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The Two-Way Street of Open Access Journal Publishing: Flip It and Reverse It

Authors : Lisa Matthias, Najko Jahn, Mikael Laakso

As Open access (OA) is often perceived as the end goal of scholarly publishing, much research has focused on flipping subscription journals to an OA model. Focusing on what can happen after the presumed finish line, this study identifies journals that have converted from OA to a subscription model, and places these “reverse flips” within the greater context of scholarly publishing.

In particular, we examine specific journal descriptors, such as access mode, publisher, subject area, society affiliation, article volume, and citation metrics, to deepen our understanding of reverse flips.

Our results show that at least 152 actively publishing journals have reverse-flipped since 2005, suggesting that this phenomenon does not constitute merely a few marginal outliers, but instead a common pattern within scholarly publishing.

Notably, we found that 62% of reverse flips (N = 95) had not been born-OA journals, but had been founded as subscription journals, and hence have experienced a three-stage transformation from closed to open to closed.

We argue that reverse flips present a unique perspective on OA, and that further research would greatly benefit from enhanced data and tools for identifying such cases.

URL : The Two-Way Street of Open Access Journal Publishing: Flip It and Reverse It 

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications7020023

Catégories
EN

Outcomes and Impacts of Development Interventions: Toward Conceptual Clarity

Authors : Brian Belcher, Markus Palenberg

The terms “outcome” and “impact” are ubiquitous in evaluation discourse. However, there are many competing definitions that lack clarity and consistency and sometimes represent fundamentally different meanings.

This leads to profound confusion, undermines efforts to improve learning and accountability, and represents a challenge for the evaluation profession. This article investigates how the terms are defined and understood by different institutions and communities. It systematically investigates representative sets of definitions, analyzing them to identify 16 distinct defining elements.

This framework is then used to compare definitions and assess their usefulness and limitations. Based on this assessment, the article proposes a remedy in three parts: applying good definition practice in future definition updates, differentiating causal perspectives and using appropriate causal language, and employing meaningful qualifiers when using the terms outcome and impact.

The article draws on definitions used in international development, but its findings also apply to domestic public sector policies and interventions.

URL : Outcomes and Impacts of Development Interventions: Toward Conceptual Clarity

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/1098214018765698

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EN

Hype or Real Threat: The Extent of Predatory Journals in Student Bibliographies

Authors : H. Rainer Schira, Chris Hurst

Predatory publishing has risen with the development of open access publishing. This study examines how many potential predatory journals were used by Brandon University students by analyzing their bibliographies.

In total, 245 bibliographies including 2,359 citations were analyzed. Of the 1,485 citations to journals in these citations, five were found to cite journals on Beall’s List of Predatory Journals and Publishers.

The probable sources of these journals in the students’ bibliographies were examined.

URL : Hype or Real Threat: The Extent of Predatory Journals in Student Bibliographies

DOI : https://doi.org/10.21083/partnership.v14i1.4764

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EN

Tough data-driven decisions and radical thinking: how Middlesbrough College’s LRC survived austerity

Author: Tracey Totty

When other libraries had their budgets cut, Middlesbrough College’s Learning Resources Centre (LRC) enjoyed a stable (yet not increasing) budget with minor cuts from 2015–2017. For 2017–2018, the LRC was required to save 50% of its non-pay budget. The cuts were not unexpected, but so much in one go was a severe shock.

As a matter of good practice, we were already making data-driven decisions for all our resources and were trying to get the best deals we could. It was time for consolidation, tougher decisions and, possibly, some radical thinking.

At the beginning of 2017 this process started, and is now reaping rewards. This article will set out how decisions on making the necessary budget cuts were made, what was done to make the reduced budget go further (whilst maintaining the high quality of services) and the results of the exercise.

The author presented this work at the UKSG E-resources for Further Education event in November 2018.

URL : Tough data-driven decisions and radical thinking: how Middlesbrough College’s LRC survived austerity

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.462

Catégories
EN

Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

Author : Matthew D. Bunker

Fair use in copyright law is an enormously complex legal doctrine. Although much scholarly attention has been paid to fair use in the context of teaching — particularly in on-line education — relatively little research exists on the problem of fair use in scholarship.

This article analyzes reported federal cases on fair use in scholarly contexts, with a particular emphasis on the transformative use doctrine that has become enormously influential in fair use determinations.

The article explores insights from this body of case law that may assist future scholars wishing to fairly use copyrighted expression in their scholarship.

URL : Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

DOI : https://doi.org/10.17161/jcel.v3i1.6481

Catégories
EN

Implementing publisher policies that inform, support and encourage authors to share data: two case studies

Authors: Leila Jones, Rebecca Grant, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz

Open research data is one of the key areas in the expanding open scholarship movement. Scholarly journals and publishers find themselves at the heart of the shift towards openness, with recent years seeing an increase in the number of scholarly journals with data-sharing policies aiming to increase transparency and reproducibility of research.

In this article we present two case studies which examine the experiences that two leading academic publishers, Taylor & Francis and Springer Nature, have had in rolling out data-sharing policies.

We illustrate some of the considerations involved in providing consistent policies across journals of many disciplines, reflecting on successes and challenges.

URL : Implementing publisher policies that inform, support and encourage authors to share data: two case studies

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.463

Catégories
EN

From closed to open access: A case study of flipped journals

Authors : Fakhri Momeni, Nicholas Fraser, Isabella Peters, Philipp Mayr

In recent years, increased stakeholder pressure to transition research to Open Access has led to many journals « flipping » from a toll access to an open access publishing model. Changing the publishing model can influence the decision of authors to submit their papers to a journal, and increased article accessibility may influence citation behaviour.

The aim of this paper is to show changes in the number of published articles and citations after the flipping of a journal. We analysed a set of 171 journals in the Web of Science (WoS) which flipped to open access.

In addition to comparing the number of articles, average relative citation (ARC) and normalized impact factor (IF) are applied, respectively, as bibliometric indicators at the article and journal level, to trace the transformation of flipped journals covered.

Our results show that flipping mostly has had positive effects on journal’s IF. But it has had no obvious citation advantage for the articles. We also see a decline in the number of published articles after flipping.

We can conclude that flipping to open access can improve the performance of journals, despite decreasing the tendency of authors to submit their articles and no better citation advantages for articles.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.11682