A Different Shade of Green: A Survey of Indonesian Higher Education Institutional Repositories

Author : Toong Tjiek Liauw, Paul Genoni

INTRODUCTION

Institutional repositories (IRs) are an accepted part of the open access landscape, and they have a particular role to play in supporting scholarly communication in developing countries, such as Indonesia.

METHODS

Content analysis was conducted of 52 Indonesian higher education institutional repository websites between November 2014 and February 2015. Assessment included the degrees of “openness” of repositories, the types of works collected, software used, exploration tools, existence of links to institutional website, the language used for access points, and the standard of metadata.

The study also gathered qualitative indicators of local practices in the management and population of repositories.

RESULTS

Only 26.9% of the surveyed IRs provide all or most documents in full-text; the most widely included types of work are Theses and Dissertations (84.6%) and Published Works (80.8%), but there is also a high representation of Unpublished Works and University Records. Most IRs (90.3%) provide access points in the form of standardized subject headings, and English is widely used.

DISCUSSION

The characteristics of the content of the IRs surveyed suggests that many Indonesian IRs were conceived as a corporate information management system rather than as a genuine attempt to support open access.

CONCLUSION

The findings lead the authors to speculate that institutional repositories serving Indonesian higher education institutions are in their early adoption phase; and that initial drivers for them have been corporate information management, institutional prestige, and the need to combat plagiarism.

URL : A Different Shade of Green: A Survey of Indonesian Higher Education Institutional Repositories

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2136

Helping journals to improve their publishing standards: a data analysis of DOAJ new criteria effects

Authors : Andrea Marchitelli, Paola Galimberti, Andrea Bollini, Dominic Mitchell

In 2013, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) expanded and updated its inclusion criteria and its journal evaluation process, ultimately removing a large number of journals that failed to submit an updated application.

The present study examined the results of the new process and its capability to improve the quality of the directory and the reliability of the information contained in it. A dataset of 12.595 journals included in DOAJ, since its launch in 2003 until May 15th 2016, was examined and compared to other data.

The number of journals deleted from DOAJ during this period is 3776; the majority of them (2851 journals) were excluded because publishers failed to complete the reapplication on time; 490 had ceased publication or were otherwise inactive; 375 were excluded for ethical issues; 53 because they were no longer open access or the content was embargoed, the final 7 were removed for other reasons.

The top five countries in terms of the percentage of journals removed are: Japan (74% of journals removed); Pakistan (60%); Canada (51%); United States (50%); and Mexico (49%). Our study has shown that 158 of the removed journals are included in Beall’s lists; 1130 journals indexed in DOAJ are included in Scopus and/or JCR.

Our analysis demonstrates that, thanks to the new acceptance criteria, to the improved screening process performed by national groups under the direction of the new management, there is a noticeable quality improvement of the journals indexed in DOAJ.

URL : Helping journals to improve their publishing standards: a data analysis of DOAJ new criteria effects

Alternative location : http://leo.cineca.it/index.php/jlis/article/view/12052

Open access articles receive more citations in hybrid marine ecology journals

Author : Jeff C. Clements

The accumulation of evidence that open access publishing can increase citation rates highlights one benefit of universal accessibility to scholarly works. However, studies investigating the effect of open access publishing on citations are typically conducted across a wide variety of journals and disciplines, introducing a number of potential issues and limiting their utility for specific disciplines.

Here, I used three primary marine ecology journals with an open access option as a “microcosm” of scientific publishing to determine whether or not open access articles received more citations than non-open access articles during the same time frame, controlling for self-citations, article type, and journal impact factor.

I also tested for the effects of time since publication and the number of authors. Citations were positively correlated with time since publication and differed across the three journals. In addition, open access articles received significantly more citations than non-open access articles.

Self-citations increased with author number and were affected by a complex interaction between open access, journal, and time since publication. This study demonstrates that open access articles receive more citations in hybrid marine ecology journals, although the causal factors driving this trend are unknown.

URL : Open access articles receive more citations in hybrid marine ecology journals

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/facets-2016-0032

Elsevier: Among the World’s Largest Open Access Publishers as of 2016

Author : Heather Morrison

Highlights of this broad-brush case study of Elsevier’s Open Access (OA) journals as of 2016: Elsevier offers 511 fully OA journals and 2,149 hybrids. Most fully OA journals do not charge article processing charges (APCs). APCs of fully OA journals average $660 US ($1,731 excluding no-fee journals); hybrid OA averages $2,500.

A practice termed author nominal copyright is observed, where copyright is in the name of the author although the author contract is essentially a copyright transfer. The prospects for a full Elsevier flip to OA via APC payments for articles going forward are considered and found to be problematic.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5260/chara.18.3.53

Managing Digital Rights in Open Access Works

Authors : Benjamin J. Keele, Jere D. Odell

Librarians, researchers using scholarly works, and consumers using popular media generally think of digital rights management (DRM) as only a limitation on their access and use of digital resources. DRM and open access (OA) works would strike one as a very unlikely combination. In almost all cases, we would agree; however, we note two instances in which DRM and OA may be compatible.

The first case is DRM used to enable more accessible and durable rights information and proper attribution for a work. The second case is DRM that limits some uses as an appropriate part of a compromise to make works OA that would not otherwise be so.

This overlap between DRM and OA is narrow compared to the set ofnonOA works equipped with DRM, but understanding this overlap is useful for at least three reasons. First, librarians may use DRM to better manage rights in OA works; second, librarians may persuade a reluctant author or publisher to make a work OA with appropriate DRM; and, third, librarians may recognize when DRM negates access to an ostensibly OA work.

This chapter will review OA and discuss cases in which DRM can complement OA objectives. We organize these cases by two roles played by many academic librarians: collectors and publishers. By considering the relationship between DRM and OA, one may better recognize when DRM should be adopted or resisted in projects involving OA materials.

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/1805/10918

Open Science: a revolution in sight?

Author : Bernard Rentier

Purpose

This article aims at describing the evolution of scientific communication, largely represented by the publication process. It notes the disappearance of the traditional publication on paper and its progressive replacement by electronic publishing, a new paradigm implying radical changes in the whole mechanism.

It aims also at warning the scientific community about the dangers of some new avenues and why, rather than subcontracting an essential part of its work, it must take back a full control of its production.

Design/methodology/approach

The article reviews the emerging concepts in scholarly publication and aims to answer frequently asked questions concerning free access to scientific literature as well as to data, science and knowledge in general.

Findings

The article provides new observations concerning the level of compliance to institutional open access mandates and the poor relevance of journal prestige for quality evaluation of research and researchers. The results of introducing an open access policy at the University of Liège are noted.

Social implications

Open access is, for the first time in human history, an opportunity to provide free access to knowledge universally, regardless of either the wealth or the social status of the potentially interested readers. It is an essential breakthrough for developing countries.

Value

Open access and Open Science in general must be considered as common values that should be shared freely. Free access to publicly generated knowledge should be explicitly included in universal human rights.

There are still a number of obstacles hampering this goal, mostly the greed of intermediaries who persuade researchers to give their work for free, in exchange for prestige. The worldwide cause of Open Knowledge is thus a major universal issue for the 21st Century.

URL : http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/198865

A Resonant Message: Aligning Scholar Values and Open Access Objectives in OA Policy Outreach to Faculty and Graduate Students

Author : Jane Johnson Otto

INTRODUCTION

Faculty contribution to the institutional repository is a major limiting factor in the successful provision of open access to scholarship, and thus to the advancement of research productivity and progress.

Many have alluded to outreach messages through studies examining faculty concerns that underlie their reluctance to contribute, but specific open access messages demonstrated to resonate most with faculty have not been discussed with sufficient granularity.

Indeed, many faculty benefits and concerns are likely either unknown to the faculty themselves, or unspoken, so the literature’s record of faculty benefits and perceptions of open access remains incomplete at best.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

At Rutgers University, we have developed a targeted message that both addresses these unspoken/unknown concerns and benefits and speaks to the promise and inevitability of open access in a changing scholarly communication landscape.

This paper details that message and its rationale, based on a critical review of the literature currently informing outreach programs, in order to provoke further discussion of specific outreach messages and the principles underlying them.

NEXT STEPS

A robust scholarly communication organization, open access policy advisory board, expanded outreach, and sustained momentum will be critical to ensuring success with measurable outcomes.

Metrics used to evaluate both OA policy implementation efforts and institutional repositories should be reevaluated in light of the governing objectives of open access outreach efforts and tools. It is hoped that a reassessment of the message and the metrics will better align both with the true promise and prerequisites of open access.

URL : A Resonant Message: Aligning Scholar Values and Open Access Objectives in OA Policy Outreach to Faculty and Graduate Students

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2152