Étiquette : open access

Catégories
EN

How subscription-based scholarly journals can convert to open access: A review of approaches

Authors : Mikael Laakso, David Solomon, Bo-Christer Björk

This article reviews the ways through which subscription-based scholarly journals have converted to open access. The methodology included a comprehensive literature review of both published and ‘grey’ literature, such as blog posts and press releases.

Eight interviews were also conducted with stakeholders representing different parts of the scholarly publishing landscape. Strategies of conversion for different types of journals are presented at multiple levels (publishers, national, research funders, organizational, and so on).

The identified scenarios are split into two main categories, those that rely heavily on article processing charges and those that can operate without relying on author-side financing.

Despite there being interesting and important shared traits among many converted journals, individual circumstances largely dictate what options for conversion are viable for a journal. There is no single solution that works for every journal but rather a broad selection of different solutions, among which selection should be well informed.

URL : How subscription-based scholarly journals can convert to open access: A review of approaches

Alternative location : http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/leap.1056/full

Catégories
FR

Où sont les données de la recherche ? : Essai de cartographie

Auteur/Author : Cécile Delay-Artous

La question émergente en France des données de la recherche se situe dans un cadre institutionnel foisonnant mais rigide, délicat à cerner. La recherche est aussi financée et évaluée au niveau européen.

Cette organisation nationale et européenne se double d’un aspect international inhérent à la recherche et aux échanges d’informations rapides et répétés, accélérés par le développement d’Internet.

Le labyrinthe institutionnel franco-européen se superpose ainsi avec le millefeuille international et disciplinaire du monde de la recherche. Enfin, la proximité de deux mouvements qui ne sont pourtant pas synonyme, l’Open Access et l’Open Data, vient encore troubler la compréhension de ce panorama.

Il n’est donc pas aisé de comprendre les rôles de chacun des acteurs quant aux données de la recherche. C’est à une clarification de ce paysage que nous nous proposons de participer, en initiant une cartographie des initiatives et acteurs visibles en France concernant les données des sciences humaines et sociales.

URL : https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01369745

Catégories
EN

Cost hurdles to open access publishing: A citizen scientist perspective

 Author : Wenfa Ng

Besides offering fun activities for non-scientists to explore the natural world through experiments, simulations or games, the evolving concept of citizen science is increasingly allowing some serious publication quality science to be published by the practitioners (citizen scientists) themselves.

The latter is in contrast to the common perception of citizen science, where most citizen science projects such as Foldit are distribution of piecemeal segments of complex projects suitable for solution by individuals, and where the results are pooled together, or used to inform the design and direction of more complex research initiatives.

Usually novices in science publishing but nonetheless aware of the importance of journal articles as the primary medium for communicating new research to the wider community (scientific and general public), citizen scientists do encounter significant challenges in science publication.

One challenge is in navigating the lengthy and time-consuming peer review process of most journals. But, as benefactors of open access publishing where most journal articles are within pay walls inaccessible to citizen scientists without any research funding, open access publishing is one platform sought after or exist as an option for citizen scientists.

Is the option open? Yes, at the preprint level where figshare, and PeerJ Preprints help provide an avenue for citizen scientists to have a published non peer reviewed article online, but no at the higher end “journal article” level where the manuscript needs to be peer reviewed. Even the biological sciences preprint server, bioRxiv, is closed to citizen scientists as publication on the server requires an institution affiliation with either a university or research institute. Most open access publishers (except eLife) charge a publication fee (in the thousands of dollars per article) to defray the cost of maintaining an online presence for a peer reviewed manuscript as well as those for copyediting during final stages of journal publication.

This is a significant barrier to cost constrained citizen scientists who want to contribute to the scientific discourse. For the scientific enterprise, this represent a loss, whose magnitude or severity cannot be quantified since ideas help seed new research or entirely new fields.

Thus, can we as a community provide citizen scientists worldwide a chance to publish open access peer reviewed articles without significant cost through a competitive publication fee subsidy scheme where each application is reviewed by the national science funding agency?

If the above is possible, it would open up another area where ideas from citizen scientists could percolate into the scientific mainstream, where, as always, vibrancy and diversity of ideas power science forward.

URL : Cost hurdles to open access publishing: A citizen scientist perspective

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2463v1

Catégories
EN

Hybrid open access—A longitudinal study

Authors : Mikael Laakso, Bo-Christer Björk

This study estimates the development of hybrid open access (OA), i.e. articles published openly on the web within subscription-access journals. Included in the study are the five largest publishers of scholarly journals; Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and Sage.

Since no central indexing or standardized metadata exists for identifying hybrid OA an explorative bottom-up methodological approach was developed. The individual search and filtering features of each publisher website and a-priori availability of data were leveraged to the extent possible.

The results indicate a strong sustained growth in the volume of articles published as hybrid OA during 2007 (666 articles) to 2013 (13 994 articles). The share of hybrid articles was at 3.8% of total published articles for the period of 2011–2013 for journals with at least one identified hybrid OA article.

Journals within the Scopus discipline categorization of Health and Life Sciences, in particular the field of Medicine, were found to be among the most frequent publishers of hybrid OA content.

The study surfaces the many methodological challenges involved in obtaining metrics regarding hybrid OA, a growing business for journal publishers as science policy pressures for reduced access barriers to research publications.

URL : Hybrid open access—A longitudinal study

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2016.08.002

Catégories
EN

Managing an Open Access Fund: Tips from the Trenches and Questions for the Future

Authors : Heidi Zuniga, Lilian Hoffecker

The authors describe the process and results of an ongoing Open Access Fund program at the Health Sciences Library of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. The fund has helped students and other early career researchers pay for the article processing charge or APC to publish their articles in an OA journal since 2013.

In the three years since, the fund has paid the APC for 39 applicants with a total expenditure of $37,576. Most applicants were students as intended, however the fund supported a surprisingly large number of medical residents and junior faculty.

Individuals associated with the School of Medicine overwhelmingly represented the awardees compared to other units, and the Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals were the most common journal they published in.

While acknowledging the undeniable benefit of the fund to the awardees, the authors also pose challenging questions about the future role of libraries in subsidizing open access journals.

URL : Managing an Open Access Fund: Tips from the Trenches and Questions for the Future

Alternative location : https://www.jcel-pub.org/index.php/jcel/article/view/5920

Catégories
EN

Role of Open Access Digital Repositories (OADR) on Information Seeking Behavior among Research Scholars: A study

Author : Veena G

The main purpose of the study is to examine the role of Open Access Digital Repositories on Information Seeking Behavior among Research Scholars.

The study adopted a questionnaire-based survey research design, 220 questionnaires were distributed among research scholars at Mangalore University, out of which 200 filled questionnaires were received after duly filled for analysis.

The result of the revealed that 116(56.6%) of respondents prefer to seeking information through Open Access Digital Repositories , 68(34.30%) of the respondents believed that the use of Open Access Digital Repositories while seeking information has increased their academic activities made easy and free access.

URL : Role of Open Access Digital Repositories (OADR) on Information Seeking Behavior among Research Scholars: A study

Alternative location : http://irjlis.com/role-of-open-access-digital-repositories-oadr-on-information-seeking-behavior-among-research-scholars-a-study/

Catégories
EN

The Post-Embargo Open Access Citation Advantage: It Exists (Probably), Its Modest (Usually), and the Rich Get Richer (of Course)

Author : Jim Ottaviani

Many studies show that open access (OA) articles—articles from scholarly journals made freely available to readers without requiring subscription fees—are downloaded, and presumably read, more often than closed access/subscription-only articles.

Assertions that OA articles are also cited more often generate more controversy. Confounding factors (authors may self-select only the best articles to make OA; absence of an appropriate control group of non-OA articles with which to compare citation figures; conflation of pre-publication vs. published/publisher versions of articles, etc.) make demonstrating a real citation difference difficult.

This study addresses those factors and shows that an open access citation advantage as high as 19% exists, even when articles are embargoed during some or all of their prime citation years. Not surprisingly, better (defined as above median) articles gain more when made OA.

URL : The Post-Embargo Open Access Citation Advantage: It Exists (Probably), Its Modest (Usually), and the Rich Get Richer (of Course)

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159614