Publishing – Page 14 – DigitalKoans

"Unreviewed Science in the News: The Evolution of Preprint Media Coverage from 2014-2021"

It has been argued that preprint coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a paradigm shift in journalism norms and practices. This study examines whether, in what ways, and to what extent this is the case using a sample of 11,538 preprints posted on four preprint servers—bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, and SSRN—that received coverage in 94 English-language media outlets between 2014-2021. We compared mentions of these preprints with mentions of a comparison sample of 397,446 peer reviewed research articles indexed in the Web of Science to identify changes in the share of media coverage that mentioned preprints before and during the pandemic. We found that preprint media coverage increased at a slow but steady rate pre-pandemic, then spiked dramatically. This increase applied only to COVID-19-related preprints, with minimal or no change in coverage of preprints on other topics. In addition, the rise in preprint coverage was most pronounced among health and medicine-focused media outlets, which barely covered preprints before the pandemic but mentioned more COVID-19 preprints than outlets focused on any other topic. These results suggest that the growth in coverage of preprints seen during the pandemic period may imply a shift in journalistic norms, including a changing outlook on reporting preliminary, unvetted research.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.10.548392

"The Relationship between University Presses, E-Book Vendors, and Academic Libraries: A Platform Theory Analysis"

We investigate the relations among university presses, academic libraries, and e-book vendors, by examining university presses’ perceptions of academic libraries and e-book vendors, and presses’ perceptions of themselves and the university press community. Findings are drawn from one-on-one interviews with 19 participants from 18 different university presses in the United States during 2020–2021. We observe a market structure for HSS e-books where most presses were satisfied with Big Four e-book vendors, including Project MUSE, EBSCO, ProQuest, and JSTOR, and lacked strong incentives to search for new e-book vendors. We find that most presses often treat libraries, including the one from the same institution, as their customers with limited interactions; findings also show university presses’ varied self-imaging, along with a shared perception about the collegiality of the university press community.

https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006231185883

The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy: How Publishers and Platforms Have Reshaped the Way We Read in the Digital Age

This report explains that, while there is nothing new about publishers’ desire to seek novel ways to increase revenues, along with control and surveillance of readers, the new publisher-platform partnership creates a mechanism to align the ebook market with those goals. That new market alignment raises questions about whether these shifts are the best option for readers and institutional book buyers, particularly libraries. It also raises questions about how the newest players in the market — ebook distribution platforms — shape things to align with their own interests.

In order to fully understand the dynamics at play, we interviewed over 30 stakeholders that fill various essential roles in the ebook marketplace, from publishers to platform CEOs to literary agents, librarians, and lawyers. We discussed the priorities, concerns, and constraints that help shape their participation in the ebook marketplace. Our goal was to understand and document how this world looks through their eyes, and synthesize those views into broader conclusions.

https://tinyurl.com/4762bbyv

Report on Standards for Best Publishing Practices and Technical Requirements in Light of the FAIR Principles

This report has provided an overview of the current state of scholarly publishing practices and technical requirements in the context of FAIR principles. The report highlights the importance of interoperability to enable discoverability, reuse, and reproducibility of research outputs. In addition to creating an initial connection between scholarly publishing practices and the technical requirements of the FAIR principles, this is (as far as we know) the first attempt to systematically collect and compare the different requirements set by the selected policies and services with each other. From the perspective of a publisher, it would be desirable for the requirements set by different actors to be aligned (so as not to be incompatible with each other), and offer some degree of progression in compliance and implementation so that it is not a matter of all or nothing. This is particularly relevant for the requirements set by DOAJ and cOAlition S, which are essential for most OA journals to fulfil. The requirements criteria set by both of these organisations include both basic and recommended levels. Based on our review, we found that they are well-aligned. If a journal fulfils the requirements of one, it will fulfil a number of requirements of the other.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8112661

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

CNRS: "Publication Costs — ‘We Are on the Edge of the Abyss’"

Alain Schuhl, the Deputy CEO for Science at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS):

A recent prospective study in France run by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research reported that France paid almost €30 million in APCs in 2020. The same study suggests that at this rate of increase France could be paying €50 million in APCs by 2030 or even nearly €200 million [about $219,907,000] if all scientific publications have switched to the author-pays model by then. This amount is far higher than the budget of the subscription-based model which is already excessively expensive.

https://tinyurl.com/3xfkz79h

"Open Access Author Contracts and Alignment with the Open Ethos: A Global Study"

Author contracts in scholarly publishing serve to outline the rights and permissions for each party in the use and redistribution of a work throughout the life of its copyright term. Although rights and licensing expectations for open access publishing—the “open access ethos”—have been detailed in the Budapest Declaration, Plan S Principles, and other documentation, studies that explore the implementation of these ideals in contracts between authors and publishers have been limited in focus and scope. This study seeks to initiate a holistic approach toward evaluating open access journal agreements that is not limited by region or discipline, with the aim of discerning best practices as well as delineating common points of deviation. The authors distributed a survey to contacts from journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), including both journals with and without a DOAJ Seal. The results suggest that DOAJ Seal status is central to alignment with the open access ethos and that there is more misunderstanding about the importance of copyright and licensing terms than shown in previous research. This research contributes to discussions pursuing a future of open access publishing that supports authors’ rights as a central tenet.

https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.4.605

"Archiving Website-Based References in Academic Papers: Problems Caused by Reference Rot, Potential Solutions and Limitations"

With this background in mind, this paper has three objectives. First, it provides several examples of studies that have attempted to quantify or characterize reference rot of web-based references, and consequences of this phenomenon. Second, we provide a short practical ‘manual’ that would allow academics or editors to manually archive web-based references at the Internet Archive. Third, we assess some technical and practical suggestions for improving the landscape of digital information preservation while taking into account human and technological limitations.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1560

"Article Processing Charges for Open Access Journal Publishing: A Review"

This paper reviews literature on article processing charges (APCs) that has been published since 2000. Despite praise for diamond OA journals, which charge no fees, most OA articles are published by commercial publishers that charge APCs. Publishers fix APCs depending on the reputation assigned to journals by peers. Evidence shows a relationship between high impact metrics and higher, faster rising APCs. Authors express reluctance about APCs, although this varies by discipline depending on previous experience of paying publication fees and the availability of research grants to cover them. Authors rely on a mix of research grants, library funds and personal assets to pay the charges. Two major concerns have been raised in relation to APCs: the inability of poorly funded authors to publish research and their impact on journal quality. Waivers have not solved the first issue. Research shows little extension of waiver use, unintended side effects on co-author networks and concerns regarding criteria to qualify for them. Bibliometric studies concur that journals that charge APCs have a similar citation impact to journals that rely on other income sources.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1558

Replacing Academic Journals

Replacing traditional journals with a more modern solution is not a new idea. Here, we propose ways to overcome the social dilemma underlying the decades of inaction. Any solution needs to not only resolve the current problems but also be capable of preventing takeover by corporations: it needs to replace traditional journals with a decentralized, resilient, evolvable network that is interconnected by open standards and open-source norms under the governance of the scholarly community. It needs to replace the monopolies connected to journals with a genuine, functioning and well-regulated market. In this new market, substitutable service providers compete and innovate according to the conditions of the scholarly community, avoiding sustained vendor lock-in. Therefore, a standards body needs to form under the governance of the scholarly community to allow the development of open scholarly infrastructures servicing the entire research workflow. We propose a redirection of money from legacy publishers to the new network by funding bodies broadening their minimal infrastructure requirements at recipient institutions to include modern infrastructure components replacing and complementing journal functionalities. Such updated eligibility criteria by funding agencies would help realign the financial incentives for recipient institutions with public and scholarly interest.

Ownership involves socially recognized economic rights, first and foremost the exclusive control over that property, with the self-efficacy it affords. The inability to exert such control over crucial components of their scholarly infrastructure in the face of a generally recognized need for action for over three decades now, evinces the dramatic erosion of real ownership rights for the scholarly community over said infrastructure. Thus, this proposal is motivated not only by the now very urgent need to restore such ownership to the scholarly community, but also by the understanding that through their funding bodies, scholars may have an effective and proven avenue at their disposal to identify game-changing actions and to design a financial incentive structure for recipient institutions that can help realize the restoration of ownership, with the goal to implement open digital infrastructures that are as effective and as invisible as their non-digital counterparts.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5526634

"Threats of Mass Resignation from Board of Elsevier Journal"

Peter Lloyd, professor of design methodology at the Delft University of Technology, was told in an email sent last month that his term as editor in chief of Design Studies was ending. . . .

But in the February email, executive publisher Lily Khidr set a target of publishing 250 papers in 2023. At the time, Lloyd pushed back on the target as "unrealistic" and said he wanted to grow acceptances to a more modest 50 a year.

Now Elsevier’s decision to replace him with Cara Wrigley, professor of design innovation at the University of Queensland, has provoked a rebellion among the journal’s editorial board. Critics have highlighted that Wrigley has not previously published or been involved with the journal and is not a member of its parent society.

https://tinyurl.com/2v9adf5u

"Exploring Faculty Perspectives on Open Access at a Medium-Sized, American Doctoral University"

Faculty hold widely varying perspectives on the benefits and challenges afforded by open access (OA) publishing. In the United States, conversations on OA models and strategy have been dominated by scholars affiliated with Carnegie R1 institutions. This article reports findings from interviews conducted with faculty at a Carnegie R2 institution, highlighting disciplinary and individual perspectives on the high costs and rich rewards afforded by OA. The results reiterate the persistence of a high degree of skepticism regarding the quality of peer review and business models associated with OA publishing. By exploring scholars’ perceptions of and experiences with OA publishing and their comfort using or sharing unpublished, publicly available content, the authors highlight the degree to which OA approaches must remain flexible, iterative and multifaceted — no single solution can begin to accommodate the rich and varying needs of individual stakeholders.

https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.620

"What Those Responsible for Open Infrastructure in Scholarly Communication Can Do about Possibly Predatory Practices"

This chapter presents a three-phase analysis of the 521 journals that use the open source publishing platform Open Journal Systems (OJS) while appearing on Beall’s list of predatory publishers and journals and/or in Cabells Predatory Reports, both of which purport to identify journals that charge authors article processing fees (APC) to publish in the pretense of a peer-reviewed journal. . . . The first phase involved the researchers reaching out to publishers and editors on Beall’s list using OJS; the second phase involves determining the extent to which journals using OJS appeared on the two predatory lists, and the third reports on a new system, involving trade organizations, such ORCID and Crossref, for authenticating journal practices.

https://tinyurl.com/2xwb94ue

Paywall: The Strategic Marketing of Science, Technology, and Medical Journals: A Business History of a Dynamic Marketplace, 2000–2020

This book analyzes the various economic and marketing strategies utilized by the five major STM commercial scholarly journal publishers since 2000. This period has witnessed tremendous economic, marketing, and technological growth including the migration from a print only to a hybrid publishing format. With this growth, the industry has also seen the rise of open access publishing, copyright challenges by websites such as Sci-Hub, the emergence of sharing platforms such as ResearchGate and Academia.edu, as well as the impact of Plan S on publishers, universities, and authors.. . . Scrutinizing the different managerial, marketing, technology, and economic-financial strategies crafted by scholarly journal publishers between 2000-2020, this book offers a comprehensive assessment of the industry’s attempts to identify, understand, cope with, and minimize or defeat the herculean threats to its business model.

https://tinyurl.com/5n6rd8xy

"The Status of Open Access Repositories in the Field of Technology: Insights from OpenDOAR"

The study found that 125 nations contributed a total of 4,045 repositories in the field of research, with the USA leading the list with the most repositories. Maximum repositories were operated by institutions having multidisciplinary approaches. The DSpace and Eprints were the preferred software types for repositories. The preferred upload content by contributors was "research articles" and "electronic thesis and dissertations."

https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-11-2022-0119

"Mapping the German Diamond Open Access Journal Landscape"

In the current scientific and political discourse surrounding the transformation of the scientific publication system, significant attention is focused on Diamond Open Access (OA). This article explores the potential and challenges of Diamond OA journals, using Germany as a case study. Two questions are addressed: first, the current role of such journals in the scientific publication system is determined through bibliometric analysis across various disciplines. Second, an investigation is conducted to assess the sustainability of Diamond OA journals and identify associated structural problems or potential breaking points. This investigation includes an in-depth expert interview study involving 20 editors of Diamond OA journals. The empirical results are presented using a landscape map that considers two dimensions: ‘monetized and gift-based completion of tasks’ and ‘journal team size.’ The bibliometric analysis reveals a substantial number of Diamond OA journals in the social sciences and humanities, but limited adoption in other fields. The model proves effective for small to mid-sized journals, but not for larger ones. Additionally, it was found that 23 Diamond OA journals have recently discontinued their operations. The expert interviews demonstrate the usefulness of the two dimensions in understanding key differences. Journals in two of the four quadrants of the map exemplify sustainable conditions, while the other two quadrants raise concerns about long-term stability. These concerns include limited funding leading to a lack of division of labor and an excessive burden on highly committed members. These findings underscore the need for the development of more sustainable funding models to ensure the success of Diamond OA journals.

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.13080

Diamond OA 2023: The World of No-Fee OA Publishing

Diamond OA 2023: The World of No-Fee OA Publishing is now available as an $8 trade paperback or a free PDF ebook.

This new study is based on the no-fee portion of the dataset for Gold Open Access 2017-2022 [GOA8]. A little tentative original added research looks at apparent funding/sponsorship sources for no-fee journals that are not published by universities, societies or government. (Spoiler alert: in about 98% of the cases, that is, those published by traditional and open access publishers, funding appears to be from either universities and academia or from societies and government.)

This book offers overviews and tables by subject and size of journals, but most of the book is "the world"—regional profiles with notes on countries with one to nine diamond journals, and 75 profiles of countries with ten or more such journals.

https://tinyurl.com/3zasrd65

"ResearchGate and Wiley Expand Partnership to Encompass Majority of Publisher’s Open Access Portfolio"

Under the agreement, 519 journal titles, including the entire open access portfolios of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and all Hindawi titles, will now benefit from an enhanced presence on ResearchGate through its new Journal Home offering.

With Journal Home, all version-of-record content from these titles, including newly published articles, will be syndicated to ResearchGate. Additionally, dedicated journal profiles are activated and made accessible throughout the ResearchGate platform with each journal prominently represented on all its associated article pages and at all other relevant touch points with members.

https://tinyurl.com/54ftv8am

"Springer Nature Group Annual Progress Report 2021 Released"

Data from global research publisher Springer Nature details the visibility and value it’s providing to researchers, authors and editors around the world. Its latest annual progress report, covering 2022, shows:

Springer Nature has now published more than 1.25 million open access articles, and is on track for half of its research article output to be open access by the end of 2024.

Open access research published in its hybrid portfolio within a transformative agreement grew three times faster than that published outside of one.

Product and technology investments grew 13% year-on-year, and reached €370 million over the past three years. Springer Nature’s platforms now support 7.9 million downloads every day — that’s 92 every second.

Average downloads per article are up 80% from 2018 to 2021, and average citations growing more than 40% over the same period, delivering increased impact and value for money.

https://tinyurl.com/2253fpev

Full Report

"SSP Conference Debate: AI and the Integrity of Scholarly Publishing"

At the annual meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing held in Portland, Oregon last month, the closing plenary session was a formal debate on the proposition "Resolved: Artificial intelligence will fatally undermine the integrity of scholarly publishing." Arguing in favor of the proposition was Tim Vines, founder of DataSeer and a Scholarly Kitchen Chef. Arguing against was Jessica Miles, Vice President for Strategy and Investments at Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.

https://tinyurl.com/ururdfvw

Paywall: "Comparison of COVID-19 Preprint and Peer-Reviewed Versions of Studies on Therapies for Critically Ill Patients"

One article (4.8%, 95% CI 0.12%-23.8%) had a change in the primary outcome. Seven articles (33.3%, 95% CI 14.6%-57.0%) had a change in the primary outcome’s effect measure. Five studies (23.8%, 95% CI 8.2%-47.2%) had changes in statistical significance of at least one secondary outcome. Four studies (19.0%, 95% CI 5.4%-41.9%) had a change in study conclusion.

https://doi.org/10.1177/08850666231182563

"The State of the Field: An Excerpt From the 2023 Library Publishing Directory"

The most common material types reported in 2023 were journals (89%), conference papers and proceedings (80%), theses and dissertations (75%), educational resources (66%), and monographs (60%). Under half of respondents (46%) reported publishing datasets. Other material types reported include gray literature, newsletters, multimedia, expansive digital publications, and databases. . . . Over 80% of respondents provide copyright support and DOI assignment. Over half provide metadata services (71%), author advisory services (66%), training (66%), ISSN registry (64%), hosting of supplemental content (60%), cataloging (56%), and analytics (55%). The decline in the number of library publishers providing digitization services holds steady with 49% of respondents in 2023 identifying it as one of their services.

https://tinyurl.com/yhwp4pph

Access the entire directory.

"Bibliometrics Methods in Detecting Citations to Questionable Journals"

This paper intends to analyse whether journals that had been removed from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) in 2018 due to suspected misconduct were cited within journals indexed in the Scopus database. Our analysis showed that Scopus contained over 15 thousand references to the removed journals identified.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102749

"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

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

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