Étiquette : open access

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EN

Peer Community In and Peer Community Journal: A Two-Step Diamond OA Process Giving Research Communities Back Control of Publishing

Authors : Barbara Class , Denis Bourguet, Thomas Guillemaud

The current academic publishing system faces many well-identified issues. Not only is it slow and costly, but it is also an opaque system that produces a substantial amount of non-reproducible results.

Peer Community In (PCI) is a non-profit organisation that allows research communities to organise the open and free peer-review of preprints on different thematic platforms. The authors of preprints that are recommended by these platforms can then choose to submit them to any journal or to Peer Community Journal, a diamond open access journal, which publishes any and only PCI-recommended preprints.

Because PCI follows the highest standards for evaluations and openness, many institutions and journals publicly recognise PCI-recommended preprints as being of similar value to accepted journal articles.

This two-step process hence decouples the evaluation of research articles from their publication, while offering a free open-access publication venue for its recommended preprints. Doing so allows researchers to reappropriate the publishing system, and the increasing number of submissions, publications, and communities shows a growing demand for such alternative publishing models.

Ongoing developments aim to further increase the robustness and reproducibility of published research via increasing requirements and checks at submission and promoting the use of registered reports.

URL : Peer Community In and Peer Community Journal: A Two-Step Diamond OA Process Giving Research Communities Back Control of Publishing

HAL :  https://hal.science/hal-05536120

Catégories
EN

Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines

Authors : Kaitlin Stack Whitney, Julia Perrone, Christie A. Bahlai

In recent decades, there has been a move to “open” science and research. One component of open access is “accessibility,” often used to mean that data and other products are free to use by others. However, accessibility also refers to considering and meeting the needs of people with disabilities.

Our objective was to evaluate how open access journals incorporate disability accessibility as part of publishing. Using a random sample of 300 English-language journals and image accessibility as a lens, we assessed author guidelines. Of 289 journals with guidelines, 38 (13%) included color choice, six (∼2%) included contrast ratios, and none included alternative text.

We also assessed the open access statements for the same 300 journals to understand how they conceive of openness and accessibility. Of the 298 journals with open access statements, 228 (∼77%) included the words access or accessibility. Yet none included disability or disabled and only two journals (<1%) mentioned inclusive or inclusion.

Our findings indicate that the open access journals sampled are not considering disability accessibility in their submission guidelines or open access frameworks. Incorporating disability accessibility into open scholarship considerations is critical to bridge, and not exacerbate, information inequalities for people with disabilities.

URL : Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00338

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EN

Researchers’ Views on Preprints and Open Access Publishing: Results From a Free-Answer Survey of Japanese Molecular Biologists

Authors : Harufumi Tamazawa, Kazuki Ide, Kazuhisa Kamegai

A survey conducted in 2022 amongst members of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan (n = 633) about preprints and open access journals included qualitative data from free-response answers (n = 161). Analysis of the free-form responses suggests that researchers believe that peer review of papers is the foundation for ensuring the credibility of research content.

The trust-building mechanism achieved through peer review shapes the research community. For this reason, researchers are extremely cautious about preprints that have not undergone peer review within their own fields.

This foundation has fostered a sense of responsibility within the community, and this sense of responsibility, which is being fulfilled by ensuring the quality of research, is a mixture of both a sense of responsibility towards the community itself and a sense of responsibility towards the outside world, namely the relationship between researchers and society.

Researchers also appear to view the rise in Article Processing Charges (APCs) as a problem for the entire community, rather than simply an issue for individual researchers. In the field of molecular biology, where collaborative research between universities and companies is common, differences in normative awareness based on position are reflected in the various attitudes towards preprints and open access.

URL : Researchers’ Views on Preprints and Open Access Publishing: Results From a Free-Answer Survey of Japanese Molecular Biologists

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.2039

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EN

Scientific production on data repositories and open science published in the Web of Science database: Methodi Ordinatio and content analysis

Authors : Sinval Adalberto Rodrigues-Junior, Marcelo Votto Texeira

The opening of scientific data proposed by the Open Science movement presupposes careful planning for data collection, organization, and treatment, aiming at their sharing, accessibility, and reuse. Data repositories have been conceived as structures necessary to enable open access to data.

This study aimed to analyze the influence of data repositories on the disclosure and sharing of scientific data proposed by the Open Science movement. The Methodi Ordinatio, developed to organize a portfolio of scientific publications, was adopted to analyze the subject of ‘Data Repositories’ and ‘Open Science’.

The studies were ranked using the InOrdinatio index, and the 15 best ranked studies were included and analyzed through Bardin’s content analysis. Most studies describe the structure involved in data repositories within the biological, chemical, and health areas.

Other studies addressed data reuse, data organization and analysis processes and tools, as well as data selection and classification algorithms. The units of analysis selected for the content analysis were categorized as open access, information technologies, data processing, and information retrieval.

Systems (processes and structures), metadata standards, ontologies, semantic web, data types, and their management were addressed by these studies. It is concluded that open data repositories are growing rapidly. Production with the greatest impact has occurred in the biological and biomedical/health areas, highlighting the structure involved in repositories within these fields.

Data repositories provide systems for depositing, managing, searching, accessing, and reusing data based on processes and technologies — often developed as open-source software — in alignment with the proposed Open Science model.

URL : Scientific production on data repositories and open science published in the Web of Science database: Methodi Ordinatio and content analysis

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1590/2318-0889202537e2513075

Catégories
EN

Mapping the Landscape of Open Access Dashboards – A Dataset for Research and Infrastructure Development

Authors : Johannes Schneider, Heinz Pampel

As Open Access continues to gain importance in science policy, understanding the proportion of Open Access publications relative to the total research output of research-performing organizations, individual countries, or even globally has become increasingly relevant.

In response, dashboards are being developed to capture and communicate progress in this area. To provide an overview of these dashboards and their characteristics, an extensive survey was conducted, resulting in the identification of nearly 60 dashboards.

To support a detailed and structured description, a dedicated metadata schema was developed, and the identified dashboards were systematically indexed accordingly. To foster community engagement and ensure ongoing development, a participatory process was launched, allowing interested stakeholders to contribute to the dataset.

The dataset is particularly relevant for researchers in Library and Information Science (LIS) and Science and Technology Studies (STS), supporting both empirical analyses of Open Access and the methodological refinement of indicators and policy instruments in the context of Open Science.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.01669

 

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EN

Goodness vs. Greatness: An Analysis of Motivation in Open Access Policies at US Land-Grant Institutions

Authors : Wendi Kaspar, Sarah Potvin

Higher education, when understood as a public or common good, aligns with the values of an open access movement that promotes public access to information and published research. In the United States, land-grant institutions rhetorically appeal to their shared missions of public benefit and societal advancement. Do land-grant institutions with open access policies make rhetorical claims that these policies align with their specific institutional missions as land-grants?

This study examines land-grant universities in the United States that have adopted institutional open access (OA) policies, testing the hypothesis that they will reference their public mission in these policies. A content analysis of institutional open access policies was performed to determine the motivating factors as expressed, explicitly or implicitly, and assess commitments to the public good or to status-linked priorities such as reputation.

While these policies maintained continuity with the broader OA movement through appeals to “dissemination” and invoked land-grant values in the language of public benefit, they overwhelmingly referenced reputational benefit as a priority. This study finds that land-grant institutions rely on the language of their open access policies to express complex motivations for pursuing public access to research.

URL : Goodness vs. Greatness: An Analysis of Motivation in Open Access Policies at US Land-Grant Institutions

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/pla.2025.a971029

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FR

Légitimations et subversions de l’Open : pour une analyse de l’openwashing dans la publication scientifique

Auteurs/Authors : Guillaume Silhol, Hans Dillaerts, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri

Ce texte propose un état de l’art inédit sur la notion d’openwashing dans l’espace des publications scientifiques. En s’appuyant sur les phénomènes de washing, il aborde une variété de formes de détournement des principes de l’ouverture scientifique.

À partir d’une analyse critique d’une littérature interdisciplinaire, le concept sténographique élaboré est appliqué aux plateformes numériques pour analyser de la déviance à bas bruit et à faible concernement.

L’article apporte une meilleure compréhension de la genèse de l’openwashing à la fois comme concept critique et vecteur de discours de dénonciation de la déviance et de ses évolutions. Enfin, il permet de forger une définition ancrée dans le champ de la communication scientifique ouverte, autant que de légitimer son usage pour appréhender les mécanismes complexes de ses transformations.

HAL : https://hal.science/hal-05363533v1