An Analysis of Digital Library Publishing Services in Ukrainian Universities

Authors : Tetiana Kolesnykova, Olena Matveyeva

Objective – The objective of this study was to assess the current state of digital library publishing (DLP) in university libraries in the Ukraine. The study was conducted in the hopes of gaining a better understanding of the DLP landscape, namely institutional operations, as well as their varying publishing initiatives, processes, and scope.

Methods

The current study was conducted from January to June 2017 using a mixed methods approach, involving semi-structured interviews and an online questionnaire. Semi-structured interviews were conducted (n = 11) to gain insight into participants’ experiences with DLP.

The interviews helped in the creation of the questions included in our online questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to 195 representatives (directors and leading specialists) of university libraries in the Ukraine. Replies were received from 111 of those institutions.

The questionnaire consisted of 11 open- and closed-ended questions to allow the researchers to obtain a holistic picture of the process under investigation.

Results

Analysis of the 111 questionnaires showed that for 26 libraries, DLP services were performed by employees of a separate structural unit of the library. For 34 libraries, employees of various departments were involved in performing certain types of services.

The other 40 respondents’ libraries were planning to do this in the near future. Only 11 respondents replied that they did provide DLP services now nor planned to in the future. Among the libraries providing DLP services, the following results were observed: 54 of 60 work with digital repositories, 47 provide digital publishing platforms for journals, 26 provide digital publishing platforms for books, and 23 provide digital publishing platforms for conferences.

Conclusions

The results obtained indicate a growing trend of expanding digital services in university libraries to support study, teaching, and research. Despite the still spontaneous, chaotic, and poorly explored nature of the development of the library publishing movement in the university libraries of the Ukraine, the readiness of librarians to implement publishing activities is notable.

At the same time, the survey results point to specific aspects, such as organizational, economic, personnel, and motivational, that require further study.

URL : An Analysis of Digital Library Publishing Services in Ukrainian Universities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.18438/eblip29510

Connecting Users to Articles: An Analysis of the Impact of Article Level Linking on Journal Use Statistics

Author : Michelle Swab

Objective

Electronic resource management challenges and “big deal” cancellations at one Canadian university library contributed to a situation where a number of electronic journal subscriptions at the university’s health sciences library lacked article level linking.

The aim of this study was to compare the usage of journals with article level linking enabled to journals where only journal level linking was available or enabled.

Methods

A list of electronic journal title subscriptions was generated from vendor and subscription agent invoices. Journal titles were eligible for inclusion if the subscription was available throughout 2018 on the publisher’s platform, if the subscription costs were fully funded by the health sciences library, and if management of the subscription required title-by-title intervention by library staff. Of the 356 journal titles considered, 302 were included in the study.

Negative binomial regression was performed to determine the effect of journal vs. article level linking on total COUNTER Journal Report 1 (JR1) successful full-text article requests for 2018, controlling for journal publisher, subject area, journal ranking, and alternate aggregator access.

Results

The negative binomial regression model demonstrated that article level linking had a significant, positive effect on total 2018 JR1 (coef: 0.645; p < 0.001). Article level linking increased the expected total JR1 by 90.7% when compared to journals where article level linking was not available or enabled.

Differences in predicted usage between journals with article level linking and those without article level linking remained significant at various journal ranking levels.

This suggests that usage of both smaller, more specialized journals (e.g., Journal of Vascular Research) and larger, general journals (e.g., New England Journal of Medicine) increases when article level linking is enabled.

Conclusions

This study provides statistical evidence that enabling article level linking has a positive impact on journal usage at one academic health sciences library. Although further study is needed, academic libraries should consider enabling article level linking wherever possible in order to facilitate user access, maximize the value of journal subscriptions, and improve convenience for users.

URL : Connecting Users to Articles: An Analysis of the Impact of Article Level Linking on Journal Use Statistics

DOI : https://doi.org/10.18438/eblip29613

Scholarly Publishing Literacy at the University of South Florida Libraries: From Advising to Active Involvement

Authors : Chelsea Johnston, Jason Boczar

INTRODUCTION

Successful open access (OA) publishing in libraries requires careful guidance and organization. Support and services offered vary depending on available resources as well as the robustness of a library’s publishing program.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

This article describes the connection between publishing services and scholarly publishing literacy through examples from the University of South Florida (USF) Libraries.

The USF Libraries’ OA publishing program includes journals, textbooks, conference proceedings, and more. Our program balances advocating for open access with advising for actions that serve our partners’ goals. This invites trust, sustainable relationships, and opportunities for new work.

NEXT STEPS

At the USF Libraries, more work must be done to formally assess our efforts. Our program will also explore new ways to support the ethical standards expected of libraries by pursuing stronger policies on diversity and inclusion.

Using everyday work to demonstrate best practices is a manageable way to strengthen scholarly publishing efforts. We hope to continue growing our services, empowering our partners, and exploring our roles as advisors and advocates.

URL : Scholarly Publishing Literacy at the University of South Florida Libraries: From Advising to Active Involvement

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2310

A history and development of peer-review process

Author : Jana Siladitya

The paper shows the importance of peer review process in the scholarly communication system and discusses both the closed and the newly emerging open peer review models.

It also examines the peer review system at the scholarly academies or societies in their nomination systems for prizes, rewards, etc. It also discusses the various facets of the newly developed open peer review models now prevalent in various journals.

The paper may help to understand and appreciate the role played by peer review in the scholarly communication system and the efforts being made to make it more transparent.

URI : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/39332

Completeness of reporting in abstracts of randomized controlled trials in subscription and open access journals: cross-sectional study

Authors : Iva Jerčić Martinić-Cezar, Ana Marušić

Background

Open access (OA) journals are becoming a publication standard for health research, but it is not clear how they differ from traditional subscription journals in the quality of research reporting.

We assessed the completeness of results reporting in abstracts of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in these journals.

Methods

We used the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials Checklist for Abstracts (CONSORT-A) to assess the completeness of reporting in abstracts of parallel-design RCTs published in subscription journals (n = 149; New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, and Lancet) and OA journals (n = 119; BioMedCentral series, PLoS journals) in 2016 and 2017.

Results

Abstracts in subscription journals completely reported 79% (95% confidence interval [CI], 77–81%) of 16 CONSORT-A items, compared with 65% (95% CI, 63–67%) of these items in abstracts from OA journals (P < 0.001, chi-square test). The median number of completely reported CONSORT-A items was 13 (95% CI, 12–13) in subscription journal articles and 11 (95% CI, 10–11) in OA journal articles.

Subscription journal articles had significantly more complete reporting than OA journal articles for nine CONSORT-A items and did not differ in reporting for items trial design, outcome, randomization, blinding (masking), recruitment, and conclusions. OA journals were better than subscription journals in reporting randomized study design in the title.

Conclusion

Abstracts of randomized controlled trials published in subscription medical journals have greater completeness of reporting than abstracts published in OA journals.

OA journals should take appropriate measures to ensure that published articles contain adequate detail to facilitate understanding and quality appraisal of research reports about RCTs.

URL : Completeness of reporting in abstracts of randomized controlled trials in subscription and open access journals: cross-sectional study

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3781-x

Releasing a preprint is associated with more attention and citations for the peer-reviewed article

Authors : Darwin Y. Fu, Jacob J Hughey

Preprints in biology are becoming more popular, but only a small fraction of the articles published in peer-reviewed journals have previously been released as preprints.

To examine whether releasing a preprint on bioRxiv was associated with the attention and citations received by the corresponding peer-reviewed article, we assembled a dataset of 74,239 articles, 5,405 of which had a preprint, published in 39 journals.

Using log-linear regression and random-effects meta-analysis, we found that articles with a preprint had, on average, a 49% higher Altmetric Attention Score and 36% more citations than articles without a preprint.

These associations were independent of several other article- and author-level variables (such as scientific subfield and number of authors), and were unrelated to journal-level variables such as access model and Impact Factor.

This observational study can help researchers and publishers make informed decisions about how to incorporate preprints into their work.

URL : https://elifesciences.org/articles/52646

The Open-Factor: Toward Impact-Aligned Measures of Open-Access eBook Usage

Author : E. S. Hellman

A statistical analysis of usage data for open-access ebooks from two different publishers and from a free ebook distribution platform indicates that open-access ebook usage is distributed following log-normal statistics, and meaningful analysis results after calculating the logarithm of the download counts.

To assess usage impact from raw usage data in alignment with the goals of open-access ebook publishing, future impact analyses should use logarithm-based metrics to measure an “open-factor”.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/3336451.0022.104