COCI, the OpenCitations Index of Crossref open DOI-to-DOI citations

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Authors : Ivan Heibi, Silvio Peroni, David Shotton

In this paper, we present COCI, the OpenCitations Index of Crossref open DOI-to-DOI citations (this http URL). COCI is the first open citation index created by OpenCitations, in which we have applied the concept of citations as first-class data entities, and it contains more than 445 million DOI-to-DOI citation links derived from the data available in Crossref.

These citations are described in RDF by means of the newly extended version of the OpenCitations Data Model (OCDM).

We introduce the workflow we have developed for creating these data, and also show the additional services that facilitate the access to and querying of these data via different access points: a SPARQL endpoint, a REST API, bulk downloads, Web interfaces, and direct access to the citations via HTTP content negotiation.

Finally, we present statistics regarding the use of COCI citation data, and we introduce several projects that have already started to use COCI data for different purposes.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.06052

Open Up: A Survey on Open and Non-anonymized Peer Reviewing

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Authors : Lonni Besançon, Niklas Rönnberg, Jonas Löwgren, Jonathan P. Tennant, Matthew Cooper

We present a discussion and analysis regarding the benefits and limitations of open and non-anonymized peer review based on literature results and responses to a survey on the reviewing process of alt.chi, a more or less open-review track within the CHI conference, the predominant conference in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI).

This track currently is the only implementation of an open-peer-review process in the field of HCI while, with the recent increase in interest in open science practices, open review is now being considered and used in other fields.

We collected 30 responses from alt.chi authors and reviewers and found that, while the benefits are quite clear and the system is generally well liked by alt.chi participants, they are reluctant to see it used in other venues.

This concurs with a number of recent studies that suggest a divergence between support for a more open review process and its practical implementation. The data and scripts are available on https://osf.io/vuw7h/, and the figures and follow-up work on http://tiny.cc/OpenReviews.

URL : Open Up: A Survey on Open and Non-anonymized Peer Reviewing

Alternative location : https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/201905.0098/v2

 

Dataset search: a survey

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Authors : Adriane Chapman, Elena Simperl, Laura Koesten, George Konstantinidis, Luis-Daniel Ibáñez, Emilia Kacprzak, Paul Groth

Generating value from data requires the ability to find, access and make sense of datasets. There are many efforts underway to encourage data sharing and reuse, from scientific publishers asking authors to submit data alongside manuscripts to data marketplaces, open data portals and data communities.

Google recently beta-released a search service for datasets, which allows users to discover data stored in various online repositories via keyword queries. These developments foreshadow an emerging research field around dataset search or retrieval that broadly encompasses frameworks, methods and tools that help match a user data need against a collection of datasets.

Here, we survey the state of the art of research and commercial systems and discuss what makes dataset search a field in its own right, with unique challenges and open questions.

We look at approaches and implementations from related areas dataset search is drawing upon, including information retrieval, databases, entity-centric and tabular search in order to identify possible paths to tackle these questions as well as immediate next steps that will take the field forward.

URL : Dataset search: a survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00778-019-00564-x

A Crisis in “Open Access”: Should Communication Scholarly Outputs Take 77 Years to Become Open Access?

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Authors : Abbas Ghanbari Baghestan, Hadi Khaniki, Abdolhosein Kalantari, Mehrnoosh Akhtari-Zavare, Elaheh Farahmand, Ezhar Tamam, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Havva Sabani, Mahmoud Danaee

This study diachronically investigates the trend of the “open access” in the Web of Science (WoS) category of “communication.” To evaluate the trend, data were collected from 184 categories of WoS from 1980 to 2017.

A total of 87,997,893 documents were obtained, of which 95,304 (0.10%) were in the category of “communication.” In average, 4.24% of the documents in all 184 categories were open access. While in communication, it was 3.29%, which ranked communication 116 out of 184.

An Open Access Index (OAI) was developed to predict the trend of open access in communication. Based on the OAI, communication needs 77 years to fully reach open access, which undeniably can be considered as “crisis in scientific publishing” in this field.

Given this stunning information, it is the time for a global call for “open access” by communication scholars across the world. Future research should investigate whether the current business models of publications in communication scholarships are encouraging open access or pose unnecessary restrictions on knowledge development.

URL : A Crisis in “Open Access”: Should Communication Scholarly Outputs Take 77 Years to Become Open Access?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019871044

Evolution of an Institutional Repository: A Case History from Nebraska

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Author : Paul Royster

The 13-year history of the institutional repository (IR) at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is recounted with emphasis on local conditions, administrative support, recruitment practices, and management philosophy.

Practices included offering new services, hosting materials outside the conventional tenure stream, using student employees, and providing user analytics on global dissemination. Acquiring trust of faculty depositors enhanced recruitment and extra-library support.

Evolution of policies on open access, copyright, metadata, and third-party vendors are discussed, with statistics illustrating the growth, contents, and outreach of the repository over time.

A final section discusses future directions for scholarly communications and IRs in particular.

URL : https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/382/

Open science and modified funding lotteries can impede the natural selection of bad science

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Authors : Paul E. Smaldino, Matthew A. Turner, Pablo A. Contreras Kallens

Assessing scientists using exploitable metrics can lead to the degradation of research methods even without any strategic behaviour on the part of individuals, via ‘the natural selection of bad science.’

Institutional incentives to maximize metrics like publication quantity and impact drive this dynamic. Removing these incentives is necessary, but institutional change is slow.

However, recent developments suggest possible solutions with more rapid onsets. These include what we call open science improvements, which can reduce publication bias and improve the efficacy of peer review. In addition, there have been increasing calls for funders to move away from prestige- or innovation-based approaches in favour of lotteries.

We investigated whether such changes are likely to improve the reproducibility of science even in the presence of persistent incentives for publication quantity through computational modelling.

We found that modified lotteries, which allocate funding randomly among proposals that pass a threshold for methodological rigour, effectively reduce the rate of false discoveries, particularly when paired with open science improvements that increase the publication of negative results and improve the quality of peer review.

In the absence of funding that targets rigour, open science improvements can still reduce false discoveries in the published literature but are less likely to improve the overall culture of research practices that underlie those publications.

URL : Open science and modified funding lotteries can impede the natural selection of bad science

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.190194