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An APC Trap? Privilege and the Perception of Reasonableness in Open Access Publishing

Authors : Melissa H. Cantrell, Jennifer A. Mezick, Matthew Estill, Rachel Caldwell &
Lauren B. Collister

Introduction: This article investigates funding sources reported by authors of open access (OA) articles at four R1 (doctoral-granting institutions in the United States with very high research activity) universities, along with these authors’ perceptions of Article Processing Charges (APCs). The study suggests a cognitive dissonance among many respondents, in which there appears to be a desire and willingness to participate in OA publishing, which is at odds with a sense of unreasonableness and an uneven distribution of the ability of researchers to participate.

Literature review: Much of the literature on APCs centers on rising prices, how commercial publishers profit from this model, and the resulting inequities in OA publishing. Some information exists about resources for funding APCs, including grant funding, library programs, and fee waivers.

Methods: We surveyed authors who published an OA article in the calendar year 2022. The survey asked whether there was an APC, the funding source for the fee, and the author’s perception of the reasonableness of APC prices and their relative ability to pay compared with their peers.

Results: From 321 total respondents, grant funding was the largest source of APC funding, and authors reported fees of over $1,500 in U.S. dollars as unreasonable.

Discussion: This study confirms the hypothesis that external grants are the primary support for authors paying APCs, and beyond that, authors use a variety of sources to support their publishing fees. Respondents characterized APCs in general as unreasonable for less well-resourced colleagues.

Conclusion: Though authors were generally able to find funding or have fees waived, they perceive a threshold of reasonableness for APCs.

URL : An APC Trap? Privilege and the Perception of Reasonableness in Open Access Publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18184

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EN

Assessing the Societal Impact of Academic Research With Artificial Intelligence (AI): A Scoping Review of Business School Scholarship as a ‘Force for Good’

Authors : David Steingard, Kathleen Rodenburg

This study addresses critical questions about how current evaluative frameworks for academic research can effectively translate scholarly findings into practical applications and policies to tackle societal ‘grand challenges’.

This scoping review analysis was conducted using bibliometric methods and AI tools. Articles were drawn from a wide range of disciplines, with particular emphasis on the business and management fields, focusing on the burgeoning scholarship area of ‘business as a force for good’.

The novel integration of generative AI research approaches underscores the transformative potential of AI-human collaboration in academic research. Metadata from 4051 articles were examined in the scoping review, with only 370 articles (9.1%) explicitly identified as relevant to societal impact.

This finding reveals a substantial and concerning gap in research addressing the urgent social and environmental issues of our time. To address this gap, the study identifies six meta-themes related to enhancing the societal impact of research: business applications; faculty publication pressure; societal impact focus; sustainable development; university and scholarly rankings; and reference to responsible research frameworks.

Key findings highlight critical misalignments between research outputs and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a lack of practical business applications of research insights.

The results emphasise the urgent need for academic institutions to expand evaluation criteria beyond traditional metrics to prioritise real-world impacts. Recommendations include developing holistic evaluation frameworks and incentivising research that addresses pressing societal challenges—shifting academia from a ‘scholar-to-scholar’ to a ‘scholar-to-society’ paradigm.

The implications of this shift are applied to business-related scholarship and its potential to inspire meaningful societal impact through business practice.

URL : Assessing the Societal Impact of Academic Research With Artificial Intelligence (AI): A Scoping Review of Business School Scholarship as a ‘Force for Good’

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2010

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EN

Identifying Open Access Practices in Librarianship Journals

Authors : Jennifer Jordan, Blair Solon, Stephanie Beene

Introduction: In this article, we discuss the results of our research over the spring and summer of 2023. During this study, we conducted an environmental scan of 377 journals in the field of librarianship to gather information on open access publishing practices.

Methods: We used a mixed methods framework as a starting point for our research, collecting data on selected journals’ publishing practices. We selected journals based on the following criteria: 1) peer reviewed, 2) written in English or abstracted in English, 3) actively published at the time of analysis, and 4) scoped to librarianship. Data we collected included the journals’ open access policies, peer review processes, and data sharing policies.

Results: With a dataset of 133 of the initial 377 journals meeting our criteria, we observed variations in the journals’ open access practices, peer review processes, and data sharing policies. We noted more journals allowed diamond open access than any other publishing option, and a low number of journals are toll access.

Discussion: Within our study sample, open access policies are varied and in flux. Ascertaining the openness of individual peer-reviewed journals was challenging. Within the 133 journals examined, the state of open publishing practice is clearly evolving quickly, but with varying levels of transparency and consistency.

Conclusion: Even though there are myriad challenges associated with open access publishing, the field of librarianship must continue moving toward an open access model. Academic librarians can advocate for scholars to critically analyze and challenge the scholarly communication system. In addition, journals should provide publishing transparency and guidance for those looking to publish.

URL : Identifying Open Access Practices in Librarianship Journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.17778

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EN

Platforms, programmability, and precarity: The platformization of research repositories in academic libraries

Authors : Jean-Christophe Plantin, Andrea Thomer

We investigate in this article how repository platforms change the sharing and preservation of digital objects in academic libraries. We use evidence drawn from semi-structured interviews with 31 data repository managers working at 21 universities using the product Figshare for institutions.

We first show that repository managers use this platform to bring together actors, technologies, and processes usually scattered across the library to assign to them the tasks that they value less—such as data preparation or IT maintenance—and spend more time engaging in activities they appreciate—such as raising awareness of data sharing.

While this platformization of data management improves their job satisfaction, we reveal how it simultaneously accentuates the outsourcing of libraries’ core mission to private actors. We eventually discuss how this platformization can deskill librarians and perpetuate precarity politics in university libraries.

URL : Platforms, programmability, and precarity: The platformization of research repositories in academic libraries

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231176758

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EN

Open Science: A Review of Its Effectiveness and Implications for Service Research

Authors : Yves Van Vaerenbergh, Simon Hazée, Thijs J. Zwienenberg

Open science aims to enhance the integrity, transparency, and openness of research to improve the reproducibility and accessibility of scientific knowledge. It has received renewed attention due to reported concerns about questionable research practices across multiple scientific disciplines. While various open science practices, such as preregistration and data sharing, have been developed, their effectiveness remains unclear.

This paper provides a review of current meta-research on open science practices, assessing their effectiveness and identifying key initiatives that promote transparency and openness in research. Next, we report the results of a preregistered retrospective observational analysis of 517 studies from 254 papers published in the Journal of Service Research and Journal of Service Management between 2019 and 2023.

This analysis evaluates which open science practices are already in use and to what extent, as well as whether these practices align with the recommendations derived from the meta-research review. Finally, we present actionable guidelines and resources aimed at encouraging authors, reviewers, and editors to adopt effective open science practices in service research, both in the short and long term.

URL: Open Science: A Review of Its Effectiveness and Implications for Service Research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705251338461

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EN

And Plato met ChatGPT: an ethical reflection on the use of chatbots in scientific research writing, with a particular focus on the social sciences

Authors : Reyes Calderon, Francisco Herrera

This interdisciplinary paper analyzes the use of Large Language Models based chatbots (LLM-chatbots), with ChatGPT the most known exponent, in scientific research writing. By interacting with LLM-chatbots, researchers could reduce efforts and costs as well as improve efficiency, but taking important risks, limitations, and weaknesses, which could highly-order erosion scientific thought.

While many scientific journals, as well as major publishers such as Springer-Nature or Taylor & Francis, are restricting its use, others advocate for its normalization. Debate focuses on two main questions: the possible authorship of LLM-chatbots, which is majority denied because their inability to meet the required standards; and the acceptance of hybrid articles (using LLM-chatbots).

Very recently, focusing on the education area, literature has found analogical similarities between some issues involved in Chatbots and that of Plato criticisms of writing, contained in the Phaedrus. However, the research area has been neglected. Combining philosophical and technological analysis, we explore Plato’s myth of Theuth and Thamus, questioning if chatbots can improve science. From an interdisciplinary perspective, and according with Plato, we conclude LLM-chatbots cannot be considered as authors in a scientific context.

Moreover, we offer some arguments and requirements to accept hybrid articles. We draw attention to the need for social science publishers, an area where conceptual hypotheses can take a long time to confirm, rather than solely on experimental observations. Finally, we advocate that publishers, communities, technical experts, and regulatory authorities collaborate to establish recommendations and best practices for chatbot use.

URL : And Plato met ChatGPT: an ethical reflection on the use of chatbots in scientific research writing, with a particular focus on the social sciences

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-04650-0

Catégories
EN

Incentives for Open Science and Advancing Sustainability: A German Perspective

Authors : Markus Putnings, Michael Zweier

Open science in ensuring equitable access to information is relevant to the attainment of all United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Badges, prizes and awards evaluate and recognise achievements, encourage involvement in open science and open access practices and provide an opportunity to present related activities to the outside world in a succinct form.

The focus, however, is not on mundane self-promotion, but rather on the goal of external and internal reflec–tion and promotion of the work done, as well as an appropriate presentation of the open resources and workflows produced. Prizes and awards constitute a stimulus for best practice, education and exchange both within an institution, with an insti–tution ́s users and with the wider community.

This chapter provides an overview of the various badges, awards and prizes relevant to Germany as incentive systems for open science and open access activities. The contributions to the SDGs and edu–cation for sustainable development (ESD) are contextualised and discussed. It concludes with a selection of recommendations and summarises the most important results.

URL : Incentives for Open Science and Advancing Sustainability: A German Perspective

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111336466-006