Category: Open Access

"Discipline-Specific Open Access Publishing Practices and Barriers to Change: An Evidence-Based Review"

Anna Severin et al. have published "Discipline-Specific Open Access Publishing Practices and Barriers to Change: An Evidence-Based Review" in F1000Research [awaiting peer review].

Here's an excerpt:

Background: Many of the discussions surrounding Open Access (OA) revolve around how it affects publishing practices across different academic disciplines. It was a long-held view that it would be only a matter of time for all disciplines to fully and relatively homogeneously implement OA. Recent large-scale bibliometric studies show however that the uptake of OA differs substantially across disciplines. This study investigates the underlying mechanisms that cause disciplines to vary in their OA publishing practices. We aimed to answer two questions: First, how do different disciplines adopt and shape OA publishing practices? Second, what discipline-specific barriers to and potentials for OA can be identified? . . . .

Conclusions: We conclude that historically grown publishing practices differ in terms of their compatibility with OA, which is the reason why OA can be assumed to be a natural continuation of publishing cultures in some disciplines, whereas in other disciplines, the implementation of OA faces major barriers and would require a change of research culture.

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"OER Cost Assessment Strategies"

Nichole Karpel and Bruce Schneider have published "OER Cost Assessment Strategies" in EDUCAUSE Review.

Here's an excerpt:

Open educational resources can provide access to high-quality resources while offsetting the costs of traditional textbooks. An array of costs are associated with the "free" approach, however, and institutions that are successful with OER understand that moving to open resources requires extensive planning, selection, management, and maintenance.

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Reimagined Universities in an “Open, Networked Era”: "The Principles of Tomorrow’s University"

Daniel S. Katz et al. have published "The Principles of Tomorrow's University" [awaiting peer review] in F1000Research.

Here's an excerpt:

In March 2017, 13 mostly early-career research leaders who are building their careers around these traits came together with ten university leaders (presidents, vice presidents, and vice provosts), representatives from four funding agencies, and eleven organizers and other stakeholders in an NIH- and NSF-funded one-day, invitation-only workshop titled "Imagining Tomorrow’s University."…

During the workshop, the participants reimagined scholarship, education, and institutions for an open, networked era, to uncover new opportunities for universities to create value and serve society. They expressed the results of these deliberations as a set of 22 principles of tomorrow's university across six areas: Credit and Attribution (A), Open Scholarship Communities (C), Outreach and Engagement (O), Education (E), Preservation and Reproducibility (P), and Technologies (T):

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"Marketing via Email Solicitation by Predatory (and Legitimate) Journals: An Evaluation of Quality, Frequency and Relevance"

Warren Burggren et al. have published "Marketing via Email Solicitation by Predatory (and Legitimate) Journals: An Evaluation of Quality, Frequency and Relevance" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION Open access (OA) journals have proliferated in recent years. Many journals are highly reputable, delivering on the promise of open access to research as an alternative to traditional, subscription-based journals. Yet some OA journals border on, or clearly fall within, the realm of so-called "predatory journals." Most discussion of such journals has focused on the quality of articles published within them. Considerably less attention has been paid to the marketing practices of predatory journals—primarily their mass e-mailing—and to the impact that this practice may have on recipients' perception of OA journals as a whole. METHODS This study analyzed a subset of the 1,816 e-mails received by a single university biology faculty member during a 24-month period (2015 and 2016) with an update from December 2017 and January 2018. RESULTS Of those e-mails sent in 2015, approximately 37% were copies or near-copies of previous e-mail messages sent to the recipient, less than 25% of e-mails from predatory journals mentioned publication fees, only about 30% of soliciting journals were listed in DOAJ, and only about 4% had an identifiable impact factor. While most e-mails indicated a purported familiarity with, and respect for, the recipient, more than two thirds of the e-mails did not, implying use of mass-e-mailing methodologies. Almost 80% of the e-mail solicitations had grammar and/or spelling mistakes. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, only a staggeringly small 4% of e-mails were judged highly relevant to the recipient's area of expertise. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION In light of the marketing practices of many predatory journals, we advocate specific instructions for librarians, faculty mentors, and administrators of legitimate OA journals as they interact with new researchers, junior faculty, and other professionals learning how to discern the quality of journals that send direct e-mail solicitations.

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"Confused about Copyright? Assessing Researchers’ Comprehension of Copyright Transfer Agreements"

Alexandra Kohn and Jessica Lange have published "Confused about Copyright? Assessing Researchers' Comprehension of Copyright Transfer Agreements" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION Academic authors' confusion about copyright and publisher policy is often cited as a challenge to their effective sharing of their own published research, from having a chilling effect on selfarchiving in institutional and subject repositories, to leading to the posting of versions of articles on social networking sites in contravention of publisher policy and beyond. This study seeks to determine the extent to which authors understand the terms of these policies as expressed in publishers' copyright transfer agreements (CTAs), taking into account such factors as the authors' disciplines and publishing experience, as well as the wording and structure of these agreements. METHODS We distributed an online survey experiment to corresponding authors of academic research articles indexed in the Scopus database. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of two copyright transfer agreements and were subsequently asked to answer a series of questions about these agreements to determine their level of comprehension. The survey was sent to 3,154 participants, with 122 responding, representing a 4% response rate. Basic demographic information as well as information about participants' previous publishing experience was also collected. We analyzed the survey data using Ordinary Least Squared (OLS) regressions and probit regressions. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Participants demonstrated a low rate of understanding of the terms of the CTAs they were asked to read. Participants averaged a score of 33% on the survey, indicating a low comprehension level of author rights. This figure did not vary significantly, regardless of the respondents' discipline, time in academia, level of experience with publishing, or whether or not they had published previously with the publisher whose CTA they were administered. Results also indicated that participants did equally poorly on the survey regardless of which of the two CTAs they received. However, academic authors do appear to have a greater chance of understanding a CTA when a specific activity is explicitly outlined in the text of the agreement.

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"On the Value of Preprints: An Early Career Researcher Perspective"

Sarvenaz Sarabipour et al. have published "On the Value of Preprints: An Early Career Researcher Perspective" in PeerJ Preprints.

Here's an excerpt:

Peer-reviewed journal publication is the main means for academic researchers in the life sciences to create a permanent, public record of their work. These publications are also the de facto currency for career progress, with a strong link between journal brand recognition and perceived value. The current peer-review process can lead to long delays between submission and publication, with cycles of rejection, revision and resubmission causing redundant peer review. This situation creates unique challenges for early career researchers (ECRs), who rely heavily on timely publication of their work to gain recognition for their efforts. ECRs face changes in the academic landscape including the increased interdisciplinarity of life sciences research, expansion of the researcher population and consequent shifts in employer and funding demands. The publication of preprints, publicly available scientific manuscripts posted on dedicated preprint servers prior to journal managed peer-review, can play a key role in addressing these ECR challenges. Preprinting benefits include rapid dissemination of academic work, open access, establishing priority or concurrence, receiving feedback and facilitating collaborations. While there is a growing appreciation for and adoption of preprints, a minority of all articles in life sciences and medicine are preprinted. The current low rate of preprint submissions in life sciences and ECR concerns regarding preprinting needs to be addressed. We provide a perspective from an interdisciplinary group of early career researchers on the value of preprints and advocate the wide adoption of preprints to advance knowledge and facilitate career development.

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"Barriers, Incentives, and Benefits of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: An Exploration into Instructor Perspectives"

Serena Henderson and Nathaniel Ostashewski have published "Barriers, Incentives, and Benefits of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: An Exploration into Instructor Perspectives" in First Monday.

Here's an excerpt:

The purpose of this research was to replicate and extend Kursun, Cagiltay, and Can's (2014) Turkish study to include international participants. Kursun, et al. surveyed OpenCourseWare (OCW) faculty on their perceptions of OER barriers, incentives, and benefits. Through replication, these findings provide a glimpse into the reality of the international educators' perceptions of barriers, incentives, and benefits of OER use to assist in the creation of practical solutions and actions for both policy makers and educators alike. The results of this replication study indicate that barriers to OER include institutional policy, lack of incentives, and a need for more support and education in the creating, using, and sharing of instructional materials. A major benefit to OER identified by educators is the continued collegial atmosphere of sharing and lifelong learning.

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"Requirements for Transformative Open Access Agreements: Accelerating the Transition to Immediate and Worldwide Open Access"

Jisc has released "Requirements for Transformative Open Access Agreements: Accelerating the Transition to Immediate and Worldwide Open Access."

Here's an excerpt:

These requirements are for 2019 and are for hybrid journal agreements. The requirements may be updated to support changes in research funder policies. Jisc Collections will evaluate agreements against these requirements and make the results of the evaluation publicly available online. This evaluation will also make clear if an agreement is compliant with a research funders' policies and their implementation of Plan S.

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