Scholarly Journals – Page 4

Classifying Open Access Business Models

The proliferation of Open Access (OA) business models has been rapid, presenting challenges for stakeholders in academic publishing in communicating and working effectively with one another. This article offers a comprehensive classification system for OA models, categorizing them into five core types (transactional, bundled, cooperative, sponsored, and alternative), each with distinct characteristics and implications for funding, equity, and implementation. This classification aims to clarify the myriad labels and terminologies used, addressing the inconsistencies and gaps in previous attempts to categorize OA models. By providing descriptions and analyses of different business models, the article seeks to enhance transparency around and understanding of OA options, ultimately supporting informed decision-making in the evolving landscape of academic publishing.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11242106

"Stronger Together: Library-led Open Access Publishing in Scotland"

The purpose of this article is to look at library-led Open Access publishing initiatives across Scotland: particularly the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) Open Hosting Shared Service and Scottish Universities Press (SUP). . . .

In 2018, the University of Edinburgh (UoE) submitted a proposal to SCURL, pitching the creation of a new shared service that would be governed by SCURL and provided by library staff at the University of Edinburgh. The aim of this shared service was to equip member institutions with a hosting solution to fulfil their Open Access publishing activities, with the development time charged to UoE. The fee for the shared service is at cost (currently £1,400 + VAT per year), and everything is reinvested, predominantly covering technical and staffing costs. All members meet four times a year to discuss the direction and growth of the shared service, ensuring it is very much a partnership and not just led by the University of Edinburgh.

The hosting solution is fulfilled by the use of Open Journals System (OJS) and Open Monograph Press (OMP). SCURL partners get their own installation of the required open-source software, and the staff at UoE complete the initial configuration of the site and customisation of the user interface. The fee is charged per installation. So, for example, a user pays one fee for OJS and can set up as many journals as they like. . . .

To finish, the shared service launched with three members and now has eleven, with more on the way. The members are:

Glasgow Caledonian University

Heriot Watt University

Queen Margaret University

Robert Gordon University

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Scottish Universities Press

Society of Antiquaries Scotland

St Andrews University

University of Edinburgh

University of Glasgow

The University of the Highlands and Islands

https://tinyurl.com/2vy7wp94

Paywall: "Does Research Funding, Open Access Availability, and Collaboration in Research Influence Citation Impact? An Analysis of Neurotechnology Research"

The United States Department of Health and Human Services remains at the top by contributing funding to 7.46% of research papers in the field of Neurotechnology research. Statistical tests confirmed significant correlations between research funding, collaboration, and research availability mode with citation impact. Positive correlations were identified between research funding and collaboration, while open access availability showed a negative correlation with citation impact.

https://doi.org/10.1080/15424065.2024.2350377

"Editors at Philosophy & Public Affairs Resign; Will Launch New OA Journal"

We take this step because we believe that scholarly journals—including our own—serve important purposes, and that these purposes are not well-served by commercial publishing. For three decades now, academic journals have suffered from their ownership by for-profit publishers, who have exploited their monopoly position to sharply raise prices, unduly burdening subscribing libraries and shutting out other institutions and individuals from access to research. The recent rise of the author-funded "open access" model has only reinforced academic inequality, since scholars with access to fewer resources are unable to pay the fees that make their work freely accessible; it has also incentivized commercial publishers to try to publish as many articles as possible and so to pressure rigorous journals to weaken or abandon their quality controls. . . .

The new diamond journal will be published by the Open Library of Humanities.

https://tinyurl.com/42z2t83c

"Amplifying Academic Research through YouTube: Engagement Metrics as Predictors of Citation Impact"

The preliminary findings from the linear regression analysis (Table 1) suggest a meaningful relationship between the online engagement metrics of videos on YouTube and the academic impact of the publications referenced within these videos. Specifically, the analysis found positive correlations with the citation impact for three key metrics: the number of videos referencing publications, the ratio of likes to dislikes on videos, and the number of comments containing references to other publications. The positive correlation indicates a sort of selective amplification process. Publications mentioned in videos that garner attention in the form of likes and active discussion in comments are likely being selectively chosen for their relevance or quality. This selection process by content creators and the subsequent engagement by viewers may serve as an “informal peer review”, signaling the value and impact of the research. The findings suggest that social media, particularly YouTube in this context, acts as a filter that potentially can highlight the visibility of impactful research.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.12734

UC and Authors Alliance: "Outcomes, Questions, and Answers: ‘The Right to Deposit (r2d) Uniform Guidance to Ensure Author Compliance and Public Access’"

The United States Office of Management and Budget uniform guidance for grants and agreements contains the following language in 2 CFR §200.315(b):

To the extent permitted by law, the recipient or subrecipient may copyright any work that is subject to copyright and was developed, or for which ownership was acquired, The Right to Deposit (R2D)under a Federal award. The Federal agency reserves a royalty-free, nonexclusive, and irrevocable right to reproduce, publish, or otherwise use the work for Federal purposes and to authorize others to do so. This includes the right to require recipients and subrecipients to make such works available through agency-designated public access repositories.¹

This provision, the Federal purpose license, has existed in some form since at least 1976. Some federal agencies, including the Department of Energy (DOE), have already been relying on it in the implementation of their public access plans. The Federal purpose license applies upon creation of an article, overriding all subsequent terms and licenses. It provides a highly effective, non-disruptive, elegant and familiar solution for accomplishing the ends of the Nelson memo without having to rely on individual authors and institutions to protect this right or navigate differing institutional approaches. Leveraging the Federal purpose license could also provide consistency for articles and authors subject to policies from multiple granting agencies. . . .

If the Federal purpose license has already existed for a long time, and has new language clarifying that it can be used this way, does that solve the problem for authors?

It depends on the author’s funder. Agencies have rights in federally funded research publications, but they are not uniformly using them. Only some agencies are telling their grantees in agency guidance that the Federal purpose license covers sharing publications in agency-designated repositories. Other agencies aren’t relying on their own rights from the license, and instead advising grantees to work with their publisher and secure the rights to post their publications independently. The Federal purpose license does not help authors if they don’t know about it.

https://tinyurl.com/bdfks8pu

"Article Processing Charges Suppress the Scholarship of Doctoral Students"

The open access movement has drastically reconfigured the financial burdens of scholarly publishing. Yet, the influence of a marketized scholarly publishing system on doctoral education remains unexplored. I reflect on my own PhD candidature to illustrate how article processing charges disempower doctoral candidates. I argue that the current open access publishing model unfairly advantages candidates with personal, familial and/or institutional wealth. The inequalities imposed on doctoral students by our sectors’ current publishing habits ultimately bias who will be paid to produce and safeguard knowledge in the future. Doctoral students can no longer be ignored in debates over open access publishing.

https://doi.org/10.3897/ese.2024.e124173

"WIPO Study: Research4Life Program Spikes Research Output by up to 75% in Low- and Middle-Income Countries"

A new study conducted by leading researchers from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the University of the Bundeswehr Munich and the German Economic Institute reveals that free or low-cost online access to scientific publications — as provided by Research4Life programs — results in a surge in scientific output, particularly in health sciences, by up to 75% in low- and middle-income countries. . . .

Research institutions in the Caribbean, Central Asia, Europe, and Latin America saw their academic paper output increase by 80-100%. In terms of clinical trials, program participation was most impactful for East Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and North Africa, with trial activity rising by up to 35%.

Report

https://tinyurl.com/vjpfub7u

"The Road to Sustainability: Examining Key Drivers in Open Access Diamond Journal Publishing"

Despite the rising interest in open access (OA) diamond journals as a scholarly journal publishing model, their sustainability remains a pressing concern. Using the Open Access Diamond Journals Study (OADJS) Dataset, we examined the characteristics and factors of OA diamond journal publishing that are associated with high sustainability. From 1335 journals, 476 journals with low sustainability and 438 journals with high sustainability were selected and compared. Our analysis revealed that factors such as the region and official language of the publishing country and the discipline, ownership, and financial status of the journal were significantly associated with sustainability. Journals owned by government or national agencies, those with financial stability, and those promoting open practices like unrestricted text and data mining are more likely to be sustainable. This study also discusses the implications of these findings for the future of scholarly publishing and the open science movement. Ultimately, we emphasize the need for national and international support to enhance the sustainability of OA diamond journals and propose that a collective approach involving policymakers, funding agencies, and journal administrators is crucial for fostering a sustainable open access ecosystem.

https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1611

"Relationships between Expert Ratings of Business/Economics Journals and Key Citation Metrics: The Impact of Size-Independence, Citing-Journal Weighting, and Subject-Area Normalization"

This study uses data for >3300 business and economics journals to explore the relationships between 5 subjective (expert) journal ratings and 10 citation metrics including 5IF (5-year Impact Factor), Article Influence (AI) score, CiteScore, Eigenfactor, Impact per Publication, SJR, and SNIP. Overall, AI and SJR are the citation metrics most closely related to the expert journal ratings. . . . These results, which are consistent across the 5 expert ratings, suggest that evaluators consider the average impact of an article in each journal rather than the total impact of the journal as a whole, that they give more credit for citations in high-impact journals than for citations in lesser journals, and that they assess each journal’s relative standing within its own field or subfield rather than its broader scholarly impact.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102882

"Different Open Access Routes, Varying Societal Impacts: Evidence from the Royal Society Biological Journals"

In this article, we explore different OA routes (i.e., gold OA, hybrid OA, and bronze OA) and their varying effects on multiple types of societal impacts (i.e., social media and web) by using the case of four biological journals founded by the Royal Society. The results show that (1) gold OA is significantly and positively related to social media indicators (Twitter counts and Facebook counts), but significantly and negatively associated with web indicators (Blog counts and News counts); (2) hybrid OA has a significant and positive effect on both social media and web indicators; and (3) bronze OA is significantly and positively associated with social media indicators, but it turns to be negative albeit nonsignificant for web indicators.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05032-0

Open Access Projects in Europe: From a General Perspective to Monographs and Ebooks

The development of policies in favour of open science and the transformation of publication channels for academic literature and research produced with public funding by researchers and authors in higher education, combined with technological and financial developments in open access models for scholarly publication and the interest shown by funders for a long time in journals and articles and more recently in monographs and textbooks, continue to reshape the face of academic publication.

Cécile Swiatek Cassafieres, a member of the Executive Board of the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBEReurope.org), will provide a general overview of the main European trends, initiatives and projects in this area, focusing on the diamond model and its current prospects, before addressing the case of ‘books’ in open access, from the angle of monographs on the one hand, and textbooks on the other. A presentation of LIBER’s own initiatives will illustrate the Association of European Research Libraries’ support for such developments.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11149567

"Guidance Needed for Using Artificial Intelligence to Screen Journal Submissions for Misconduct"

Journals and publishers are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to screen submissions for potential misconduct, including plagiarism and data or image manipulation. While using AI can enhance the integrity of published manuscripts, it can also increase the risk of false/unsubstantiated allegations. Ambiguities related to journals’ and publishers’ responsibilities concerning fairness and transparency also raise ethical concerns. In this Topic Piece, we offer the following guidance: (1) All cases of suspected misconduct identified by AI tools should be carefully reviewed by humans to verify accuracy and ensure accountability; (2) Journals/publishers that use AI tools to detect misconduct should use only well-tested and reliable tools, remain vigilant concerning forms of misconduct that cannot be detected by these tools, and stay abreast of advancements in technology; (3) Journals/publishers should inform authors about irregularities identified by AI tools and give them a chance to respond before forwarding allegations to their institutions in accordance with Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines; (4) Journals/publishers that use AI tools to detect misconduct should screen all relevant submissions and not just random/purposefully selected submissions; and (5) Journals should inform authors about their definition of misconduct, their use of AI tools to detect misconduct, and their policies and procedures for responding to suspected cases of misconduct.

https://doi.org/10.1177/17470161241254052

"Researchers from over 3700 Global Institutions Now Supported by Springer Nature Transformative Agreements"

Springer Nature now supports researchers from over 3700 institutions, across six continents, with open access (OA) publication via its Transformative Agreements (TA). The continued growth of the publisher’s TAs underscores the Springer Nature’s in accelerating the global transition to OA, ensuring all who want to publish OA can do so regardless of location or funding.

https://tinyurl.com/4xrsebkr

Paywall: "Open Peer Review Correlates with Altmetrics but Not with Citations: Evidence from Nature Communications and PLoS One"

The analysis reveals articles subjected to OPR [Open Peer Review] have no obvious advantage in citations but a notable higher score in altmetrics. The distribution of data variation across most disciplines, displaying a statistically significant difference between OPR and non-OPR, mirrors the overall trend. Two potential explanations for the disparity in OPR’s impact on citations compared to altmetrics are proposed. The first relates to the quality heterogeneity between OPR and non-OPR research, while the second is related to the diverse authors citing and mentioning articles in distinct communities.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2024.101540

"And Never the Twain Shall Meet? Institutional Open Access Policies (IOAPs) and Review, Promotion, and Tenure (RPT)"

Introduction: Institutional open access policies (IOAPs) express an institutional commitment to making scholarly knowledge openly accessible, typically by asking academics to deposit their scholarship into an open access (OA) repository. Faculty, however, must prioritize other scholarly requirements, such as those specified in review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes and policies. If IOAPs are ignored or in conflict with RPT, they will not be as effective as possible. Literature Review: Despite the fact that many higher education institutions say they value scholarly research contributing to the public good, they often do not articulate that OA is a necessary component to achieve this goal. Parallelly, increasing numbers of higher education institutions have adopted an IOAP, but few of them include the policy in RPT policies. Methods: An electronic survey was disseminated to members of the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) in order to quantify how many include the concept of OA and/or their IOAP in their RPT mechanisms. Results: Only four out of 28 respondents indicated that the concept of OA is integrated into RPT at their institution, and only one out of 28 reported that the IOAP is present in RPT. Discussion: Consistent with sparse examples in the literature, this study suggests that most IOAPs exist in separation from RPT, and this separation threatens the success of IOAPs. Conclusion: Faculty prioritize RPT guidelines in order to advance their careers, but these policies rarely address OA and IOAPs. More attention to the relationship between IOAPs and RPT is necessary in order to discover how they can complement one another and enhance scholarly knowledge production and exchange.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.16899

"Are Transformative Agreements Worth It? An Analysis of Open Access Publication Data at the University of Kentucky"

Open access publishing is continuing to grow as funders such as cOAlition S, National Institutes of Health, and the White House implement mandates and requirements that publicly funded research be made immediately available for public consumption. Publishers have adopted open access as a business model through transformative agreements that combine subscription and publishing fees. However, it is unclear whether these agreements are beneficial for libraries. This article discusses a project by the University of Kentucky Libraries to gather and analyze open access publication data to aid in the evaluation of transformative agreement proposals. This article also discusses how the University of Kentucky compares to peer institutions in the Southeastern Conference and other benchmark institutions regarding open access publishing output. Additionally, this article discusses downsides of transformative agreements and highlights promising alternatives.

https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.68n1.8211

"Navigating Open Access and Transformative Agreements: A Case Study of the University of Maryland"

"What should we be doing as a public institution when it comes to open access and transformative publishing agreements"” Most large US research institutions are facing this question, including the University of Maryland, College Park. This article explores this issue by looking at the University’s publishing landscape from a high level. It then dives deeper into three recent transformative agreements the University library has entered, investigating pricing, usage, and publishing data for a nonprofit society publisher, a for-profit commercial publisher, and, finally, a university press. The goal is to better understand how these agreements intersect with university-sponsored scholarship, library budgets, and the implications for the academic publishing landscape.

https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.68n1.8219

"Exploring a Read and Publish Agreement: The Three-Year Taylor & Francis Pilot"

The Ohio State University Libraries (University Libraries) entered into a three-year read and publish pilot agreement with Taylor & Francis in 2020—the first read and publish agreement for The Ohio State University and the first such deal for Taylor & Francis in the Americas. This study provides an overview of University Libraries’ motivations behind the agreement, the lessons we learned implementing and supporting the agreement, and the open access publishing outcomes of the pilot agreement that ended December 2022.

https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.68n1.8213

"DIAMAS Report Investigating the Financial Sustainability of Institutional Publishers and Service Providers"

The report shows that although institutional publishers and service providers are diverse — in terms of their missions, sizes, services they provide and tasks they perform, access to funding options and the choices they make — they face similar challenges, such as the need for more financial resources, the lack of stability and permanence in personnel and the dependence on parent organizations. Along with public national or regional funders, parent organizations, which provide significant in-kind support (personnel, services), are the main local supporters of Diamond open access (OA).

https://tinyurl.com/ypnefum2

"Developing Open Access Resource Management Principles in a Consortial Environment: A University of California Model"

In the summer of 2021, the University of California (UC) migrated to a new integrated library system, called the Systemwide Integrated Library System project (SILS), which for the first time brought all ten UC campuses, two regional storage facilities, and the California Digital Library (CDL) together into one shared library system. With new potential for increased collaboration and cooperation, SILS leadership groups identified consortial open access (OA) resource management as a key opportunity in the new system, in alignment with UC’s priorities around discovery and access to library collections, as well as UC’s commitment to open access and transforming the scholarly communication landscape. This article discusses the formation of the UC Open Access Resource Management Task Force (OARMTF), a group charged to investigate what it would mean to consortially manage OA resources. Specifically, this article focuses on the OARMTF’s work setting out principles for OA resource management, which the authors hope may serve as a useful case study for other institutions or consortia interested in developing principles around OA resource management, as well as encourage more discussion and research into best practices for consortial management of OA resources.

https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.68n1.8216

"Opening Up: A Global Context for Local Open Access Initiatives in Higher Education"

Open access policies and mandates can be a useful tool in persuading faculty at higher education institutions around the globe to produce and share open scholarship. But are such policies widely written, accepted, and adopted? Leveraging information found on the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies, this paper analyzes open access policies at higher education institutions worldwide. The data indicate that Europe holds the most policies, while fewer policies have been enacted in the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and Asia due to a myriad of barriers. Overall, better strategies to promote open access are needed, and such strategies may not necessarily take the form of an open access policy. My own investigation of global open access policies has informed my practices with respect to open access. In this paper, I demonstrate how librarians acting as policy entrepreneurs can assist with the promotion of open access at their institutions and then conclude with suggestions, solutions, and pathways beyond policy adoption to promote and advocate for open access.

https://tinyurl.com/2h3uz5n4

"An Analysis of the Effects of Sharing Research Data, Code, and Preprints on Citations"

In this study, we investigate whether adopting one or more Open Science practices leads to significantly higher citations for an associated publication, which is one form of academic impact. We use a novel dataset known as Open Science Indicators, produced by PLOS and DataSeer, which includes all PLOS publications from 2018 to 2023 as well as a comparison group sampled from the PMC Open Access Subset. In total, we analyze circa 122’000 publications. We calculate publication and author-level citation indicators and use a broad set of control variables to isolate the effect of Open Science Indicators on received citations. We show that Open Science practices are adopted to different degrees across scientific disciplines. We find that the early release of a publication as a preprint correlates with a significant positive citation advantage of about 20.2% on average. We also find that sharing data in an online repository correlates with a smaller yet still positive citation advantage of 4.3% on average. However, we do not find a significant citation advantage for sharing code.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.16171

"Harvard Library is Launching Harvard Open Journals Program"

Harvard Library is launching a new initiative called the Harvard Open Journals Program (HOJP), which will help researchers advance scholarly publishing that is open access, sustainable, and equitable. HOJP will provide publishing services, resources, and seed funding to participating Harvard researchers for new academic journals. All journal articles will be entirely free for authors and readers, with no barriers to publish or to access.. . . Yuan Li, University Scholarly Communication Officer and Director of Open Scholarship and Research Data Services at Harvard Library, pointed out the innovative nature of the program, "It is new for an institution to support faculty in seeking out an academic press to publish a no-fee open access journal and to provide assistance in securing its long-term funding. And offering a repository overlay journal model provides an alternative that appeals to some editorial boards and is gaining traction through initiatives such as Episciences. As we implement and refine this program on our campus, we hope it will inspire other universities to adopt such approaches to supporting barrier-free scholarly publishing."

https://tinyurl.com/ymkhs4db

Ithaka S+R: "Generative AI and Scholarly Publishing: Announcing a New Research Project"

To help, Ithaka S+R is launching a new study of the strategic implications of generative AI for scholarly publishing, with support from STM Solutions and a group of its members. The following key questions will guide our inquiry:

Will generative AI be integrated into the existing goals, processes, and infrastructures for scholarly publishing? Or, does this represent a transformative technology that will require fundamental restructuring of those goals, processes, and infrastructures?

Could generative AI effectively render our current assumptions about the role and purpose of publishers obsolete? What new roles could publishers play in a radically transformed information environment?

Which potential transformations should publishers encourage, and which risks require immediate coordinated responses while the technology is still taking root in the sector?

What new kinds of shared technical and/or social infrastructure are needed to support the ethical adoption of generative AI in support of the goals of scholarship and scholarly publishing? What systems and structures will be necessary to balance the needs of authors, readers, rights holders, publishers, and aggregators?

https://tinyurl.com/2s432pfh