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EN

A landscape study on open access and monographs : Policies, funding and publishing in eight European countries

Authors : Eelco Ferwerda, Frances Pinter, Niels Stern

The report builds on i.a. 73 in-depth conversations, conducted across eight different countries (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, France, Norway and Austria) to understand current developments among three stakeholder groups: Publishers, funders and libraries. The importance of author attitudes, scholarly reward and incentive systems is also raised throughout the study by numerous interviewees.

The study shows that although the main OA policies do not include monographs, conversations about OA and monographs are surfacing and are expected to be accelerating over the next few years. The general explanation for monographs not being included in policies is the global focus on journal publishing and the perception that monographs are more complex to deal with than journals. Some also point to a lack of demand yet from authors.

In general, OA book publishers will comply with gold OA policies from funders and institutions. This is not the case for green OA. It appears that the current self archiving policies from publishers for books are largely restricted to book chapters.

The report also points towards the fact that funding schemes for books are lagging behind schemes for articles and their availability to fund the publishing process is somewhat ad hoc across the countries we’ve surveyed. Nevertheless the authors are ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the prospects for OA and monographs.

The report creates an overview of both the OA monographs policies, funding streams and publishing models for all eight countries for the first time.

URL : A landscape study on open access and monographs : Policies, funding and publishing in eight European countries

Alternative location : http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/id/eprint/6693

 

Catégories
EN

Open Access Scholarly Journal Publishing in Chinese

Author : Cenyu Shen

The research literature on open access (OA) publishing has mainly dealt with journals publishing in English, and studies focusing on OA journals in other languages are less common. This article addresses this gap via a case study focusing on Chinese-language OA journals.

It starts with the identification of the major characteristics of this market, followed by eight semi-structured interviews to explore the key motivations behind Chinese-language OA publishing and perceived barriers. The majority of Chinese OA journals are published in Chinese, and most of them are published by universities and scholarly societies.

Nearly 80% of journals were launched before the digital age and were converted to OA later. The subject distribution is highly skewed towards the science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) fields. Publishers are motivated to convert journals to OA by an expected increase in academic impact, which would also attract more submissions.

The lack of a sufficient number of high-quality submissions is perceived as the largest barrier to the successful publishing of journals. The financial instability of journals is identified as the main obstacle hindering internationalisation.

The central conclusions of the study are that Chinese-language OA journals need to increase their visibility in journal indexes such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and that an OA publishing platform (similar to the Latin American SciELO) should be established for Chinese-language OA journals.

URL : Open Access Scholarly Journal Publishing in Chinese

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications5040022

Catégories
EN

Growth of hybrid open access, 2009–2016

Author : Bo-Christer Björk

Hybrid Open Access is an intermediate form of OA, where authors pay scholarly publishers to make articles freely accessible within journals, in which reading the content otherwise requires a subscription or pay-per-view.

Major scholarly publishers have in recent years started providing the hybrid option for the vast majority of their journals. Since the uptake usually has been low per journal and scattered over thousands of journals, it has been very difficult to obtain an overview of how common hybrid articles are.

This study, using the results of earlier studies as well as a variety of methods, measures the evolution of hybrid OA over time. The number of journals offering the hybrid option has increased from around 2,000 in 2009 to almost 10,000 in 2016.

The number of individual articles has in the same period grown from an estimated 8,000 in 2009 to 45,000 in 2016. The growth in article numbers has clearly increased since 2014, after some major research funders in Europe started to introduce new centralized payment schemes for the article processing charges (APCs).

URL : Growth of hybrid open access, 2009–2016

Alternative location : https://peerj.com/articles/3878/

Catégories
EN

Estimated effects of implementing an open access policy for grantees at a private foundation

Authors : Carly Strasser, Eesha Khare

Background

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF) was interested in understanding the potential effects of requiring that grantees publish their peer-reviewed research in open access journals.

Methods

We collected data on more than 2,000 publications in over 500 journals that were generated by GBMF grantees since 2001. We then examined the journal policies to establish how two possible open access policies might have affected grantee publishing habits.

Results

We found that 99.3% of the articles published by grantees would have complied with a policy that requires open access within 12 months of publication. We also estimated the maximum annual costs to GBMF for covering fees associated with “gold open access” to be between $400,000 and $2,600,000 annually.

Discussion

Based in part on this study, GBMF has implemented a new open access policy that requires grantees make peer-reviewed publications fully available within 12 months.

URL : Estimated effects of implementing an open access policy for grantees at a private foundation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3853

Catégories
EN

The arXiv of the future will not look like the arXiv

Authors : Alberto Pepe, Matteo Cantiello, Josh Nicholson

The arXiv is the most popular preprint repository in the world. Since its inception in 1991, the arXiv has allowed researchers to freely share publication-ready articles prior to formal peer review.

The growth and the popularity of the arXiv emerged as a result of new technologies that made document creation and dissemination easy, and cultural practices where collaboration and data sharing were dominant.

The arXiv represents a unique place in the history of research communication and the Web itself, however it has arguably changed very little since its creation. Here we look at the strengths and weaknesses of arXiv in an effort to identify what possible improvements can be made based on new technologies not previously available.

Based on this, we argue that a modern arXiv might in fact not look at all like the arXiv of today.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.07020

Catégories
EN

Open Access Research Via Collaborative Educational Blogging: A Case Study from Library & Information Science

Authors : Kristen Radsliff Rebmann, Camden Bernard Clark

This article charts the development of activities for online graduate students in library and information science. Project goals include helping students develop competencies in understanding open access publishing, synthesizing research in the field, and engaging in scholarly communication via collaborative educational blogging.

Using a design experiment approach as a research strategy, focus is placed on the design of the collaborative blogging activity, open access research as a knowledge domain, and analyses of four iterations of the project.

Findings from this iterative learning design suggest several benefits of implementing collaborative educational blogging activities in distance contexts.

URL : Open Access Research Via Collaborative Educational Blogging: A Case Study from Library & Information Science

Alternative location : http://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/665

Catégories
EN

Measuring Cost per Use of Library-Funded Open Access Article Processing Charges: Examination and Implications of One Method

Authors : Crystal Hampson, Elizabeth Stregger

INTRODUCTION

Libraries frequently support their open access (OA) fund using money from their collections budget. Interest in assessment of OA funds is arising. Cost per use is a common method to assess library collections expenditures.

OA article processing charges (APCs) are a one-time cost for global, perpetual use. Article level metrics provide data on global, cumulative article level usage. This article examines a method and discusses the limitations and implications of using article level metrics to calculate cost per use for OA APCs.

METHODS

Using different APC models from two publishers, PLOS and BioMed Central, this article presents a cost per use formula for each model.

RESULTS

The formula for each model is demonstrated with available data. The examples suggest a very low cost per use for OA APCs after only three years.

DISCUSSION

Several limitations exist to obtaining article level data currently, including the nature of open access and accessibility of the data. OA articles’ usage levels are high and include use from altruistic access. Cost per use comparison with traditional publishing models is possible; however, comparison between different OA expenditures with very low costs per use may not be helpful.

CONCLUSION

Article level metrics can provide a means to measure cost per use of OA APCs. Libraries need increased access to article level usage data. They will also need to develop new benchmarks and expectations to evaluate APC payments, given higher usage levels for OA articles and considering altruistic access.

URL : Measuring Cost per Use of Library-Funded Open Access Article Processing Charges: Examination and Implications of One Method

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2182