Archives des mots-clés : open access

Content is King: An Analysis of How the Twitter Discourse Surrounding Open Education Unfolded From 2009 to 2016

Posté le par

Authors : Michael Paskevicius, George Veletsianos, Royce Kimmons

Inspired by open educational resources, open pedagogy, and open source software, the openness movement in education has different meanings for different people. In this study, we use Twitter data to examine the discourses surrounding openness as well as the people who participate in discourse around openness.

By targeting hashtags related to open education, we gathered the most extensive dataset of historical open education tweets to date (n = 178,304 tweets and 23,061 users) and conducted a mixed methods analysis of openness from 2009 to 2016.

Findings show that the diversity of participants has varied somewhat over time and that the discourse has predominantly revolved around open resources, although there are signs that an increase in interest around pedagogy, teaching, and learning is emerging.

URL : Content is King: An Analysis of How the Twitter Discourse Surrounding Open Education Unfolded From 2009 to 2016

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i1.3267

The Visibility of Open Access Monographs in a European Context: A Report Prepared by Knowledge Unlatched Research

Posté le par

Authors : Lucy Montgomery, Cameron Neylon, Alkim Ozaygen, Frances Pinter, Neil Saunders

This report explores the extent to which Open Access (OA) specialist scholarly books can be seen by the communities that might make use of them. It also identifies the key challenges that will need to be tackled in order to ensure that OA books are fully integrated into digital landscapes of scholarship; as well as the steps that need to be taken to achieve this goal.

The report focuses on Open Access books made available by publishers and platforms that are part of the OPERAS network, which is focused on the development of European research infrastructure for the development of open scholarly communication.

Specialist scholarly books are the core research output of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Ensuring that they are integrated into digital landscapes of scholarship will play a decisive role in the future of these disciplines, and their impact on the world. Identifying gaps in existing infrastructure and creating a roadmap to address them is vital groundwork.

This report forms part of the OPERAS-D project, which focuses on the development of a European e-infrastructure for open access publications in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Knowledge Unlatched Research is a core partner in the OPERAS-D project.

KU Research is an independent research and analysis group focusing on strategy and analytics that support the ecosystem of scholarly monographs.

DOI : https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:18269

Gold Open Access Publishing in Mega-Journals: Developing Countries Pay the Price of Western Premium Academic Output

Posté le par

Authors : Jacintha Ellers, Thomas W. Crowther, Jeffrey A. Harvey

Open access publishing (OAP) makes research output freely available, and several national governments have now made OAP mandatory for all publicly funded research. Gold OAP is a common form of OAP where the author pays an article processing charge (APC) to make the article freely available to readers.

However, gold OAP is a cause for concern because it drives a redistribution of valuable research money to support open access papers in ‘mega-journals’ with more permissive acceptance criteria. We present a data-driven evaluation of the financial ramifications of gold OAP and provide evidence that gold OAP in mega-journals is biased toward Western industrialized countries.

From 2011 to 2015, the period of our data collection, countries with developing economies had a disproportionately greater share of articles published in the lower-tier mega-journals and thus paid article APCs that cross-subsidize publications in the top-tier journals of the same publisher.

Conversely, scientists from Western developed countries had a disproportionately greater share of articles published in those same top-tier journals. The global inequity of the cross-subsidizing APC model was demonstrated across five different mega-journals, showing that the issue is a common problem.

We need to develop stringent and fair criteria that address the global financial implications of OAP, as publication fees should reflect the real cost of publishing and be transparent for authors.

URL : https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/gold-open-access-publishing-in-mega-journals-developing-countries

Authorial and institutional stratification in open access publishing: the case of global health research

Posté le par

Authors : Kyle Siler, Stefanie Haustein, Elise Smith, Vincent Larivière, Juan Pablo Alperin

Using a database of recent articles published in the field of Global Health research, we examine institutional sources of stratification in publishing access outcomes. Traditionally, the focus on inequality in scientific publishing has focused on prestige hierarchies in established print journals.

This project examines stratification in contemporary publishing with a particular focus on subscription vs. various Open Access (OA) publishing options.

Findings show that authors working at lower-ranked universities are more likely to publish in closed/paywalled outlets, and less likely to choose outlets that involve some sort of Article Processing Charge (APCs; gold or hybrid OA).

We also analyze institutional differences and stratification in the APC costs paid in various journals. Authors affiliated with higher-ranked institutions, as well as hospitals and non-profit organizations pay relatively higher APCs for gold and hybrid OA publications.

Results suggest that authors affiliated with high-ranked universities and well-funded institutions tend to have more resources to choose pay options with publishing. Our research suggests new professional hierarchies developing in contemporary publishing, where various OA publishing options are becoming increasingly prominent.

Just as there is stratification in institutional representation between different types of publishing access, there is also inequality within access types.

URL : Authorial and institutional stratification in open access publishing: the case of global health research

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4269

Open access, data capitalism and academic publishing

Posté le par

Author : Michael Hagner

Open Access (OA) is widely considered a breakthrough in the history of academic publishing, rendering the knowledge produced by the worldwide scientific community accessible to all. In numerous countries, national governments, funding institutions and research organisations have undertaken enormous efforts to establish OA as the new publishing standard.

The benefits and new perspectives, however, cause various challenges. This essay addresses several issues, including that OA is deeply embedded in the logic and practices of data capitalism.

Given that OA has proven an attractive business model for commercial publishers, the key predictions of OA-advocates, namely that OA would liberate both scientists and tax payers from the chains of global publishing companies, have not become true. In its conclusion, the paper discusses the opportunities and pitfalls of non-commercial publishing.

URL : Open access, data capitalism and academic publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2018.14600

Impact of Institutional Repositories’ on Scholarly Practices of Scientists

Posté le par

Authors : Prachi Shukla, Naved Ahmad

Institutional Repositories (IRs) are established mainly to provide access to information resources which are otherwise not easily accessible in digital format. Many institutions across the world and particularly in India have successfully developed their own IRs but have not attempted to assess their importance and impact on the Users.

This study conveys the findings of the survey conducted at research centric CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) laboratories of India to determine the scientists’ and research scholars’ preference for publishing their research materials; to measure the impact of IRs on their scholarly practices and to recommend future changes for inviting more participation in an IR.

The study deduced that ‘Peer- Review scholarly Journals’ are preferred medium for publishing research content and ‘Increase in the access to grey literature’ is the most significant impact of IR on respondents.

The findings of this research paper provide insight to the IR managers and administrators of low-deposit and low-usage repositories about the contributors’ apprehensions. The study will also help them to define and adopt policies that will eventually enhance their IRs visibility and impact.

URL : https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1631/

Evolution of the scholarly mega-journal, 2006–2017

Posté le par
 Author : Bo-Christer Björk

Mega-journals are a new kind of scholarly journal made possible by electronic publishing. They are open access (OA) and funded by charges, which authors pay for the publishing services. What distinguishes mega-journals from other OA journals is, in particular, a peer review focusing only on scientific trustworthiness.

The journals can easily publish thousands of articles per year and there is no need to filter articles due to restricted slots in the publishing schedule. This study updates some earlier longitudinal studies of the evolution of mega-journals and their publication volumes.

After very rapid growth in 2010–2013, the increase in overall article volumes has slowed down. Mega-journals are also increasingly dependent for sustained growth on Chinese authors, who now contribute 25% of all articles in such journals.

There has also been an internal shift in market shares. PLOS ONE, which totally dominated mega-journal publishing in the early years, currently publishes around one-third of all articles. Scientific Reports has grown rapidly since 2014 and is now the biggest journal.

URL : Evolution of the scholarly mega-journal, 2006–2017

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4357