EN

Open Access Uptake in Germany 2010-18: Adoption in a diverse research landscape

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Anne Hobert, Najko Jahn, Philipp Mayr, Birgit Schmidt, Niels Taubert

This study investigates the development of open access (OA) to journal articles from authors affiliated with German universities and non-university research institutions in the period 2010-2018.

Beyond determining the overall share of openly available articles, a systematic classification of distinct categories of OA publishing allows to identify different patterns of adoption to OA.

Taking into account the particularities of the German research landscape, variations in terms of productivity, OA uptake and approaches to OA are examined at the meso-level and possible explanations are discussed.

The development of the OA uptake is analysed for the different research sectors in Germany (universities, non-university research institutes of the Helmholtz Association, Fraunhofer Society, Max Planck Society, Leibniz Association, and government research agencies).

Combining several data sources (incl. Web of Science, Unpaywall, an authority file of standardised German affiliation information, the ISSN-Gold-OA 3.0 list, and OpenDOAR), the study confirms the growth of the OA share mirroring the international trend reported in related studies.

We found that 45% of all considered articles in the observed period were openly available at the time of analysis. Our findings show that subject-specific repositories are the most prevalent OA type. However, the percentages for publication in fully OA journals and OA via institutional repositories show similarly steep increases.

Enabling data-driven decision-making regarding OA implementation in Germany at the institutional level, the results of this study furthermore can serve as a baseline to assess the impact recent transformative agreements with major publishers will likely have on scholarly communication.

URL : Open Access Uptake in Germany 2010-18: Adoption in a diverse research landscape

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3892950

FR

Les pratiques de publications et d’accès ouvert des chercheurs français en 2019 : Analyse de l’enquête Couperin 2019

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteurs/Authors : Françoise Rousseau-Hans, Christine Ollendorff, Vincent Harnais

Le consortium Couperin publie les résultats de son enquête sur les pratiques de publication et d’accès ouvert des chercheurs français, réalisée dans le cadre du « Plan national de la science ouverte » annoncé par la Ministre de l’Enseignement Supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’Innovation en juillet 2018. Ce document est le rapport complet de l’étude.

URL : https://hal-cea.archives-ouvertes.fr/cea-02450324

EN

Wikimedia and universities: contributing to the global commons in the Age of Disinformation

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Martin Poulter, Nick Sheppard

In its first 30 years the world wide web has revolutionized the information environment. However, its impact has been negative as well as positive, through corporate misuse of personal data and due to its potential for enabling the spread of disinformation.

As a large-scale collaborative platform funded through charitable donations, with a mission to provide universal free access to knowledge as a public good, Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world.

This paper explores the role of Wikipedia in the information ecosystem where it occupies a unique role as a bridge between informal discussion and scholarly publication.

We explore how it relates to the broader Wikimedia ecosystem, through structured data on Wikidata for instance, and openly licensed media on Wikimedia Commons.

We consider the potential benefits for universities in the areas of information literacy and research impact, and investigate the extent to which universities in the UK and their libraries are engaging strategically with Wikimedia, if at all.

URL : Wikimedia and universities: contributing to the global commons in the Age of Disinformation

DOI : Wikimedia and universities: contributing to the global commons in the Age of Disinformation

EN

The Sci-hub Effect: Sci-hub downloads lead to more article citations

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Juan C. Correa, Henry Laverde-Rojas, Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, Julian Tejada, Štepán Bahník

Citations are often used as a metric of the impact of scientific publications. Here, we examine how the number of downloads from Sci-hub as well as various characteristics of publications and their authors predicts future citations.

Using data from 12 leading journals in economics, consumer research, neuroscience, and multidisciplinary research, we found that articles downloaded from Sci-hub were cited 1.72 times more than papers not downloaded from Sci-hub and that the number of downloads from Sci-hub was a robust predictor of future citations.

Among other characteristics of publications, the number of figures in a manuscript consistently predicts its future citations. The results suggest that limited access to publications may limit some scientific research from achieving its full impact.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.14979

EN

Academic criteria for promotion and tenure in biomedical sciences faculties: cross sectional analysis of international sample of universities

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Danielle B Rice, Hana Raffoul, John P A Ioannidis, David Moher

Objective

To determine the presence of a set of pre-specified traditional and non-traditional criteria used to assess scientists for promotion and tenure in faculties of biomedical sciences among universities worldwide.

Design

Cross sectional study.

Setting

International sample of universities.

Participants

170 randomly selected universities from the Leiden ranking of world universities list.

Main outcome measure

Presence of five traditional (for example, number of publications) and seven non-traditional (for example, data sharing) criteria in guidelines for assessing assistant professors, associate professors, and professors and the granting of tenure in institutions with biomedical faculties.

Results

A total of 146 institutions had faculties of biomedical sciences, and 92 had eligible guidelines available for review. Traditional criteria of peer reviewed publications, authorship order, journal impact factor, grant funding, and national or international reputation were mentioned in 95% (n=87), 37% (34), 28% (26), 67% (62), and 48% (44) of the guidelines, respectively. Conversely, among non-traditional criteria, only citations (any mention in 26%; n=24) and accommodations for employment leave (37%; 34) were relatively commonly mentioned.

Mention of alternative metrics for sharing research (3%; n=3) and data sharing (1%; 1) was rare, and three criteria (publishing in open access mediums, registering research, and adhering to reporting guidelines) were not found in any guidelines reviewed.

Among guidelines for assessing promotion to full professor, traditional criteria were more commonly reported than non-traditional criteria (traditional criteria 54.2%, non-traditional items 9.5%; mean difference 44.8%, 95% confidence interval 39.6% to 50.0%; P=0.001).

Notable differences were observed across continents in whether guidelines were accessible (Australia 100% (6/6), North America 97% (28/29), Europe 50% (27/54), Asia 58% (29/50), South America 17% (1/6)), with more subtle differences in the use of specific criteria.

Conclusions

This study shows that the evaluation of scientists emphasises traditional criteria as opposed to non-traditional criteria. This may reinforce research practices that are known to be problematic while insufficiently supporting the conduct of better quality research and open science. Institutions should consider incentivising non-traditional criteria.

URL : Academic criteria for promotion and tenure in biomedical sciences faculties: cross sectional analysis of international sample of universities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m2081

 

EN

Open Education Librarianship: A Position Description Analysis of the Newly Emerging Role in Academic Libraries

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Amanda C. Larson

According to the latest Babson Survey, Freeing the Textbook: Educational Resources in US Higher Education, “faculty awareness of OER has increased every year, with 46 percent of faculty now aware of open educational resources, up from 34 percent three years ago” (Seaman and Seaman 2018).

While open educational resources (OER) gain traction with faculty who are looking to lower costs for their students and re-engage with their pedagogy, academic libraries are creating a variety of open or affordable textbook programs to help increase the use of OER or low-cost materials as replacements for high-cost traditional materials. Some libraries are creating specific positions to support these initiatives that aim to help faculty who want to adopt, adapt, or author OER.

As more of these roles emerge, it raises questions about what the field perceives as the role of an Open Education or OER librarian, and the support that libraries provide OER initiatives.

To explore these concerns, I collected position descriptions for librarians whose role it is to support OER initiatives into a corpus. I applied deductive thematic analysis to code it while investigating four main questions: 1) What inspires academic libraries to hire OER-related support? 2) What skills do they anticipate applicants to possess? 3) Where do these positions fit within the organization chart of the library? 4) Is there a standard scope of work that emerges from the corpus?

In addition to these four questions, this research also explored the expectations for librarians in these roles to change faculty’s perception of OER through outreach and if they are expected to run burgeoning grant initiatives to launch adoption, adaptation, or authoring efforts at their institution.

URL : https://www.ijoer.org/open-education-librarianship-a-position-description-analysis-of-the-newly-emerging-role-in-academic-libraries/

EN

‘At-risk articles’: the imperative to recover lost science

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author: Jeanette Hatherill

Deceptive publishers have been discussed and written about from a multitude of perspectives and in a variety of disciplines, but scant attention has been devoted to a particular aspect of the issue: How we as scholarly communities are dealing with the research that appears in these outlets.

It is problematic that the question is not being addressed, as this research is at risk of being lost. It is at risk because articles that appear in deceptive publications are not indexed, so they are less visible, discoverable and citable. Additionally, they are not preserved and therefore likely to disappear should the publisher cease its activities or neglect to carry out basic maintenance on their archives and servers.

Furthermore, it is particularly problematic because this lost science is potentially valuable. In this article, it is argued that, rather than continuing to risk the loss of this potentially important research by ignoring its existence, research disciplines should look at developments in open peer review and the increasing use of preprint servers for their potential to recover and reintegrate these at-risk articles into the scholarly record.

URL : ‘At-risk articles’: the imperative to recover lost science

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.514