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Adoption of the open access business model in scientific journal publishing – A cross-disciplinary study

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Authors : Bo-Christer Björk, Timo Korkeamäki

Scientific journal publishers have over the past twenty-five years rapidly converted to predominantly electronic dissemination, but the reader-pays business model continues to dominate the market.

Open Access (OA) publishing, where the articles are freely readable on the net, has slowly increased its market share to near 20%, but has failed to fulfill the visions of rapid proliferation predicted by many early proponents.

The growth of OA has also been very uneven across fields of science. We report market shares of open access in eighteen Scopus-indexed disciplines ranging from 27% (agriculture) to 7% (business).

The differences become far more pronounced for journals published in the four countries, which dominate commercial scholarly publishing (US, UK, Germany and the Netherlands). We present contrasting developments within six academic disciplines.

Availability of funding to pay publication charges, pressure from research funding agencies, and the diversity of discipline-specific research communication cultures arise as potential explanations for the observed differences.

URL : https://haris.hanken.fi/portal/files/11186226/Bjo_rk_Korkeama_ki_2020_a_Green_version.pdf

Grey Literature: Use, Creation, and Citation Habits of Faculty Researchers across Disciplines

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Authors : Kristen Cooper, Wanda Marsolek, Amy Riegelman, Shannon Farrell, Julie Kelly

INTRODUCTION

Grey literature is ephemeral, and the level to which it is created, used, and cited by faculty, graduate students, and other researchers is not well understood.

METHODS

This electronic survey was distributed to a sample (57%) of the faculty across a wide variety of disciplines with the only criteria based on tenure and tenure-track faculty at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, a large R1 institution.

RESULTS

Faculty across disciplines both use and create grey literature for several reasons, including its far more rapid Faculty across disciplines both use and create grey literature for several reasons, including its far more rapid publication process.

DISCUSSION

Many faculty in a wide variety of disciplines are using and creating grey literature. The survey illustrates the different types of grey literature that are being used and for what purpose.

Other topics, such as how faculty are finding grey literature (via Google Scholar and professional contacts), whether they are citing it, and which types they create (e.g., conference papers, preprints, technical reports) are also discussed.

CONCLUSION

As a result of this survey, librarians can provide support for faculty who use and create grey literature in all disciplines and advocate for and promote grey literature to faculty. With more scholars participating in systematic reviews of grey literature, librarians will need to be more cognizant of where and how it may be discovered.

URL : Grey Literature: Use, Creation, and Citation Habits of Faculty Researchers across Disciplines

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2314

The Common Ground of Open Access and Interdisciplinarity

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Author : Patrick Gamsby

In recent years, Open Access and interdisciplinarity have emerged as two prevalent trends in academia. Although seemingly separate pursuits with separate literature, goals, and advocates, there are significant interconnections between these two movements that have largely gone unnoticed.

This paper provides a philosophical inquiry into the unexplored relationship between these two trends and makes the case that there is an intrinsic affinity between Open Access and interdisciplinarity and, as such, concludes that all interdisciplinary research, to remain true to the foundational tenets of interdisciplinarity, ought to be Open Access.

URL : The Common Ground of Open Access and Interdisciplinarity

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8010001

A Discussion of Value Metrics for Data Repositories in Earth and Environmental Sciences

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Authors : Cynthia Parr, Corinna Gries, Margaret O’Brien, Robert R. Downs, Ruth Duerr, Rebecca Koskela, Philip Tarrant, Keith E. Maull, Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Shelley Stall

Despite growing recognition of the importance of public data to the modern economy and to scientific progress, long-term investment in the repositories that manage and disseminate scientific data in easily accessible-ways remains elusive. Repositories are asked to demonstrate that there is a net value of their data and services to justify continued funding or attract new funding sources.

Here, representatives from a number of environmental and Earth science repositories evaluate approaches for assessing the costs and benefits of publishing scientific data in their repositories, identifying various metrics that repositories typically use to report on the impact and value of their data products and services, plus additional metrics that would be useful but are not typically measured.

We rated each metric by (a) the difficulty of implementation by our specific repositories and (b) its importance for value determination. As managers of environmental data repositories, we find that some of the most easily obtainable data-use metrics (such as data downloads and page views) may be less indicative of value than metrics that relate to discoverability and broader use.

Other intangible but equally important metrics (e.g., laws or regulations impacted, lives saved, new proposals generated), will require considerable additional research to describe and develop, plus resources to implement at scale.

As value can only be determined from the point of view of a stakeholder, it is likely that multiple sets of metrics will be needed, tailored to specific stakeholder needs. Moreover, economically based analyses or the use of specialists in the field are expensive and can happen only as resources permit.

URL : A Discussion of Value Metrics for Data Repositories in Earth and Environmental Sciences

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-058

An Analysis of Digital Library Publishing Services in Ukrainian Universities

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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

Open Access as a Revolution: Knowledge Alters Power

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Author : Dave deBronkart

The slogan “Gimme My Damn Data” has become a hallmark of a patient movement whose goal is to gain access to data in their medical records. Its first conference appearance was ten years ago, in September 2009.

In the decade since there have been enormous changes in both the technology and sociology of medicine as well as in their synthesis. As the patient movement has made strides, it has been met with opposition and obstacles.

It has also become clear that the availability of Open Access information is just as empowering (or disabling) as access to electronic medical records and device data.

Knowledge truly is power, and to withhold knowledge is to disempower patients. This essay lays out many examples of how this shows up as we strive for the best future of care.

URL : Open Access as a Revolution: Knowledge Alters Power

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2196/16368

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

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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