Archives des mots-clés : open access

Impacts of genre and access on science discussions: ‘The New Reddit Journal of Science’

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Authors : Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder, Alexander Mahmou-Werndli

Which genre of science writing contributes most to public understanding, and how does that understanding happen? Working within a science in society approach, this paper examines public engagement with science as it occurs in the comments and discussion boards of r/science.

Researchers use content analysis to identify relevant concept categories and code comments for interaction with science content.

The resulting data are analyzed by genre (scientific news journalism, press release, and research article) and open access status, revealing differences in public engagement with implications for science communicators and scholars seeking to understand how the public interacts with science news.

URL : Impacts of genre and access on science discussions: ‘The New Reddit Journal of Science’

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.20050204

Faculty Use of Open-Access Journals: A Case Study of Faculty Publications and Cited References at a California University

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Author : Kendall Faulkner

Many in the library world see open-access (OA) publishing as the way of the future, necessary to combat ever-rising costs, expand knowledge and information production, and level the playing field for researchers and students across the world.

However, ingrained notions of the publishing process in academia, and concerns over OA journals’ quality and costs often make researchers less enthusiastic. This study takes a close look at faculty habits at the college-department level by reviewing faculty publishing habits and cited references in those publications.

Results show that the faculty in the Psychology Department at California State University, Los Angeles regularly publish at all OA levels, but utilize formal self-archiving less than what is found in their cited references. Furthermore, the department faculty cite fully OA (Gold) journals less than they publish in them.

URL : Faculty Use of Open-Access Journals: A Case Study of Faculty Publications and Cited References at a California University

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9030039

Who are the users of national open access journals? The case of the Finnish Journal.fi platform

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Authors : Janne Pölönen, Sami Syrjämäki, Antti-Jussi Nygård, Björn Hammarfelt

In this paper we study the diversity of users of open access articles on the Finnish Journal.fi platform. This platform hosts around hundred open access journals from Finland publishing in different fields and mainly Finnish and English languages.

The study is based on an online survey, conducted on 48 journals during Spring 2020, in which visitors were asked to indicate their background and allow their location and download behaviour be tracked. Among 668 survey participants, the two largest groups were students (40%) and researchers (36%), followed by private citizens (8%), other experts (7%) and teachers (5%).

Other identified user categories include journalists, civil servants, entrepreneurs and politicians. While new publications attract a considerable share of the views, there is still a relatively large interest, especially among students, in older materials.

Our findings indicate that Finnish language publications are particularly important for reaching students, citizens, experts and politicians. Thus, open access to publications in national languages is vital for the local relevance and outreach of research.

URL : Who are the users of national open access journals? The case of the Finnish Journal.fi platform

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1405

Why Open Access: Economics and Business Researchers’ Perspectives

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Authors : Carmen López-Vergara, Pilar Flores Asenjo, Alfonso Rosa-García

Public research policies have been promoting open-access publication in recent years as an adequate model for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. However, depending on the disciplines, its use is very diverse.

This study explores the determinants of open-access publication among academic researchers of economics and business, as well as their assessment of different economic measures focused on publication stimulus.

To do so, a survey of Spanish business and economics researchers was conducted. They reported an average of 19% of their publications in open-access journals, hybrids or fully Gold Route open access. Almost 80% of the researchers foresee a future increase in the volume of open-access publications.

When determining where to publish their research results, the main criterion for the selection of a scientific journal is the impact factor. Regarding open access, the most valued aspect is the visibility and dissemination it provides.

Although the cost of publication is not the most relevant criterion in the choice of a journal, three out of four researchers consider that a reduction in fees and an increase in funding are measures that would boost the open-access model.

URL : Why Open Access: Economics and Business Researchers’ Perspectives

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9030037

Preprints in times of COVID19: the time is ripe for agreeing on terminology and good practices

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Authors : Raffaella Ravinetto, Céline Caillet, Muhammad H. Zaman, Jerome Amir Singh, Philippe J. Guerin, Aasim Ahmad, Carlos E. Durán, Amar Jesani, Ana Palmero, Laura Merson, Peter W. Horby, E. Bottieau, Tammy Hoffmann, Paul N. Newton

Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity.

In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers.

Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines.

To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged.

URL : Preprints in times of COVID19: the time is ripe for agreeing on terminology and good practices

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-021-00667-7

Article processing charge expenditure in Chile: The current situation

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Author : Erwin Krauskopf

The National Agency of Research and Development from Chile is proposing, for the first time, a national OA policy aiming to ensure access to the scientific knowledge contained in publications resulting from research projects and graduate thesis.

Since no information regarding APC expenditure in Chile is available, this study examined the cost of APC for the 2019 publications that included at least one Chilean affiliation. The total expenditure for the year 2019 was estimated at USD 9,129,939.

The results confirm that almost one third of the total APC was spent on publications from Health & Medical Sciences, research area with the highest APC (USD 6000). Furthermore, five commercial publishers collected 52% of the total APC expenditure.

Unfortunately, the cost of publishing in some journals is so high that it causes detrimental effects on the research capacity of under resourced individuals. In the Chilean scenario, APC is not well suited to scale as most universities do not have an OA budget to support researchers that are eager to publish their work in OA journals.

Perhaps the implementation of an OA policy ought to be accompanied by sustainable APC funding grants aimed at supporting under resourced researchers that want to make their research freely available.

URL : Article processing charge expenditure in Chile: The current situation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1413

Over-promotion and caution in abstracts of preprints during the COVID-19 crisis

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Authors : Frederique Bordignon, Liana Ermakova, Marianne Noel

The abstract is known to be a promotional genre where researchers tend to exaggerate the benefit of their research and use a promotional discourse to catch the reader’s attention. The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted intensive research and has changed traditional publishing with the massive adoption of preprints by researchers.

Our aim is to investigate whether the crisis and the ensuing scientific and economic competition have changed the lexical content of abstracts. We propose a comparative study of abstracts associated with preprints issued in response to the pandemic relative to abstracts produced during the closest pre-pandemic period.

We show that with the increase (on average and in percentage) of positive words (especially effective) and the slight decrease of negative words, there is a strong increase in hedge words (the most frequent of which are the modal verbs can and may).

Hedge words counterbalance the excessive use of positive words and thus invite the readers, who go probably beyond the ‘usual’ audience, to be cautious with the obtained results.

The abstracts of preprints urgently produced in response to the COVID-19 crisis stand between uncertainty and over-promotion, illustrating the balance that authors have to achieve between promoting their results and appealing for caution.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1411