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Transformative agreements, publication venues and Open Access policies at the University of Milan

Authors : Laura Berni, Francesco Zucchini

Starting from July 2020 at the University of Milan, one of the largest and most important Italian universities, the first transformative agreements with some major international scientific publishers have come into effect.

These agreements allow corresponding authors to publish in open access without directly bearing the publication costs. From the perspective of corresponding authors, these agreements could increase the dissemination of their scientific output and, thereby, the impact on the scientific community.

However, transformative agreements are part of a rapidly changing publishing market that already includes open access articles in both so-called ‘Diamond’ and ‘Gold’ journals.

The aim of our study is to understand to what extent the positioning of journals in impact rankings, the disciplinary field of the article, together with the career stage of the corresponding author, influence the choice to publish in a journal covered by transformative agreements rather than in other open access or hybrid journals.

The results of our investigation draw attention to the importance of rules in Italy governing scientific careers in different disciplinary fields and potential unforeseen effects of policies favouring open access.

URL : Transformative agreements, publication venues and Open Access policies at the University of Milan

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1627

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EN

Publishing Instincts: An Exploration-Exploitation Framework for Studying Academic Publishing Behavior and « Home Venues »

Authors : Teddy Lazebnik, Shir Aviv-Reuven, Ariel Rosenfeld

Scholarly communication is vital to scientific advancement, enabling the exchange of ideas and knowledge. When selecting publication venues, scholars consider various factors, such as journal relevance, reputation, outreach, and editorial standards and practices. However, some of these factors are inconspicuous or inconsistent across venues and individual publications.

This study proposes that scholars’ decision-making process can be conceptualized and explored through the biologically inspired exploration-exploitation (EE) framework, which posits that scholars balance between familiar and under-explored publication venues. Building on the EE framework, we introduce a grounded definition for « Home Venues » (HVs) – an informal concept used to describe the set of venues where a scholar consistently publishes – and investigate their emergence and key characteristics.

Our analysis reveals that the publication patterns of roughly three-quarters of computer science scholars align with the expectations of the EE framework. For these scholars, HVs typically emerge and stabilize after approximately 15-20 publications. Additionally, scholars with higher h-indexes or a greater number of publications, tend to have higher-ranking journals as their HVs.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12158

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EN

Evaluations in science communication. Current state and future directions

Authors : Sophia C. Volk , Mike S. Schäfer

Evaluations are becoming more important in science communication. But both science communication practitioners and researchers are not sufficiently utilizing the potential of evaluations yet. In this essay, we first define four requirements for rigorous evaluations of science communication activities and projects.

To substantiate our argument, we take stock of the scientific literature, uncover deficiencies in current evaluation practices and identify potential causes. We conclude with laying out how different actors in the field — including science communication practitioners, professional associations, scientific institutions and funding bodies as well as researchers — can contribute to advancing evaluation practices in science communication as well as research on it.

URL : Evaluations in science communication. Current state and future directions

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.23060401

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EN

Status of peer review guidelines in international surgical journals: A cross-sectional survey

Authors : Min Dong, Wenjing Wang, Xuemei Liu, Fang Lei, Yunmei Luo

Aim

To gain insight into the current status of peer review guidelines in international surgical journals and to offer guidance for the development of peer review guidelines for surgical journals.

Methods

We selected the top 100 journals in the category of ‘Surgery’ according to the Journal Citation Report 2021. We conducted a search of the websites of these journals, and Web of Science, PubMed, other databases, in order to gather the peer review guidelines published by these top 100 journals up until June 30, 2022. Additionally, we analysed the contents of these peer review guidelines.

Results

Only 52% (52/100) of journals provided guidelines for reviewers. Sixteen peer review guidelines which were published by these 52 surgical journals were included in this study. The contents of these peer review guidelines were classified into 33 items. The most common item was research methodology, which was mentioned by 13 journals (25%, 13/52). Other important items include statistical methodology, mentioned by 11 journals (21.2%), the rationality of figures, tables, and data, mentioned by 11 journals (21.2%), innovation of research, mentioned by nine journals (17.3%), and language expression, readability of papers, ethical review, references, and so forth, mentioned by eight journals (15.4%).

Two journals described items for quality assessment of peer review. Forty-three journals offered a checklist to guide reviewers on how to write a review report. Some surgical journals developed peer review guidelines for reviewers with different academic levels, such as professional reviewers and patient/public reviewers. Additionally, some surgical journals provided specific items for different types of papers, such as original articles, reviews, surgical videos, surgical database research, surgery-related outcome measurements, and case reports in their peer review guidelines.

Conclusions

Key contents of peer review guidelines for the reviewers of surgical journals not only include items relating to reviewing research methodology, statistical methods, figures, tables and data, research innovation, ethical review, but also cover items concerning reviewing surgical videos, surgical database research, surgery-related outcome measurements, instructions on how to write a review report, and guidelines on how to assess quality of peer review.

URL : Status of peer review guidelines in international surgical journals: A cross-sectional survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1624

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EN

The State of Reproducibility Stamps for Visualization Research Papers

Author : Tobias Isenberg

I analyze the evolution of papers certified by the Graphics Replicability Stamp Initiative (GRSI) to be reproducible, with a specific focus on the subset of publications that address visualization-related topics. With this analysis I show that, while the number of papers is increasing overall and within the visualization field, we still have to improve quite a bit to escape the replication crisis.

I base my analysis on the data published by the GRSI as well as publication data for the different venues in visualization and lists of journal papers that have been presented at visualization-focused conferences. I also analyze the differences between the involved journals as well as the percentage of reproducible papers in the different presentation venues.

Furthermore, I look at the authors of the publications and, in particular, their affiliation countries to see where most reproducible papers come from. Finally, I discuss potential reasons for the low reproducibility numbers and suggest possible ways to overcome these obstacles.

This paper is reproducible itself, with source code and data available from this http URL as well as a free paper copy and all supplemental materials at this http URL.

Arxiv : https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03889

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EN

Is open access disrupting the journal business? A perspective from comparing full adopters, partial adopters, and non-adopters

Author : Xijie Zhang

Two decades after the inception of open access publishing (OA), its impact has remained a focal point in academic discourse. This study adopted a disruptive innovation framework to examine OA’s influence on the traditional subscription market. It assesses the market power of gold journals (OA full adopters) in comparison with hybrid journals and closed-access journals (partial adopters and non-adopters). Additionally, it contrasts the market power between hybrid journals (partial adopters) and closed-access journals (non-adopters).

Using the Lerner index to measure market power through price elasticity of demand, this study employs difference tests and multiple regressions. These findings indicate that OA full adopters disrupt the market power of non-adopting incumbents. However, by integrating the OA option into their business models, partial adopters can effectively mitigate this disruption and expand their influence from the traditional subscription market to the emerging OA paradigm.

URL : Is open access disrupting the journal business? A perspective from comparing full adopters, partial adopters, and non-adopters

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2024.101574

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EN

“Academic Publishing is a Business Interest”: Reconciling Faculty Serials Needs and Economic Realities at a Carnegie R2 University

Authors : Rachel E. Scott, Anne Shelley, Chad E. Buckley, Cassie Thayer-Styes, Julie A. Murphy

Introduction

This article explores faculty conceptions of academic publishers, their willingness to circumvent paywalls and share content, and their understanding of who holds the responsibility to pay for this body of scholarly work to which they all contribute.

Methods

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 faculty at their Carnegie R2 university to explore scholars’ perspectives with respect to the costs of serials and the responsibilities of the University and library in support of scholarly publishing.

Results

Participants reported a broad spectrum of perspectives with respect to circumventing publisher paywalls and offered nuanced practices for interacting with paywalled content. They explained which library services work well and offered suggestions on how best to support faculty needs for serial literature. Although most participants agree that the University has the responsibility of making academic literature available to the community, they differ in their conceptions of academic publishers as good-faith partners in the knowledge enterprise.

Discussion

The results suggest a great deal of ambiguity and diversity of beliefs among faculty: some would support boycotting all commercial publishers; some understand academic publishers to be integral to the dissemination of their work, not to mention tenure and promotion processes; and many acknowledge a variety of tensions in what feels to them an exploitative and fraught relationship.

These findings have implications for library services in acquisitions, collection management, scholarly communication, discovery, and access.

Conclusion

The data provide insight into the nuanced perceptions that faculty members at a Carnegie R2 hold concerning the costs of scholarly publishing and the role of academic publishers within scholarly communication.

URL : “Academic Publishing is a Business Interest”: Reconciling Faculty Serials Needs and Economic Realities at a Carnegie R2 University

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.16232