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Open access mythbusting: Testing two prevailing assumptions about the effects of open access adoption

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Authors : Dan Pollock, Ann Michael

This article looks at whether there is evidence to support two prevailing assumptions about open access (OA). These assumptions are: (1) fully OA journals are inherently of poorer quality than journals supported by other business models and (2) the OA business model, that is, paying for publication, is more ‘competitive’ than the subscription journal access business model.

The assumptions have been discussed in contemporary industry venues, and we have encountered them in the course of their work advising scholarly communications organizations.

Our objective was to apply data analytics techniques to see if these assumptions bore scrutiny. By combining citation‐based impact scores with data from publishers’ price lists, we were able to look for relationships between business model, price, and ‘quality’ across several thousands of journals.

We found no evidence suggesting that OA journals suffer significant quality issues compared with non‐OA journals. Furthermore, authors do not appear to ‘shop around’ based on OA price.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1209

Readership Data and Research Impact

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Authors : Ehsan Mohammadi, Mike Thelwall

Reading academic publications is a key scholarly activity. Scholars accessing and recording academic publications online are producing new types of readership data. These include publisher, repository, and academic social network download statistics as well as online reference manager records.

This chapter discusses the use of download and reference manager data for research evaluation and library collection development. The focus is on the validity and application of readership data as an impact indicator for academic publications across different disciplines.

Mendeley is particularly promising in this regard, although all data sources are not subjected to rigorous quality control and can be manipulated.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.08593

Public Scholarship in Practice and Philosophy

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Authors : Erin Glass, Micah Vandegrift

This piece offers several threads that bind an ideal together: there are practical actions to increase the public-ness of scholarship, increasingly compelling reasons to adopt an outward-orientation, as well as many challenges to performing public scholarship in higher education.

We propose that a more public scholarly practice can be sought through the dissemination of research products, the processes by which research and scholarship are conducted, opening pedagogy beyond the classroom, developing soft skills as a public intellectual, and increasing visibility with/in communities.

URL : https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:22279/

Open science precision medicine in Canada: Points to consider

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Authors : Palmira Granados Moreno, Sarah E. Ali-Khan, Benjamin Capps, Timothy Caulfield, Damien Chalaud, Aled Edwards, E. Richard Gold, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Adrian Thorogood, Daniel Auld, Gabrielle Bertier, Felix Breden, Roxanne Caron, Priscilla M.D.G. César, Robert Cook-Deegan, Megan Doerr, Ross Duncan, Amalia M. Issa, Jerome Reichman, Jacques Simard, Derek So, Sandeep Vanamala, Yann Joly

Open science can significantly influence the development and translational process of precision medicine in Canada. Precision medicine presents a unique opportunity to improve disease prevention and healthcare, as well as to reduce health-related expenditures.

However, the development of precision medicine also brings about economic challenges, such as costly development, high failure rates, and reduced market size in comparison with the traditional blockbuster drug development model.

Open science, characterized by principles of open data sharing, fast dissemination of knowledge, cumulative research, and cooperation, presents a unique opportunity to address these economic challenges while also promoting the public good.

The Centre of Genomics and Policy at McGill University organized a stakeholders’ workshop in Montreal in March 2018. The workshop entitled “Could Open be the Yellow Brick Road to Precision Medicine?” provided a forum for stakeholders to share experiences and identify common objectives, challenges, and needs to be addressed to promote open science initiatives in precision medicine.

The rich presentations and exchanges that took place during the meeting resulted in this consensus paper containing key considerations for open science precision medicine in Canada.

Stakeholders would benefit from addressing these considerations as to promote a more coherent and dynamic open science ecosystem for precision medicine.

URL : Open science precision medicine in Canada: Points to consider

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1139/facets-2018-0034

 

Models of Research and the Dissemination of Research Results: the Influences of E-Science, Open Access and Social Networking

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Authors : Rae A. Earnshaw, Mohan de Silva, Peter S. Excell

In contrast with practice in recent times past, computational and data intensive processes are increasingly driving collaborative research in science and technology.

Large amounts of data are being generated in experiments or simulations and these require real-time, or near real-time, analysis and visualisation. The results of these evaluations need to be validated and then published quickly and openly in order to facilitate the overall progress of research on a national and international basis.

Research is increasingly undertaken in large teams and is also increasingly interdisciplinary as many of the major research challenges lie at the boundaries between existing disciplines.

The move to open access for peer reviewed publications is rapidly becoming a required option in the sector. At the same time, communication and dissemination procedures are also utilising non-traditional forms facilitated by burgeoning developments in social networking.

It is proposed that these elements, when combined, constitute a paradigm shift in the model of research and the dissemination of research results.

URL : Models of Research and the Dissemination of Research Results: the Influences of E-Science, Open Access and Social Networking

Alternative location : http://aetic.theiaer.org/archive/v3/v3n1/p1.html

Open science, reproducibility, and transparency in ecology

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Authors : Stephen M. Powers, Stephanie E. Hampton

Reproducibility is a key tenet of the scientific process that dictates the reliability and generality of results and methods. The complexities of ecological observations and data present novel challenges in satisfying needs for reproducibility and also transparency.

Ecological systems are dynamic and heterogeneous, interacting with numerous factors that sculpt natural history and that investigators cannot completely control. Observations may be highly dependent on spatial and temporal context, making them very difficult to reproduce, but computational reproducibility can still be achieved.

Computational reproducibility often refers to the ability to produce equivalent analytical outcomes from the same data set using the same code and software as the original study.

When coded workflows are shared, authors and editors provide transparency for readers and allow other researchers to build directly and efficiently on primary work. These qualities may be especially important in ecological applications that have important or controversial implications for science, management, and policy.

Expectations for computational reproducibility and transparency are shifting rapidly in the sciences.

In this work, we highlight many of the unique challenges for ecology along with practical guidelines for reproducibility and transparency, as ecologists continue to participate in the stewardship of critical environmental information and ensure that research methods demonstrate integrity.

URL : Open science, reproducibility, and transparency in ecology

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1822

Predatory publications in evidence syntheses

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Authors : Amanda Ross-White, Christina M. Godfrey, Kimberley A. Sears, Rosemary Wilson

Objectives

The number of predatory journals is increasing in the scholarly communication realm. These journals use questionable business practices, minimal or no peer review, or limited editorial oversight and, thus, publish articles below a minimally accepted standard of quality.

These publications have the potential to alter the results of knowledge syntheses. The objective of this study was to determine the degree to which articles published by a major predatory publisher in the health and biomedical sciences are cited in systematic reviews.

Methods

The authors downloaded citations of articles published by a known predatory publisher. Using forward reference searching in Google Scholar, we examined whether these publications were cited in systematic reviews.

Results

The selected predatory publisher published 459 journals in the health and biomedical sciences. Sixty-two of these journal titles had published a total of 120 articles that were cited by at least 1 systematic review, with a total of 157 systematic reviews citing an article from 1 of these predatory journals.

Discussion

Systematic review authors should be vigilant for predatory journals that can appear to be legitimate. To reduce the risk of including articles from predatory journals in knowledge syntheses, systematic reviewers should use a checklist to ensure a measure of quality control for included papers and be aware that Google Scholar and PubMed do not provide the same level of quality control as other bibliographic databases.