Archives des mots-clés : open access

An open automation system for predatory journal detection

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Authors : Li‑Xian Chen, Shih‑Wen Su, Chia‑Hung Liao, Kai‑Sin Wong, Shyan‑Ming Yuan

The growing number of online open-access journals promotes academic exchanges, but the prevalence of predatory journals is undermining the scholarly reporting process. Data collection, feature extraction, and model prediction are common steps in tools designed to distinguish between legitimate and predatory academic journals and publisher websites.

The authors include them in their proposed academic journal predatory checking (AJPC) system based on machine learning methods. The AJPC data collection process extracts 833 blacklists and 1213 whitelists information from websites to be used for identifying words and phrases that might indicate the presence of predatory journals.

Feature extraction is used to identify words and terms that help detect predatory websites, and the system’s prediction stage uses eight classification algorithms to distinguish between potentially predatory and legitimate journals.

We found that enhancing the classification efficiency of the bag of words model and TF-IDF algorithm with diff scores (a measure of differences in specific word frequencies between journals) can assist in identifying predatory journal feature words.

Results from performance tests suggest that our system works as well as or better than those currently being used to identify suspect publishers and publications.

The open system only provides reference results rather than absolute opinions and accepts user inquiries and feedback to update the system and optimize performance.

URL : An open automation system for predatory journal detection

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30176-z

Characteristics of European Universities that Participate in Library Crowdfunding Initiatives for Open Access Monographs

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Author : Mirela Roncevic

The aim of the study was to identify the traits of 100 European universities across 26 countries that did or did not support one particular library crowdfunding initiative for open access (OA) monographs over the past few years.

By relying on the rankings of four sources, including THE, ARWU, QS, and Leiden, the study identifies some of the traits of the universities that have shown strong interest in the model by already taking part in an established library crowdfunding initiative, as well as those that may play a vital role in its sustainability.

The study’s results show that the institutions that are likely to participate in library crowdfunding initiatives for OA monographs may be defined as highly ranked and produce research in quantity, quantity, relevance, and timeliness. The study’s key revelation is the high academic standing of the institutions that rarely participate in one crowdfunding initiative.

These institutions may not be as “international” in their outlooks, but they stand out for their high-quality and significant research output. As such, they may accelerate the model’s adoption with more consistent participation in library crowdfunding.

URL : Characteristics of European Universities that Participate in Library Crowdfunding Initiatives for Open Access Monographs

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11010009

The pandemic and changes in early career researchers’ career prospects, research and publishing practices

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Authors : Hamid R. Jamali, David Nicholas, David Sims, Anthony Watkinson, Eti Herman, Cherifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri, Blanca Rodrıguez-Bravo, Marzena Świgoń, Abdullah Abrizah, Jie Xu, Carol Tenopir , Suzie Allard

Introduction

As part of the Harbnger-2 project, this study aimed to discover the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on junior researchers’ work-life, career prospects, research and publishing practices and networking.

Methods

An online international survey of 800 early career researchers (ECRs) was conducted in 2022. A questionnaire was developed based on three rounds of interviews and distributed using multiple channels including publishers, social media, and direct email to ECRs.

Results

The impact of the pandemic on career prospects, morale, job security, productivity, ability to network and collaborate, and quality and speed of peer review has on the whole been more negative than positive.

A quarter of ECRs shifted their research focus to pandemic-related topics and half of those who did, benefited largely due to increased productivity and impact. The majority worked remotely/from home and more than two-thirds of those who did so benefitted from it. While virtual or hybrid conferences have been embraced by the majority of ECRs, around a third still preferred face-to-face only conferences.

The use of library online platforms, Sci-Hub, ResearchGate, Google Scholar and smartphone to search and access full-text papers increased. ECRs prioritised journals with fast submission procedures for the publishing of their papers and spent more time on increasing the visibility of their research. Fees were a problem for publishing open access.

Conclusion

Although, generally, the pandemic negatively impacted many aspects of ECRs’ work-life, certain research areas and individuals benefited from being more appreciated and valued, and, in some cases, resulted in increased resources, better productivity and greater impact.

Changes, such as the use of digital technologies and remote working created new opportunities for some ECRs. While continuing work flexibility and hybrid conferences might benefit some ECRs, institutions should also take measures to help those ECRs whose career and productivity have been adversely impacted.

URL : The pandemic and changes in early career researchers’ career prospects, research and publishing practices

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281058

The APC-Barrier and its effect on stratification in open access publishing

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Authors : Thomas Klebel, Tony Ross-Hellauer

Current implementations of Open Access (OA) publishing frequently involve Article Publishing Charges (APCs). Increasing evidence emerges that APCs impede researchers with fewer resources in publishing their research OA.

We analysed 1.5 million scientific articles from journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals to assess average APCs and their determinants for a comprehensive set of journal publications, across scientific disciplines, world regions and through time.

Levels of APCs were strongly stratified by scientific fields and the institutions’ countries, corroborating previous findings on publishing cultures and the impact of mandates of research funders.

After controlling for country and scientific field with a multilevel mixture model, however, we found small to moderate effects of levels of institutional resourcing on the level of APCs.

Effects were largest in countries with low GDP, suggesting decreasing marginal effects of institutional resources when general levels of funding are high. Our findings provide further evidence on how APCs stratify OA publishing and highlight the need for alternative publishing models.

URL : The APC-Barrier and its effect on stratification in open access publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00245

Model(s) of the future? Overlay journals as an overlooked and emerging trend in scholarly communication

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Authors : Gail M. Thornton, Emily Kroeker

Overlay journals, a potentially overlooked model of scholarly communication, have seen a resurgence due to the increasing number of preprint repositories and preprints on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) related topics.

Overlay journals at various stages of maturity were examined for unique characteristics, including whether the authors submitted their article to the journal, whether the peer reviews of the article were published by the overlay journal, and whether the overlay journals took advantage of opportunities for increased discovery.

As librarians and researchers seek new, futuristic models for publishing, overlay journals are emerging as an important contribution to scholarly communication.

URL : Model(s) of the future? Overlay journals as an overlooked and emerging trend in scholarly communication

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5206/cjils-rcsib.v45i2.14730

Leveraging Open Tools to Realize the Potential of Self-Archiving: A Cohort Study in Clinical Trials

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Author : Delwen L. Franzen

While open access (OA) is growing, many publications remain behind a paywall. This limits the impact of research and entrenches global inequalities by restricting access to knowledge to those that can afford it.

Many journal policies allow researchers to make a version of their publication openly accessible through self-archiving in a repository, sometimes after an embargo period (green OA). Unpaywall and Shareyourpaper are open tools that help users find OA articles and support authors to legally self-archive their papers, respectively.

This study leveraged these tools to assess the potential of green OA to increase discoverability in a cohort of clinical trial results publications from German university medical centers. Of the 1897 publications in this cohort, 46% (n = 871/1897, 95% confidence interval (CI) 44% to 48%) were neither openly accessible via a journal or a repository. Of these, 85% (n = 736/871, 95% CI 82% to 87%) had a permission to self-archive the accepted or published version in an institutional repository.

Thus, most of the closed-access clinical trial results in this cohort could be made openly accessible in a repository, in line with World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations.

In addition to providing further evidence of the unrealized potential of green OA, this study demonstrates the use of open tools to obtain actionable information on self-archiving at scale and empowers efforts to increase science discoverability.

URL : Leveraging Open Tools to Realize the Potential of Self-Archiving: A Cohort Study in Clinical Trials

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11010004

On the culture of open access: the Sci-hub paradox

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Authors : Abdelghani Maddi, David Sapinho

Shadow libraries have gradually become key players of scientific knowledge dissemination, despite their illegality in most countries of the world. Many publishers and scientist-editors decry such libraries for their copyright infringement and loss of publication usage information, while some scholars and institutions support them, sometimes in a roundabout way, for their role in reducing inequalities of access to knowledge, particularly in low-income countries. Although there is a wealth of literature on shadow libraries, none of this have focused on its potential role in knowledge dissemination, through the open access movement.

Here we analyze how shadow libraries can affect researchers’ citation practices, highlighting some counter-intuitive findings about their impact on the Open Access Citation Advantage (OACA). Based on a large randomized sample, this study first shows that OA publications, including those in fully OA journals, receive more citations than their subscription-based counterparts do.

However, the OACA has slightly decreased over the seven last years. The introduction of a distinction between those accessible or not via the Sci-hub platform among subscription-based suggest that the generalization of its use cancels the positive effect of OA publishing. The results show that publications in fully OA journals (and to a lesser extent those in hybrid journals) are victims of the success of Sci-hub.

Thus, paradoxically, although Sci-hub may seem to facilitate access to scientific knowledge, it negatively affects the OA movement as a whole, by reducing the comparative advantage of OA publications in terms of visibility for researchers. The democratization of the use of Sci-hub may therefore lead to a vicious cycle against the development of fully OA journals.

URL : On the culture of open access: the Sci-hub paradox

DOI : https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2357492/v1