org/10.5334/aogh.3904

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"The Platformisation of Scholarly Information and How to Fight It"


The commercial control of academic publishing and research infrastructure by a few oligopolistic companies has crippled the development of open access movement and interfered with the ethical principles of information access and privacy. In recent years, vertical integration of publishers and other service providers throughout the research cycle has led to platformisation, characterized by datafication and commodification similar to practices on social media platforms. Scholarly publications are treated as user-generated contents for data tracking and surveillance, resulting in profitable data products and services for research assessment, benchmarking and reporting. Meanwhile, the bibliodiversity and equal open access are denied by the dominant gold open access model and the privacy of researchers is being compromised by spyware embedded in research infrastructure. This article proposes four actions to fight the platformisation of scholarly information after a brief overview of the market of academic journals and research assessments and their implications for bibliodiversity, information access, and privacy: (1) Educate researchers about commercial publishers and APCs; (2) Allocate library budget to support scholar-led and library publishing; (3) Engage in the development of public research infrastructures and copyright reform; and (4) Advocate for research assessment reforms.

https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.13561

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Paywall: "Toward a Potential Solution of the Crisis in Scholarly Publishing: An Academic Research Community Alliance Model"


The academic research community alliance model suggested is based on the scholarly community taking on the responsibilities of peer review, article production, and knowledge dissemination while acting in an altruistic way of doing so. The proposed approach is described in detail, and both challenges and potential solutions to the impediments to implementing this model are explored. Finally, the authors report on initial efforts to build support for the proposed model, which suggests that meaningful progress on this difficult problem is possible.

https://tinyurl.com/4dznxau6

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Videos from the Library Publishing Coalition’s 2023 Library Publishing Forum


The Library Publishing Forum is an annual conference bringing together representatives from libraries engaged in (or considering) publishing initiatives to define and address major questions and challenges; to identify and document collaborative opportunities; and to strengthen and promote this community of practice. The Forum includes representatives from a broad, international spectrum of academic library backgrounds, as well as groups that collaborate with libraries to publish scholarly works, including publishing vendors, university presses, and scholars.

https://tinyurl.com/mresrts7

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"New UVM Press Breaks Down Barriers to Scholarly Publishing"


The University of Vermont has launched an open-access academic press aimed at removing the financial barrier between peer-reviewed research and audiences worldwide. Fully funded by the university and overseen by UVM Libraries, the UVM Press operates under a "diamond open access model"— meaning that authors pay no fees to publish with the press, and readers pay no fees to access the press’s published materials. . . .

Bryn Geffert, UVM’s dean of libraries, has experience with open-access publishing having launched the Amherst College Press in 2013. Geffert also led a consortium of libraries in establishing the open-access Lever Press in 2016. Geffert believes that the role of a library is to connect patrons to information, making UVM Libraries a logical partner for managing the UVM Press.

https://tinyurl.com/bdfa8msf

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"Transformative Agreements and Their Practical Impact: A Librarian Perspective"


This case study aims at describing how transformative agreements (TAs) have affected our profession with new tasks and workflows at two university libraries in Sweden, namely Karolinska Institutet University Library and Södertörn University Library. TAs are one of the mechanisms by which scientific publications are made open access; they involve moving libraries’ contracts with publishers from payment to read toward payment to publish. We will summarize the status and progress of open access in Sweden, in particular the significant growth of TAs over a short time span. We will then focus on describing how TAs have affected our everyday work and what new tasks they have imposed. We will share our experiences and point out things we find challenging, for example, we will explore questions about eligibility, the verification process, publication types and title changes during the contract period. We will also give some recommendations on how we would prefer the workflows surrounding the TAs to be. Finally, we will share our conclusions and comments about the impact of TAs on the publishing landscape and speculate about what will happen next.

https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.612

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"Can Open Access Increase LIS Research’s Policy Impact? Using Regression Analysis and Causal Inference"


The relationship between open access and academic impact (usually measured as citations received from academic publications) has been extensively studied but remains a very controversial topic. However, the effect of open access on policy impact (measured as citations received from policy documents) is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of open access on the policy impact, which might initiate a new controversial topic. . . . Linear regression models, logit regression models, four other matching methods, open access status provided by different databases, and different sizes of data samples were used to check the robustness of the main results. This study revealed that open access had significant and positive effects on the policy impact.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04750-1

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A Guide for Social Science Journal Editors on Easing into Open Science (FULL GUIDE)


Journal editors have a large amount of power to advance open science in their respective fields by incentivising and mandating open policies and practices at their journals. The Data PASS Journal Editors Discussion Interface (JEDI, an online community for social science journal editors: www.dpjedi.org) has collated several resources on open science in journal editing (www.dpjedi.org/resources). However, it can be overwhelming as a new editor to know where to start. For this reason, we have created a guide for journal editors on how to get started with open science. The guide outlines steps that editors can take to implement open policies and practices at their journal, and goes through the what, why, how, and worries of each policy/practice.

https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/hstcx

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"Wiley Inks 22 Open Access Agreements across North America"


These agreements, which all begin in 2023, span individual universities, research labs, and academic consortia across 18 U.S. states and Mexico. They allow participating institutions access to all of Wiley’s hybrid and subscription journals and grant researchers the ability to publish accepted articles open access across Wiley’s extensive publishing portfolio. . . .

A full list of participating partners includes:

  • Individual Institutions: University of Alabama at Birmingham, Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon University, Colorado State University, Montana State University, Princeton University, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University, UMass Lowell, West Virginia University, Texas Tech University Health Services Center, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Portland State University, Northeastern University, Texas A&M University, Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del IPN (CINVESTAV), University of North Texas Health Science Center, Washington State University, and Texas Christian University.
  • Consortia: The Carolina Consortium, and the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC).

https://bit.ly/3ORnyqT

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"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a License"


This column describes how one library seeks to mitigate harms or to optimize protections and advantages resulting from journal licenses. Progress toward improved licensing outcomes is described with examples or with qualitative data, from a comprehensive overview of one library’s journal licenses. Discussion includes so-called transformative agreements, a variety of rights, non-disclosure and data privacy clauses, term and termination, and transfer obligations.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102737

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"Giant in Isolation: Online Journal Publishing in Nigeria"


The wider a research result is communicated the higher its impact and benefits. Online journals are today the most effective means of communicating research result. However, majority of the Nigerian journals are still in print. Thus, this paper collected data from the Nigerian universities as the leading journal publishers in the country in order to bring out the situation of online journal publishing in the country. A semi-structured questionnaire was sent to all the universities; 28 responses were found to be valid for the analysis. In addition, the researcher analysed the content of Ajol and Doaj to discover the evidences for online journal publishing from Nigeria. And finally search for literature on the use of OJS in Nigeria was conducted. Consequently, it is discovered that majority of the university-based journals in Nigeria are in print only. The journals don’t leverage on the supporting services from Ajol programme. Thus, it is recommended that individual researchers, universities, journal publishers and research funders in Nigeria should recognise the importance and make use of online journal publishing platforms. It is also recommended that major commercial publishers should devise means of penetrating the journal publishing market in Nigeria.

https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.2640

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Walt Crawford: "Gold Open Access 8 Is Now Available"


Gold Open Access 2017-2022: Articles in Journals (GOA8) is now available in print book, PDF ebook, and dataset forms. The print book–a 6×9 trade paperback with color graphs–is $11.50 (or the nearest equivalent in other currencies supported by Lulu), of which I receive a stunning $0.24. The PDF ebook and dataset are both free, and all versions are CC-BY.

https://cutt.ly/WwqKXwVM

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UC System: "Re: UCOLASC [University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication] Statement on Retention of Author Rights in License to Publish Agreements"


As discussed at our joint UCOLASC and Council of University Librarians (CoUL) meeting held on February 15, 2023, the Project Transform Negotiating Team (PTNT) and Project Transform Working Group (PTWG) have learned that many publishers are requiring University of California (UC) authors to sign "License to Publish" (LTP) agreements, which purport to grant exclusive rights to publishers and contravene the spirit of the open access (OA) policies and declarations strongly endorsed by UC faculty.We find this now-common practice to be unacceptable and therefore ask you to prioritize the issue of author rights and act on our behalf when you negotiate with publishers. . . .

UCOLASC urges the Project Transform Negotiating Team (PTNT) to negotiate transformative open access agreements with publishers stipulating that authors only grant "limited" or "nonexclusive" licenses to publishers. Liberal Creative Commons (CC) licenses (e.g., CC BY) should be applied as the default choice, and licenses that restrict commercial and derivative uses of the work (e.g., CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, and CC BY-NC-ND) should function as originally intended with authors always free to do whatever they want with their own works.

https://bit.ly/43uzuDd

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Athena Unbound: Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All


In Athena Unbound, Peter Baldwin offers an up-to-date look at the ideals and history behind OA, and unpacks the controversies that arise when the dream of limitless information slams into entrenched interests in favor of the status quo. . . .

Baldwin addresses the arguments in terms of disseminating scientific research, the history of intellectual property and copyright, and the development of the university and research establishment. As he notes, the hard sciences have already created a funding model that increasingly provides open access, but at the cost of crowding out the humanities. Baldwin proposes a new system that would shift costs from consumers to producers and free scholarly knowledge from the paywalls and institutional barriers that keep it from much of the world.

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/14887.001.0001

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"European Scholarly Journals from Small- and Mid-Size Publishers: Mapping Journals and Public Funding Mechanisms"


This study investigates the relationship between scholarly journal publishing and public funding, specifically concerning the context of small- and mid-sized journal publishers in European countries. As part of the movement towards open science, an increasing number of journals globally are free to both read and publish in, which increases the need for journals to seek other resources instead of subscription income. The study includes two separate components, collecting data separately for each European country (including transcontinental states): (1) the volume and key bibliometric characteristics of small- and mid-sized journal publishers and (2) information about country-level public funding mechanisms for scholarly journals. The study found that there are 16,387 journals from small- and mid-sized publishers being published in European countries, of which 36 per cent are already publishing open access. There is a large diversity in how countries reserve and distribute funds to journals, ranging from continuous inclusive subsidies to competitive grant funding or nothing at all.

https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scac081

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Council of the European Union: "Council Calls for Transparent, Equitable, and Open Access to Scholarly Publications"


In its conclusions, the Council calls on the Commission and the member states to support policies towards a scholarly publishing model that is not-for-profit, open access and multi-format, with no costs for authors or readers. Some Member States have introduced secondary publication rights into their national copyright legislation, enabling open access to scholarly publications which involve public funds. The Council encourages national open access policies and guidelines to make scholarly publications immediately openly accessible under open licences. The conclusions acknowledge positive developments in terms of monitoring progress, like within the framework of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), and suggest including open science monitoring in the European Research Area monitoring mechanism. The Council conclusions also encourage Member States to support the pilot programme Open Research Europe (to create a large-scale open access research publishing service), the use of open-source software and standards, to recognise and reward peer review activities in the assessment of researchers as well as to support the training of researchers on peer-review skills and on intellectual property rights.

https://bit.ly/3MS2leY

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Paywall: "Automated Scholarly Paper Review: Concepts, Technologies, and Challenges"


In this paper, we propose the concept and pipeline of automated scholarly paper review (ASPR) and review the relevant literature and technologies of achieving a full-scale computerized review process. On the basis of the review and discussion, we conclude that there is already corresponding research and preliminary implementation at each stage of ASPR. We further look into the challenges in ASPR with the existing technologies.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inffus.2023.101830

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"Gold Open Access Output and Expenditures in the United States in the Past Decade"


In this study we demonstrated some of the main differences in Gold Open Access publications and expenditures across various states and institutions in the United States. Our data shows that the majority of states published between 1,000 – 7,000 Gold Open Access publications and spent up to 6million dollars in the past 10 years. However, there are some noteworthy outliers such as Washington, Minnesota and Maryland with relatively low number of publications and high expenditures while states such as California, Ohio and especially New York which published relatively high number of Gold Open Access papers with relatively low costs comparatively.

https://doi.org/10.55835/64410a4a643beb0d90fc4707

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