"On the Value of Preprints: An Early Career Researcher Perspective"

Sarvenaz Sarabipour et al. have published "On the Value of Preprints: An Early Career Researcher Perspective" in PeerJ Preprints.

Here's an excerpt:

Peer-reviewed journal publication is the main means for academic researchers in the life sciences to create a permanent, public record of their work. These publications are also the de facto currency for career progress, with a strong link between journal brand recognition and perceived value. The current peer-review process can lead to long delays between submission and publication, with cycles of rejection, revision and resubmission causing redundant peer review. This situation creates unique challenges for early career researchers (ECRs), who rely heavily on timely publication of their work to gain recognition for their efforts. ECRs face changes in the academic landscape including the increased interdisciplinarity of life sciences research, expansion of the researcher population and consequent shifts in employer and funding demands. The publication of preprints, publicly available scientific manuscripts posted on dedicated preprint servers prior to journal managed peer-review, can play a key role in addressing these ECR challenges. Preprinting benefits include rapid dissemination of academic work, open access, establishing priority or concurrence, receiving feedback and facilitating collaborations. While there is a growing appreciation for and adoption of preprints, a minority of all articles in life sciences and medicine are preprinted. The current low rate of preprint submissions in life sciences and ECR concerns regarding preprinting needs to be addressed. We provide a perspective from an interdisciplinary group of early career researchers on the value of preprints and advocate the wide adoption of preprints to advance knowledge and facilitate career development.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"OpenAIRE and DuraSpace Partner to Support Greater Functionality in the Global Repository Network"

DuraSpace has released "OpenAIRE and DuraSpace Partner to Support Greater Functionality in the Global Repository Network."

Here's an excerpt:

Repositories collectively act as the foundation for Open Science by collecting and providing access to research outputs, and play a key role in the emerging scholarly commons. To that end, OpenAIRE and DuraSpace aim to ensure that repositories are using up-to-date technologies and adopting international standards and protocols. Through this MOU, OpenAIRE and DuraSpace have agreed to work together on a number of aspects to support their common goals. These activities include enabling DSpace systems to comply with OpenAIRE metadata guidelines, gradual adoption of next generation repository functionalities, and working together on standardized methods for measuring and aggregating usage statistics.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Measuring Open Access Policy Compliance: Results of a Survey"

Shannon Kipphut-Smith et al. have published "Measuring Open Access Policy Compliance: Results of a Survey" in the Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication.

Here's an excerpt:

INTRODUCTION In the last decade, a significant number of institutions have adopted open access (OA) policies. Many of those working with OA policies are tasked with measuring policy compliance. This article reports on a survey of Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) members designed to better understand the methods currently used for measuring and communicating OA policy success. METHODS This electronic survey was distributed to the COAPI member listserv, inviting both institutions who have passed an implemented policies and those who are still developing policies to participate. RESULTS The results to a number of questions related to topics such as policy workflows, quantitative and qualitative measurement activities and related tools, and challenges showed a wide range of responses, which are shared here. DISCUSSION It is clear that a number of COAPI members struggle with identifying what should be measured and what tools and methods are appropriate. The survey illustrates how each institution measures compliance differently, making it difficult to benchmark against peer institutions. CONCLUSION As a result of this survey, we recommend that institutions working with OA policies be as transparent as possible about their data sources and methods when calculating deposit rates and other quantitative measures. It is hoped that this transparency will result in the development of a set of qualitative and quantitative best practices for assessing OA policies that standardizes assessment terminology and articulates why institutions may want to measure policies.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"Towards Open Access Self Archiving Policies: A Case Study of COAR"

Bijan Kumar Roy et al. have published "Towards Open Access Self Archiving Policies: A Case Study of COAR" in LIBER Quarterly.

Here's an excerpt:

This paper examines Open Access (OA) self archiving policies of different Open Access Repositories (OARs) affiliated to COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) as partner institutes. The process of scrutiny includes three major activities—selection of databases to consult; comparison and evaluation of Open Access policies of repositories listed in the selected databases and attached to COAR group; and critical examination of available self archiving policies of these OA repositories against a set of selected criteria. The above steps lead to reporting the following results: key findings have been identified and highlighted; common practices have been analyzed in relation to the focus of this paper; and a best practice benchmark has been suggested for popularizing and strengthening OARs as national research systems. This paper may help administrators, funding agencies, policy makers and professional librarians in devising institute-specific self archiving policies for their own organizations.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"IMLS Funds DuraSpace Fedora Investigation–Designing a Migration Path: Assessing Barriers of Upgrading to the Most Current Version of Fedora–No Collection Left Behind"

DuraSpace has released "IMLS Funds DuraSpace Fedora Investigation–Designing a Migration Path: Assessing Barriers of Upgrading to the Most Current Version of Fedora–No Collection Left Behind."

Here's an excerpt:

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded DuraSpace a National Digital Platform Planning Grant for $49,279 to investigate barriers to upgrading hundreds of U.S.-based libraries and archives running unsupported versions of Fedora. In consultation with stakeholders this project will conduct an environmental scan of relevant community initiatives, and gather primary research data to inform recommendations to reduce barriers to upgrading to the most current version of Fedora.

There are approximately 240 U.S.-based libraries and archives identified as target beneficiaries of the deliverables of this project including universities, liberal arts colleges, and not-for-profit special libraries hosted by historical societies and small research institutes.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"The Rent’s Too High: Self-Archive for Fair Online Publication Costs"

Robert T. Thibault, Amanda MacPherson, Stevan Harnad, Amir Raza have self-archived "The Rent's Too High: Self-Archive for Fair Online Publication Costs."

Here's an excerpt:

The main contributors of scientific knowledge, researchers, generally aim to disseminate their findings far and wide. And yet, publishing companies have largely kept these findings behind a paywall. With digital publication technology markedly reducing cost, this enduring wall seems disproportionate and unjustified; moreover, it has sparked a topical exchange concerning how to modernize academic publishing. This discussion, however, seems to focus on how to compensate major publishers for providing open access through a "pay to publish" model, in turn transferring financial burdens from libraries to authors and their funders. Large publishing companies, including Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, PLoS, and Frontiers, continue to earn exorbitant revenues each year, hundreds of millions of dollars of which now come from processing charges for open-access articles. A less expensive and equally accessible alternative exists: widespread self-archiving of peer-reviewed articles. All we need is awareness of this alternative and the will to employ it

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

"How Open Is Open Access Research in Library and Information Science?"

Wanyenda Leonard Chilimo and Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha have published "How Open Is Open Access Research in Library and Information Science?" in the South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science.

Here's an excerpt:

The study investigates Library and Information Science (LIS) journals that published research articles between 2003 and 2013, which were about open access (OA) and were indexed in LIS databases. The purpose was to investigate the journals’ OA policies, ascertain the degree to which these policies facilitate OA to publications, and investigate whether such texts are also available as OA. The results show that literature growth in the domain has been significant, with a total of 1,402 articles produced during the eleven years under study. The OA policies of the fifty-six journals that published the highest number of articles were analysed. The results show that most articles (404; 41%) were published in hybrid journals, whereas 272 (29.7%) appeared in OA journals. Some 143 (53%) of the articles published in hybrid journals were available as green OA copies. In total, 602 (66%) of all the articles published were available as OA. The results show that the adoption of OA for research articles on that very subject is somewhat higher than in other fields. The study calls on LIS professionals to be conversant with the OA policies of the various journals that may publish their research.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

European Commission: "Trends for Open Access to Publications"

The European Commission has released Trends for Open Access to Publications.

Here's an excerpt:

Data and case studies covering access to scientific publications. Bibliometric data as well as well as data on the policies of journals and funders are available. . . .

See also: Open Science Monitor Methodological Note.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

New OA Poliicy: "Johns Hopkins Open Access Policy"

The Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University have released "Johns Hopkins Open Access Policy."

Here's an excerpt:

Johns Hopkins joins peer institutions, such as Harvard, MIT, and The University of California, by instituting a faculty open access policy. . . .

The Open Access website on the Provost’s site provides an FAQ, a background on Open Access, and a short history of the policy. It also provides a link to the Public Access Submission System, PASS, built by the library development team, to allow faculty to submit their author’s final version of their articles to JScholarship and PubMed Central, the repository for articles funded by NIH, ACL, ASPR, CDC, VA, FDA, HHMI, and NASA. More repositories will be added to PASS over time, saving faculty time and effort.

Academic Library as Scholarly Publisher Bibliography | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap

University of California: "Re: Declaration of Rights and Principles to Transform Scholarly Communication"

The University of California's University Committee on Library and Scholarly Communication has released "Re: Declaration of Rights and Principles to Transform Scholarly Communication."

Here's an excerpt:

1. No copyright transfers. Our authors shall be allowed to retain copyright in their work and grant a Creative Commons Attribution license of their choosing.

2. No restrictions on preprints. Our authors shall have the right to submit for publication work they have previously made available as preprints.

3. No waivers of OA Policy. Publishers shall not require our authors to provide waivers of our Institutional OA Policy as a condition for publishing our work.

4. No delays to sharing. Publishers shall make work by our authors immediately available for harvest or via automatic deposit into our Institutional OA repository or another public archive.

5. No limitations on author reuse. Our authors shall have the right to reuse figures, tables, data, and text from their published work without permission or payment.

6. No impediments to rights reversion. Publishers shall provide a simple process for our authors to regain copyright in their previously published work.

7. No curtailment of copyright exceptions. Licenses shall not restrict, and should instead expressly protect, the rights of authors, institutions, and the public to reuse excerpts of published work consistent with legal exceptions and limitations on copyright such as fair use.

8. No barriers to data availability. Our authors shall have the right to make all of their data, figures, and other supporting materials from their published work publicly available.

9. No constraints on content mining. Publishers shall make licensed materials open, accessible, and machine-readable for text and data mining by our researchers, at no additional cost and under terms that allow retention and reuse of results.

10. No closed metadata. Publishers shall make bibliographic records, usage metrics, and citation data for our authors freely available, easy to parse, and machine-readable.

11. No free labor. Publishers shall provide our Institution with data on peer review and editorial contributions by our authors in support of journals, and such contributions shall be taken into account when determining the cost of our subscriptions or OA fees for our authors.

12. No long-term subscriptions. Publishers shall provide our Institution with plans and timelines for transitioning their subscription journals to OA.

13. No permanent paywalls. Our Institution shall receive perpetual access for previously licensed content and back files shall be made freely available once a journal transitions to OA.

14. No double payments. Publishers shall provide our Institution with data on hybrid OA payments from our authors and such payments shall reduce the cost of our subscriptions.

15. No hidden profits. Publishers shall use transparent pricing for the services they provide our authors when levying article processing charges and other fees associated with publishing.

16. No deals without OA offsets. Our Institution shall only enter into publishing agreements that include offsets for OA publishing by our authors.

17. No new paywalls for our work. Work by our authors shall be made OA on the publisher’s website as part of subscription terms for new journals.

18. No non-disclosure agreements. Publisher agreements with our Institution shall be transparent and shall not contain terms that prevent the sharing of their contents.

Research Data Curation Bibliography, Version 9 | Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works | Open Access Works | Digital Scholarship | Digital Scholarship Sitemap