EN

Diamond Open Access Landscape in Croatia: DIAMAS Survey Results

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors :  Jadranka Stojanovski, Danijel Mofardin

As open science initiatives address the crisis in scholarly communication driven by commercialisation, diamond open access publishing—promoting equity for authors and readers—has emerged as a focal point in open access scholarly publishing. This study examines the landscape of institutional publishing in Croatia, focusing on the community-owned diamond open access model.

Through the DIAMAS project survey, which targeted 251 institutional publishers and achieved a response rate of 77, the research identifies the distinct features of Croatian institutional publishing. Institutional publishers are characterised by governance structures, funding challenges, voluntary staffing, and alignment with open science principles. Notable traits include reliance on public funding, use of the national open access journal platform, and a strong diamond open access publishing tradition.

Key findings emphasise the critical role of national infrastructure, services, and multilingual publishing. Persistent challenges include meeting indexing criteria, advancing open science practices, and ensuring metadata quality. This study provides a comprehensive mapping of Croatian institutional publishers, offering insights into their strengths and weaknesses while proposing strategies for improvement.

The findings underscore the importance of national policy frameworks, capacity building, and international collaboration to ensure the sustainability and visibility of Croatian institutional publishing.

URL : Diamond Open Access Landscape in Croatia: DIAMAS Survey Results

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications13010013

FR

A la recherche d’une maîtrise des données : une étude des discours scientifiques et professionnels sur la data literacy

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Auteur : Ugo Verdi

Depuis deux décennies, l’évolution et la démocratisation des logiciels et des technologies numériques, à l’instar des applications des smartphones, ont généré de nouveaux usages liés aux données. Ces dernières, considérées comme un « nouvel or noir » nécessaire aux prises de décisions, ont été investies d’enjeux centraux au sein de discours qui véhiculent de nombreux mythes essentialisant.

Leur maîtrise est de plus en plus sollicitée par tout un ensemble d’acteurs et la data literacy, également nommée « culture des données » ou « littératie des données », est en ce sens évoquée comme une, si ce n’est « la » solution miracle qui permettrait une acculturation efficace des individus.

L’objectif de cette thèse est de présenter un état de l’art des caractéristiques de la data literacy issues de représentations véhiculées par les discours scientifiques et professionnels. Elle doit ainsi permettre d’une part de répondre à un ensemble de questionnements, à savoir quelles sont les caractéristiques de la data literacy et ont-elles évolué dans le temps ? quelles sont les visions portées sur les données et quel lien est tissé avec l’information ? quels sont les enchevêtrements conceptuels et littéraciques ?

Depuis quand pouvons-nous véritablement parler de data literacy et a-t-il existé des proto data literacies aux objectifs similaires ? que recouvre une « acculturation » aux données et quelles sont ses modalités de déploiement ? quels sont les acteurs qui se sont exprimés sur cette thématique ? dans quels contextes et selon quelle temporalité ? pouvons-nous parler d’une vision purement française de la data literacy ?

D’autre part, de déconstruire les mythes qui entourent la data literacy et in extenso les usages des données. Pour ce faire, trois grand corpus seront exploités : (1) plusieurs centaines de publications scientifiques et professionnelles, (2) 44544 tweets contenant le terme « data literacy » produits entre septembre 2021 et septembre 2022 et (3) 32 entretiens semi-directifs réalisés auprès d’acteurs français.

URL : A la recherche d’une maîtrise des données : une étude des discours scientifiques et professionnels sur la data literacy

TEL : https://theses.hal.science/tel-04905349

 

EN

Motivations and barriers to publishing open access book chapters and monographs: An institutional perspective

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Wm. Joseph Thomas, Allison Kaefring, Jeanne K. Hoover

Introduction

Recent years have seen an increase in publishers exploring open access for monographs and book chapters. Programs like the Direct to Open from MIT Press and JSTOR’s Path to Open have provided avenues for libraries and authors to support open access monographs generally, but not campus authors specifically. On our campus, we have seen an increase in requests for and questions about publishing monographs and book chapters open access.

Description of Program

We offer several options for support for open access article publishing, including transformational agreements, institutional memberships, and an open access fund, but have limited resources and strategies for supporting book and chapter authors to make their publications open access.

To gauge our authors’ awareness and interest, we surveyed faculty who recently published a book or chapter about their publishing experiences with a focus on open access publishing. In addition to our survey, we conducted interviews with faculty to gain a better understanding of open access publishing from their perspective as recent authors.

Next Steps

In response to this research, the library has explored new methods of supporting open monograph publishing and plans to develop open education resources and webinars about the open monograph publishing process.

URL : Motivations and barriers to publishing open access book chapters and monographs: An institutional perspective

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18280

 

EN

Automation Applied to the Collection and Generation of Scientific Literature

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Nadia Paola Valadez-de la Paz , Jose Antonio Vazquez-Lopez , Aidee Hernandez-Lopez , Jaime Francisco Aviles-Viñas, Jose Luis Navarro-Gonzalez,  Alfredo Valentin Reyes-Acosta, Ismael Lopez-Juarez

Preliminary activities of searching and selecting relevant articles are crucial in scientific research to determine the state of the art (SOTA) and enhance overall outcomes.

While there are automatic tools for keyword extraction, these algorithms are often computationally expensive, storage-intensive, and reliant on institutional subscriptions for metadata retrieval. Most importantly, they still require manual selection of literature.

This paper introduces a framework that automates keyword searching in article abstracts to help select relevant literature for the SOTA by identifying key terms matching that we, hereafter, call source words. A case study in the food and beverage industry is provided to demonstrate the algorithm’s application.

In the study, five relevant knowledge areas were defined to guide literature selection. The database from scientific repositories was categorized using six classification rules based on impact factor (IF), Open Access (OA) status, and JCR journal ranking.

This classification revealed the knowledge area with the highest presence and highlighted the effectiveness of the selection rules in identifying articles for the SOTA. The approach included a panel of experts who confirmed the algorithm’s effectiveness in identifying source words in high-quality articles. The algorithm’s performance was evaluated using the 𝐹1 Score, which reached 0.83 after filtering out non-relevant articles.

This result validates the algorithm’s ability to extract significant source words and demonstrates its usefulness in building the SOTA by focusing on the most scientifically impactful articles.

URL : Automation Applied to the Collection and Generation of Scientific Literature

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications13010011

EN

The Economic Impact of Open Science: A Scoping Review

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Lena Tsipouri, Sofia Liarti, Silvia Vignetti, Izabella Martins-Grapengiesser

This paper summarised a comprehensive scoping review of the economic impact of Open Science (OS), examining empirical evidence from 2000 to 2023. It focuses on Open Access (OA), Open/FAIR Data (OFD), Open Source Software (OSS), and Open Methods, assessing their contributions to efficiency gains in research production, innovation enhancement, and economic growth.

Evidence, although limited, indicates that OS accelerates research processes, reduces the related costs, fosters innovation by improving access to data and resources and this ultimately generates economic growth. Specific sectors, such as life sciences, are researched more and the literature exhibits substantial gains, mainly thanks to OFD and OA.

OSS supports productivity, while the very limited studies on Open Methods indicate benefits in terms of productivity gains and innovation enhancement. However, gaps persist in the literature, particularly in fields like Citizen Science and Open Evaluation, for which no empirical findings on economic impact could be detected.

Despite limitations, empirical evidence on specific cases highlight economic benefits. This review underscores the need for further metrics and studies across diverse sectors and regions to fully capture OS’s economic potential.

URL : The Economic Impact of Open Science: A Scoping Review

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/kqse5_v1

EN

Academic Quality or Commercial Concern? The Role of APCs in Open-Access Communication Studies Journals

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Burak Ili

Despite the positive effects of the open access (OA) movement on academic publishing, commercial publishers’ profit-driven policies continue to prevail, making the publishing process increasingly difficult for many researchers, particularly those from developing countries. T

his study critically examines open-access Q1 and Q2 journals listed in the Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) within the field of Media and Communication Studies.

Despite the OA movement’s goal of increasing access to information, the capitalist academic publishing model transforms knowledge production into a commercial activity through article processing charges (APCs). The research reveals that high APCs demanded by high-impact journals represent a significant barrier, especially for researchers with limited financial and institutional support.

This situation underscores the urgent need for institutional reform in the structure of academic publishing, particularly within the field of Media and Communication Studies.

The proposed reforms should focus on critical areas such as increased support for OA models, freeing journals and editorial boards from Western monopolies, fairly compensating the labour of reviewers and editors, and offering greater language support.

Steps taken in this direction will contribute to the creation of a more transparent, fair, and inclusive structure for academic production and sharing processes.

URL : Academic Quality or Commercial Concern? The Role of APCs in Open-Access Communication Studies Journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v23i1.1547

EN

Trends and changes in academic libraries’ data management functions: A topic modeling analysis of job advertisements

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Ye Yuan , A.M.K. Yanti Idaya , A. Noorhidawati, Guan Wang

In the era of open science, academic libraries have transitioned from traditional resource providers to proactive platforms that drive data integration and knowledge innovation.

This shift has led to the continuous evolution and expansion of their data management functions. This study aims to (i) track trends in academic library data management positions, (ii) identify key themes in job advertisements related to data management, and (iii) examine how these themes have evolved. Using text mining techniques, this study applied Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and TF-IDF vectorization to systematically analyze 803 job advertisements related to data management posted on the IFLA LIBJOBS platform from 1996 to 2023.

The findings reveal that the development of these positions has undergone three phases: exploration, growth, and adjustment. Four core themes in data management functions emerged: “Cataloging and Metadata Management,” “Data Services and Support,” “Research Data Management,” and “Systems Management and Maintenance.”

Over time, these themes have evolved from distinct roles to a more balanced distribution. Technological advancements, political initiatives, and shifts in the global data environment have influenced these trends. Notably, the rising demand for “Systems Management and Maintenance” highlights its critical role in ensuring data security, while the sustained need for “Cataloging and Metadata Management” underscores its foundational place in data management strategies.

Meanwhile, the steady growth of “Data Services and Support” and “Research Data Management” reflects the adaptability and strategic adjustments of academic libraries in response to the rapidly changing information landscape.

These insights offer valuable empirical evidence for library leaders and policymakers in strategic planning and capacity development, ensuring that libraries can effectively navigate the challenges of a dynamic research environment.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2025.103017