Open Access monographs in the humanities and social sciences conference
« As academics in most disciplines know, the unit cost of traditionally printed monographs is rising, while sales have been in steady decline. This is a particular problem in the humanities and social sciences, in which monographs are often the output of choice for scholars and the benchmark against which standing and academic performance are judged. Open Access (OA) is a model that has the potential to support a vibrant research environment, enabling non restricted access, widening readerships, facilitating collaboration and the creation of new ideas and increasing impact. Yet the problems inherent in moving to OA publishing for books seem so numerous, and so hard to solve, that even the Finch Report concluded that it couldn’t be insisted upon without further experimentation. Two organisations, leading experimentation, Jisc Collections and OAPEN, thought it was high time to bring together experts from across academia and publishing to explore open access as a means not just to secure the monograph’s future, but also to transform it, extending its reach and ‘making the scholarship better’. »
Do developing countries profit from free books? Discovery and online usage in developed and developing countries compared
Author : Ronald Snijder
For years, Open Access has been seen as a way to remove barriers to research in developing countries. In order to test this, an experiment was conducted to measure whether publishing academic books in Open Access has a positive effect on developing countries.
During a period of nine months the usage data of 180 books was recorded. Of those, a set of 43 titles was used as control group with restricted access. The rest was made fully accessible.
The data shows the digital divide between developing countries and developed countries: 70 percent of the discovery data and 73 percent of online usage data come from developed countries. Using statistical analysis, the experiment confirms that Open Access publishing enhances discovery and online usage in developing countries.
This strengthens the claims of the advocates of Open Access: researchers from the developing countries do benefit from free academic books.
Open access clauses in publishers’ licenses current state…
Open access clauses in publishers’ licenses: current state and lessons learned :
« In 2012, the Open Access Agreements and Licenses Task Force was launched by COAR to monitor, evaluate and promote the implementation of effective open access agreements and licenses. The task force has members from the repository, licensing and OA communities who share an interest in promoting sustainable and effective practices for open access. In 2012/2013 the task force undertook an environmental scan of the licensing language for article deposit into repositories. This report presents the result of the review and some lessons learned from organizations that have been successful in implementing OA clauses in publisher licenses. »
URL : http://www.coar-repositories.org/files/OA-Clauses-in-Publishers-Licenses.pdf
MedOANet Guidelines for implementing open access policies for…
MedOANet Guidelines for implementing open access policies for research performing and research funding organizations :
« These Guidelines for implementing open access policies have been produced by the EC-funded project “Mediterranean Open Access Network” (www.medoanet.eu). They aim at coordinating policy-development in the six Mediterranean countries that participate in the project by providing concise and targeted guidelines for a harmonized approach towards policy development (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey). They are directed to policy-makers and policy stakeholders specifically, to Research Performing Organizations and Research Funders.
The guidelines take into consideration best practices and recent policy developments, in particular the European Commission’s Recommendation and Communication on access to and preservation of and dissemination of scientific information (2012) and the planning for Horizon 2020. They are also informed by relevant documents, policy papers, recommendations and guidelines, produced recently by organizations such as UNESCO, The League of European Research Universities, the European University Association, Science Europe, among others, as well as by surveys performed in the six countries by the project.
More specifically the guidelines:
• Present the main concepts and issues with respect to open access
• Discuss the major steps that are necessary in the process of policy development
• Present the important components of an institutional and funder policy
• Present model policies for research performing and research funding organizations
• Present best practices in policy development for research performing and research funding organizations »
URL : http://medoanet.eu/sites/www.medoanet.eu/files/documents/MED2013_GUIDELine_dp_EN_ws.pdf
Do universities or research institutions with a specific…
Do universities or research institutions with a specific subject profile have an advantage or a disadvantage in institutional rankings? :
« Using data compiled for the SCImago Institutions Ranking, we look at whether the subject area type an institution (university or research-focused institution) belongs to (in terms of the fields researched) has an influence on its ranking position. We used latent class analysis to categorize institutions based on their publications in certain subject areas. Even though this categorization does not relate directly to scientific performance, our results show that it exercises an important influence on the outcome of a performance measurement: Certain subject area types of institutions have an advantage in the ranking positions when compared with others. This advantage manifests itself not only when performance is measured with an indicator that is not field-normalized but also for indicators that are field-normalized. »
URL : http://www.lutz-bornmann.de/icons/UniTyp.pdf
Medical research charities and open access This…
Medical research charities and open access :
« This paper provides an analysis of the attitudes and activities of UK medical research charities in relation to open access (OA). Both quantitative and qualitative data are presented derived from a recent survey of charities covering areas such as policy development, funding arrangements, and business process design for OA. Positions on key issues including green and gold OA, funding article-processing charges (APCs), and publication licences are assessed. Modelling of potential APCs as a percentage of overall annual research spend is undertaken to show possible costs of a charged for gold system. Medical research charities clearly regard OA as important and some see it as an opportunity to further their mission. However, many expressed significant concerns particularly about the costs and expertise required to support OA. Further co-ordination of policy development and action across the sector and with other stakeholders is recommended in order to help ensure optimal implementation of OA. »
URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.1087/20130409