Evolution or revolution? Publishers’ perceptions of future directions in research communications and the publisher role

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“This report presents a snapshot of the views of a wide range of publishers, covering their perceptions of future directions in research communications, scholarly publishing and the role of publishers. It is important to emphasise that there is not a single “publishers’ view” on these matters: the publishers represented here are of differing scale, ownership, (dominant) business model, discipline, and tradition, and their views reflect that diversity of experience.

 Nearly 20 publishers of different types and scale were interviewed: for-profit and not-for-profit; open access and subscription-based; commercial, society, university presses; and with representation from all scholarly fields. We aimed to synthesise the views thus gathered, while reflecting the diversity of opinion where salient.”

 URL : Evolution or revolution? Publishers’ perceptions of future directions in research communications and the publisher role

Related URL : http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/international/EvolutionOrRevolution.pdf

The use of open resources among highly cited young Ukrainian scientists

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“There are scientific and educational institutions in Ukraine which actively introduce and fill up open sources in web to make integration of Ukrainian scientists into worldwide communication more effective. Ukrainian scientists’ citation boost with their complete works available at open sources must indicate the success of such integration. This article, grounding in Scopus and Google Scholar data, investigates the types of scientific web-sources used by Ukrainian scientists for promotion of their works.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/25210/

Promoting Open Knowledge and Open Science : Report of the Current State of Repositories

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“This briefing paper presents an overview of the international repository landscape. The paper has been produced by COAR on behalf of the Aligning Repository Networks Committee, a group of senior representatives from repository networks around the world. While principally intended for the Global Research Council (GRC), the paper has also been written with a broader audience in mind.
Over the last 20 years, open access repositories have been implemented around the world and are now fairly widespread across all regions. Repositories provide open access (OA) to research publications and other materials and enable the local management and preservation of research outputs. They are a key infrastructure component supporting the growing number of open access policies and laws, the majority of which recommend or require deposit of articles into an OA repository.
OA repositories are increasingly connected through thematic, national and regional networks. In turn, these regional and national networks are further aligning their practices globally through the COAR Aligning Repository Networks Initiative, making their collections more valuable as it enables new services to be built on top of their aggregated contents.These services include tracking of research outputs for funders and research administrators, monitoring usage of publications, facilitating text and data mining, as well as peer review overlay services.
Crucially, repositories represent a distributed and participatory model in which institutions manage content locally, but contribute to the global knowledgebase through adoption of common, open standards. Distributed systems, such as a global network of repositories, have an inherent sustainability. They increase the resilience of infrastructure and fostersocial and institutional flexibility and innovation. They also enable the research community to regain some influence over the scholarly communication system.
With a growing number of funding agencies adopting open access and open science policies that rely on repository infrastructure for adherence, it is critical that the repository and funder communities forge closer ties and find mechanisms to engage in regular dialogue. In addition, given that there are different approaches across regions in terms of both policies and infrastructure, it is important that the diversity perspectives are considered as we collectively move forward. COAR, and its members and partners, welcome further discussion with the Global Research Council as we chart a course for a sustainable and dynamic future for scholarly communication.”

For 481 biomedical open access journals, articles are not searchable in the Directory of Open Access Journals nor in conventional biomedical databases

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“Background. Open access (OA) journals allows access to research papers free of charge to the reader. Traditionally, biomedical researchers use databases like MEDLINE and EMBASE to discover new advances. However, biomedical OA journals might not fulfill such databases’ criteria, hindering dissemination. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a database exclusively listing OA journals. The aim of this study was to investigate DOAJ’s coverage of biomedical OA journals compared with the conventional biomedical databases.

Methods. Information on all journals listed in four conventional biomedical databases (MEDLINE, PubMed Central, EMBASE and SCOPUS) and DOAJ were gathered. Journals were included if they were (1) actively publishing, (2) full OA, (3) prospectively indexed in one or more database, and (4) of biomedical subject. Impact factor and journal language were also collected. DOAJ was compared with conventional databases regarding the proportion of journals covered, along with their impact factor and publishing language. The proportion of journals with articles indexed by DOAJ was determined.

Results. In total, 3,236 biomedical OA journals were included in the study. Of the included journals, 86.7% were listed in DOAJ. Combined, the conventional biomedical databases listed 75.0% of the journals; 18.7% in MEDLINE; 36.5% in PubMed Central; 51.5% in SCOPUS and 50.6% in EMBASE. Of the journals in DOAJ, 88.7% published in English and 20.6% had received impact factor for 2012 compared with 93.5% and 26.0%, respectively, for journals in the conventional biomedical databases. A subset of 51.1% and 48.5% of the journals in DOAJ had articles indexed from 2012 and 2013, respectively. Of journals exclusively listed in DOAJ, one journal had received an impact factor for 2012, and 59.6% of the journals had no content from 2013 indexed in DOAJ.

Conclusions. DOAJ is the most complete registry of biomedical OA journals compared with five conventional biomedical databases. However, DOAJ only indexes articles for half of the biomedical journals listed, making it an incomplete source for biomedical research papers in general.”

URL : For 481 biomedical open access journals, articles are not searchable in the Directory of Open Access Journals nor in conventional biomedical databases

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.972

Have the “mega-journals” reached the limits to growth?

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“A “mega-journal” is a new type of scientific journal that publishes freely accessible articles, which have been peer reviewed for scientific trustworthiness, but leaves it to the readers to decide which articles are of interest and importance to them. In the wake of the phenomenal success of PLOS ONE, several other publishers have recently started mega-journals. This article presents the evolution of mega-journals since 2010 in terms of article publication rates. The fastest growth seems to have ebbed out at around 35,000 annual articles for the 14 journals combined. Acceptance rates are in the range of 50–70%, and speed of publication is around 3–5 months. Common features in mega-journals are alternative impact metrics, easy reusability of figures and data, post-publication discussions and portable reviews from other journals.”

URL :  Have the “mega-journals” reached the limits to growth?

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.981

Study on Perspectives Regarding Deposit on Open Access Repositories in the Context of Public Universities in the Central-Eastern Region of Argentina

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“This article presents the results of a survey and qualitative study of needs and practices of open access scholarly works dissemination.The survey and study focused on different issues related to usability, navigation, and accessibility of institutional repositories, which have guided the design of an experimental prototype in the context of a regional project that joins three universities in Argentina. In such academic practices, the teaching community offers various types of production and simultaneous application areas for digital objects. Thus, there is a technological requirement to enable users to carry out their self-archiving process of different objects, in a user-friendly way, allowing them to upload these objects in various collections. A prototype was implemented and tested in order to obtain an initial assessment of the proposed model.”

URL : Study on Perspectives Regarding Deposit on Open Access Repositories in the Context of Public Universities in the Central-Eastern Region of Argentina

Related URL : http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/145

Disrupting the subscription journals’ business model for the necessary large-scale transformation to open access

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“This paper makes the strong, fact-based case for a large-scale transformation of the current corpus of scientific subscription journals to an open access business model. The existing journals, with their well-tested functionalities, should be retained and developed to meet the demands of 21st century research, while the underlying payment streams undergo a major restructuring. There is sufficient momentum for this decisive push towards open access publishing. The diverse existing initiatives must be coordinated so as to converge on this clear goal.

The international nature of research implies that this transformation will be achieved on a truly global scale only through a consensus of the world’s most eminent research organizations. All the indications are that the money already invested in the research publishing system is sufficient to enable a transformation that will be sustainable for the future. There needs to be a shared understanding that the money currently locked in the journal subscription system must be withdrawn and re-purposed for open access publishing services.

The current library acquisition budgets are the ultimate reservoir for enabling the transformation without financial or other risks. The goal is to preserve the established service levels provided by publishers that are still requested by researchers, while redefining and reorganizing the necessary payment streams. By disrupting the underlying business model, the viability of journal publishing can be preserved and put on a solid footing for the scholarly developments of the future.”

URL : MPDL_OA-Transition_White_Paper

Related URL : http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0026-C274-7