Étiquette : open access

Catégories
EN

Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact

Authors : Bo-Christer Björk, David Solomon

Background

In the past few years there has been an ongoing debate as to whether the proliferation of open access (OA) publishing would damage the peer review system and put the quality of scientific journal publishing at risk.

Our aim was to inform this debate by comparing the scientific impact of OA journals with subscription journals, controlling for journal age, the country of the publisher, discipline and (for OA publishers) their business model.

Methods

The 2-year impact factors (the average number of citations to the articles in a journal) were used as a proxy for scientific impact. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) was used to identify OA journals as well as their business model.

Journal age and discipline were obtained from the Ulrich’s periodicals directory. Comparisons were performed on the journal level as well as on the article level where the results were weighted by the number of articles published in a journal.

A total of 610 OA journals were compared with 7,609 subscription journals using Web of Science citation data while an overlapping set of 1,327 OA journals were compared with 11,124 subscription journals using Scopus data.

Results

Overall, average citation rates, both unweighted and weighted for the number of articles per journal, were about 30% higher for subscription journals. However, after controlling for discipline (medicine and health versus other), age of the journal (three time periods) and the location of the publisher (four largest publishing countries versus other countries) the differences largely disappeared in most subcategories except for journals that had been launched prior to 1996.

OA journals that fund publishing with article processing charges (APCs) are on average cited more than other OA journals. In medicine and health, OA journals founded in the last 10 years are receiving about as many citations as subscription journals launched during the same period.

Conclusions

Our results indicate that OA journals indexed in Web of Science and/or Scopus are approaching the same scientific impact and quality as subscription journals, particularly in biomedicine and for journals funded by article processing charges.

URL : http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/10/73

Catégories
Non classé

Software systems for increasing availability of scientific research…

Software systems for increasing availability of scientific-research outputs :

« This paper describes the basic approaches for publishing scientic-research outputs using modern ICT technologies and web applications such as institutional repositories, the NDLTD, and CRIS. Also, the CRIS which has been developed at the University of Novi Sad is described. That system unies the mentioned approaches and it is compatible with all of them. »

URL : http://www.dmi.rs/NSJOM/Papers/42_1/NSJOM_42_1_037_048.pdf

Catégories
Non classé

Open Access to scholarly information in India Trends…

Open Access to scholarly information in India: Trends and Developments :

« Purpose : Focuses on the Open Access initiatives and describes some of the current open access channels and the areas where India has made significant progress. Also discusses the significance of those trends for information access in developing countries like India including problems and possible solutions.

Design/methodology/approach : Analyzes and discusses several successful OA channels mainly in five areas. Highlights on some of the Indian OA journals and OA Archives in detail; secondly few Open Course Wares initiatives, Digital Library Projects, Meta data Harvesting Services have been discussed respectively. Lastly, the role of government; professional bodies and role of some of the open access advocates in our country have been discussed.

Findings : OA initiatives and OA channels are growing in India. Some suggestions for the development of OA have been made.

Originality/value : Paper will be useful to those who are not aware of the OA to knowledge movement or seek deeper knowledge about the current state of OA in Indian. Suggestions should be useful to the administrators, funding agencies, OA publishers and librarians in both developing and developed countries. »

URL : http://irjlis.com/pdf_v2n1_jun2012/9_IR009.pdf

Catégories
EN

Multi-Stage Open Peer Review: Scientific Evaluation Integrating the Strengths of Traditional Peer Review with the Virtues of Transparency and Self-Regulation

The traditional forms of scientific publishing and peer review do not live up to all demands of efficient communication and quality assurance in today’s highly diverse and rapidly evolving world of science.

They need to be advanced and complemented by interactive and transparent forms of review, publication, and discussion that are open to the scientific community and to the public.

The advantages of open access, public peer review, and interactive discussion can be efficiently and flexibly combined with the strengths of traditional scientific peer review. Since 2001 the benefits and viability of this approach are clearly demonstrated by the highly successful interactive open access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP, www.atmos-chem-phys.net) and a growing number of sister journals launched and operated by the European Geosciences Union (EGU, www.egu.eu) and the open access publisher Copernicus (www.copernicus.org).

The interactive open access journals are practicing an integrative multi-stage process of publication and peer review combined with interactive public discussion, which effectively resolves the dilemma between rapid scientific exchange and thorough quality assurance.

Key features and achievements of this approach are: top quality and impact, efficient self-regulation and low rejection rates, high attractivity and rapid growth, low costs, and financial sustainability.

In fact, ACP and the EGU interactive open access sister journals are by most if not all standards more successful than comparable scientific journals with traditional or alternative forms of peer review (editorial statistics, publication statistics, citation statistics, economic costs, and sustainability).

The high efficiency and predictive validity of multi-stage open peer review have been confirmed in a series of dedicated studies by evaluation experts from the social sciences, and the same or similar concepts have recently also been adopted in other disciplines, including the life sciences and economics.

Multi-stage open peer review can be flexibly adjusted to the needs and peculiarities of different scientific communities. Due to the flexibility and compatibility with traditional structures of scientific publishing and peer review, the multi-stage open peer review concept enables efficient evolution in scientific communication and quality assurance.

It has the potential for swift replacement of hidden peer review as the standard of scientific quality assurance, and it provides a basis for open evaluation in science. »

URL : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3389610/

Catégories
Non classé

Repositioning academic repositories for better management through open…

Repositioning academic repositories for better management through open access :

« This is a literature-based opinion paper which examines how digital technology through Open Access has changed the way knowledge that was hitherto hard to find and expensive is finding its way into university electronic repositories and bridging the distance between searching and retrieval. The paper examines opportunities available to scholars, researchers and institutions of higher learning through Open Access and Open Content using electronic repositories. In a number of African academic institutions of higher learning, starting and maintaining journals is becoming the order of the day. Once launched, these journals provide ready material for Open Access through repositories.

Due to the prohibitive price of books it is difficult to purchase all the available books on certain topics. Therefore Open Access on the internet and in repositories would be a good option since updated materials will be available. Open Access repositories and archives are economically sustainable because they are affordable. Depositing new articles takes a few minutes, and is done by individual authors, not archive managers. Open Access repositories and archives at universities only require server space. This benefits the institutions that host them by enhancing the visibility and impact of the articles, the authors, and the institution.

The paper argues that the current scholarly communication system needs urgent reforms to cope with the rapidly changing technological environment. Open Access and Open Content are free, immediate, and handle multiple users. On the other hand, electronic repositories can be set up
effortlessly.

The paper recommends that electronic Open Access institutional repositories are a must have for academic institutions and that researchers, institutions and funders need to be informed and trained on the benefits of using Open Access and Institutional repositories. Through this management of knowledge, scholars worldwide will access and benefit from each other’s findings. This is in line with the universal drive to share knowledge propelled by new technologies. »

URL : http://scecsal.viel.co.ke/index.php?title=File:REPOSITIONING_ACADEMIC_REPOSITORIES_FOR_BETTER_MANAGEMENT_THROUGH_OPEN_ACCESS.pdf

Catégories
Non classé

Promoting Open Access at the Cyprus University of…

Promoting Open Access at the Cyprus University of Technology: survey results :

« Today the Open Access movement gains more and more followers. The Library and Information Services at the Cyprus University of Technology has defined Open Access as one of its main strategies. Considering the current economic crisis, Open Access appears to be a solution to the reduction of funds at the academic institutions. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the perception and reaction of the academic community of the Cyprus University of Technology towards Open Access. The Library and Information Services conducted a survey in order to examine the familiarity of the academic community with Open Access and to define any difficulties that they find.

The survey results showed that the academic community is generally aware of the Open Access movement, but a lot of effort and work has to be done in order to make the academic community to trust and use Open Access. The survey also showed that Ktisis, the institutional repository of the Cyprus University of Technology, is not being used effectively by the academics. It was proved that the deposits in Ktisis do not reach the desired level and the reason is that the academic community is not aware of its existence. Therefore the academic community has to be convinced to prefer Open Access publishers for the deposit of their academic publications instead of commercial publishers and to retain sufficient rights adopting the SPARC addendum. Also, to promote open access through “author pay model” like Biomed Central. »

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/17339

Catégories
EN

Debate on Scientific Publishing and Open Access

Debate on Scientific Publishing and Open Access :

Watch live streaming video from esof2012 at livestream.com