Archives des mots-clés : open access

Open access to health and education research outside academia: perspectives of research users, research intermediaries and researchers

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Author : Emily Nunn

The thesis investigates how publics outside academia engage with ideas of open access (OA) to research publications. To do this, it analyses data from interviews with users of health and education research in two non-academic contexts, as well as with researchers interested in communicating their work to wider audiences. It draws on constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) and situational analysis (Clarke, 2005).

The literature review highlighted a need to empirically explore OA outside academia. The study focused on the ways in which publications were accessed and used outside academia and the factors enabling and preventing access.

It also explored perceptions of OA within a wider context of communicating research to non- academic audiences, and identified areas of contestation. The study found that there was a demand for OA, although the demand was perceived to be limited. There were significant sources of friction in accessing research publications, including paywalls, which could be circumvented through file/password sharing and drawing on contacts.

Conceptual access (e.g. understandability) was also found to prevent engagement with research publications in some cases, although this varied according to levels of expertise. The study identified research intermediaries as playing an important dual role, as they accessed research in order to make it accessible to a wider audience.

The study found a disconnect between some OA advocacy and research-user perceptions. and a disconnect between researchers’ commitment to communicating their work outside the academy and their support of OA.

Attitudes towards OA were influenced by bureaucratic mandates, high APCs and belief that there would be little demand for their research. Findings indicated however, that OA could complement other forms of research communication in specific contexts.

Finally, the study suggested that a narrow focus on ‘tangible outcomes’ for non- academic publics (Moore, 2019) risked obscuring attempts to develop a more equitable scholarly communications system.

URL : Open access to health and education research outside academia: perspectives of research users, research intermediaries and researchers

Original location : https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/23582/

Can scholarly pirate libraries bridge the knowledge access gap? An empirical study on the structural conditions of book piracy in global and European academia

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Authors : Balázs Bodó, Dániel Antal, Zoltán Puha

Library Genesis is one of the oldest and largest illegal scholarly book collections online. Without the authorization of copyright holders, this shadow library hosts and makes more than 2 million scholarly publications, monographs, and textbooks available.

This paper analyzes a set of weblogs of one of the Library Genesis mirrors, provided to us by one of the service’s administrators. We reconstruct the social and economic factors that drive the global and European demand for illicit scholarly literature.

In particular, we test if lower income regions can compensate for the shortcomings in legal access infrastructures by more intensive use of illicit open resources. We found that while richer regions are the most intensive users of shadow libraries, poorer regions face structural limitations that prevent them from fully capitalizing on freely accessible knowledge.

We discuss these findings in the wider context of open access publishing, and point out that open access knowledge, if not met with proper knowledge absorption infrastructures, has limited usefulness in addressing knowledge access and production inequalities.

URL : Can scholarly pirate libraries bridge the knowledge access gap? An empirical study on the structural conditions of book piracy in global and European academia

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242509

Open Bioeconomy—A Bibliometric Study on the Accessibility of Articles in the Field of Bioeconomy

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Authors : Marianne Duquenne, Hélène Pros, Joachim Schöpfel, Franck Dumeignil

Open access (OA) to scientific information is one of the major challenges and objectives of actual public research policy. The purpose of this paper is to assess the degree of openness of scientific articles on bioeconomy, as one of the emergent research fields at the crossroads of several disciplines and with high societal and industrial impact.

Based on a Web of Science (WoS) corpus of 2489 articles published between 2015 and 2019, we calculated bibliometric indicators, explored the openness of each article and assessed the share of journals, countries and research areas of these articles.

The results show a sharp increase and diversification of articles in the field of bioeconomy, with a beginning long tail distribution. 45.6% of the articles are freely available and the share of OA articles is steadily increasing, from 31% in 2015 to 52% in 2019.

Gold is the most important variant of OA. Open access is low in the applied research areas of chemical, agricultural and environmental engineering but higher in the domains of energy and fuels, forestry and green and sustainable science and technology.

The UK and the Netherlands have the highest rates of OA articles, followed by Spain and Germany. The funding rate of OA articles is higher than of non-OA articles. This is the first bibliometric study on open access to articles on bioeconomy.

The results can be useful for the further development of OA editorial and funding criteria in the field of bioeconomy.

URL : Open Bioeconomy—A Bibliometric Study on the Accessibility of Articles in the Field of Bioeconomy

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8040055

How to achieve short-term green open access and long-term radical reform of scholarly communication. The BitViews Project as a test case

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Author : Manfredi La Manna

The Open Access movement has reached adulthood, but not maturity: fewer than one-third of newly-published peer-reviewed articles are available open access (OA) and progress widening OA has stalled.

Scores of uncoordinated initiatives try to achieve universal OA, but academic journal publishing is still dominated by a handful of powerful commercial publishers. Individual authors show little interest in OA and indeed have to be mandated (see the UK REF or Plan S) to release their research on OA.

The BitViews Project is a low-cost, no-risk, high-return initiative to turn all academic journals «green» through a combination of blockchain technology, provision of appropriate incentives to authors, and a new crowdfunding mechanism.

The project is predicated on the active participation of individual libraries taking direct action. The paper will provide an interim report on the progress of the project and an account of how libraries and their various associations (both in the global South and in the global North) have reacted to the project.

The concluding section of the paper sketches a possible direction for academic journal publishing in the near future. Huge savings and increased efficiency can flow to the academy from finally dissolving its current one-sided contract with publishers and from reclaiming control of the peer-review process.

Practical and incentive-based suggestions are proposed for the transition from publisher-owned to academy-owned peer review.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02544856

Awareness and Use of Open Access Resources in Higher Education and Scholarly Research: Faculties versus Students Perspectives

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Authors : Abdullah- Al- Mahmud, A. K. M. Eamin Ali Akanda, Md. Nazmul Hasan, Md. Armanul Haque, Dilara Begum

Purpose

The study aims to identify, and to compare the awareness and attitude of faculties and students towards Open Access Resources.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employed a mixed method research approach. A survey has been conducted among purposively selected students (52) and faculties (17) through distributing a structured questionnaire(1-5 point likert scale, and open ended).SPSS v.20 and coding method have been used for analyzing quantitative and qualitative data respectively.

Findings

Both faculties and students had positive perceptions towards OARs though faculties were more knowledgeable than students in terms of understanding on major OA concepts. Digital format and free availability were considered as motivational factors for using OARs.

Both respondents indicatedplagiarism and copyright violation as important vulnerabilities in using OARs.

Originality/value

This paper highlights the awareness level of faculties and students towards open access resources in higher education in scholarly research. Apart from purposes, sources, preferable model, and state of publication in open access mode, the study focuses on motivational factor, vulnerabilities, and integration of open access resources in higher education and scholarly research from faculties and students perspectives which demonstrateits originality.

Implication

It would generate awareness among the academics, library professionals as well as OA publishers topromote OARs for wider use.

URL : https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/4516/

Publications and Evaluations: Conducting a Baseline Assessment of Open Access Adoption and Support at an R2 University

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Author: Susan Vandagriff

INTRODUCTION

This study reflects a mid-size university library’s first attempt to assess faculty research output to shape future scholarly communications efforts.

METHODOLOGY

The assessment combined a qualitative analysis of the university’s reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT) documents with a quantitative analysis of faculty publications recorded in Digital Measures from 2015-2019.

The RPT documents were coded to determine which indicators of scholarly value were emphasized, then compared with data on where and how faculty were publishing.

RESULTS

Within RPT documents, peer review was frequently emphasized, but open access and predatory publishing were not mentioned. The majority of publications occurred in hybrid journals, and publishing was concentrated among only a handful of publishers, with 11 publishers responsible for 62% of faculty’s research output.

OA journal publications have risen slightly in recent years but still accounted for only 20.7% of UCCS publications. However, predatory publishing was very low, accounting for less than 5% of UCCS publications.

DISCUSSION

More education is needed on the importance of open access and how to assess the quality of a journal. RPT criteria consistently mentioned certain indicators of scholarly quality, but these indicators were often vague and preferential to traditional publishing models.

Both open access and predatory publishing remain low, and additional education may help faculty feel more confident in exploring alternative publishing models.

CONCLUSION

Assessing the research output of faculty and how scholarship is being evaluated within each college can help libraries to tailor their efforts to promote open access publishing.

However, the lack of OA support in the RPT criteria suggests a larger cultural shift is needed to make faculty not only aware of OA, but also encouraged and supported in publishing OA.

URL : Publications and Evaluations: Conducting a Baseline Assessment of Open Access Adoption and Support at an R2 University

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2392

Scholarly publishing and journal targeting in the time of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: a cross-sectional survey of rheumatologists and other specialists

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Authors : Latika Gupta, Armen Yuri Gasparyan, Olena Zimba, Durga Prasanna Misra

The evolving research landscape in the time of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic calls for greater understanding of the perceptions of scholars regarding the current state and future of publishing.

An anonymised and validated e-survey featuring 30 questions was circulated among rheumatologists and other specialists over social media to understand preferences while choosing target journals, publishing standards, commercial editing services, preprint archiving, social media and alternative publication activities.

Of 108 respondents, a significant proportion were clinicians (68%), researchers (60%) and educators (47%), with median 23 publications and 15 peer-review accomplishments. The respondents were mainly rheumatologists from India, Ukraine and Turkey.

While choosing target journals, relevance to their field (69%), PubMed Central archiving (61%) and free publishing (59%) were the major factors. Thirty-nine surveyees (36%) claimed that they often targeted local journals for publishing their research. However, only 18 (17%) perceived their local society journals as trustworthy.

Occasional publication in the so-called predatory journals (5, 5%) was reported and obtaining support from commercial editing agencies to improve English and data presentation was not uncommon (23, 21%).

The opinion on preprint archiving was disputed; only one-third believed preprints were useful. High-quality peer review (56%), full and immediate open access (46%) and post-publication social media promotion (32%) were identified as key anticipated features of scholarly publishing in the foreseeable future.

These perceptions of surveyed scholars call for greater access to free publishing, attention to proper usage of English and editing skills, and a larger role for engagement over social media.

URL : Scholarly publishing and journal targeting in the time of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: a cross-sectional survey of rheumatologists and other specialists

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-020-04718-x