arXiv e-prints and the journal of record: An analysis of roles and relationships

Authors : Vincent Larivière, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Benoit Macaluso, Staša Milojević, Blaise Cronin, Mike Thelwal

Since its creation in 1991, arXiv has become central to the diffusion of research in a number of fields. Combining data from the entirety of arXiv and the Web of Science (WoS), this paper investigates (a) the proportion of papers across all disciplines that are on arXiv and the proportion of arXiv papers that are in the WoS, (b) elapsed time between arXiv submission and journal publication, and (c) the aging characteristics and scientific impact of arXiv e-prints and their published version.

It shows that the proportion of WoS papers found on arXiv varies across the specialties of physics and mathematics, and that only a few specialties make extensive use of the repository.

Elapsed time between arXiv submission and journal publication has shortened but remains longer in mathematics than in physics. In physics, mathematics, as well as in astronomy and astrophysics, arXiv versions are cited more promptly and decay faster than WoS papers.

The arXiv versions of papers – both published and unpublished – have lower citation rates than published papers, although there is almost no difference in the impact of the arXiv versions of both published and unpublished papers.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.3261

‘Héloïse’: towards a co-ordinated ecosystem approach for the archiving of scientific publications?

Authors : Hans Dillaerts, Ghislaine Chartron

With the continued development of open access policies, it is important to promote consensus-building projects with the various stakeholders. This article gives an account of how such collaboration has facilitated the construction of the project Héloïse.

This project is a French information service dedicated to describing the policies of French publishers on the self-archiving of scientific publications. Héloïse represents a real tool of mediation whose development involved much debate between publishers and research stakeholders.

This article seeks to demonstrate that the development of trust between the actors involved in the project was a major component of its success.

URL : http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00834411

Strategies for gaining and maintaining academic support for…

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Strategies for gaining and maintaining academic support for the institutional open access repository :

“The impact of research can be measured by use or citation count. The more widely available that research outputs are; the more likely they are to be used, and the higher the impact. Making the author-manuscript version of research outputs freely available via the institutional repository greatly increases the availability of research outputs and can increase the impact.
QUT ePrints, the open access institutional repository of research outputs at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, was established in 2003 and is managed by the QUT Library. The repository now contains over 39,000 records. More than 21,000 of these records have full-text copies attached as result of continuous effort to maintain momentum and encourage academic engagement. The full-text deposit rate has continued to increase over time and, in 2012 (August, at the time of writing), 88% of the records for works published in 2012 provide access to a full-text copy.
Achieving success has required a long term approach to collaboration, open access advocacy, repository promotion, support for the deposit process, and ongoing system development. This paper discusses the various approaches adopted by QUT Library, in collaboration with other areas of the University, to achieve success.
Approaches include mainstreaming the repository via having it report to the University Research and Innovation Committee; regular provision of deposit rate data to faculties; championing key academic supporters; and holding promotional competitions and events such as during Open Access Week.
Support and training is provided via regular deposit workshops with academics and faculty research support groups and via the provision of online self-help information. Recent system developments have included the integration of citation data (from Scopus and Web of Science) and the development of a statistical reporting system which incentivise engagement.”

URL : http://eprints.qut.edu.au/59212/

Recent developments in Open Access

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Open Access to the world’s research literature has been an obvious development since the emergence of the Internet. To everyone, it appears clear that the costs of disseminating research could drop dramatically. Yet, progress in achieving it is strangely slow. This paper explores recent developments in open access, including:
• The recent Australian NH&MRC and ARC mandates for open access deposit in university repositories, and how universities are responding to them
• The UK’s Finch Report, and Lord Krebs’ Committee Report
• Recent USA and German developments
• Gradual growth in open access journals, and the challenge for universities and their libraries of transferring reader-side fees (subscriptions) to author-side fees (publication charges)
• The emergence of submission fees so that highly selective journals need not transfer all the costs of rejections onto successful articles
• Fake conferences and journals which exist only to extract attendance or publication fees
• Newer publishing models
• The recent emergence of a third route to open access based on social networking.

The delays in establishing an obvious developmental consequence of the Internet can largely be attributed to two factors: (a) academic apathy and inertia, and (b) publisher protection of profit margins and old business models. Neither of these can be expected to last. Of particular interest is the ‘Titanium Road’, a route to open access that is reliant on social networking.

URL : http://eprints.utas.edu.au/16321/

Anatomy of Green Open Access Open Access…

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Anatomy of Green Open Access :

“Open Access (OA) is the free unrestricted access to electronic versions of scholarly publications. For peer reviewed journal articles there are two main routes to OA, publishing in OA journals (gold OA) or archiving of article copies or manuscripts at other web locations (green OA). This study focuses on summarizing and extending upon current knowledge about green OA. A synthesis of previous studies indicates that the green OA coverage of all published journal articles is approximately 12%, with substantial disciplinary variation. Typically, green OA copies become available with considerable time delays, partly caused by publisher imposed embargo periods, and partly by author tendencies to archive manuscripts only perio dically. Although green OA copies should ideally be archived in proper repositories, a large share is stored on home pages and similar locations, with no assurance of long-term preservation. Often such locations contain exact copies of published articles, which may infringe on the publisher’s exclusive rights. The technical foundation for green OA uploading is becoming increasingly solid, which is largely due to the rapid increase in the number of institutional repositories. The number of articles within th e scope of OA mandates, which strongly influence the self-archival rate of articles, is nevertheless still low.”

URL : http://www.openaccesspublishing.org/apc8/Personal%20VersionGreenOa.pdf

Open Access Self archiving in Library and Information…

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Open Access Self-archiving in Library and Information Science: Indian contribution to E-LIS Repository :

“Open Access (OA) is a widely debated issue in the scientific community as well as in the publishing industry. Although people in all walks of life are greatly benefitted by the OA philosophy, libraries and information centres have been the prime beneficiaries of the new model of information access and delivery. The main objective of the OA ventures is to make the recorded scholarly output freely available to all readers over the Internet. The paper is a case study of E-LIS repository which provides open access LIS literature worldwide. The study found that India is the highest contributor to the repository among all the 42 Asian countries with 658 submissions followed by Turkey and China. M. S. Sridhar, former librarian of ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore found to be the highest individual contributors to E-LIS from India with 106 (234%) papers.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/18655/

“Going green” self archiving as a means for…

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“Going green”: self-archiving as a means for dissemination of research output in ecology and evolution :

“There is a perception that is prevalent within the academic community that access to information is being restricted by the large publishing houses that dominate academic publishing. However, self-archiving policies that are promoted by publishers provide a method by which this restriction can be relaxed. In this paper I outline the motivation behind self-archiving publications in terms of increased impact (citations and downloads of articles), increased access for the developing world, and decreased library costs. I then describe the current state of self-archiving policies in 165 ecology and evolution journals. I demonstrate that the majority (52%) of papers published in 2011 could have been self-archived in a format close to their final form. Journals with higher impacts tend to have more restrictive policies on self-archiving, and publishers vary in the extent to which they impose these restrictions. Finally, I provide a guide to academics on how to take advantage of opportunities for self-archiving using either institutional repositories or freely-available online tools.”

URL :http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/IEE/article/view/4555