The American Genetic Association has mandated the Joint Data Archiving Policy for the Journal of Heredity. The Joint Data Archiving Policy (JDAP) page lists other journals that mandate data archiving.
| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |
The Royal Society of Chemistry has launched a £1 million gold open access initiative for British researchers.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
'Gold for Gold' is an innovative experiment to support the funder led evolution to Gold OA, by recognising institutes that subscribe to RSC Gold, a premium collection of 37 international journals, databases and magazines offering online access to all published material.
UK institutes who are RSC Gold customers will shortly receive credit equal to the subscription paid, to enabling their researchers, who are being asked to publish Open Access but often do not yet have funding to pay for it directly, to make their paper available via Open Science, the RSC's Gold OA option.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |
Bo-Christer Björk and David Solomon have published "Open Access versus Subscription Journals: A Comparison of Scientific Impact" in BMC Medicine.
Here's an excerpt:
Overall, average citation rates, both unweighted and weighted for the number of articles per journal, were about 30% higher for subscription journals. However, after controlling for discipline (medicine and health versus other), age of the journal (three time periods) and the location of the publisher (four largest publishing countries versus other countries) the differences largely disappeared in most subcategories except for journals that had been launched prior to 1996. OA journals that fund publishing with article processing charges (APCs) are on average cited more than other OA journals. In medicine and health, OA journals founded in the last 10 years are receiving about as many citations as subscription journals launched during the same period.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |
The European Research Council has released Open Access Status of Journal Articles from ERC-Funded Projects.
Here's an excerpt:
The main objective of this analysis is to estimate the extent to which journal articles from ERC funded projects are available in an open access. . . .
The results show that 62 % of journal articles from ERC funded projects are available in open access. The share of articles in open access varies across research domains. It is close to 70 % in Life Sciences, 65 % in Physical Sciences and Engineering and nearer 50 % in Social Sciences and Humanities. A comparison with the data on open access status provided by the grant holders in their mid-term reports shows that self-reporting leads to an underestimation of the proportion of open access articles.
| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |
Yesterday DigitalKoans reported on the Research Councils UK's new open access policy. Today, the European Commission has announced another major open access policy.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
The European Commission today outlined measures to improve access to scientific information produced in Europe. Broader and more rapid access to scientific papers and data will make it easier for researchers and businesses to build on the findings of public-funded research. This will boost Europe's innovation capacity and give citizens quicker access to the benefits of scientific discoveries. In this way, it will give Europe a better return on its €87 billion annual investment in R&D. The measures complement the Commission's Communication to achieve a European Research Area (ERA), also adopted today.
As a first step, the Commission will make open access to scientific publications a general principle of Horizon 2020, the EU's Research & Innovation funding programme for 2014-2020. As of 2014, all articles produced with funding from Horizon 2020 will have to be accessible:
- articles will either immediately be made accessible online by the publisher ('Gold' open access)—up-front publication costs can be eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission; or
- researchers will make their articles available through an open access repository no later than six months (12 months for articles in the fields of social sciences and humanities) after publication ('Green' open access).
The Commission has also recommended that Member States take a similar approach to the results of research funded under their own domestic programmes. The goal is for 60% of European publicly-funded research articles to be available under open access by 2016.
The Commission will also start experimenting with open access to the data collected during publicly funded research (e.g. the numerical results of experiments), taking into account legitimate concerns related to the fundee's commercial interests or to privacy.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |
David Willetts, the UK Minister for Science and Universities, has issued "Government Response to the Finch Group Report: 'Accessibility, Sustainability, Excellence: How to Expand Access to Research Publications'."
Here's an excerpt:
The Government has listened carefully to what publishers, learned societies and the Finch Group collectively have had to say on this issue. We prefer the 'gold' over the 'green' model, especially where the research is taxpayer funded so the Government agrees with the sentiment expressed in the Finch Report. Embargo periods allowed by funding bodies for publishers should be short where publishers have chosen not to take up the preferred option of their receiving an Article Processing Charge (which provides payment in full for immediate publication by the 'gold OA' route). Where APC funds are not available to the publisher or learned society, for the publication of publicly-funded research, then publishers could reasonably insist on a longer more equitable embargo period. This could be up to 12 months for science, technology and engineering publications and longer for publications in those disciplines which require more time to secure payback. Even so, publications with embargo periods longer than two years may find it difficult to argue that they are also serving the public interest.
| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |
The Research Councils UK has adopted a new open access policy.
Here's an excerpt from the press release:
Research Councils UK (RCUK) has today, 16th July 2012, unveiled its new Open Access policy. Informed by the work of the National Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, chaired by Professor Dame Janet Finch, the policy at once harmonises and makes significant changes to existing Research Councils' Open Access policies. . . .
The new policy, which will apply to all qualifying publications being submitted for publication from 1 April 2013, states that peer reviewed research papers which result from research that is wholly or partially funded by the Research Councils:
- must be published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access, and;
- must include details of the funding that supported the research, and a statement on how the underlying research materials such as data, samples or models can be accessed.
Criteria which journals must fulfill to be compliant with the Research Councils' Open Access policy are detailed within the policy, but include offering a 'pay to publish'; option or allowing deposit in a subject or institutional repository after a mandated maximum embargo period. In addition, the policy mandates use of 'CC-BY', the Creative Commons 'Attribution' license, when an APC is levied. The CC_BY licence allows others to modify, build upon and/or distribute the licensed work (including for commercial purposes) as long as the original author is credited.
The Research Councils will provide block grants to eligible UK Higher Education Institutions, approved independent research organisations and Research Council Institutes to support payment of the Article Processing Charges (APCs) associated with 'pay-to-publish'. In parallel, eligible organisations will be expected to set-up and manage their own publication funds. The Research Councils will work with eligible organisations to discuss the detail of the new approach to funding APCs and to ensure that appropriate and auditable mechanisms are put in place to manage the funds.
Along with HEFCE and other relevant Funding Bodies, we shall monitor these policies actively, both to review their effects and to ensure that our joint objectives on Open Access are being met.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |
Ulrich Pöschl has published "Multi-Stage Open Peer Review: Scientific Evaluation Integrating the Strengths of Traditional Peer Review with the Virtues of Transparency and Self-Regulation" in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience.
Here's an excerpt:
The traditional forms of scientific publishing and peer review do not live up to all demands of efficient communication and quality assurance in today's highly diverse and rapidly evolving world of science. They need to be advanced and complemented by interactive and transparent forms of review, publication, and discussion that are open to the scientific community and to the public. The advantages of open access, public peer review, and interactive discussion can be efficiently and flexibly combined with the strengths of traditional scientific peer review.
| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |
JISC has released Going for Gold? The Costs and Benefits of Gold Open Access for UK Research Institutions: Further Economic Modelling.
Here's an excerpt:
Based on this analysis, the main findings are:
- so long as research funders commit to paying publication costs for the research they fund, and
- publication charges fall to the reprint author's home institution,
- all research-intensive universities would see the greatest savings, and universities would see savings from (worldwide) Gold OA when article-processing charges are at the current averages,
- in a transition period, providing Open Access through the Green route offers the greatest economic benefits to individual universities, unless additional funds are made available to cover Gold OA costs
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |
The League of European Research Universities has released The LERU Roadmap towards Open Access.
Here's an excerpt:
- The idea of Open Access is not new; the first major international statement on Open Access was set out in the Declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002.4 However, 'the pathway' to Open Access is not a smooth one. Many parties are involved and there are many competing interests. There are costs and there are advocates, agnostics and critics. There are gains and impacts which need to be carefully assessed.
- This Roadmap traverses some of this landscape and aims to assist LERU members who wish to put in place structures, policies and practices to facilitate Open Access. Whilst the Roadmap is primarily intended for LERU members, other European universities may find it useful.
| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |
The Pacific University Library has published the first issue of the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, which is an open access journal under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
Here's an excerpt from the What is in a Name? Introducing the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication:
The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication (JLSC) was founded to both recognize and embody this increasingly prominent role of libraries in shaping the future of scholarly communication. Recognize, in that we believe that scholarly communication librarianship has become a core service area for academic libraries, and is deserving of an intellectual home. The increase in seminars, articles and dedicated conferences—like the notable IMLS-funded Library Publishing Services: Strategies for Success10 project—all demonstrate the growing interest in library scholarly communication initiatives, and the need for a dedicated venue for exchange. Embody, in that this is a journal published by an academic library, with an editorial board of library scholar-practitioners, devoted to open, free and flexible communication of knowledge in our field. And in the interest of keeping the channels of communication as open as possible, we also recognize that there are other stakeholders, such as publishers, technologists, and research funders, who play an integral role in determining the future of scholarly communication. Our profession is best served by engaging in honest dialogue with them, and we hope that the work we publish will reflect these types of discussions and collaborations.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship |
Sarah Callaghan, Roy Lowry, and David Walton have published "Data Citation and Publication by NERC's Environmental Data Centres" in the latest issue of Ariadne.
Here's an excerpt:
NERC and their environmental data centres want to ensure that the archived datasets are first-class scientific objects, and that the researchers responsible for creating them receive appropriate recognition for their efforts. NERC have set up the Science Information Strategy (SIS) to provide the framework for NERC to work more closely and effectively with its scientific communities in delivering data and information management services. . . .
The NERC SIS Data Citation and Publication Project aims to create a way of promoting access to data, while simultaneously providing the data creators with full academic credit for their efforts. We are therefore developing a mechanism for the formal citation of datasets held in the NERC data centres, and are working with academic journal publishers to develop a method for the peer review and formal publication of datasets.
| Research Data Curation Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |
JISC has released Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations.
Here's an excerpt:
We have learned in this study that the voluntary and charitable sector has an appetite and need for scholarly research that it cannot currently satisfy. The organisations contributing to the study have described the importance of research to the voluntary and charitable sector's commitment to playing its very distinctive role in the most effective way it can. In scoping interviews, case studies and survey responses, VCOs have identified a consistent set of barriers to accessing research. They have shown too that they are creative and resourceful, finding ways to overcome these barriers some of which might place them on or over the border of copyright infringement. We do not think that VCOs should be put in the position of having to choose between what is legally permitted and what they feel is ethically required of them in order to fulfil their charitable objectives. We think too that if the VCS is being asked to expand its role and play an increasing part in delivering public services, then access to research is essential. In this final chapter, we provide some recommendations which, we hope, will go some way to widening the voluntary and charitable sector's access to scholarly research outputs.
| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals: This is an excellent resource for its extensive background documentation of the open access arguments and issues. — Ann Jensen, Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, no. 43 (2005) | Digital Scholarship |
JISC has released Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector.
Here's an excerpt:
The total cost to the public sector of accessing journal papers is around £135 million per annum. The savings that accrue from the availability of Open Access articles (using both Green and Gold routes) amount to £28.6 million (£26 million in access fees and £2.6 million in time savings).
Extending the number or articles available through Open Access further increases the potential for savings. Each extra 5% of journal papers accessed via Open Access would save the public sector £1.7 million, even if no subscription fees were to be saved. Increasing the number of journal papers accessed through Open Access to 25% would save the public sector an extra £29 million.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |
Chris Biemesderfer has self-archived "Fully Digital: Policy and Process Implications for the AAS" in arXiv.org.
Here's an excerpt:
In the near term, we anticipate that enterprise-scale printing will be phased out in the next 2-3 years, as the library subscribers to the journals stop acquiring the print products. We are going to be looking to web-to-print solutions so that customized print products can be specified by the customers themselves, thus allowing the AAS to focus on the larger issues of professional scholarly communication. In the meantime, we are thinking about a business model for the Society that offers only online subscriptions, and we are preparing to charge authors in 2011 based on the quantities of digital material that are submitted, rather than based on the number of typeset pages of the authors' text.
| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |
MIT has established an Open Access Working Group in response to Elsevier's new article posting policies.
Here's an excerpt from the "New Open Access Working Group Formed: Formulating Response to Elsevier's Policy Change":
The wording [of the Elsevier posting policy] is very unclear; no one is quite sure what a "systematic posting mandate" is. Duke, for one, who has an open access policy very much like ours, has concluded that such policies aren't "mandates" since they allow people to opt out, and hence that they are not covered by the new Elsevier posting policy. But it is clear that Elsevier is trying to do what it can to undermine such policies, and to confuse faculty about what they are and are not allowed to do. Certainly that is the interpretation of the Coalition for Open Access Repositories, who, in their response, "strongly oppose the changes made by Elsevier to its article posting policies" and "join the research community in condemning Elsevier for its recent business practices and lobbying that undermine policies and activities promoting open access to scholarly literature."
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship |
Harvard University's Faculty Advisory Council on the Library has issued "Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing: Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained"
Here's an excerpt:
Since the Library now must change its subscriptions and since faculty and graduate students are chief users, please consider the following options open to faculty and students (F) and the Library (L), state other options you think viable, and communicate your views:
1. Make sure that all of your own papers are accessible by submitting them to DASH in accordance with the faculty-initiated open-access policies (F).
2. Consider submitting articles to open-access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to open access (F).
3. If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as open access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning (F).
4. Contact professional organizations to raise these issues (F).
5. Encourage professional associations to take control of scholarly literature in their field or shift the management of their e-journals to library-friendly organizations (F).
6. Encourage colleagues to consider and to discuss these or other options (F).
7. Sign contracts that unbundle subscriptions and concentrate on higher-use journals (L).
8. Move journals to a sustainable pay per use system, (L).
9. Insist on subscription contracts in which the terms can be made public (L).
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography: "This work gives an outstanding overview of scholarship relating to the growing Open Access movement." — George Machovec, The Charleston Advisor 12, no. 2 (2010): 3. | Digital Scholarship |
Moin Ahmad and Mohammad Nazim have self-archived "Citing Patterns in Open Access Journals: A Study of D-Lib Magazine" in E-LIS.
Here's an excerpt:
The study was intended to investigate the pattern of citing references of research articles published in D-Lib Magazine during 2002-2008. A total of 4775 citations were collected from 295 articles published during the period. Articles classified as editorial materials, power point slides, book reviews, columns, reports and news items were excluded. References all articles were collected and Microsoft Office Excel 2007 was used for analyses. The aspects analysed focus on year-wise distribution of articles and cited references, types of documents cited, country and language of cited documents, file format and domain of cited references, etc.
| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |
The first issue of the Journal of Digital Humanities has been published by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.
Here's an excerpt from the "A Community-Sourced Journal":
We're pleased to present the inaugural issue of the Journal of Digital Humanities, which represents the best of the work that was posted online by the community of digital humanities scholars and practitioners in the final three months of 2011. . . .
The works in this issue were first highlighted on the Digital Humanities Now site and its related feeds. . . .
Once highlighted as an "Editors' Choice" on Digital Humanities Now, works were eligible for inclusion in the Journal of Digital Humanities. By looking at a range of qualitative and quantitative measures of quality, from the kinds of responses a work engendered, to the breadth of the community who felt it was worth their time to examine a work, to close reading and analyses of merit by the editorial board and others, we were able to produce the final list of works. For the inaugural issue, more than 15,000 items published or shared by the digital humanities community last quarter were reviewed for Digital Humanities Now. Of these, 85 were selected as Editors' Choices, and from these 85 the ones that most influenced the community, as measured by interest, transmission, and response, have been selected for formal publication in the Journal. The digital humanities community participated further in the review process through open peer review of the pieces selected for the Journal. Authors selected for inclusion were given time to revise their work to answer criticisms and suggestions from the community and editors, prior to a round of careful editing to avoid typographical errors and other minor mistakes.
| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010: "SEP [Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography] is compiled with utter professionalism. It reminds me of the work of the best artisans who know not only every item that leaves their workshops, but each component used to create them—providing the ideal quality control." — Péter Jacsó ONLINE 27, no. 3 (2003): 73-76. | Digital Scholarship |
Peter Webster has self-archived SAS Open Journals: Final Report in SAS-Space
Here's an excerpt:
The culture of open access journal publishing is not yet well established amongst the smaller arts and humanities journals which we intend to engage in this project in the longer term. However, as the business model for this type of small self-published journal comes under increasing pressure, SAS Open Journals now offers a lowcost solution. . . .
The project developed a re-usable overlay journal interface, using Amicus Curiae as the exemplar, thus completing the transition of that journal from print to web. This system is now available, at minimal cost, to journals produced within the School, and to publications by cognate learned societies. The system will greatly increase open access publishing capacity in the humanities and social sciences, and further fulfil the School's RPF mission. To date, two further journals have committed themselves to using SAS Open Journals.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |
Juan Pablo Alperin, Gustavo E. Fischman, and John Willinsky have self-archived "Scholarly Communication Strategies in Latin America's Research-Intensive Universities" in the SUSE Open Archive.
Here's an excerpt:
Open Access—scholarship that is "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions" (Suber, 2011)—has dramatically changed the research landscape in universities worldwide in the twenty-first century. In Latin America, regional Open Access initiatives (if not officially labeled "open access") have permeated most research-intensive universities and national science evaluation systems and have begun to alter the way that local research is perceived. Furthermore, the prominence of Open Access, regionally and globally, has become a significant force in transforming previous traditions and systems used by universities in Latin America in the production and access to scientific knowledge, having a profound influence on its position within what might be thought of as the global knowledge exchange.
| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |
The Library Information Technology Association has published the first open access issue of Information Technology and Libraries under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Here's an excerpt from the "Editor's Comments":
Welcome to the first issue of Information Technology and Libraries (ITAL) as an open-access, e-only publication. As announced to LITA members in early January, this change in publishing model will help ensure the long-term viability of ITAL by making it more accessible, more current, more relevant, and more environmentally friendly. ITAL will continue to feature high-quality articles that have undergone a rigorous peer-review process, but it will also begin expanding content to include more case studies, commentary, and information about topics and trends of interest to the LITA community and beyond. Look for a new scope statement for ITAL shortly.
Of special interest to DigitalKoans readers is Abigail J. McDermott's "Copyright: Regulation Out of Line with Our Digital Reality?" article.
| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals | Digital Scholarship |
SURF's EJME (Enhanced Journals…Made Easy!) Project has released data file plug-ins for Open Journal Systems.
Here's an excerpt from the announcement:
The Internet makes it possible to present publications in combination with related research data, as Enhanced Publications. The Enhanced Journals…Made Easy project (EJME), which is funded by SURF, has designed a practical work process for publishers of Open Access journals so as to enhance academic journals with the associated data files. The project involved the development of two plug-ins for Open Journal Systems, a system for managing and publishing journals. Open Journal Systems (OJS) is the most frequently used open source package worldwide for academic journals.
| Institutional Repository and ETD Bibliography 2011 | Digital Scholarship |
The Lamar Soutter Library has launched the Journal of eScience Librarianship.
The first issue's "full-length papers" are:
| E-science and Academic Libraries Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |
The Journal of Digital Humanities will launch this March.
Here's an excerpt from the announcement:
Digital Humanities Now is pleased to announce the Journal of Digital Humanities (ISSN 2165-6673), forthcoming in March 2012. In this comprehensive, peer-reviewed journal we will feature the best scholarship, projects, and tools produced by the digital humanities community in the previous quarter.
The Journal of Digital Humanities will offer expanded coverage of the digital humanities in three ways. First, we publish scholarly work beyond the traditional research article. Second, we select content from open and public discussions in the field. Third, we encourage continued discussion through peer-to-peer review.
The journal will be comprised of individual works that were selected as Editors' Choice in Digital Humanities Now. These works range from written texts, to visual arguments, to audio-visual presentations. In order to promote the peer review of non-traditional scholarship, each issue will include solicited reviews of digital tools. When the community focuses extensively on a particular topic, a special section of the issue will feature the broader conversation. In our inaugural issue, Natalia Cecire, a postdoctoral fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory University, will introduce and guest edit a special section about theory and the digital humanities.
| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, Version 80 | Digital Scholarship |
