Category: Publishing

"Conflicting Academic Attitudes to Copyright Are Slowing the Move to Open Access"

Francis Dodds has published "Conflicting Academic Attitudes to Copyright Are Slowing the Move to Open Access" in LSE Impact of Social Sciences.

Here's an excerpt:

Moreover, many researchers are concerned to protect the integrity of their work by restricting its potential use by others. Some studies suggest that many academics across both the sciences and humanities are opposed to commercial reuse, adaptations or inclusion of their work in anthologies (a particular aspect of humanities publishing), whilst there are mixed views about allowing data mining of their work. An example of these contrasting views is the bioRxiv site which hosts preprint papers in biology. A study of the site by Lindsay McKenzie (2017) found that over a third of authors had selected the most restrictive Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which bars commercial use and “derivative” works, including translations and annotations. Another 29% had not selected any license which, by default, reserved all rights in the work, requiring permission from the author for copying and reuse. It is noticeable that the Scholarly Communications License has been criticised by both publishers and academics as being too inflexible.

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"Uniform Resolution of Compact Identifiers for Biomedical Data"

Sarala M. Wimalaratne et al. have published "Uniform Resolution of Compact Identifiers for Biomedical Data" in Scientific Data.

Here's an excerpt:

Most biomedical data repositories issue locally-unique accessions numbers, but do not provide globally unique, machine-resolvable, persistent identifiers for their datasets, as required by publishers wishing to implement data citation in accordance with widely accepted principles. Local accessions may however be prefixed with a namespace identifier, providing global uniqueness. Such "compact identifiers" have been widely used in biomedical informatics to support global resource identification with local identifier assignment. We report here on our project to provide robust support for machine-resolvable, persistent compact identifiers in biomedical data citation, by harmonizing the Identifiers.org and N2T.net (Name-To-Thing) meta-resolvers and extending their capabilities. Identifiers.org services hosted at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory–European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), and N2T.net services hosted at the California Digital Library (CDL), can now resolve any given identifier from over 600 source databases to its original source on the Web, using a common registry of prefix-based redirection rules. We believe these services will be of significant help to publishers and others implementing persistent, machine-resolvable citation of research data.

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"The Academic Book and Its Digital Dilemmas"

Paul Spence, Senior Lecturer in Digital Humanities at King's College London, has published "The Academic Book and Its Digital Dilemmas" in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies.

Here's an excerpt:

Focusing in particular on the arts and humanities, this article asks how, and under what conditions, the digitally mediated long-form academic publication might hold a viable future. It examines digital disruption and innovation within humanities publishing, contrasts different models and outlines some of the key challenges facing scholarly publishing in the humanities. This article examines how non-traditional entities, such as digital humanities research projects, have performed digital publishing roles and reviews possible implications for scholarly book publishing's relationship to the wider research process. It concludes by looking at how digital or hybrid long-form publications might become more firmly established within the scholarly publishing landscape.

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"Exploring Possibilities to Use Bibliometric Data to Monitor Gold Open Access Publishing at the National Level"

Thed N. van Leeuwen et al. have published (Early View article) "Exploring Possibilities to Use Bibliometric Data to Monitor Gold Open Access Publishing at the National Level" in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.

Here's an excerpt:

This article1 describes the possibilities to analyze open access (OA) publishing in the Netherlands in an international comparative way . . . We conducted a bibliometric baseline measurement to assess the current situation, to be able to measure developments over time. . . . The analysis presented in this article focuses on the various ways OA can be defined using the Web of Science, limiting the analysis mainly to Gold OA. From the data we collected we can conclude that the way OA is currently registered in various electronic bibliographic databases is quite unclear, and various methods applied deliver results that are different, although the impact scores derived from the data point in the same direction.

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"Balancing Influence in a Shifting Scholarly Communication Landscape"

Sarah Wipperman, Shawn Martin, and Chealsye Bowley have published "Balancing Influence in a Shifting Scholarly Communication Landscape" in College & Research Libraries News.

Here's an excerpt:

With the acquisition and creation of scholarly communication platforms/infrastructure by major commercial entities, the balance of influence continues to shift. The ACRL/SPARC Forum at the 2018 ALA Midwinter Meeting brought together library stakeholders for a conversation about how the library community can reassert its influence to shape the open access publishing landscape. Panelists focused on 1) Individual action: "What can one person do?" 2) Local coordinated action: "How can one group or institution effect change?" and 3) Collective action: "How can libraries work together to provide sustainable alternatives?"1

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"North, South, and Open Access: Jeff MacKie-Mason Responds from California"

Richard Poynder has published "North, South, and Open Access: Jeff MacKie-Mason Responds from California" in Open and Shut?.

Here's an excerpt:

This is the final part of an experiment in a matched interview process. It consists of Q&As with two OA advocates, one from the global North [Jeff MacKie-Mason, UC Berkeley's University Librarian and Chief Digital Scholarship Officer] and one from the global South [Mahmoud Khalifa, Library of Congress Cairo Office], along with their responses to each other’s Q&A. . . .

[MacKie-Mason] I'd like to clarify my position just a bit: I think journal flipping is the only practical way of achieving *widespread* (near-universal) open access in the near term. I do think we can make some, important but limited progress with other models, such as new overlay journals on green OA repositories, and transferring ownership of some journals from subscription-based publishers to academy (e.g., university) ownership.

See also: "North, South, and Open Access: The View from California with Jeff MacKie-Mason"; "North, South, and Open Access: The View from Egypt with Mahmoud Khalifa"; and "North, South, and Open Access: Mahmoud Khalifa Responds from Egypt."

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"Data Sharing in PLOS ONE: An Analysis of Data Availability Statements"

Lisa M. Federer et al. have published "Data Sharing in PLOS ONE: An Analysis of Data Availability Statements" in PLOS ONE.

Here's an excerpt:

A number of publishers and funders, including PLOS, have recently adopted policies requiring researchers to share the data underlying their results and publications. Such policies help increase the reproducibility of the published literature, as well as make a larger body of data available for reuse and re-analysis. In this study, we evaluate the extent to which authors have complied with this policy by analyzing Data Availability Statements from 47,593 papers published in PLOS ONE between March 2014 (when the policy went into effect) and May 2016. Our analysis shows that compliance with the policy has increased, with a significant decline over time in papers that did not include a Data Availability Statement. However, only about 20% of statements indicate that data are deposited in a repository, which the PLOS policy states is the preferred method. More commonly, authors state that their data are in the paper itself or in the supplemental information, though it is unclear whether these data meet the level of sharing required in the PLOS policy. These findings suggest that additional review of Data Availability Statements or more stringent policies may be needed to increase data sharing.

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"Operationalizing the Replication Standard: A Case Study of the Data Curation and Verification Workflow for Scholarly Journals"

Thu-Mai Christian et al. have self-archived "Operationalizing the Replication Standard: A Case Study of the Data Curation and Verification Workflow for Scholarly Journals."

Here's an excerpt:

In response to widespread concerns about the integrity of research published in scholarly journals, several initiatives have emerged that are promoting research transparency through access to data underlying published scientific findings. Journal editors, in particular, have made a commitment to research transparency by issuing data policies that require authors to submit their data, code, and documentation to data repositories to allow for public access to the data. In the case of the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS) Data Replication Policy, the data also must undergo an independent verification process in which materials are reviewed for quality as a condition of final manuscript publication and acceptance. Aware of the specialized expertise of the data archives, AJPS called upon the Odum Institute Data Archive to provide a data review service that performs data curation and verification of replication datasets. This article presents a case study of the collaboration between AJPS and the Odum Institute Data Archive to develop a workflow that bridges manuscript publication and data review processes. The case study describes the challenges and the successes of the workflow integration, and offers lessons learned that may be applied by other data archives that are considering expanding their services to include data curation and verification services to support reproducible research.

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"The Types, Frequencies, and Findability of Disciplinary Grey Literature within Prominent Subject Databases and Academic Institutional Repositories"

Wanda R. Marsolek et al. have published "The Types, Frequencies, and Findability of Disciplinary Grey Literature within Prominent Subject Databases and Academic Institutional Repositories" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION In many disciplines grey literature, or works that are more ephemeral in nature and are not typically published through traditional scholarly channels, are heavily used alongside traditional materials and sources. We were interested in the type and frequency of grey literature in subject databases and in North American institutional repositories (IRs) as well as what disciplines use grey literature. METHODS Over 100 subject databases utilized by academic researchers and the IRs of over 100 academic institutions were studied. Document type, search capabilities, and level of curation were noted. RESULTS Grey literature was present in the majority (68%) of the literature databases and almost all IRs (95%) contained grey literature. DISCUSSION Grey literature was present in the subject databases across all broad disciplines including arts and humanities. In these resources the most common types of grey literature were conference papers, technical reports, and theses and dissertations. The findability of the grey literature in IRs varied widely as did evidence of active collection development. CONCLUSION Recommendations include the development of consistent metadata standards for grey literature to enhance searching within individual resources as well as supporting future interoperability. An increased level of collection development of grey literature in institutional repositories would facilitate preservation and increase the findability and reach of grey literature.

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"Library-Mediated Deposit: A Gift to Researchers or a Curse on Open Access? Reflections from the Case of Surrey"

Christine Antiope Daoutis et al. have published "Library-Mediated Deposit: A Gift to Researchers or a Curse on Open Access? Reflections from the Case of Surrey" in Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

The University of Surrey was one of the first universities to set up an open access repository. The Library was the natural stakeholder to lead this project. Over the years, the service has been influenced by external and internal factors, and consequently the Library's role in developing the OA agenda has changed. Here, we present the development and implementation of a fully mediated open access service at Surrey. The mediated workflow was introduced following an operational review, to ensure higher compliance and engagement from researchers. The size and responsibilities of the open access team in the Library increased to comply with internal and external policies and to implement the fully mediated workflow. As a result, there has been a growth in deposit rates and overall compliance. We discuss the benefits and shortcomings of Library mediation; its effects on the relationship between the Library, senior management and researchers, and the increasing necessity for the Library to lead towards a culture of openness beyond policy compliance.

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"National Licence Negotiations Advancing the Open Access Transition—A View from the UK"

Liam Earney has published "National Licence Negotiations Advancing the Open Access Transition—A View from the UK" in Insights.

Here's an excerpt:

Jisc Collections has had agreements with open access (OA) publishers since the mid-2000s. In 2014, following the UK government’s response to the Finch Report, it started to target hybrid OA via 'offsetting agreements' that covered both subscriptions and article processing charges for OA.

This article will provide a status update on OA negotiations in the UK in the context of the UK's progress towards OA. It will look at some of the concerns about the progress of OA in the UK, how negotiations have evolved in response, and will look at prospects for their future direction.

See also: "National Licence Negotiations Advancing the Open Access Transition—A View from Sweden."

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"Data-Driven Transition: Joint Reporting of Subscription Expenditure and Publication Costs"

Irene Barbers et al. have published "Data-Driven Transition: Joint Reporting of Subscription Expenditure and Publication Costs" in Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

The transition process from the subscription model to the open access model in the world of scholarly publishing brings a variety of challenges to libraries. Within this evolving landscape, the present article takes a focus on budget control for both subscription and publication expenditure with the opportunity to enable the shift from one to the other. To reach informed decisions with a solid base of data to be used in negotiations with publishers, the diverse already-existing systems for managing publications costs and for managing journal subscriptions have to be adapted to allow comprehensive reporting on publication expenditure and subscription expenditure. In the case presented here, two separate systems are described and the establishment of joint reporting covering both these systems is introduced. Some of the results of joint reporting are presented as an example of how such a comprehensive monitoring can support management decisions and negotiations. On a larger scale, the establishment of the National Open Access Monitor in Germany is introduced, bringing together a diverse range of data from several already-existing systems, including, among others, holdings information, usage data, and data on publication fees. This system will enable libraries to access all relevant data with a single user interface.

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"Death By 1,000 Cuts: Periodicals Price Survey 2018"

Stephen Bosch et al. have published "Death By 1,000 Cuts: Periodicals Price Survey 2018 in Library Journal."

Here's an excerpt:

The journals marketplace is a mature market in which demand and supply are in equilibrium. While the original e-journal big deal pricing model of maintaining the current spend with a publisher plus a pro rata amount to access additional content did expand offerings to libraries, it did not address the underlying funding problems and in many cases made them worse. The growth of Gold Open Access… addressed access to content but compounded budget issues by adding additional costs.

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