EN

Inequity, precarity, and disparity: Exploring systemic and institutional barriers in open access publishing

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Philips Ayeni, Vincent Larivière

Despite increasing advocacy for open access (OA), its uptake in some disciplines has remained low. Existing studies have linked the low uptake of OA in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) to disciplinary norms, limited funding for article processing charges (APCs), and researchers’ preferences.

However, there is a growing concern about inequity in the scholarly communication landscape, as OA publishing has remained unaffordable to many researchers. This study investigates systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing in Canada, as well as strategies for improving the uptake of and equity in OA publishing.

Using semi-structured interviews, qualitative data was collected from 20 professors from the HSS disciplines of research-intensive universities in the country. Data was analyzed using the NVivo software, following the reflexive thematic analysis approach.

Findings revealed five systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing: (1) unaffordable APCs; (2) precarious career stage and tenure requirements; (3) unequal privileges; (4) gender; and (5) conflicting and unsupportive institutional OA policies.

We conclude that there needs to be a concerted effort in promoting and funding viable and sustainable OA models, which removes the financial burden of OA publishing from researchers.

There is also an increasing need to promote OA culture within academia and provide institutional support for OA publishing. Notably, the model of academic scholarship that places prominence on journal metrics for tenure and promotion needs to be reformed. Some recommendations for reducing systemic and institutional barriers to OA publishing are provided.

URL : Inequity, precarity, and disparity: Exploring systemic and institutional barriers in open access publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006251353385

 

EN

A retrospective analysis of 400 publications reveals patterns of irreproducibility across an entire life sciences research field

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Joseph Lemaitre, Désirée Popelka, Blandine Ribotta, Hannah Westlake, Sveta Chakrabarti, Li Xiaoxue, Mark A. Hanson, Haobo Jiang, Francesca Di Cara, Estee Kurant, Fabrice David, Bruno Lemaitre

The ReproSci project retrospectively analyzed the reproducibility of 1006 claims from 400 papers published between 1959 and 2011 in the field of Drosophila immunity. This project attempts to provide a comprehensive assessment, 14 years later, of the replicability of nearly all publications across an entire scientific community in experimental life sciences.

We found that 61% of claims were verified, while only 7% were directly challenged (not reproducible), a replicability rate higher than previous assessments. Notably, 24% of claims had never been independently tested and remain unchallenged.

We performed experimental validations of a selection of 45 unchallenged claim, that revealed that a significant fraction (38/45) of them is in fact non-reproducible. We also found that high-impact journals and top-ranked institutions are more likely to publish challenged claims.

In line with the reproducibility crisis narrative, the rates of both challenged and unchallenged claims increased over time, especially as the field gained popularity. We characterized the uneven distribution of irreproducibility among first and last authors.

Surprisingly, irreproducibility rates were similar between PhD students and postdocs, and did not decrease with experience or publication count. However, group leaders, who had prior experience as first authors in another Drosophila immunity team, had lower irreproducibility rates, underscoring the importance of early-career training.

Finally, authors with a more exploratory, short-term engagement with the field exhibited slightly higher rates of challenged claims and a markedly higher proportion of unchallenged ones. This systematic, field-wide retrospective study offers meaningful insights into the ongoing discussion on reproducibility in experimental life sciences.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.07.663460

EN

Open Access and Citation Impact: Modality, Funding, Publisher, and Disciplinary Trends at the University of Kentucky

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Ben Rawlins, Mitchell Scott

As publishers and libraries attempt to align business models and collection strategies to an everincreasing open access (OA) publishing landscape, both have found that the message of open access citation advantage (OACA) resonates with current and prospective authors. Despite its widespread promotion and acceptance, however, OACA is not universal and is subject to ongoing debate.

This quantitative study contributes to the OACA debate and research with a longitudinal focus on citation data from journal articles published 2018–2021 by University of Kentucky-affiliated authors.

The article and citation data for University of Kentucky-affiliated authors are supplemented with University of Kentucky College and departmental data, providing valuable local context. In addition to author-level departmental data, this study also considers traditional confounding variables often investigated in OACA studies, such as OA modality, funding, and funding source, and introduces journal publisher as a variable for OACA analysis.

URL : Open Access and Citation Impact: Modality, Funding, Publisher, and Disciplinary Trends at the University of Kentucky

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.69n3.8496

EN

The gender gap in scholarly self-promotion on social media

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Hao Peng, Misha Teplitskiy, Daniel M. Romero, Emőke-Ágnes Horvát

Self-promotion in science is ubiquitous but may not be exercised equally by everyone. Research on self-promotion in other domains suggests that, partly due to adverse reactions to non-gender-conforming career-enhancing behaviors, women tend to self-promote less often than men.

We test whether this pattern extends to online spaces by examining scholarly self-promotion over six years using 23M tweets about 2.8M research papers authored by 3.5M scientists. We find that, overall, women are about 28% less likely than men to self-promote their papers on Twitter (now X) despite accounting for important confounds.

The differential adoption of Twitter does not fully explain the gender gap in self-promotion, which is large even in relatively gender-balanced research areas, where adversity is expected to be smaller.

Moreover, we find that the gender gap increases with higher performance and academic status, being most pronounced for research-prolific women from top-ranked institutions who publish papers in high-impact journals.

We also find differential returns with respect to gender: while self-promotion is associated with increased tweets of papers compared to no self-promotion, the increase is slightly smaller for women than for men. Our findings reveal that scholarly self-promotion online varies meaningfully by gender and can contribute to a measurable gender gap in the visibility of scientific ideas.

URL : The gender gap in scholarly self-promotion on social media

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60590-y

 

EN

Peer review across borders: benefits and challenges of international review panels in research funding organizations

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Helen Peterson, Liisa Husu

Peer review by external experts is widely recognized as a legitimate and trustworthy academic practice, essential for ensuring the quality and rigor of research, providing more objective and less impartial assessments, and promoting transparent decision-making in science and academia. Research Funding Organisations (RFOs) usually rely on some form of peer review to evaluate the scientific quality of research proposals to allocate their limited resources.

The peer review system is, however, also associated with several weaknesses, such as risks for bias and conflict of interest. This article explores the implications of replacing National Review Panels (NRPs) with International Review Panels (IRPs) in a national RFO, examining how this shift may impact the peer review process.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with staff from a national RFO in a European country and members of its IRPs, the article provides a nuanced analysis of both the potential benefits and challenges with substituting NRPs with IRPs.

The results highlight how IRPs increase the distance between applicants and reviewers, which benefits the impartiality of the process. Nevertheless, this distance needs to be balanced by domestic panel members, chairs or research officers possessing appropriate knowledge of the local academic context, culture and structure.

IRPs also introduce a greater diversity of perspectives into the assessments of applicants, which may promote objective and balanced assessments. The diversity may however also lower inter-reviewer reliability, and, in turn, complicate calibration practices and hinder the development of informal deliberative norms during the process of reaching decisions and consensus.

URL : Peer review across borders: benefits and challenges of international review panels in research funding organizations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvaf030

EN

Worth the Cost? Researchers’ Use and Experience With Commercial Services for Research Outreach

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Hamid R. Jamali

Introduction

Research outreach activities aim to communicate specific research findings to non-specialist audiences. In recent years, commercial outreach services have emerged that offer fee-based assistance in transforming research findings into accessible reader-friendly content, including multimedia content, and promotional material aimed at broader audiences.

They may also publish the content on their own platforms, such as magazines or websites, to further enhance research visibility and dissemination. The experiences associated with these services are poorly understood. This study examined the motivation for use, challenges, and perceived value of commercial services for research outreach among researchers.

Methods

An online questionnaire surveyed researchers who had published with two commercial services, ResearchOutreach.org or ResearchFeatures.com, between January 2022 and February 2024, yielding 104 responses (20% response rate).

Results

Most respondents used commercial services to increase their research visibility and reach a broader audience. Factors influencing researchers’ decision to use commercial services included convenience, professionalism, broad audience access, and insufficient university outreach support.Most respondents (91.5%) were satisfied with the representation of their research, and about half faced no challenges.

One-third said they would recommend the service; however, issues like content quality, time consumption, and high costs were noted. Interestingly, a third of the participants paid personally, and around 67% reported no significant impact from the publication on their work.

Discussion

While commercial outreach services can enhance research visibility, their cost-effectiveness and impact vary. A significant portion of researchers reported little to no tangible benefits from these services, which raises concerns about their cost-effectiveness and the accuracy of marketing claims.

Conclusion

This study reveals a mix of positive and negative experiences with commercial outreach services, which highlights that their usefulness depends on individual circumstances and expectations. Concerns around cost and effectiveness persist. More transparent evaluations are needed. Collaboration between institutions and service providers might help support effective research dissemination and ensure equitable access to outreach resources.

URL : Worth the Cost? Researchers’ Use and Experience With Commercial Services for Research Outreach

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18409

FR

Revues de droit et science ouverte : écosystème, pratiques des chercheurs, rôle des bibliothèques

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteur/Author : Pierre Guibourg

Cette étude vise à décrire l’écosystème actuel des revues françaises de droit, qui semble dominé par des logiques extra-académiques, au premier plan desquelles le poids important des grands éditeurs privés.

Dans ce contexte, se pose la question de l’accès ouvert en droit, qui est moins développé que dans les autres SHS, ainsi que celle des actions que mènent et que peuvent mener les bibliothèques pour faire changer cette situation.

URL : Revues de droit et science ouverte : écosystème, pratiques des chercheurs, rôle des bibliothèques

enssib : https://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique/notices/73421-revues-de-droit-et-science-ouverte-ecosysteme-pratiques-des-chercheurs-role-des-bibliotheques