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Social Justice: The Golden Thread in the Openness Movement

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Authors : Reggie Raju, Jill Claassen, Kaela De Lillie

The current publishing landscape perpetuates biases that continue to exclude those who have been previously marginalized, specifically from the Global South including Africa. Incorporating philanthropy as the only driving principle to openly share knowledge is insufficient to truly empower and be inclusive to those who have been relegated to the periphery of the scholarly communication ecosystem.

Social justice principles have to underpin the foundation of this ecosystem, in tandem with philanthropy, to shed light on these exclusionary, systemic publishing practices and processes. This will entail first breaking down these unfair practices and then rebuilding the ecosystem by advancing equity, diversity and inclusion.

This paper highlights the current gaps in the openness movement and demonstrates, through an exemplar of a publishing platform, how the publishing landscape can be transformed. The publishing platform employs a multi-tenant model that enables multiple institutions to publish and disseminate knowledge on one shared instance of the software.

The continental platform and the tenant model that it utilizes address the technological and infrastructural barriers often experienced in the Global South and Africa, while simultaneously serving as a collective hub for hosting African scholarship.

This case study methodology is used to investigate how the alternate publishing route recaptures the philanthropic pillars of the openness movement. The findings provide evidence for a return to the founding principles of the openness movement and, as importantly, demonstrates the impact of open access on student success.

URL : Social Justice: The Golden Thread in the Openness Movement

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11030036

Article processing charges for open access journal publishing: A review

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Author : Ángel Borrego

Some open access (OA) publishers charge authors fees to make their articles freely available online. This paper reviews literature on article processing charges (APCs) that has been published since 2000.

Despite praise for diamond OA journals, which charge no fees, most OA articles are published by commercial publishers that charge APCs. Publishers fix APCs depending on the reputation assigned to journals by peers.

Evidence shows a relationship between high impact metrics and higher, faster rising APCs. Authors express reluctance about APCs, although this varies by discipline depending on previous experience of paying publication fees and the availability of research grants to cover them. Authors rely on a mix of research grants, library funds and personal assets to pay the charges.

Two major concerns have been raised in relation to APCs: the inability of poorly funded authors to publish research and their impact on journal quality. Waivers have not solved the first issue. Research shows little extension of waiver use, unintended side effects on co-author networks and concerns regarding criteria to qualify for them.

Bibliometric studies concur that journals that charge APCs have a similar citation impact to journals that rely on other income sources.

URL : Article processing charges for open access journal publishing: A review

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1558

Improving our understanding of open access: how it relates to funding, internationality of research and scientific leadership

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Authors : María Bordons, Borja González‑Albo, Luz Moreno‑Solano

As open publication has become a goal in scholarly communication, interest in how it relates to other features of the research process has grown. This paper focuses on the relationship between funding and open access (OA) in the Spanish National Research Council’s Web of Science publications in three scientific fields with different research practices, namely, Biology & Biomedicine (BIOL), Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) and Materials Science (MATE).

Firstly, the three fields are characterised in relation to OA practices (OA status and OA routes) and acknowledged funding (funding status and funding origin). Secondly, the relationship between OA and funding is explored, and the role of additional influential factors, such as the internationality of research and national/foreign leadership of papers, is unravelled through logistic regression. BIOL shows a higher OA share (66%) than do the other two fields (around 33%).

Funded research shows higher OA rates than unfunded research in the experimental fields, but not in HSS, where it is related to a shift towards more publications with article-processing charges.

The internationality of research, measured through international collaboration or foreign funding, increases OA, albeit with differences across fields. Foreign-funded papers are more likely to be led by foreign researchers in all three fields, but a foreign first author increases the chances of OA publication in HSS only, perhaps because Spanish leaders in this field have not internalised the importance of OA. The research’s policy implications are reviewed.

URL : Improving our understanding of open access: how it relates to funding, internationality of research and scientific leadership

DOI : Improving our understanding of open access: how it relates to funding, internationality of research and scientific leadership

URL : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04726-1

Gender-based disparities and biases in science: An observational study of a virtual conference

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Authors : Junhanlu Zhang, Rachel Torchet, Hanna Julienne

Success in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) remains influenced by race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Here, we focus on the impact of gender on question-asking behavior during the 2021 JOBIM virtual conference (Journées Ouvertes en Biologie et Mathématiques).

We gathered quantitative and qualitative data including : demographic information, question asking motivations, live observations and interviews of participants. Quantitative analyses include unprecedented figures such as the fraction of the audience identifying as LGBTQIA+ and an increased attendance of women in virtual conferences.

Although parity was reached in the audience, women asked half as many questions as men. This under-representation persisted after accounting for seniority of the asker. Interviews of participants highlighted several barriers to oral expression encountered by women and gender minorities : negative reactions to their speech, discouragement to pursue a career in research, and gender discrimination/sexual harassment.

Informed by the study, guidelines for conference organizers have been written. The story behind the making of this study has been highlighted in a Nature Career article.

URL : Gender-based disparities and biases in science: An observational study of a virtual conference

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286811

Mapping the German Diamond Open Access Journal Landscape

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Authors : Niels Taubert, Linda Sterzik, Andre Bruns

In the current scientific and political discourse surrounding the transformation of the scientific publication system, significant attention is focused on Diamond Open Access (OA).

This article explores the potential and challenges of Diamond OA journals, using Germany as a case study. Two questions are addressed: first, the current role of such journals in the scientific publication system is determined through bibliometric analysis across various disciplines. Second, an investigation is conducted to assess the sustainability of Diamond OA journals and identify associated structural problems or potential breaking points.

This investigation includes an in-depth expert interview study involving 20 editors of Diamond OA journals. The empirical results are presented using a landscape map that considers two dimensions: ‘monetized and gift-based completion of tasks’ and ‘journal team size.’ The bibliometric analysis reveals a substantial number of Diamond OA journals in the social sciences and humanities, but limited adoption in other fields.

The model proves effective for small to mid-sized journals, but not for larger ones. Additionally, it was found that 23 Diamond OA journals have recently discontinued their operations. The expert interviews demonstrate the usefulness of the two dimensions in understanding key differences.

Journals in two of the four quadrants of the map exemplify sustainable conditions, while the other two quadrants raise concerns about long-term stability. These concerns include limited funding leading to a lack of division of labor and an excessive burden on highly committed members.

These findings underscore the need for the development of more sustainable funding models to ensure the success of Diamond OA journals.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.13080

Characterizing the effect of retractions on scientific careers

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Authors : Shahan Ali Memon, Kinga Makovi, Bedoor AlShebli

Retracting academic papers is a fundamental tool of quality control when the validity of papers or the integrity of authors is questioned post-publication. While retractions do not completely eliminate papers from the record, they have far-reaching consequences for retracted authors and their careers, serving as a visible and permanent signal of potential transgressions.

Previous studies have highlighted the adverse effects of retractions on citation counts and co-authors’ citations; however, the underlying mechanisms driving these effects and the broader impacts beyond these traditional metrics have not been fully explored.

We address this gap leveraging Retraction Watch, the most extensive data set on retractions and link it to Microsoft Academic Graph, a comprehensive data set of scientific publications and their citation networks, and Altmetric that monitors online attention to scientific output. Our investigation focuses on: 1) the likelihood of authors exiting scientific publishing following retraction, and 2) the evolution of collaboration networks among authors who continue publishing after retraction.

Our empirical analysis reveals that retracted authors, particularly those with less experience, tend to leave scientific publishing in the aftermath of retraction, particularly if their retractions attract widespread attention.

Furthermore, we uncover a pattern whereby retracted authors who remain active in publishing tend to maintain and establish more collaborations compared to their similar non-retracted counterparts.

Taken together, notwithstanding the indispensable role of retractions in upholding the integrity of the academic community, our findings shed light on the disproportionate impact that retractions impose on early-career researchers as opposed to those with more established careers.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.06710

Criticizing Paywall Publishing, or Integrating Open Access into Feminist Movement

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Authors : Meggie Mapes, Teri Terigele

Dominant scholarly publishing models, reliant on expensive paywalls, remain preferential throughout higher education’s landscape. This essay engages paywall publishing from a feminist communicative perspective by asking, how can publishing extend or prohibit feminist movements? Or, as Nancy Fraser (2013) asks, “which modes of feminist theorizing should be incorporated into the new political imaginaries now being invented by new generations” (2)? With these questions in mind, we integrate feminist epistemologies into publishing practices to argue that open access is integral to the feminist movement.

The argument unfolds in three parts: first, we conduct a feminist criticism of paywall publishing by arguing that status quo practices constitute a dominant public based on onto-epistemological foundations of exclusion that systematically subordinate potentially liberatory knowledge Second, we consider open access as a feminist re-tooling that creates new political imaginaries.

In this section, we place open access in conversation with bell hooks’s conception of literacy and Fraser’s counterpublic theory. We conclude by considering how to live feminist lives with these criticisms and re-toolings in mind.

URL : Criticizing Paywall Publishing, or Integrating Open Access into Feminist Movement

DOI : https://doi.org/10.23860/jfs.2023.22.01