Archives des mots-clés : open access

Examining the Impact of the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy on the Citation Rates of Journal Articles

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Purpose

To examine whether National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded articles that were archived in PubMed Central (PMC) after the release of the 2008 NIH Public Access Policy show greater scholarly impact than comparable articles not archived in PMC.

Methods

A list of journals across several subject areas was developed from which to collect article citation data. Citation information and cited reference counts of the articles published in 2006 and 2009 from 122 journals were obtained from the Scopus database. The articles were separated into categories of NIH funded, non-NIH funded and whether they were deposited in PubMed Central. An analysis of citation data across a five-year timespan was performed on this set of articles.

Results

A total of 45,716 articles were examined, including 7,960 with NIH-funding. An analysis of the number of times these articles were cited found that NIH-funded 2006 articles in PMC were not cited significantly more than NIH-funded non-PMC articles. However, 2009 NIH funded articles in PMC were cited 26% more than 2009 NIH funded articles not in PMC, 5 years after publication. This result is highly significant even after controlling for journal (as a proxy of article quality and topic).

Conclusion

Our analysis suggests that factors occurring between 2006 and 2009 produced a subsequent boost in scholarly impact of PubMed Central. The 2008 Public Access Policy is likely to be one such factor, but others may have contributed as well (e.g., growing size and visibility of PMC, increasing availability of full-text linkouts from PubMed, and indexing of PMC articles by Google Scholar).

URL : Examining the Impact of the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy on the Citation Rates of Journal Articles

DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0139951

International dissemination of evidence-based practice, open access and the IACAPAP textbook of child and adolescent mental health

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Dramatic changes have occurred in both publishing and teaching in the last 20 years stemming from the digital and Internet revolutions. Such changes are likely to grow exponentially in the near future aided by the trend to open access publishing. This revolution has challenged traditional publishing and teaching methods that—largely but not exclusively due to cost—are particularly relevant to professionals in low and middle income countries.

The digital medium and the Internet offer boundless opportunities for teaching and training to people in disadvantaged regions. This article describes the development of the IACAPAP eTextbook of child and adolescent mental health, its use, accessibility, and potential impact on the international dissemination of evidence-based practice.

URL : International dissemination of evidence-based practice, open access and the IACAPAP textbook of child and adolescent mental health

URL : http://www.capmh.com/content/9/1/51

Beyond Open Access to Open Publication and Open Scholarship

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This article explores a moment of opportunity to imagine a new humanities scholarship based on radical openness, beyond the level of access to scholarly content that the open access movement has so far championed, to a culture of transformation that can actively include the public(s) beyond the community of scholars. The possibilities for enhancing scholarly and research practices are intriguing, but even greater may be the generative opportunity to engage audiences beyond the scholarly community – particularly online, where the humanities connects to broader cultural currents.

URL : Beyond Open Access to Open Publication and Open Scholarship

Alternative location : http://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/202

Implementing Institutional Repository in Nigerian Universities : Status, Challenges, Prospects, and the Role of Librarians & Libraries

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This is a report of the study carried out in late 2013. In this paper, the authors identify the extent of adoption of Institutional Repository (IR) in various universities through an online survey. Concepts of institutional repository (IR) and institutional memory (IM) are clarified. It lays down the findings from the survey.

The paper also explains the essential elements of IR, Service Model of IR, prospects and challenges of IR in Nigerian universities, IR implementation strategies; including the role of the libraries and librarians.

Findings reveal that as at the time of study world IR presence numbers 3479. Nigeria has only nine (9) Universities representing just 0.23% of the world IR. But some African countries’ universities have more. South Africa alone had 40, which amounts to 1.15% of the world Institutional Repositories as at then. The paper concludes with recommendations on the ways Nigerian universities could overcome the barrier in IR implementation.

URL : http://www.jatlim.org/Volumes/Vol.1%20No.1/Jonathan.pdf

Making Open Access work: The “state-of-the-art” in providing Open Access to scholarly literature

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Purpose

 The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of one of the most important and controversial areas of scholarly communication: Open Access publishing and dissemination of research outputs. It identifies and discusses recent trends and future challenges for various stakeholders in delivering Open Access (OA) to the scholarly literature.

Design/methodology/approach

 The study is based on a number of interrelated strands of evidence which make up the current discourse on OA, comprising the peer-reviewed literature, grey literature and other forms of communication (including blogs and e-mail discussion lists). It uses a large-scale textual analysis of the peer-reviewed literature since 2010 (carried out using the VOSviewer tool) as a basis for discussion of issues raised in the OA discourse.

Findings

 A number of key themes are identified, including the relationship between “Green” OA (deposit in repositories) and “Gold” OA (OA journal publication), the developing evidence base associated with OA, researcher attitudes and behaviours, policy directions, management of repositories, development of journals, institutional responses and issues around impact and scholarly communication futures. It suggests that current challenges now focus on how OA can be made to work in practice, having moved on from the discussion of whether it should happen at all.

Originality/value

 The paper provides a structured evidence-based review of major issues in the OA field, and suggests key areas for future research and policy development.

URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/OIR-05-2015-0167

The quandary between communication and certification

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Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand individual academics’ perception, attitudes and participation in Open Access Publishing and open scholarship and revisit some principles and designs of openness in academic publishing from the perspective of creative end-users, which helps to increase the sustainability and efficiency of open models.

Design/methodology/approach

 This paper draws on a case study of China and empirical data collected through semi-structured interviews with a wide range of academics and stakeholders.

Findings

 A separation between the communication and certification functions of publishing is identified: open initiatives are valued for efficient and interactive communication while traditional publishing still dominates the legitimacy of research publications, which leads to the quandary of individual academics operating within the transitional landscape of scholarly communication.

Practical implications

Practical recommendations for sustainable and efficient openness are derived from discussions on the difficulties associated open/social certification and the shifting maxims that govern academics from “publish or perish” to “be visible or vanish”.

Originality/value

“Openness” is defined in broad sense integrating Open Access and open scholarship to comprehensively reflect individual academics’ views in the transitional landscape of academic publishing. The research findings suggest that new open approaches are needed to address the evolving tension and conflicts between communication and certification.

URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/OIR-04-2015-0129

Barriers to Open Access uptake for researchers in Africa

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Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of visibility of researchers in African countries, in the Open Access (OA) arena and aims to identify main causes of reduced uptake in OA in Africa.

Design/methodology/approach

 Extent of visibility is explored by quantitative analysis of institutional repository and OA journals data sets followed by qualitative analysis of OA foundation documents and literature on OA in Africa published mainly between 2003 and 2013.

 Findings

 Visibility in institutional repositories or OA journals for African researchers remains low. Causes include insufficient educational support for librarians and administrators in required new roles; inability of national, organisational and technological infrastructures to support OA; impracticality of western-based and costly publishing models; and disincentives relating to intellectual property and researcher perceptions.

Complex language and literacy issues also inhibit engagement. Recommendations include strong OA advocacy, development of support initiatives, integration of international knowledge for local conditions and vice versa, sensitive preservation of indigenous knowledge and development of mechanisms of funding and research assessment mechanisms, which are economically and technically viable.

Originality/value

 Earlier attempts were made to raise awareness about the lack of uptake of OA in Africa. This paper shows that the situation has hardly changed and now requires urgent attention. Otherwise OA will not “become the default method for distributing new peer-reviewed research in every field and country” by 2022 (BOAI, 2012).

URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/OIR-05-2015-0147