Scholarly Journals – Page 2

"How Balanced Is Multilingualism in Scholarly Journals? A Global Analysis Using the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Database"

The concept of balanced multilingualism aims to establish “instruments for documenting and measuring the use of language for all the different purposes in research, thereby providing the basis for the monitoring of further globalization of research in a more responsible direction” (Sivertsen, 2018, p. 2). However, an analysis of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the largest database of fully open access journals produced in 130 countries, does not show balanced multilingualism in the global landscape. The DOAJ promotes linguistic diversity by indexing journals in 80 languages, including dialectal variations, indigenous languages, and languages spoken by less than 50,000 speakers (eg, Aragonese). In this article, we present the main trends related to the languages in which journals publish their full-text contributions to respond to this unbalanced landscape. We conducted a descriptive analysis of the 17,564 journals listed in the DOAJ (July 2023). Our findings show that 65% (11,331) of the journals listed publish only in one language, and 35% (6,234) publish in two, three, and up to 16 languages. Our research also shows that 50% of the multilingual journals are based in Asia, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.6448

"’Does It Feel like a Scientific Paper?’: A Qualitative Analysis of Preprint Servers’ Moderation and Quality Assurance Processes"

In recent years, preprints—i.e., scholarly manuscripts that have not been peer reviewed or published in a journal—have emerged as a major source of research communication and a critical component of open science. However, concerns have been raised about preprints’ potential to facilitate the spread of flawed or misleading research due to the lack of quality control performed by preprint servers. Yet, there is limited knowledge of how servers currently vet incoming content and how this impacts the openness and diversity of scholarly content. In this paper, we examine preprint servers’ moderation processes, the intentions underpinning them, and their potential effects through a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with 14 key preprint server personnel. We find a wide range of moderation processes, which vary depending on specific server contexts and needs and are motivated by a desire to prevent the spread of misinformation and protect trust in preprints and servers. Participants repeatedly emphasized the difference between their moderation processes and peer review, but in practice often applied similar criteria for delineating scientific from unscientific content. Moreover, moderation processes often relied on trust cues, such as article formats or author affiliations, as proxies for research quality, potentially introducing similar biases as have been found in traditional journal peer review. We discuss implications for the diversity of preprint content and authors, as well as the future of preprint servers within an evolving scholarly communication ecosystem.

https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/mp6ky

"New Open Access Agreement Between the University of California and Taylor & Francis"

The University of California (UC) and Taylor & Francis today announced a memorandum of understanding for a four-year read and publish agreement that will make it easier and more affordable for UC researchers to publish open access (OA) articles in nearly 2,500 Taylor & Francis journals. . . .

Under the agreement, the UC Libraries will automatically cover the OA fees in full for any UC corresponding author who chooses to publish OA in Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals. Authors of articles accepted for publication in a hybrid or full OA title will have the opportunity to choose OA at no cost to them. . . .

To maximize the number of UC researchers who can benefit from the newly signed agreement, authors of qualifying articles published since January 1, 2024, will be given the opportunity to retrospectively convert their article to open access, with the OA fees fully covered. Authors who have already published OA since January 1 will be offered refunds for OA fees already paid.

https://tinyurl.com/y8zutk9m

"We Need to Rethink the Way We Identify Diamond Open Access Journals in Quantitative Science Studies"

With the announcement of several new diamond open access (OA) related initiatives and the creation of the Global Summit on Diamond Open Access, diamond OA is now at the forefront of the OA movement. However, while working on our recent Quantitative Science Studies publication and datasets, we noticed that temporarily waiving article processing charges (APCs) was a commonly used strategy by big publishers for some of their journals. In the absence of an index of diamond journals, most studies have operationalized the identification of diamond journals as a subset of gold journals that do not charge an APC. While this is a pragmatic approach, we fear that it could undermine the value of the research in understanding what we believe is more commonly understood by diamond OA. This letter discusses the need for bibliometric research to apply more nuance in how it operationalizes diamond OA beyond the absence of APCs. We call on the publishing sector to be more transparent in the costs of publishing. Ultimately, we argue that transparency and a long-term commitment to no-APC publishing are necessary for diamond OA to succeed, and that the research community needs to apply this standard when seeking to understand the model.

https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_c_00331

Plan S: "New Tool to Assess Equity in Scholarly Communication Models"

The tool [https://tinyurl.com/2crwwhes], which was inspired by the “How Open Is It?” framework, is targeted at institutions, library consortia, funders and publishers, i.e. the stakeholders either investing or receiving funds for publishing services. It offers users the opportunity to rate scholarly communication models and arrangements across seven criteria:

Access to Read

Publishing immediate Open Access

Maximizing participation

Re-use rights

Pricing and fee transparency

Promoting and encouraging open research practices: data and code

Promoting and encouraging open research practices: preprints and open peer review

https://tinyurl.com/ycwmp3nk

"Open Access Is Shaping Scientific Communication"

It seems likely that OA and traditional reader-pay journals will coexist in the immediate future, and probably should in the long run. In this context, the OSTP OA mandate will neither undermine the gatekeeping role of scientific journals nor much perturb the future evolution of scientific communication. The widespread adoption of TAs was already underway; if anything, the mandate reinforces that path. In an environment where both readers pay and OA journals operate alongside preprint platforms, it is natural to ask whether preprints might constrain subscription prices and APCs. If preprints and their peer-reviewed counterparts were close substitutes, then APCs for most OA journals would decline considerably.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adp8882

"The Living Library: A Process-Based Tool for Open Literature Review, Probing the Boundaries of Open Science"

In this paper, we present a new tool for open science research, the Living Library. The Living Library provides an online platform and methodological framework for open, continuous literature reviewing. As a research medium, it explores what openness means in light of the human dimension and interpretive nature of engaging with societal questions. As a tool, the Living Library allows researchers to collectively sort, dynamically interpret and openly discuss the evolving literature on a topic of interest. The interface is built around a timeline along which articles can be filtered, themes with which articles are coded, and an open researcher logbook that documents the development of the library. The first rendition of a Living Library can be found via this link: https://eduvision-living-library.web.app/, and the code to develop your own Living Library can be found via this link: https://github.com/Simon-Dirks/living-library.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-024-00964-z

6 Major Academic Publishes Sued: "Academic Journal Publishers Antitrust Litigation"

On September 12, 2024, Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel at Justice Catalyst Law filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against six commercial publishers of academic journals, including Elsevier B.V., John Wiley & Sons, Wolters Kluwer NV, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), on behalf of a putative class of scientists and scholars who allege that these six world’s-largest for-profit publishers of peer-reviewed scholarly journals conspired to unlawfully appropriate billions of dollars that would otherwise have funded scientific research.

https://tinyurl.com/mv5r5nba

Filed Complaint

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein

"Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats: A Comprehensive SWOT Analysis of AI and Human Expertise in Peer Review"

Instead of casting blame [about peer review failures], we must ask ourselves the critical questions: Are we equipping our peer reviewers with the right tools to succeed in an increasingly complex landscape? How can AI be harnessed not as a burden, but as a true ally in maintaining the integrity of research? Are we prepared to re-think the roles within peer review? Can we stop viewing AI as a threat or as a problem and instead embrace it as a partner—one that enhances human judgment rather than complicates it?

https://tinyurl.com/4p5pr6k6

"eBooks, Interlibrary Loan and an Uncertain Future"

Important advancements are underway, but ILL for ebooks is hampered by restrictive licensing models, resource sharing systems, and current practices. This study provides an environmental scan of the current acquisitions and ILL practices of academic libraries. This paper guides academic libraries through these conversations so that they can support the borrowing and lending of ebooks into the future.

https://doi.org/10.1080/0361526X.2024.2391735

"Impact Factor Does Not Predict Long-Term Article Impact across 15 Journals"

Authors who publish in journals with higher impact factors are deemed to contribute more to their discipline. However, the impact factor of a journal does not indicate how long a specific article stays in the scientific discourse, and metrics that measure the length of time articles within a journal continue to be cited are not typically used. We examined citations of 443,732 research articles [786,064 total] between 1980 and 2020 across 15 journals. We explored the range of longevity values found across different journals as well as the relationship between impact factor and longevity. We found no relationship between impact factor and longevity, indicating that immediate attention to an article is not correlated with longer-term impact. . . .

For early-career scholars, the implications of citation longevity can be meaningful. Our data suggest that a new faculty member publishing primarily in strong society journals has yet to reach their full impact by mid-career milestones such as applying for tenure and promotion. The total contribution of the work to the field will likely not be seen until after their career is finished. . . .

The results presented here have important implications for journal selection and evaluation of science academics. For example, early career researchers may benefit from publishing in lower-impact, higher-longevity journals because their work may become classic within their field when they reach full promotion. Additionally, hiring and promotion committees should consider giving journals with higher longevity scores more weight among early career researchers, as these works can potentially impact departmental rankings over the long run. Furthermore, funding agencies and university review committees could benefit from a holistic analysis of academic productivity by examining article and journal performance metrics over time along with traditional indicators, such as altmetrics (Fortin et al., 2021), impact factor, and total citations.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dim.2024.100079

"Is Open Access Disrupting the Journal Business? A Perspective from Comparing Full Adopters, Partial Adopters, and Non-adopters"

This study employs the concept of disruptive innovation to develop a more systematic perspective on the impact of OA. It compares the market power of full-OA adopters with that of partial adopters and non-adopters. Using Lerner’s definition of market power, a series of mean difference tests and regressions were conducted using Lerner’s definition of market power. The findings reveal that both full-OA adopters and partial adopters exhibit greater market power than non-adopters. However, full adopters do not have more market power than partial adopters, even when compared to the subscription options of hybrid journals. This suggests that OA disrupts the market power of both incumbents and traditional businesses. Nevertheless, the situation changes once incumbents integrate an OA option into their publishing repertoire and transition to a hybrid model.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2024.101574

Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities, 2000-2024: Marketing and Communications Challenges and Opportunities

This book explores the recent history and future directions of scholarly publishing in the humanities in the United States from a marketing and communications perspective. The study draws on statistical surveys and data from a multidude of sources in order to analyze the major challenges confronting the humanities in higher education as well as the opportunities for print and digital publication since 2000. Chapters cover all types of publishing from university to trade presses, libraries, national programs, and self publishing, and focuses on changes in higher education funding, the impact of disruptive technologies such as AI, and the importance of global markets in disseminating new research in the humanities.

https://tinyurl.com/25m3abwu

"Tweeting and Retweeting Scientific Articles: Implications for Altmetrics"

Despite differences in extent of engagement of users, original tweets and retweets to scientific publications are considered as equal events. Current research investigates quantifiable differences between tweets and retweets from an altmetric point of view. Twitter users, text, and media content of two datasets, one containing 742 randomly selected tweets and retweets (371 each) and another with 5898 tweets and retweets (about 3000 each), all linking to scientific articles published on PLoS ONE, were manually categorized. Results from analyzing the proportions of tweets and retweets indicated that academic and individual accounts produce majority of original tweets (34% and 55%, respectively) and posted significantly larger proportion of retweets (41.5 and 81%). Bot accounts, on the other hand, had posted significantly more original tweets (20%) than retweets (2%). Natural communication sentences prevailed in retweets and tweets (63% vs. 45%) as well as images (41.5% vs. 23%), both showing a significant rise in usage overtime. Overall, the findings suggest that the attention scientific articles receive on Twitter may have more to do with human interaction and inclusion of visual content in the tweets, than the significance of or genuine interest towards the research results.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05127-8

"An Analysis of the Impact of Gold Open Access Publications in Computer Science"

There has been some concern about the impact of predatory publishers on scientific research for some time. Recently, publishers that might previously have been considered `predatory’ have established their bona fides, at least to the extent that they are included in citation impact scores such as the field-weighted citation impact (FWCI). These are sometimes called ‘grey’ publishers (MDPI, Frontiers, Hindawi). In this paper, we show that the citation landscape for these grey publications is significantly different from the mainstream landscape and that affording publications in these venues the same status as publications in mainstream journals may significantly distort metrics such as the FWCI.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10262

"Determinants of Downloads as Demand for Hybrid Journals "

Although Big Deal contracts that provide access rights to all electronic journals published by the publisher initially gained favor with university libraries, some libraries have terminated these contracts owing to increased charges since the 2010s. Consequently, they are faced with the problem of selecting journals for purchase within their limited budgets. This study investigates the factors affecting the number of downloads, representing journal demand, to provide libraries with guidance on journal selection. The download equation for 1485 hybrid journals published by Springer Nature is formulated using ordinary least squares. The results found that 5% and 50% of the 1485 journals generated approximately 30% and 85% of the downloads in 2022, respectively. Downloads are concentrated in fewer journals, although the Pareto principle does not apply to hybrid journals. Demand concentration implies that libraries do not need to maintain access rights to all journals. Recently, a few leading publishers have provided access rights to almost all electronic journals based on transformative agreements aiming to promote open access. Therefore, this study’s findings raise the issue of the rationale for bundling electronic journals in transformative agreements, which is similar to Big Deal. Moreover, the results of the download estimation reveal that hybrid journals with more open access articles, larger citation scores, and longer histories acquire more downloads. These findings indicate that open access accelerates the dissemination of research.

https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.18689

"Women and Men in Library and Information Science Scholarship: Authorship Trends from 2003 to 2021"

Library and information science (LIS) has long consisted of more women than men, at least in sheer numbers of library employees, but men are the primary authors of library literature. This study explores LIS literature published between 2003 and 2021 to identify if there are differences in the publishing patterns of women and men. The authors used content analysis to code the entire sample to identify overall subject trends after authors were categorized as women or men by mainly automated methods, using two R packages, genderize and ssa. The results show that there are overall inequities when compared to the profession as whole between the publishing rates of women and men in LIS, as well as differences in publication patterns by subjects and within specific journals. Shifts in subjects over the period under investigation did not increase the percentage of women publishing in the selected LIS journals. The authors conclude more research needs to be conducted to determine the cause of inequities in publishing not just among women and men, but all underrepresented voices in LIS.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102939

"The PubPeer Conundrum: Administrative Challenges in Research Misconduct Proceedings"

The founders of PubPeer envisioned their website as an online form of a “journal club” that would facilitate post-publication peer review. Recently, PubPeer comments have led to a significant number of research misconduct proceedings – a development that could not have been anticipated when the current federal research misconduct regulations were developed two decades ago. Yet the number, frequency, and velocity of PubPeer comments identifying data integrity concerns, and institutional and government practices that treat all such comments as potential research misconduct allegations, have overwhelmed institutions and threaten to divert attention and resources away from other research integrity initiatives. Recent, high profile research misconduct cases accentuate the increasing public interest in research integrity and make it inevitable that the use of platforms such as PubPeer to challenge research findings will intensify. This article examines the origins of PubPeer and its central role in the modern era of online-based scouring of scientific publications for potential problems and outlines the challenges that institutions must manage in addressing issues identified on PubPeer. In conclusion, we discuss some potential enhancements to the investigatory process specified under federal regulations that could, if implemented, allow institutions to manage some of these challenges more efficiently.

https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2024.2390007

"Artificial Intelligence Assisted Curation of Population Groups in Biomedical Literature "

Curation of the growing body of published biomedical research is of great importance to both the synthesis of contemporary science and the archiving of historical biomedical literature. Each of these tasks has become increasingly challenging given the expansion of journal titles, preprint repositories and electronic databases. Added to this challenge is the need for curation of biomedical literature across population groups to better capture study populations for improved understanding of the generalizability of findings. To address this, our study aims to explore the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 as an AI curation assistant for the task of curating biomedical literature for population groups. We conducted a series of experiments which qualitatively and quantitatively evaluate the performance of OpenAI’s GPT-4 in curating population information from biomedical literature. Using OpenAI’s GPT-4 and curation instructions, executed through prompts, we evaluate the ability of GPT-4 to classify study ‘populations’, ‘continents’ and ‘countries’ from a previously curated dataset of public health COVID-19 studies.

Using three different experimental approaches, we examined performance by: A) evaluation of accuracy (concordance with human curation) using both exact and approximate string matches within a single experimental approach; B) evaluation of accuracy across experimental approaches; and C) conducting a qualitative phenomenology analysis to describe and classify the nature of difference between human curation and GPT curation. Our study shows that GPT-4 has the potential to provide assistance in the curation of population groups in biomedical literature. Additionally, phenomenology provided key information for prompt design that further improved the LLM’s performance in these tasks. Future research should aim to improve prompt design, as well as explore other generative AI models to improve curation performance. An increased understanding of the populations included in research studies is critical for the interpretation of findings, and we believe this study provides keen insight on the potential to increase the scalability of population curation in biomedical studies.

https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v18i1.950

"Lawmakers Raise New Licensing Concerns over White House Open Access Mandate"

While Republican appropriators in the House have previously tried to entirely block the White House’s open access policy, now appropriators in both chambers of Congress have advanced legislation that would block federal agencies from limiting authors’ ability to choose how to license their work. . . .

This language used in the House report and Senate report regarding researcher choice is identical, though the House goes further by advising federal agencies not to “exert broad ‘federal purpose’ authority over peer reviewed articles” or “otherwise force use of an open license.”

House Republicans also propose that the White House be prohibited from using any funding to implement the policy, as they attempted in last year’s legislation.

https://tinyurl.com/46y42ecr

"’Academic Publishing is a Business Interest’: Reconciling Faculty Serials Needs and Economic Realities at a Carnegie R2 University"

Introduction: This article explores faculty conceptions of academic publishers, their willingness to circumvent paywalls and share content, and their understanding of who holds the responsibility to pay for this body of scholarly work to which they all contribute.

Methods: The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 faculty at their Carnegie R2 university to explore scholars’ perspectives with respect to the costs of serials and the responsibilities of the University and library in support of scholarly publishing.

Results: Participants reported a broad spectrum of perspectives with respect to circumventing publisher paywalls and offered nuanced practices for interacting with paywalled content. They explained which library services work well and offered suggestions on how best to support faculty needs for serial literature. Although most participants agree that the University has the responsibility of making academic literature available to the community, they differ in their conceptions of academic publishers as good-faith partners in the knowledge enterprise.

Discussion: The results suggest a great deal of ambiguity and diversity of beliefs among faculty: some would support boycotting all commercial publishers; some understand academic publishers to be integral to the dissemination of their work, not to mention tenure and promotion processes; and many acknowledge a variety of tensions in what feels to them an exploitative and fraught relationship. These findings have implications for library services in acquisitions, collection management, scholarly communication, discovery, and access.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.16232

"Cost, Advocacy, and a Mechanism for Transformation: The Proposed Power of Open Access Funds"

As paid open access becomes a mainstream academic practice, stakeholders must evaluate their role in the system. While open access advocates develop new ways to support the publication process and funding structure, commercial publishers continue to pivot to maintain their profit, relevance, and power in the publication system. This article provides the details of Montana State University’s Open Access Author Fund as an evaluation of the service and its impact on the local publishing ecosystem. As stewards of publicly funded knowledge, it is essential to critically analyze each new publishing route before adopting and supporting it. Especially when models claim to transform the system, librarians need to understand how an action changes the system, for whom, and at what cost.

https://tinyurl.com/524sp3tz

"A Publishing Platform That Places Code Front and Centre"

Last month, the Microscopy Society of America (MSA) quietly launched a journal that its creators hope will lead academic publishing in the future. Elemental Microscopy, a publication focused on reviews and methods tutorials, leverages an authoring and publishing platform called Curvenote to create rich, interactive, digital papers with coding and data analysis at their heart. By allowing readers to explore data and recreate results in the publication, the firm behind the platform, also called Curvenote, and its growing list of clients seek to ease science’s long-standing reproducibility crisis and modernize the scientific literature.

https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02577-1

Germany: "Achievements of the First DEAL Agreement Phase"

In a new publication, the German-wide DEAL consortium presents the key achievements of its first contract phase with the publishers Wiley and Springer Nature. The newly published infographic brochure provides a comprehensive insight into the background, objectives and results of the DEAL initiative. . . .

A particular focus is on the enormous increase in Open Access publications. Between 2019 and 2023, more than 105,000 publications from German scientific institutions were published under the DEAL agreements, 97 percent of which are Open Access. This remarkable success means that two-thirds of all research output from Germany is now freely accessible worldwide — a significant increase from the 30% before the DEAL initiative began.

https://tinyurl.com/mu99w2kz

“The First DEAL Agreements 2019-2023: Setting the Path for Open Access and Transparency“

"Wiley and Oxford University Press Confirm AI Partnerships as Cambridge University Press Offers ‘Opt-In’"

Wiley and Oxford University Press (OUP) told The Bookseller they have confirmed AI partnerships, with the availability of opt-ins and remuneration for authors appearing to vary. . . .

Meanwhile, Cambridge University Press has said it is talking to authors about opt ins along with ‘fair remuneration’ before making any deals.

Hachette, HarperCollins, and Pan Macmillan have not made AI deals.

https://tinyurl.com/bdzax5sk