Étiquette : Germany

Open Access in Vocational Education and Training Research

Authors : Karin Langenkamp, Bodo Rödel, Kerstin Taufenbach, Meike Weiland

The article presents a research project at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training in Germany and reflects the perspective of researchers in the field of vocational education and training (VET).

It investigates the technical and structural, policy-related, and normative and inherent academic research conditions exerting an influence on the acceptance, dissemination, and use of Open Access (OA).

The research project focuses on the German-speaking countries. VET research represents an interlinking of various related academic research areas, rather than comprising a stand-alone discipline.

Therefore, the assumption must be that the results of the project will be at least partially transferable to other fields within the social sciences and the humanities and will thus contribute towards findings with regard to OA across the whole of the latter domain.

The background to the project is underpinned by science communication and by media theory. The empirical basis of the study has its foundations in a Sequential Mixed Method Design with a qualitative strand, followed by a quantitative strand.

The qualitative exploration via focus groups will lead to hypotheses for the online survey. The online survey will be aimed at academic researchers from various disciplines who share common ground in that they address topics that are related to VET research. The realisation of the research project is planned for 2018–2020.

URL : Open Access in Vocational Education and Training Research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications6030029

Data-Driven Transition: Joint Reporting of Subscription Expenditure and Publication Costs

Authors : Irene Barbers, Nadja Kalinna, Bernhard Mittermaier

The transition process from the subscription model to the open access model in the world of scholarly publishing brings a variety of challenges to libraries. Within this evolving landscape, the present article takes a focus on budget control for both subscription and publication expenditure with the opportunity to enable the shift from one to the other.

To reach informed decisions with a solid base of data to be used in negotiations with publishers, the diverse already-existing systems for managing publications costs and for managing journal subscriptions have to be adapted to allow comprehensive reporting on publication expenditure and subscription expenditure.

In the case presented here, two separate systems are described and the establishment of joint reporting covering both these systems is introduced. Some of the results of joint reporting are presented as an example of how such a comprehensive monitoring can support management decisions and negotiations.

On a larger scale, the establishment of the National Open Access Monitor in Germany is introduced, bringing together a diverse range of data from several already-existing systems, including, among others, holdings information, usage data, and data on publication fees.

This system will enable libraries to access all relevant data with a single user interface.

URL : Data-Driven Transition: Joint Reporting of Subscription Expenditure and Publication Costs

Alternative location : http://www.mdpi.com/2304-6775/6/2/19

Laying Tracks as the Train Approaches: Innovative Open Access Book Publishing at Heidelberg University from the Editors’ Point of View

Authors : Andrea Hacker, Elizabeth Corrao

In April 2016, Heidelberg University’s newly founded open access publisher heiUP launched the first volume of the new book series Heidelberg Studies in Transculturality.

This article reports on the challenges, accomplishments, and setbacks that informed the entire editorial production process, not only of the first volume but also of the series and the publishing enterprise overall.

The authors offer insights on crucial issues that any new open access publishing endeavour at an institution might face, namely acquiring manuscripts, designing and building workflows, and collaborating with partners to build an outlet for hosting the finished product.

This article also illustrates how the goal of providing a new digital reading experience through an innovative HTML format, in addition to print-on-demand and PDF versions of each manuscript, affected the progress of the entire project. Finally, we report on what it took to deliver results.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jsp.48.2.76

Continuing Professional Education in Open Access : a French-German Survey

Authors : Achim Oßwald, Joachim Schöpfel, Bernard Jacquemin

While open access (OA) has become a significant part of scientific communication and academic publishing, qualification issues have been out of focus in the OA community until recent years.

Based on findings about the qualification for OA within university-based programs in France and Germany the authors surveyed continuing professional education activities regarding OA in both countries in the years 2012-2015.

The results indicate that there are different types of events qualifying for OA and reveal a lack of coherent concepts for different target groups. Until now traditional presentation formats have been dominant.

Formats for distance learning, like MOOCs or webinars, might serve different needs and interests.

URL : https://www.liberquarterly.eu/articles/10.18352/lq.10158/

A study of institutional spending on open access publication fees in Germany

Authors : Najko Jahn, Marco Tullney

Publication fees as a revenue source for open access publishing hold a prominent place on the agendas of researchers, policy makers, and academic publishers.

This study contributes to the evolving empirical basis for funding these charges and examines how much German universities and research organisations spent on open access publication fees.

Using self-reported cost data from the Open APC initiative, the analysis focused on the amount that was being spent on publication fees, and compared these expenditure with data from related Austrian (FWF) and UK (Wellcome Trust, Jisc) initiatives, in terms of both size and the proportion of articles being published in fully and hybrid open access journals.

We also investigated how thoroughly self-reported articles were indexed in Crossref, a DOI minting agency for scholarly literature, and analysed how the institutional spending was distributed across publishers and journal titles.

According to self-reported data from 30 German universities and research organisations between 2005 and 2015, expenditures on open access publication fees increased over the years in Germany and amounted to € 9,627,537 for 7,417 open access journal articles.

The average payment was € 1,298, and the median was € 1,231. A total of 94% of the total article volume included in the study was supported in accordance with the price cap of € 2,000, a limit imposed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as part of its funding activities for open access funding at German universities.

Expenditures varied considerably at the institutional level. There were also differences in how much the institutions spent per journal and publisher. These differences reflect, at least in part, the varying pricing schemes in place including discounted publication fees.

With an indexing coverage of 99%, Crossref thoroughly indexed the open access journals articles included in the study. A comparison with the related openly available cost data from Austria and the UK revealed that German universities and research organisations primarily funded articles in fully open access journals.

By contrast, articles in hybrid journal accounted for the largest share of spending according to the Austrian and UK data. Fees paid for hybrid journals were on average more expensive than those paid for fully open access journals.

URL : A study of institutional spending on open access publication fees in Germany

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2323

2012 Census of Open Access Repositories in Germany…

2012 Census of Open Access Repositories in Germany: Turning Perceived Knowledge Into Sound Understanding :

“Germany’s open access repository landscape is one of the largest in the world. It is shaped by institutional, subject and cross-institutional repositories serving different needs which range, for example, from a mere theses server to a repository integrated into an institutional information infrastructure. To date this landscape has never been fully surveyed. This article presents and interprets the results of a 2012 Census of Open Access Repositories in Germany. This Census covered crucial issues ranging from repository size and software, various value-added services, to general aspects of open access. The key findings of this survey shall help stakeholders in their decision making by identifying trends in the development of open access repositories in Germany.”

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november13/vierkant/11vierkant.html

The Determinants of Open Access Publishing Survey Evidence…

The Determinants of Open Access Publishing: Survey Evidence from Germany :

“We discuss the results of a survey conducted in fall 2012 and covering 2,151 researchers in Germany. We show that there are significant differences between the scientific disciplines with respect to researcher’s awareness of and experience with both open access (OA) journals and self-archiving. Our results reveal that the relevance of OA within a discipline may explain why researchers from particular disciplines do (not) publish OA. Besides, several aspects like copyright law, age, profession or the inherent reward system of a discipline play a role. As a consequence, the paper emphasizes that a “one-size-fits-all” approach as promoted by most recent policy approaches is little promising for providing an effective framework for shaping the future of scholarly publishing.”

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2232675