Étiquette : open access publishing

Negative Effects of “Predatory” Journals on Global Health Research

Authors : Diego A. Forero, Marilyn H. Oermann, Andrea Manca, Franca Deriu, Hugo Mendieta-Zerón, Mehdi Dadkhah, Roshan Bhad, Smita N. Deshpande, Wei Wang, Myriam Patricia Cifuentes

Predatory journals (PJ) exploit the open-access model promising high acceptance rate and fast track publishing without proper peer review. At minimum, PJ are eroding the credibility of the scientific literature in the health sciences as they actually boost the propagation of errors.

In this article, we identify issues with PJ and provide several responses, from international and interdisciplinary perspectives in health sciences.

Authors, particularly researchers with limited previous experience with international publications, need to be careful when considering potential journals for submission, due to the current existence of large numbers of PJ.

Universities around the world, particularly in developing countries, might develop strategies to discourage their researchers from submitting manuscripts to PJ or serving as members of their editorial committees.

URL : Negative Effects of “Predatory” Journals on Global Health Research

DOI : http://doi.org/10.29024/aogh.2389

A Very Long Embargo: Journal Choice Reveals Active Non-Compliance with Funder Open Access Policies by Australian and Canadian Neuroscientists

Authors: Shaun Yon-Seng Khoo, Belinda Po Pyn Lay

Research funders around the world have implemented open access policies that require funded research to be made open access, usually by self-archiving, within 12 months of publication.

Elsevier is unique among major science publishers because it produces several journals with non-compliant self-archiving embargoes of more than 12 months. We used Elsevier’s Scopus database to study the rate at which Australian and Canadian neuroscientists publish in Elsevier’s non-compliant (embargoes > 12 months) and compliant journals (embargoes ≤ 12 months).

We also examined publications in immediate open access neuroscience journals that had the DOAJ Seal and neuroscience publications in open access mega-journals. We found that the implementation of Australian and Canadian funder open access policies in 2012/2013 and 2015 did not reduce the number of publications in non-compliant journals.

Instead, scientific output in all publication types increased with the greatest growth in immediate open access journals. This data suggests that funder open access policies that are similar to the Australian and Canadian policies are likely to have little effect beyond an association with a general cultural trend towards open access.

URL : A Very Long Embargo: Journal Choice Reveals Active Non-Compliance with Funder Open Access Policies by Australian and Canadian Neuroscientists

DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10252

 

Unethical aspects of open access

Authors : David Shaw, Bernice Elger

In this article we identify and discuss several ethical problematic aspects of open access scientific publishing.

We conclude that, despite some positive effects, open access is unethical for at least three reasons: it discriminates against researchers, creates an editorial conflict of interest and diverts funding from the actual conduct of research. To be truly open access, all researchers must be able to access its benefits.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2018.1537789

Sustainable open access for scholarly journals in 6 years – the incubator model at Utrecht University Library Open Access Journals

Authors : Jeroen Sondervan, Fleur Stigter

Key points

  • Humanities and the social science journals need flexible funding models.
  • Pragmatism and collaboration are key to transforming traditional publishing initiatives.
  • The Uopen Journals model sets a 6‐year development target for developing sustainable journals.
  • Actively involved editors are key to a journal’s success.

OpenAPC: a contribution to a transparent and reproducible monitoring of fee-based open access publishing across institutions and nations

Authors : Dirk Pieper, Christoph Broschinski

The OpenAPC initiative releases data sets on fees paid for open access (OA) journal articles by universities, funders and research institutions under an open database licence.

OpenAPC is part of the INTACT project, which is funded by the German Research Foundation and located at Bielefeld University Library.

This article provides insight into OpenAPC’s technical and organizational background and shows how transparent and reproducible reporting on fee-based open access can be conducted across institutions and publishers to draw conclusions on the state of the OA transformation process.

As part of the INTACT subproject, ESAC, the article also shows how OpenAPC workflows can be used to analyse offsetting deals, using the example of Springer Compact agreements.

URL : OpenAPC: a contribution to a transparent and reproducible monitoring of fee-based open access publishing across institutions and nations

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.439

APCs – Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription-based model?

Author : Nina Schönfelder

With the ongoing open-access transformation, article processing charges (APCs) are gaining importance as the dominant business model for scientific open-access journals. This paper analyzes which factors determine the level of an APC by means of multivariate linear regression.

With data from OpenAPC, APCs actually paid are explained by the following variables: (1) the “source normalized impact per paper” (SNIP), (2) whether the journal is open access or hybrid, (3) the publisher of the journal, (4) the subject area of the journal, and (5) the year.

The results show that the journal’s impact and the hybrid status are the most important factors for the level of APCs. However, the relationship between APC and SNIP is different for open-access journals and hybrid journals.

The journal’s impact is crucial for the level of APCs in open-access journals, whereas it little alters APCs for publications in hybrid-journals. This paper contributes to the emerging literature initiated by the “Pay It Forward”-study conducted at the University of California Libraries.

It sets the foundations for the assessment whether the large-scale open-access transformation of scientific journals is a financially viable way for each research institution in general and universities in particular.

URL : APCs – Mirroring the impact factor or legacy of the subscription-based model?

DOI : http://doi.org/10.4119/unibi/2931061

Agriculture Journals Covered by Directory of Open Access Journals: An Analytical Study

Author : Muruli Acharya

With the advent of open access movement, open access journals (OAJs) being the prodigious source of academic and research information have been gaining significant magnitude.

The electronic age has made it easier and more convenient than ever to break barriers to research information. The present study aims to study and analyse the status of 497 OAJs in Agriculture indexed in Directory of Open Access Journals.

Specified traits such as Geographic and language wise distribution, coverage of Indexing/Abstracting databases, ranking of journals according to Impact Factor (IF), OA licensing model adopted, policy of plagiarism, visibility on social media and related issues of the OAJs in Agriculture are evaluated in the paper.

Results indicated the dominance of De Gruyter Open as a publisher with highest number of OAJs, English as a content language, Indonesia with highest number of OAJs, Google scholar with highest journals indexed.

The study observes the increasing migration of journals from commercial practice to OA. Frontiers in Plant Science found with highest Impact Factor among OAJs in Agriculture.

URL : Agriculture Journals Covered by Directory of Open Access Journals: An Analytical Study

Alternative location : http://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/index.php/djlit/article/view/13114