Étiquette : open access journals

Catégories
EN

The Rise of Diamond Open Access Journals in Earth Sciences: Past Developments, Present Tensions, and Future Pathways

Authors : Olivier Pourret, Maëlis Arnould, Thibault Duretz, James Ian Farquharson, Dasapta Erwin Irawan, Larry Syu-Heng Lai, Alice Lefebvre, Craig Magee, Marc-Alban Millet, Samantha Teplitzky, Camille Thomas, Romain Vaucher, Lauren Waszek, Mark A Wieczorek, Thomas William Wong Hearing

Over roughly the last decade, a visible, community-led Diamond Open Access (OA) ecosystem has emerged in the Earth sciences, not as a departure from tradition, but as the latest expression of a long-standing culture of open, society-supported scholarly communication.

While free-to-read, fee-free publishing initiatives have deep roots in the field, predating the Diamond terminology by decades and encompassing regional infrastructures and institutional serial publishing by geological surveys and learned societies, the period since the mid-2010s has brought a new wave of explicitly Diamond-identified, community-governed disciplinary journals that have transformed the visibility and ambition of this model. This article analyzes that transition through a field-specific lens, taking journals such as Volcanica, Seismica, Tektonika, Geomorphica, Geodynamica, Sedimentologika, Advances in Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, Open Paleontology, Planetary Research, and Journal of Studies of Earth’s Deep Interior as emblematic of a broader shift in scholarly communication.

Building on current Diamond OA debates, we argue that Earth sciences Diamond journals are not merely “no-fee” outlets but sociotechnical experiments in reclaiming agency, redistributing publishing labor, and redefining value away from commercial metrics. This article develops three claims. First, the Earth sciences Diamond turn has been enabled by existing community infrastructures and high levels of volunteer coordination, but it remains uneven and fragile.

Second, Diamond models strengthen equity for authors and readers while exposing unresolved tensions around labor sustainability, institutional support, and recognition regimes still structured by prestige metrics. Third, Earth sciences offer a strategically important testbed for a wider transition towards commons-based scholarly communication, especially where global fieldwork, data justice, and decolonizing commitments demand alternatives to the pay-to-read and pay-to-publish systems.

We conclude that the next decade should prioritize durable funding compacts, shared technical infrastructure, and reform of research assessment so that Diamond OA can scale without reproducing extractive or technocratic governance.

URL : The Rise of Diamond Open Access Journals in Earth Sciences: Past Developments, Present Tensions, and Future Pathways

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31223/X56J5P

Catégories
EN

Assessing open access scholarly journals for integration into artificial intelligence research assistants

Authors : Sanja Gidakovic, Heather Moulaison-Sandy, Jenny Bossalle

Introduction

Freely available standalone AI research assistants such as Elicit and Consensus are used by academics to find relevant literature. These systems rely extensively on freely available sources, including open access journal content. No baseline for understanding the level of quality of such journals used in these assistants has been carried out.

Method

A sample of 807 English-language journals from the Directory of Open Access Journals that became open access before 2021 was investigated for quality metrics using SCImago rankings and other defining characteristics and analysed in conjunction with the Directory data.

Analysis

Scimago journal ranking quartile scores were recorded for each of the journals. Descriptive statistics were produced using Excel, and visualizations using Tableau Public.

Results

Of our sample, over half were ranked in Scopus, and many were in quartile 1. Many university or small association journals were unranked.

Conclusions

AI research assistants may miss some high-quality open access content due to reliance on metrics. Commercial enterprises play a large role in sources used to produce content, effectively gatekeeping the process and potentially shaping the creation of new knowledge.

URL : Assessing open access scholarly journals for integration into artificial intelligence research assistants

DOI : https://doi.org/10.47989/ir31263095

Catégories
EN

Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines

Authors : Kaitlin Stack Whitney, Julia Perrone, Christie A. Bahlai

In recent decades, there has been a move to “open” science and research. One component of open access is “accessibility,” often used to mean that data and other products are free to use by others. However, accessibility also refers to considering and meeting the needs of people with disabilities.

Our objective was to evaluate how open access journals incorporate disability accessibility as part of publishing. Using a random sample of 300 English-language journals and image accessibility as a lens, we assessed author guidelines. Of 289 journals with guidelines, 38 (13%) included color choice, six (∼2%) included contrast ratios, and none included alternative text.

We also assessed the open access statements for the same 300 journals to understand how they conceive of openness and accessibility. Of the 298 journals with open access statements, 228 (∼77%) included the words access or accessibility. Yet none included disability or disabled and only two journals (<1%) mentioned inclusive or inclusion.

Our findings indicate that the open access journals sampled are not considering disability accessibility in their submission guidelines or open access frameworks. Incorporating disability accessibility into open scholarship considerations is critical to bridge, and not exacerbate, information inequalities for people with disabilities.

URL : Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00338

Catégories
EN

Comparing companion open access journals to their traditional journal counterparts

Authors : Alexander Pohlman, Ayham M. Odeh, Shawn M. Purnell, Layan Alrahmani, Shanda H Blackmon, Julia M Coughlin, Zaid M Abdelsattar

Background

Many traditional journals have launched companion open access (cOA) journals with similar scope and aims. These journals seek better article dissemination through removal of the paywall and use of article processing charges (APCs). Traditional journals often suggest transfer to their cOA journal, leaving authors with a decision to accept transfer and pay an APC or resubmit elsewhere. We aim to compare costs and impact of these journals to better inform authors.

Methods

The top 15 U.S.-based traditional journals within medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and OB/GYN were identified based on 2023 impact factor. Those with cOA journals were included, and all publication data between 2011 and 2023 were extracted. Citation counts were compared using Poisson regression; author demographics were analyzed using multivariable logistic regression.

Results

There were 14 traditional journals with cOA counterparts, constituting 52,232 publications from 36,577 authors. cOA articles had half the citations of traditional publications (9.4 vs 18.2) and collected an estimated $35 million in APCs. Female and low/middle income country (LMIC) authors were more likely to publish in cOA journals (aOR = 1.23, 1.14, respectively).

URL : Comparing companion open access journals to their traditional journal counterparts

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2025.2575211

Catégories
EN

Geographical and disciplinary coverage of open access journals: OpenAlex, Scopus, and WoS

Authors : Abdelghani Maddi, Marion Maisonobe, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

This study aims to compare the geographical and disciplinary coverage of OA journals in three databases: OpenAlex, Scopus and the Web of Science (WoS). We used the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD), provided by the ISSN International Centre, as a reference to identify OA active journals (as of May 2024). Among the 62,701 active OA journals listed in ROAD, the WoS indexes 6,157 journals, Scopus indexes 7,351, while OpenAlex indexes 34,217.

A striking observation is the presence of 24,976 OA journals exclusively in OpenAlex, whereas only 182 journals are exclusively present in the WoS and 373 in Scopus. The geographical analysis focuses on two levels: continents and countries. As for disciplinary comparison, we use the ten disciplinary levels of the ROAD database. Moreover, our findings reveal a similarity in OA journal coverage between the WoS and Scopus. However, while OpenAlex offers better inclusivity and indexing, it is not without biases.

The WoS and Scopus predictably favor journals from Europe, North America and Oceania. Although OpenAlex presents a much more balanced indexing, certain regions and countries remain relatively underrepresented. Typically, Africa is proportionally as under-represented in OpenAlex as it is in Scopus, and some emerging countries are proportionally less represented in OpenAlex than in the WoS and Scopus.

These results underscore a marked similarity in OA journal indexing between WoS and Scopus, while OpenAlex aligns more closely with the distribution observed in the ROAD database, although it also exhibits some representational biases.

URL : Geographical and disciplinary coverage of open access journals: OpenAlex, Scopus, and WoS

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0320347

 

Catégories
EN

Two scholarly publishing cultures? Open access drives a divergence in European academic publishing practices

Authors : Leon Kopitar, Nejc Plohl, Mojca Tancer Verboten, Gregor Štiglic, Roger Watson, Dean Korošak

The current system of scholarly publishing is often criticized for being slow, expensive, and not transparent. The rise of open access publishing as part of open science tenets, promoting transparency and collaboration, together with calls for research assesment reforms are the results of these criticisms. The emergence of new open access publishers presents a unique opportunity to empirically test how universities and countries respond to shifts in the academic publishing landscape. These new actors challenge traditional publishing models, offering faster review times and broader accessibility, which could influence strategic publishing decisions.

Our findings reveal a clear division in European publishing practices, with countries clustering into two groups distinguished by the ratio of publications in new open access journals with accelerated review times versus legacy journals. This divide underscores a broader shift in academic culture, highlighting new open access publishing venues as a strategic factor influencing national and institutional publishing practices, with significant implications for research accessibility and collaboration across Europe.

Arxiv : https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.06282

Catégories
Non classé

When researchers pay to publish: Results from a survey on APCs in four countries

Authors : Osvaldo Gallardo, Matías Milia, André Luiz Appel, Grip-APC Team, François van Schalkwyk

This paper provides an empirical overview of the impact and practices of paying Article Processing Charges (APCs) by four nationally categorized groups of researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa.

The data was collected from 13,577 researchers through an online questionnaire. The analysis compares the practice of publishing in journals that charge APCs across different dimensions, including country, discipline, gender, and age of the researchers.

The paper also focuses on the maximum amount APC paid and the methods and strategies researchers use to cover APC payments, such as waivers, research project funds, payment by coauthors, and the option to publish in closed access, where possible. Different tendencies were identified among the different disciplines and the national systems examined.

Findings show that Argentine researchers apply for waivers most frequently and often use personal funds or international coauthors for APCs, with younger researchers less involved in APC payments. In contrast, Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico have more older researchers, yet younger researchers still publish more in APC journals. South African researchers lead in APC publications, likely due to better funding access and read and publish agreements.

This study lays the groundwork for further analysis of gender asymmetries, funding access, and views on the commercial Open Access model of scientific dissemination.

Arxiv : https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.12144