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Open Data and Open Access Articles: Exploring Connections in the Life Sciences

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Author : Sarah C. Williams

Objectives

This small-scale study explores the current state of connections between open data and open access (OA) articles in the life sciences.

Methods

This study involved 44 openly available life sciences datasets from the Illinois Data Bank that had 45 related research articles. For each article, I gathered the OA status of the journal and the article on the publisher website and checked whether the article was openly available via Unpaywall and Research Gate. I also examined how and where the open data was included in the HTML and PDF versions of the related articles.

Results

Of the 45 articles studied, less than half were published in Gold/Full OA journals, and while the remaining articles were published in Gold/Hybrid journals, none of them were OA. This study found that OA articles pointed to the Illinois Data Bank datasets similarly to all of the related articles, most commonly with a data availability statement containing a DOI.

Conclusions

The findings indicate that Gold OA in hybrid journals does not appear to be a popular option, even for articles connected to open data, and this study emphasizes the importance of data repositories providing DOIs, since the related articles frequently used DOIs to point to the Illinois Data Bank datasets. This study also revealed concerns about free (not licensed OA) access to articles on publisher websites, which will be a significant topic for future research.

URL : Open Data and Open Access Articles: Exploring Connections in the Life Sciences

DOI : https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/vol9/iss1/3/

Publication strategies under the Publish or Perish Paradigm – using Kolb’s ELT to understand PhD students’ needs

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Authors : Charlotte Nordahl Wien, Bertil F. Dorch, Lone Bredahl, Mette Brandt Eriksen

Having a viable publication strategy at an early stage of the career can nowadays make a researcher. Not having one appears to break them. We as librarians are in a unique position to guide them in their endeavours to create a viable publication strategy.

In this paper we use Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory as our theoretical framework for understanding learning processes related to the development of a publication strategy.

We compare a set of publication strategies developed by newly enrolled PhD students 4 to 5 years ago to articles retrieved from PubMed and Scopus using the PhD students’ ORCID as identifier. We subdivide the publication strategies into three categories (fulfilled, partially fulfilled, abandoned).

We find evidence that the more realistic the publication plan is, the more likely it is to be followed.

This indicates that it is of importance that PhD schools support students’ efforts in developing their publication strategy at an early stage of their career.

URL : Publication strategies under the Publish or Perish Paradigm – using Kolb’s ELT to understand PhD students’ needs

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10349

Open Access Perceptions, Strategies, and Digital Literacies: A Case Study of a Scholarly-Led Journal

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Authors : Noella Edelmann, Judith Schoßböck

Open access (OA) publications play an important role for academia, policy-makers, and practitioners. Universities and research institutions set up OA policies and provide authors different types of support for engaging in OA activities. This paper presents a case study on OA publishing in a scholarly community, drawing on qualitative and quantitative data gained from workshops and a survey.

As the authors are the managing editors of the OA eJournal for eDemocracy and Open Government (JeDEM), the aim was to collect data and insights on the publication choices of authors interested in OA publishing and other crucial factors such as personal attitudes to publishing, institutional context, and digital literacy in order to improve the journal.

In the first phase, two workshops with different stakeholders were held at the Conference for e-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM) held in Austria and in South Korea in 2016. In the second phase, an online survey was sent to all the users of the e-journal JeDEM in October 2019.

From the workshops, key differences regarding OA perception and strategies between the stakeholder groups were derived. Participants strongly perceived OA publishing as a highly individualist matter embedded within a publishing culture emphasizing reputation and rankings.

The survey results, however, showed that institutional support differs considerably for authors. Factors such as visibility, reputation, and impact play the biggest role for the motivation to publish OA.

The results from both inquiries provide a better understanding of OA publishing attitudes and the relevant digital literacies but also suggest the need to investigate further the enablers or difficulties of scholarship, particularly in a digital context.

They clearly point to the potential of regularly addressing the users of the journal as well as communicating with them the more nuanced aspects of OA publishing, non-traditional metrics, or respective digital literacies, in order to reduce misconceptions about OA and to support critical stances.

URL : Open Access Perceptions, Strategies, and Digital Literacies: A Case Study of a Scholarly-Led Journal

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8030044

Unconsented acknowledgments as a form of authorship abuse: What can be done about it?

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Author : Mladen Koljatic

Unwelcome or unconsented acknowledgments is an unethical practice seldom addressed. It constitutes a form of authorship abuse perpetrated in the acknowledgments section of published research, where the victim is credited as having made a contribution to the paper, without having given their consent, and often without having seen a draft of the paper.

The acknowledgment may be written in such a way as to imply endorsement of the study’s data and conclusions. Through a real-life case, this paper explores the issue of unconsented acknowledgments and makes recommendations to prevent its occurrence, thereby promoting research integrity.

URL : Unconsented acknowledgments as a form of authorship abuse: What can be done about it?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120952516

Transitioning to Open Access: An Evaluation of the UK Springer Compact Agreement Pilot 2016–2018

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Authors : Mafalda Marques, Graham Stone

This article analyzes the UK’s first “read and publish” journals agreement. The Springer Compact Agreement pilot ran from 2016 to 2018. The authors outline the methodology and data sources used to undertake a detailed analysis of the agreement.

This includes the number of open access articles published, the number of author opt-outs and rejected articles. Institutional savings (or cost avoidance), and the financial implications resulting from the number of opt-outs and rejected articles are also discussed.

The value of articles published and cost per download for non-OA content are also covered. The agreement, at the consortia level, has constrained the total cost of publication—during the three years, the HE sector has avoided paying additional costs of €20,000,800 ($22,761,688) for publishing OA by paying the single combined fee that capped publication costs at 2014 rates.

All institutions taking part in the Springer Compact agreement published OA articles equivalent to or in excess of their total 2014 APC spend between 2016 and 2018. By 2018, 30 percent of institutions published OA articles to the value of or in excess of the combined fee paid to Springer. The article concludes with a number of recommendations for future agreements and considers compliance with Plan S guidelines.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.81.6.913

Leadership, Development, and Expertise: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Scholarly Communication Librarian Position Announcements

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Author: Angela Hackstadt

INTRODUCTION

In 2012, the Association of Research Libraries reported that 95% of libraries identified their libraries as leaders of scholarly communication efforts on campus. While academic librarians have long been responsible for SC issues, institutions have explicitly tasked positions with these responsibilities increasingly over time.

This qualitative analysis of position announcements focuses on the ways libraries expect these librarians to engage with SC issues and responsibilities, rather than describing the prevalence of SC-related functions.

Specifically, this study asks the following questions: (1) How do administrators communicate leadership expectations of SC librarian roles through job advertisements? (2) In what ways could these leadership expectations be challenging or problematic for SC librarians in non-administrator positions?

METHODS

This study is a qualitative content analysis of scholarly communication librarian position announcements posted to ALA JobList between January 1, 2016, and July 31, 2019. The advertisements are predominantly from North American academic libraries. Qualitative content analysis is systematic but allows for flexibility of interpretation in describing themes and categories.

The coding scheme developed over multiple readings of the data and the author identified categories through the process of subsumption.

RESULTS & DISCUSSION

Prevalent themes in position announcements include leadership, expertise, and development. Leadership responsibilities appear as management duties or, often in non-administrator positions, as an expectation to take initiative or be an exemplar.

SC librarians are expected to be experts, often as the library’s campus liaison or as educators in a variety of SC issues. They may also be tasked with developing institutional repositories or SC programs, though it is not always clear in the advertisement what support is available.

These themes are discussed in terms of the SC librarian as a boundary spanning role. Boundary spanners are positions within an organization that communicate with the outside environment. They may also serve as filters for information coming into the organization or facilitate communication between departments or units in an organization.

CONCLUSION

In SC librarian job advertisements, positional authority is often absent from positions that have a responsibility to lead or develop SC efforts, programs, or initiatives. Non-experts may bestow some level of authority to experts.

However, leadership and development tasks may prove difficult for a SC librarian who lacks the ability to make decisions or organizational changes. Suggestions for institutions and potential further research are discussed.

URL : Leadership, Development, and Expertise: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Scholarly Communication Librarian Position Announcements

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2376