Open Access – Page 78

"Maximizing the Benefits of Open Access: Strategies for Enhancing the Discovery of Open Access Content"

Maria Bonn has published "Maximizing the Benefits of Open Access: Strategies for Enhancing the Discovery 0f Open Access Content" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

To achieve some economies of scale in library acquisition of OA publications, we should leverage the library crown and work the library network. There's no point in libraries all over the world laboriously replicating the same work of evaluation, selection, and acquisition when they have the tools, methods, and community to work in collaboration. Subject specialists might organize themselves in clusters to share the initial work of discovery and establish criteria for evaluation that can be collectively trusted

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"’Predatory’ Open Access: A Longitudinal Study of Article Volumes and Market Characteristics"

Cenyu Shen and Bo-Christer Björk have published "'Predatory' Open Access: A Longitudinal Study of Article Volumes and Market Characteristics" in BMC Medicine.

Here's an excerpt:

Despite a total number of journals and publishing volumes comparable to respectable (indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals) open access journals, the problem of predatory open access seems highly contained to just a few countries, where the academic evaluation practices strongly favor international publication, but without further quality checks.

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"An Interview with Peter Suber on Open Access"

Cheryl LaGuardia has published "An Interview with Peter Suber on Open Access" in Library Journal.

Here's an excerpt:

Because hybrid is no-risk, it has spread like wildfire. I used to think that was good, since at least it gave publishers first-hand experience with the economics of fee-based OA journals. But I changed my mind about that years ago

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Making Open Science a Reality

The OECD has released Making Open Science a Reality.

Here's an excerpt:

This report, Making open science a reality reviews the progress in OECD countries in making the results of publicly funded research, namely scientific publications and research data openly accessible to researchers and innovators alike. The report i) reviews the policy rationale behind open science and open data; ii) discusses and presents evidence on the impacts of policies to promote open science and open data; iii) explores the legal barriers and solutions to greater access to research data; iv) provides a description of the key actors involved in open science and their roles; and finally v) assesses progress in OECD and selected non-member countries based a survey of recent policy trends.

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Creative Commons Gets $450,000 Arcadia Fund Grant to support Open Access Publishing

The Creative Commons has received a $450,000 grant from the Arcadia Fund support open access publishing.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

Creative Commons will use funds from Arcadia to develop tools that complement the current CC license suite and empower authors to retain or regain their right to publish so they can make their scholarly and academic works available for public use.

Building on the success of the current CC licenses—now with nearly 1 billion licenses in use across over 9 million websites—Creative Commons is enthusiastic about developing tools that can be used by authors who "write to be read" but face all too common barriers to making their research openly available. These resources will be developed for global use, taking into account country-specific copyright laws, customs, and language. Once in widespread use, these tools are expected to increase the number of articles and publications that are available for broad public use. . . .

Collaborators on this project include Authors Alliance, Free Culture Trust, and SPARC, all of whom are dedicated to supporting authors, institutions, and the public in promoting access to research and scholarly work.

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Monitoring the Transition to Open Access: A Report for the Universities UK Open Access Co-ordination Group

The Universities UK's Open Access Co-ordination Group has released Monitoring the Transition to Open Access: A Report for the Universities UK Open Access Co-ordination Group.

Here's an excerpt:

This study was commissioned in response to a recommendation of the Finch Group in its second report in 2013 that reliable indicators should be gathered on key features of the transition to open access (OA) in the UK. The findings presented here are thus a first attempt at generating such indicators covering five sets of issues:

OA options available to authors . . . .

Accessibility. . . .

Usage. . . .

Financial sustainability for universities . . . .

Financial sustainability for learned societies

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"Campus Open Access Funds: Experiences of the KU ‘One University’ Open Access Author Fund"

Rachel Gyore et al. have published "Campus Open Access Funds: Experiences of the KU 'One University' Open Access Author Fund" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

This report documents the group's experience in developing eligibility criteria and administering the OA Fund. Here we provide insight into our efforts implementing the project, funding results, and plans for continuation. We share the results of the first two years of the OA Author Fund pilot and the lessons learned about open access fund administration.

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"The Presence of High-impact Factor Open Access Journals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM) Disciplines"

Annarita Barbara et al. have published "The Presence of High-impact Factor Open Access Journals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM) Disciplines" in the Italian Journal of Library, Archives, and Information Science.

Here's an excerpt:

The present study means to establish to what extent high-quality open access journals are available as an outlet for publication, by examining their distribution in different scientific disciplines, including the distribution of those journals without article processing charges. The study is based on a systematic comparison between the journals included in the DOAJ, and the journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Science edition 2013, released by Thomson Reuters. The impact factor of Open Access (OA) journals was lower than those of other journals by a small but statistically significant amount. Open access journals are present in the upper quartile (by impact factor) of 85 out of 176 (48.8%) categories examined. There were no OA journals with an Impact Factor in only 16 categories (9%).

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"The Gold OA Landscape 2011-2014"

Walt Crawford has published "The Gold OA Landscape 2011-2014" in Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large.

Here's an excerpt:

This issue consists of an excerpted version of The Gold OA Landscape 2011- 2014, published September 10, 2015 as a PDF ebook for $55.00 and on September 11, 2015 as a paperback book for $60.00. . . .

This book represents the first overview of essentially all of serious gold OA—that is, what's published by the journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals. I believe it's important for all OA publishers and for many libraries and OA advocates. If it does well, or if there's some form of alternative funding, I'll continue tracking the field in the future.

The issue—starting with the first numbered section below—includes a little more than one-third of what's in the book (a little more than half the text, but none of the 69 graphs, and probably less than half of the many, many tables), I believe these excerpts are useful on their own, and enough to provide a reasonably good picture of gold OA in 2011-2014- but they're not the whole story. For that, you'll have to buy the book.

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"Optimizing Open Access Policy "

Stevan Harnad has self-archived "Optimizing Open Access Policy."

Here's an excerpt:

This overview of the current status of Open Access (OA) to peer-reviewed research describes the steps that need to be taken to achieve universal OA. . . . To accelerate progress, more institutions and funders need to adopt more effective OA mandates: All universities and funders should require (1) institutional deposit (2) immediately upon acceptance for publication; urge (but not require) (3) immediate OA and (4) rights-retention; (5) minimize allowable embargo length, (6) implement the copy-request Button; (7) provide rich usage and citation metrics and (8) designate repository deposit of publications as the locus for institutional performance review as well as funding applications and renewals.

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"Data Rights and Responsibilities: A Human Rights Perspective on Data Sharing"

Theresa L. Harris and Jessica M. Wyndham have published "Data Rights and Responsibilities: A Human Rights Perspective on Data Sharing " in the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics.

Here's an excerpt:

A human-rights-based analysis can be a useful tool for the scientific community and policy makers as they develop codes of conduct, harmonized standards, and national policies for data sharing. The human rights framework provides a shared set of values and norms across borders, defines rights and responsibilities of various actors involved in data sharing, addresses the potential harms as well as the benefits of data sharing, and offers a framework for balancing competing values. The right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications offers a particularly helpful lens through which to view data as both a tool of scientific inquiry to which access is vital and as a product of science from which everyone should benefit.

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Dspace@MIT: 17,400 Articles Deposited and over 3.3 Million Downloads

MIT's Dspace@MIT has had 17,400 articles deposited and over 3.3 million downloads.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

A new milestone was reached in collecting articles under the MIT Faculty Open Access Policy : 43% of the articles published by faculty since they adopted their Policy are now being shared through the Open Access Articles Collection in Dspace@MIT.

As of the end of July 2015, downloads of the 17,400 articles deposited in relation to the Policy topped 3.3 million, with over 83,500 downloads during the month.

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"The Share of Open Access Journals (OAJ) and Open Access Articles (OAA) Charging Article Processing Charges (APC). Data from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) 2013 to 2015"

Falk Reckling has published "The Share of Open Access Journals (OAJ) and Open Access Articles (OAA) Charging Article Processing Charges (APC). Data from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) 2013 to 2015" in The Journal of Brief Ideas.

Here's an excerpt:

83.0% (186) of the OAJ charge APC, while 17.0% (38) of the OAJ don't. On the article level, 93.6% (683) of the articles were published with and 6.4% (47) without APC.

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"The Rutgers Open Access Policy: Implementation Planning for Success"

Laura Bowering Mullen and Jane Johnson Otto have self-archived "The Rutgers Open Access Policy: Implementation Planning for Success."

Here's an excerpt:

At Rutgers University, an open access resolution was passed by the University Senate in October, 2012, and was codified in the official Rutgers University Policy Library in October, 2014. All of the work that the authors coordinated to get to the point of passing the policy was only the beginning of making open access a reality at Rutgers. Since the date that the policy has passed, the authors have been leading an implementation effort (using an established timeline) which includes a new web portal for scholarship, as well as developing materials and presentations for various open access policy-focused education and outreach efforts.. . . The authors provide background and a case study to illustrate the implementation efforts underway as Rutgers comes closer to the official date that the policy will go into effect university-wide on Sept. 1, 2015.

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"Barriers to Open Access Publishing: Views from the Library Literature"

Amy Forrester has published "Barriers to Open Access Publishing: Views from the Library Literature" in Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

The library and information science (LIS) community has an active role in supporting access to information and, therefore, is an important stakeholder in the open access conversation. One major discussion involves the barriers that have hindered the complete transition to open access in scientific publications. Building upon a longitudinal study by Bo-Christer Björk that looked at barriers to the open access publishing of scholarly articles, this study evaluates the discussion of those barriers in the LIS literature over the ten year period 2004-2014, and compares this to Björk's conclusions about gold open access publishing.

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"Open Access to a High-Quality, Impartial, Point-of-Care Medical Summary Would Save Lives: Why Does It Not Exist?"

James Heilman has published "Open Access to a High-Quality, Impartial, Point-of-Care Medical Summary Would Save Lives: Why Does It Not Exist?" in PLOS Medicine.

Here's an excerpt:

Summary Points

Currently no open access point-of-care (POC) medical summary aimed at a professional audience exists.

Some nonprofit and multiple professional, for-profit POC medical summaries are frequently accessed by clinicians and policymakers.

Efforts to create open access POC summaries have been stymied by the difficulty of attracting high-quality contributors.

The open access medical publishing community can create this resource with engaged donors, crowd-sourcing, and technology.

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Open Science, Open Questions

IBICT and Unirio have released Open Science, Open Questions.

Here's an excerpt:

It is hoped that this publication will provide an overview of topics and issues that both trace and permeate the topic of open science nowadays from different perspectives and points of view. Above all, it is hoped that it might instigate further reflection and foster new ways of producing and circulating knowledge. Thus, it is geared not only towards the academic world, but also to a broader range of social actors that concern themselves with the democratisation of knowledge and information.

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"Is it True that Most Open Access Journals Do Not Charge an APC? Sort of. It Depends."

David Crotty has published "Is it True that Most Open Access Journals Do Not Charge an APC? Sort of. It Depends." in The Scholarly Kitchen.

Here's an excerpt:

Most journals in the study ["72% and 41%: A Gold OA 2011-2014 Preview"] do not charge authors, but the majority of authors are choosing to publish in journals that do charge. 27% (2,365) of the journals studied required an APC and were responsible for 57% of the articles.

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Enquiries Into Intellectual Property’s Economic Impact

OECD has released Enquiries Into Intellectual Property's Economic Impact.

Here's an excerpt from "Chapter 7: Legal Aspects of Open Access to Publicly Funded Research":

To explain the interplay between open access and IP laws, this chapter provides an overview of the IP regimes that protect research outputs in a sample of OECD jurisdictions. It then reviews the open access policies that are in place in some of those jurisdictions and examines two contexts in which IP questions can arise when open access principles are applied: public/private partnerships and text and data mining.

Also of interest: "Chapter 5: Copyright in the Digital Era: Country Studies."

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"Open Journal Systems and Dataverse Integration—Helping Journals to Upgrade Data Publication for Reusable Research"

Micah Altman et al. have self-archived "Open Journal Systems and Dataverse Integration—Helping Journals to Upgrade Data Publication for Reusable Research."

Here's an excerpt:

This article describes the novel open source tools for open data publication in open access journal workflows. This comprises a plugin for Open Journal Systems that supports a data submission, citation, review, and publication workflow; and an extension to the Dataverse system that provides a standard deposit API. We describe the function and design of these tools, provide examples of their use, and summarize their initial reception. We conclude by discussing future plans and potential impact.

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The Once and Future Publishing Library

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released The Once and Future Publishing Library .

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The report explores the revitalization of library publishing and its possible future, and examines elements that influence the success and sustainability of library publishing initiatives.

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"Small Steps Matter: FASTR Passes Senate Committee Hurdle"

SPARC has released Small Steps Matter: FASTR Passes Senate Committee Hurdle by Heather Joseph.

Here's an excerpt:

With its action today, the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) advanced the cause of public access to publicly funded research articles another crucial step. In a unanimous voice vote, the Committee approved S. 779, the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act which now positions the legislation to be considered by the full Senate.

This marks the first time that a U.S. Senate Committee has acted on a government-wide policy ensuring public access to the results of publicly funded research and signals that there is deep support for the ideal that taxpayers have the right to access to the research that their tax dollars fund. This action continues the steady march towards enabling fast, barrier-free access to research articles that got its start with the establishment of a voluntary NIH policy in 2005, and slowly progressed with legislation shifting that policy to mandatory in 2008, again in 2010 with the America COMPETES Act and most recently with the 2013 White House OSTP Directive on public access. . . .

Today's progress on FASTR is another step in this long march. Under the leadership of Senator Cornyn (R-TX) and Senator Wyden (D-OR), FASTR provides the statutory framework needed codify the White House OSTP Directive, which was issued with the goal of accelerating scientific discovery and fueling innovation. While 13 federal agencies and departments have released their initial plans, the reality is that the OSTP Directive is not law, and can be easily overturned by a subsequent Administration. Should FASTR continue on course and be passed by both chambers of Congress, free, fair public access to research articles will become the law of the land – and not just the preference a President.

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Take Action: Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act Being Marked Up

The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act is being marked up.

Here's an excerpt from the SPARC announcement:

After a month of intense conversations and negotiations, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) will bring the "Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act" up for mark-up on Wednesday, July 29th. The language that will be considered is an amended version of FASTR, officially known as the 'Johnson-Carper Substitute Amendment,' which was officially filed by the HSGAC leadership late on Friday afternoon, per committee rules.

There are two major changes from the original bill language to be particularly aware of. Specifically, the amendment

Replaces the six month embargo period with "no later than 12 months, but preferably sooner," as anticipated; and

Provides a mechanism for stakeholders to petition federal agencies to 'adjust' the embargo period if the 12 months does not serve "the public, industries, and the scientific community."

To support the bill and communicate your concerns, see: "Help Move FASTR" "Secure Open Access to Taxpayer-Funded Research"

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"’Total Cost of Ownership’ of Scholarly Communication: Managing Subscription and APC Payments Together"

Stuart Lawson has self-archived "'Total Cost of Ownership' of Scholarly Communication: Managing Subscription and APC Payments Together."

Here's an excerpt:

Managing subscription journals and open access charges together has created challenges which may in part be dealt with by offsetting the two revenue streams against each other. In order to do this, it is necessary to have reliable financial data about the extent of the two interacting markets. Jisc Collections has been undertaking data collection regarding universities' article publication charge (APC) expenditure. This process is difficult without a standardized way of recording data, so Jisc Collections has developed a standard data collection template and is helping institutions to release data openly. If available data become more comprehensive and transparent, then all parties (libraries, publishers, research funders, and intermediaries) will have better knowledge of the APC market and can more accurately predict the effects of offsetting.

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"SHARE Community Stakeholders Convene Working Meeting in Washington, DC"

SHARE has released "SHARE Community Stakeholders Convene Working Meeting in Washington, DC."

Here's an excerpt:

Accomplishments since the first SHARE Community Meeting in October 2014 include the DuraSpace webinar series, launch of the share-research.org website and the SHARE Notify beta, and surpassing the milestone of one million research release events included in SHARE Notify. Currently in the works are partnerships with IRIS [http://iris.isr.umich.edu/] and ORCID and a pending grant proposal to fund Phase II of SHARE.

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