Open Access – DigitalKoans

NIH Plan to Increase Findability and Transparency of Research Results Through the Use of Metadata and Persistent Identifiers

In this Plan, NIH presents a combination of efforts that are already underway and planned efforts that will increase the findability of research outputs and promote transparency in the research process, ultimately bolstering the impact of NIH’s research while fostering trust in the research that NIH supports. This Plan also addresses expectations from the fourth section of the 2022 White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) Memorandum on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research (the 2022 OSTP Memo) and is an update to section IV, “Mechanisms to Increase Findability and Transparency of Research” of the NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research. Specifically, NIH is outlining how researchers and institutions should use metadata to consistently identify themselves and their research outputs, as well as requirements for NIH-supported (i.e., both NIH-funded and NIH-managed) repositories to collect and make relevant metadata publicly available and searchable. These efforts are informed by NIH’s experience in managing and hosting repositories and are intended to increase the findability and usability of all NIH research.

https://tinyurl.com/3xbrpw2r

"How Has the Field Changed in the Last 10 Years? An Excerpt from the 2024 Library Publishing Directory"

In this year’s edition of the Directory, we received responses from 179 publishers in 18 countries, and 167 long-form responses are featured in the Directory. The number of respondents has grown gradually since the first Library Publishing Directory in 2014, when 116 library publishers completed the survey. We also see a much higher number in the unique institutions that have participated in the last decade: in the Directory‘s lifetime 383 library programs have responded to the call for entries. Most respondents (92%) represent academic libraries, which is consistent with previous years. Of the remaining respondents, 5% identified their institution type as consortia, 1% as member organizations, and 2% as other.

https://tinyurl.com/kf8w3fp5

2024 NIH Public Access Policy

This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 12/18/2024 and available online at https://federalregister.gov/d/2024-29929, and on https://govinfo.gov. . . .

The Policy includes relevant language about NIH’s rights to make Author Accepted Manuscripts available in PubMed Central without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication. NIH reiterates that this does not mean that NIH has rights to the Final Published Article, as defined in the Policy, but only to the Author Accepted Manuscript, as defined in the Policy.

The Policy also requires that those depositing Author Accepted Manuscripts in PubMed Central agree to a revised Manuscript Submission Statement reiterating NIH’s right to post such Author Accepted Manuscripts without embargo upon the Official Date of Publication. The language for this statement, as included in the Guidance on Government Use License and Rights, has been modified from the Draft Public Access Policy to remove the phrase “create derivative works.” Because NIH had not intended the language to convey what comments suggested regarding the potential to compromise scientific integrity, NIH has removed the phrase. NIH will, however, continue using features, existing or to-be-developed, that ensure accessibility and usability. NIH also reserves the right to, in the future, reasonably interpret statutory and/or regulatory language to permit uses of content that are consistent with copyright law, that provide value to users, and that are considered to be in line with practices of the time.

Regarding comments that proposed NIH should provide the public with full reuse rights through explicit language about reuse of the work for any purpose with attribution, NIH notes that such language is akin to authors providing NIH with a particular license. As stated in the NIH Draft Public Access Policy, NIH does not believe that a particular license is needed to achieve the Policy’s goals.

Finally, NIH clarifies that the Policy does not prevent authors from depositing their Author Accepted Manuscripts into institutional repositories, as long as Author Accepted Manuscripts are also deposited in PubMed Central per the Policy.

https://tinyurl.com/5948sv6n

"What Have We Learned from Subscribe to Open?"

As we enter the 2025 renewal season, which marks the sixth year since the first S2O journals were launched, we come together here as two early S2O publishers to share our different applications of and experiences with the model: In 2020, Berghahn, of which Vivian is managing director, followed in Annual Reviews’ footsteps to become the second publisher to implement the Subscribe to Open model with their Berghahn Open Anthro initiative. EDP Sciences, of which Charlotte is director of marketing and communications, was another early adopter of the model in 2021 for several of their journals across astronomy, mathematics, and radioprotection. . . .

As of 2024, thanks to the Subscribe to Open model, over 180 journals have been able to publish entire volumes in open access, which would never have been possible otherwise because of the shortcomings of the APC models for these journals and their respective disciplines. The S2O model continues to grow, with more publishers set to launch their S2O offerings in 2025. The model is supported by a thriving cross-stakeholder S2O Community of Practice (CoP) that was formed in August 2020 by Annual Reviews and some of the earliest S2O publishers (including Berghahn and EDP Sciences), supporting libraries, funders, subscription agents, and other interested stakeholders. The CoP now has nearly 100 members (individuals and organizations alike) and meets on a monthly basis to discuss experiences, achievements, and concerns, share advice, and pool feedback.

https://tinyurl.com/mvavvvw3

"How Librarians are Advancing Open Book Publishing at the Lever Press"

At an October 2010 meeting of the Oberlin Group, a consortium of over 80 liberal arts college libraries in the United States, one of us (BG) made an audacious proposal: that the Oberlin Group establish an open access press, devoted to the production of peer-reviewed books, rigorously edited and distributed in electronic form without fees. . . .

Fourteen years later, the Lever Press is thriving as the publisher of digital-first diamond open-access monographs on topics of interest to the liberal arts. Lever presents a unique model for how libraries, especially those from smaller institutions, can help transform the open-access landscape.

https://tinyurl.com/9hwpa2bp

"Harvard Is Releasing a Massive Free AI Training Dataset Funded by OpenAI and Microsoft"

Harvard University announced Thursday it’s releasing a high-quality dataset of nearly 1 million public-domain books that could be used by anyone to train large language models and other AI tools. The dataset was created by Harvard’s newly formed Institutional Data Initiative with funding from both Microsoft and OpenAI. It contains books scanned as part of the Google Books project that are no longer protected by copyright.

https://tinyurl.com/ymen65js

"The Open Monograph Distribution and Acquisitions Gap: A Look at TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) Titles"

The Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) network of universities, and the open access (OA) monographs that have been funded and published through this program, provide a unique opportunity to study the work done by university presses and academic libraries to distribute and acquire this content. TOME is a program that supports university presses’ publication of OA monographs through locally funded subventions. Though the works have been published by universities, and the subvention programs that make them OA have largely involved the funding institution libraries in the process, the resulting OA works are not easily discoverable or accessible through library systems. Because it is so highly distributed across many academic institutions, the TOME collection of OA monograph titles offers the opportunity for libraries and publishers to more closely examine the process of creating OA content and provides the chance to study how we collectively make these works discoverable and accessible to our communities and more broadly in the world as well. The analysis presented in this paper offers insights into developing and refining procedures and management strategies at libraries participating in TOME. These recommendations provide insights into discovery of and access to OA monographs in general.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.15492

"From Black Open Access to Open Access of Color: Accepting the Diversity of Approaches towards Free Science"

The aim of this article is to shed some light on ‘black open access’ model, that still remains poorly understood and largely neglected in the literature, despite being widely adopted in practice. I give an overview of the historical development of black OA and its most important projects: Sci-Hub and Library Genesis. Arguments are provided for why the term ‘black OA’ is misleading and the term ‘RGB OA’ (red, green and blue) would better describe a diverse landscape of open access projects that emerged after 2001. While practical approaches towards OA evolved dramatically in the past 20 years, theoretical discussion is still operating the same two-color scheme of ‘green’ and ‘gold’ open access from BOAI declaration of 2001: novel approaches are either not recognized as OA at all or are neglected as ‘black’. A new and more inclusive OA declaration might be needed to account for greater diversity of approaches.

https://tinyurl.com/nha7tsxd

"PLOS Receives $3.3M Grant to Support Open Access Publishing & Business Model Transformation"

PLOS has been awarded a $3.3million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, underscoring its commitment to pioneer a shift away from traditional publishing models. The 3-year funding package from the Gates Foundation will support PLOS’ transition towards APC-free publishing by enabling authors, funded by the foundation, to publish with PLOS without facing APC barriers, and to contribute to open access publishing options for authors who do not have access to funding. This 3-year grant offers support while PLOS is actively working on new publishing models grounded in open science starting with an ongoing research & design project.

The grant will also support improvements to enhance the capture and dissemination of funding metadata and to experiment with the posting of peer reviews alongside preprints during the evaluation process, promoting greater transparency in scholarly communication.

https://tinyurl.com/3a79595s

India: "One Nation One Subscription: Boon and Bane?"

A single-window purchasing entity, INFLIBNET, has been tasked with negotiating with the top 30 publishers out of a pool of 70+ originally identified publishers. The balance 40+ are expected to be closed in due course. . .

In Phase1, approximately 6,300 institutions and 18 million students will gain access to all the resources of the 30 publishers, at no cost. . . .

There is a budgetary allocation of around US$ 750 million for three years.

https://tinyurl.com/376k2dsa

See also: “Can ONOS Transform Indian Research?“

"Internet Archive Copyright Case Ends without Supreme Court Review "

After more than four years of litigation, a closely watched copyright case over the Internet Archive’s scanning and lending of library books is finally over after Internet Archive officials decided against exercising their last option, an appeal to the Supreme Court. The deadline to file an appeal was December 3.

https://tinyurl.com/6j4ukfmp

Search Journal Open Access Policies: "Sherpa Services Combined Into New User-Friendly Platform: Open Policy Finder"

The new platform will allow users to:

Check if compliance with funder open access policies can be achieved with a particular journal

Get a summary of publishers’ open access archiving conditions for individual journals and books

To see funders’ conditions for open access publication

https://tinyurl.com/tzjpnu46

Search Polices

"Exploring First-Generation Student Experiences with OER Textbooks"

The other aspect of textbooks that students found very important, at 31 percent (64) or extremely important, at 38 percent (78) was cost. Cost was particularly important for first-generation students. Fifty-nine percent (36) of first-generation students considered cost to be an extremely important factor, compared to twenty-nine percent (42) of continuing-generation students. Strikingly, not a single first-generation student considered cost to be unimportant. . . .

Although the OER sections of ENGL 104 were tagged in the University’s course marking system, a mere 2.9 percent of students (four) reported being aware that their course was an OER course when they registered. By contrast, 96% percent (131 students) reported learning that the textbook was available at no cost when classes were already starting (i.e., on the first day or when they received their syllabus). This delay in learning about textbook costs means that students who could most benefit from a no-cost textbook were unable to strategically select an OER section. . . .

Another important finding is that the primary method by which students accessed their OER textbook, electronic only access, does not align with the access method students stated they preferred. Respondents indicated that they wanted textbooks that they could highlight and make notes in; they wanted a textbook that they could hold in their hands and that didn’t strain their eyes. At the same time, respondents wanted textbooks that they could access from anywhere and that had searchable text. Finally, respondents strongly indicated a desire for a textbook that is not unwieldy and heavy to lug across campus. Print with an electronic copy, the format most popular with students, meets all of these criteria.

https://tinyurl.com/mtnbd963

The Cost and Price of Public Access to Scholarly Publications: A Synthesis

As part of our project to investigate “reasonable costs” for public access to United States federally funded research and scientific data, we have developed a synthesis report focused on the multi-model scholarly publication ecosystem that facilitates public access as required by the Nelson Memo. This paper outlines the historical developments that have shaped the current landscape, the key financial (cost and payment) stakeholders in the system, and the models and approaches that have developed in the continued shift to public and open access.

This paper is a companion to the February 2024 report, The Cost and Price of Public Access to Research Data: A Synthesis.

https://tinyurl.com/232vaw49

Report

"An Analysis of the Effects of Sharing Research Data, Code, and Preprints on Citations"

In this study, we investigate whether adopting one or more Open Science practices leads to significantly higher citations for an associated publication, which is one form of academic impact. We use a novel dataset known as Open Science Indicators, produced by PLOS and DataSeer, which includes all PLOS publications from 2018 to 2023 as well as a comparison group sampled from the PMC Open Access Subset. In total, we analyze circa 122’000 publications. We calculate publication and author-level citation indicators and use a broad set of control variables to isolate the effect of Open Science Indicators on received citations. We show that Open Science practices are adopted to different degrees across scientific disciplines. We find that the early release of a publication as a preprint correlates with a significant positive citation advantage of about 20.2% (±.7) on average. We also find that sharing data in an online repository correlates with a smaller yet still positive citation advantage of 4.3% (±.8) on average. However, we do not find a significant citation advantage for sharing code. Further research is needed on additional or alternative measures of impact beyond citations. Our results are likely to be of interest to researchers, as well as publishers, research funders, and policymakers.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311493

"Public Launch of the European Diamond Capacity Hub and the ALMASI Project"

The European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH) will hold its public launch on the 15 January 2025 in Madrid, Spain. . . .

The EDCH aims to strengthen the Diamond OA community in Europe by supporting European institutional, national and disciplinary capacity centres and Diamond publishers and service providers in their mission of Diamond OA scholarly publishing. The EDCH will provide these Diamond stakeholders with coordination, sustainability, training modules, technical tools, and services at scale. The EDCH thus answers the need for capacity building in the Diamond OA community that was expressed in the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access. . . .

The EDCH will be launched in conjunction with a public event on 14 January 2025 announcing the EU-funded ALMASI project. This three-year project with 15 partners from three continents will seek a better understanding of the situation of non-profit OA publishing in three world regions – Africa, Latin America, and Europe – co-designing and aligning measures for quality alignment, training materials, and institutional and national policy development.

https://tinyurl.com/2s45urbm

"Geographical and Disciplinary Coverage of Open Access Journals: OpenAlex, Scopus and WoS"

This study aims to compare the geographical and disciplinary coverage of OA journals in three databases: OpenAlex, Scopus and the WoS. We used the ROAD database, managed by the ISSN International Centre, as a reference database which indexes 62,701 OA active resources (as of May 2024). Among the 62,701 active resources indexed in the ROAD database, the Web of Science indexes 6,157 journals, while Scopus indexes 7,351, and OpenAlex indexes 34,217. A striking observation is the presence of 25,658 OA journals exclusively in OpenAlex, whereas only 182 journals are exclusively present in WoS and 373 in Scopus. The geographical analysis focusses on two levels: continents and countries. As for disciplinary comparison, we use the ten disciplinary levels of the ROAD database. Moreover, our findings reveal a striking similarity in OA journal coverage between WoS and Scopus. However, while OpenAlex offers better inclusivity and indexing, it is not without biases. WoS and Scopus predictably favor journals from Europe, North America and Oceania. Although OpenAlex presents a much more balanced indexing, certain regions and countries remain relatively underrepresented. Typically, Africa is proportionally as under-represented in OpenAlex as it is in WoS, and some emerging countries are proportionally less represented in OpenAlex than in WoS and Scopus. These results underscore a marked similarity in OA journal indexing between WoS and Scopus, while OpenAlex aligns more closely with the distribution observed in the ROAD database, although it also exhibits some representational biases.

https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-04745665v1

Institutionally Based Research Data Services: Current Developments and Future Direction

The Summit for Academic Institutional Readiness in Data Sharing (STAIRS) was a multi-phased project that brought together a diverse group of representatives from academic institutions across the United States who support research data sharing efforts. Building off preliminary assessment work and a virtual learning series, this was a unique chance to discuss the opportunities and challenges in supporting researchers’ data sharing needs within and across institutions. This report captures the details of the project, including the preliminary assessment work as well as the summit. Following a description of the broad themes and overarching takeaways from this multi-phased effort, we conclude with next steps and future directions for the academic data services community.

https://tinyurl.com/3v8b5xc3

"Web of Science Index Puts eLife ‘On Hold’Because of Its Radical Publishing Model"

The Web of Science, a leading bibliometric indexing service, yesterday suspended the journal eLife from its listings because its novel publishing model adopted last year—which includes public peer review but no final decision on whether a manuscript is accepted or rejected—conflicts with the Web of Science’s standards for assuring quality.

https://tinyurl.com/2s4cad42

"cOAlition S Announces the Release of an Independent Study on the Impact of Plan S"

The authors of the study highlight that Plan S has opened new avenues for achieving full and immediate Open Access, successfully placing Open Access high on policymakers’ agendas and bringing publishers to the negotiating table with institutions. The study underscores the potentially game-changing effect of the rights retention strategy, which institutions have since expanded into their own Rights Retention Policies. It also notes the contribution to the current momentum around Diamond Open Access, and the role of cOAlition S in raising awareness of the inequities of article-based charges publishing models.

The authors note that it may be too early to fully assess Plan S’s quantitative impact, as many policies only took effect in 2021 or later, and they recommend revisiting the study in 5-10 years. However, observing significant progress in the push towards full and immediate Open Access since Plan S was first announced and the influential role of the alliance of research funders, they recommend continuing cOAlition S beyond 2025.

https://tinyurl.com/2ecyu8ce

Report

"Market Sizing Update 2024: Has OA Hit a Peak?"

The data suggest that OA’s share of output has likely peaked in 2023.

Our earlier sneak peek at the market suggested it peaked at 49% of output in 2022, falling to 48% in 2023. Our latest data here suggests OA just peaked at 50% share in 2022-2023 and may fall a few percentage points in the coming years.

Results from our survey and anecdotal feedback suggest more of the same for 2024: large OA-only publishers are likely to see continued declines, while established publishers will see continued growth.

The market will consolidate further. Long-term OA growth is likely to be less that it has been – perhaps mid-to-high single digits – but with increasing shares going to the larger publishers.

https://deltathink.com/news-views-market-sizing-update-2024-has-oa-hit-a-peak/

"Supporting Data Discovery: Comparing Perspectives of Support Specialists and Researchers Authors"

Purpose: Much of the research in data discovery is centered on the users’ viewpoint, frequently overlooking the perspective of those who develop and maintain the discovery infrastructure. Our goal is to conduct a comparative study on research data discovery, examining both support specialists’ and researchers’ views by merging new analysis with prior research insights.

Methods: This work summarizes the studies the authors have conducted over the last seven years investigating the data discovery practices of support specialists from different disciplines. Although support specialists were not the main target of some of these studies, data about their perspectives was collected. Our corpus comprises in-depth interviews with 6 social science support specialists, interviews with 19 researchers and 3 support specialists from multiple disciplines, a global survey with 1630 researchers and 47 support specialists, and a use case analysis of 25 support specialists. In the analysis section, we juxtapose the fresh insights on support specialists’ views with the already documented perspectives of researchers for a holistic understanding. The latter is primarily discussed in the literature review, with references made in the analysis section to draw comparisons.

Results: We found that support specialists’ views on data discovery are not entirely different from those of the researchers. There are, however, some differences that we have identified, most notably the interconnection of data discovery with general web search, literature search, and social networks. . . .

We conclude by proposing recommendations for different types of support work to better support researchers’ data discovery practices.

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2024-048

"IOP Publishing Study Reveals Varied Adoption and Barriers in Open Data Sharing Among Physical Research Communities"

Environmental scientists are the most open with their research data, yet legal constraints related to third-party ownership often limit their ability to follow the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability (FAIR) principles. Physicists are also willing to share data but have concerns about the accessibility and understanding of the formats used. Engineering and materials scientists face the most significant barriers to sharing FAIR data due to concerns over confidentiality and sensitivity.

https://tinyurl.com/2s3jjzft

"Leveraging Transformative Agreements for Research Integrity "

Specifically, publishers could incorporate clauses that require the institution to identify a designated contact to handle research integrity investigations, just as they would for access-related matters like login issues or security breaches. Likewise, institutions may wish to negotiate for parallel requirements from publishers.

For example, in cases of suspected misconduct or ethical concerns related to publications, publishers could rely on designated university personnel to respond and engage with these issues directly. Additional contractual clauses could include agreed-upon investigatory procedures, such as a mutual commitment to follow COPE’s guideline on “Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity and publication misconduct cases,” and penalties for failure to respond.

https://tinyurl.com/4twzs2w

"When Researchers Pay to Publish: Results from a Survey on APCs in Four Countries"

This paper provides an empirical overview of the impact and practices of paying Article Processing Charges (APCs) by four nationally categorized groups of researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa. The data was collected from 13,577 researchers through an online questionnaire. The analysis compares the practice of publishing in journals that charge APCs across different dimensions, including country, discipline, gender, and age of the researchers. The paper also focuses on the maximum amount APC paid and the methods and strategies researchers use to cover APC payments, such as waivers, research project funds, payment by coauthors, and the option to publish in closed access, where possible. Different tendencies were identified among the different disciplines and the national systems examined. Findings show that Argentine researchers apply for waivers most frequently and often use personal funds or international coauthors for APCs, with younger researchers less involved in APC payments. In contrast, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico have more older researchers, yet younger researchers still publish more in APC journals. South African researchers lead in APC publications, likely due to better funding access and read and publish agreements. This study lays the groundwork for further analysis of gender asymmetries, funding access, and views on the commercial Open Access model of scientific dissemination.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.12144