The state of scientific PDF accessibility in repositories: A survey in Switzerland

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Authors : Alireza Darvishy, Rolf Sethe, Ines Engler, Oriane Pierrès, Juliet Manning

This survey analyzes the quality of the portable document format (PDF) documents in online repositories in Switzerland, examining their accessibility for people with visual impairments. Two minimal accessibility features were analysed: the PDFs had to have tags and a hierarchical heading structure.

The survey also includes interviews with the managers or heads of multiple Swiss universities’ repositories to assess the general opinion and knowledge of PDF accessibility. An analysis of interviewee responses indicates an overall lack of awareness of PDF accessibility, and shows that online repositories currently have no concrete plans to address the issue.

This paper concludes by presenting a set of recommendations for online repositories to improve the accessibility of their PDF documents.

URL : The state of scientific PDF accessibility in repositories: A survey in Switzerland

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1581

Impact of publisher’s commercial or non-profit orientation on editorial practices: Moving towards a more strategic approach to supporting editorial staff

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Author : Katarina Krapež

This study was guided by previous research highlighting the significance of journal publishers’ commercial or non-profit orientations in shaping academic editors’ perspectives regarding the necessity of enhancing editorial and business practices. There is limited understanding of how the editor–publisher relationship varies based on publishers’ commercial orientation.

This study revealed five key factors influencing editors’ attitudes towards how publishers strive to provide high-quality publications: (i) availability of high-quality publication services; (ii) sufficient technological support and access to visibility-related data; (iii) accessible marketing and indexing services; (iv) access to continuous education for the editorial team; and (v) a balance between editorial autonomy and publisher support in managing the journal.

The study indicated that editors partnering with commercial publishers tended to receive more extensive and advanced services, better technological support, and more training opportunities, contributing to the production of superior end products.

However, working with commercial publishers resulted in the trade-off of less editorial independence, which sometimes compromised editors’ decision-making ability and made them feel uncertain about their further involvement. The study’s findings highlighted the importance of publishers adopting a more strategic approach to support their editorial staff, while considering the unique needs of each journal.

URL : Impact of publisher’s commercial or non-profit orientation on editorial practices: Moving towards a more strategic approach to supporting editorial staff

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1575

Pour quelles revues et publishers les chercheurs d’une université pluridisciplinaire travaillent-ils ?

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Auteur/Author :  Maxence Larrieu

Le document contextualise et présente une cartographie réalisée en 2022 à Université Paris Cité, dans le cadre de la plateforme éditoriale OPUS. Les activités éditoriales visées sont celles nécessaires au fonctionnement d’une revue scientifique, comme rédacteur en chef, relecteur ou plus largement membre des comités éditoriaux. La cartographie décrit les revues dans lesquelles les chercheurs de l’université exercent ces activités.

Elle se démarque par l’utilisation du récent outil OpenEditors, qui partage les données structurées des comités éditoriaux des principaux publishers. Cette méthode, enrichie manuellement, autorise une vue omnidisciplinaire appropriée pour l’université : environ 320 revues sont identifiées, 130 pour la santé, idem pour les SHS et moitié moins pour les sciences et techniques.

Les revues sont ensuite analysées manuellement selon différents critères : gouvernance, plateforme, publisher commercial et modèle économique. Les résultats, composés de 7 graphiques, sont précédés d’une explication de la méthode et du jeu de données réalisé. Enfin, des exemples d’utilisation de la cartographie sont proposés.

URL : https://hal.science/hal-04197253

Development and preliminary validation of an open access, open data and open outreach indicator

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Authors : Evgenios Vlachos, Regine Ejstrup, Thea Marie Drachen, Bertil Fabricius Dorch

We present the development and preliminary validation of a new person-centered indicator that we propose is named “OADO” after its target concepts: Open Access (OA), Open Data (OD) and Open Outreach (OO).

The indicator is comprised of two factors: the research factor indicating the degree of OA articles and OD in research; and the communication factor indicating the degree of OO in communication activities in which a researcher has participated. We stipulate that the weighted version of this new indicator, the Weighted-OADO, can be used to assess the openness of researchers in relation to their peers from their own discipline, department, or even group/center.

The OADO is developed and customized to the needs of Elsevier’s Research Information Management System (RIMS) environment, Pure. This offers the advantage of more accurate interpretations and recommendations for action, as well as the possibility to be implemented (and further validated) by multiple institutions, allowing disciplinary comparisons of the open practices across multiple institutes.

Therefore, the OADO provides recommendations for action, and enables institutes to make informed decisions based on the indicator’s outcome. To test the validity of the OADO, we retrieved the Pure publication records from two departments for each of the five faculties of the University of Southern Denmark and calculated the OADO of 995 researchers in total.

We checked for definition validity, actionability, transferability, possibility of unexpected discontinuities of the indicator, factor independence, normality of the indicator’s distributions across the departments, and indicator reliability.

Our findings reveal that the OADO is a reliable indicator for departments with normally distributed values with regards to their Weighted-OADO. Unfortunately, only two departments displayed normal distributions, one from the health sciences and one from engineering.

For departments where the normality assumption is not satisfied, the OADO can still be useful as it can indicate the need for making a greater effort toward openness, and/or act as an incentive for detailed registration of research outputs and datasets.

URL : Development and preliminary validation of an open access, open data and open outreach indicator

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2023.1218213

Publication and collaboration anomalies in academic papers originating from a paper mill: Evidence from a Russia-based paper mill

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Author : Anna Abalkina

This study attempts to detect papers originating from the Russia-based paper mill ‘International Publisher’ LLC. A total of 1,063 offers to purchase co-authorship on a fraudulent papers published from 2019 to mid-2022 on the 123mi.ru website were analysed.

This study identifies at least 451 papers that are potentially linked to the paper mill, including one preprint, a duplication paper and 16 republications of papers erroneously published in hijacked journals.

Evidence of suspicious provenance from the paper mill is provided: matches in title, number of co-authorship slots, year of publication, country of the journal, country of a co-authors and similarities of abstracts. These problematic papers are co-authored by scholars from at least 39 countries and are submitted to both predatory and reputable journals.

This study also demonstrates collaboration anomalies in questionable papers and examines indicators of the Russia-based paper mill. The value of co-authorship slots offered by ‘International Publisher’ LLC from 2019 to 2021 is estimated at $6.5 million. Since this study only analysed a single paper mill, it is likely that the number of papers with forged authorship is much higher.

URL : Publication and collaboration anomalies in academic papers originating from a paper mill: Evidence from a Russia-based paper mill

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1574

Analytical code sharing practices in biomedical research

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Authors : Nitesh Kumar Sharma, Ram Ayyala, Dhrithi Deshpande et al.

Data-driven computational analysis is becoming increasingly important in biomedical research, as the amount of data being generated continues to grow. However, the lack of practices of sharing research outputs, such as data, source code and methods, affects transparency and reproducibility of studies, which are critical to the advancement of science. Many published studies are not reproducible due to insufficient documentation, code, and data being shared.

We conducted a comprehensive analysis of 453 manuscripts published between 2016-2021 and found that 50.1% of them fail to share the analytical code. Even among those that did disclose their code, a vast majority failed to offer additional research outputs, such as data. Furthermore, only one in ten papers organized their code in a structured and reproducible manner. We discovered a significant association between the presence of code availability statements and increased code availability (p=2.71×10−9).

Additionally, a greater proportion of studies conducting secondary analyses were inclined to share their code compared to those conducting primary analyses (p=1.15*10−07). In light of our findings, we propose raising awareness of code sharing practices and taking immediate steps to enhance code availability to improve reproducibility in biomedical research.

By increasing transparency and reproducibility, we can promote scientific rigor, encourage collaboration, and accelerate scientific discoveries. We must prioritize open science practices, including sharing code, data, and other research products, to ensure that biomedical research can be replicated and built upon by others in the scientific community.

URL : Analytical code sharing practices in biomedical research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.31.551384

The Effects of Research Data Management Services: Associating the Data Curation Lifecycle with Open Research Output

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Authors : Nicolas Pares, Peter Organisciak

This study seeks to understand the relationship between research data management (RDM) services framed in the data curation life cycle and the production of open data. An electronic questionnaire was distributed to US researchers and RDM specialists, and the results were analyzed using Chi-Square tests for association.

The data curation life cycle does associate with the production of open data and shareable research, but tasks like data management plans have stronger associations with the production of open data. The findings analyze the intersection of these concepts and provide insight into RDM services that facilitate the production of open data and shareable research.

URL : The Effects of Research Data Management Services: Associating the Data Curation Lifecycle with Open Research Output

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.5.751