Veille dédiée aux Sciences de l'Information et des Bibliothèques // Collecting and Sharing research papers in Library and Information science ISSN 2429-3938
Authors : Éric Archambault, Grégoire Côté, Brooke Struck, Matthieu Voorons
This note presents data from the 1science oaIndx on the average of relative citations (ARC) for 3.3 million papers published from 2007 to 2009 and indexed in the Web of Science (WoS).
These data show a decidedly large citation advantage for open access (OA) papers, despite them suffering from a lag in availability compared to paywalled papers.
Authors : Najko Jahn, Marco Tullney
Publication fees as a revenue source for open access publishing hold a prominent place on the agendas of researchers, policy makers, and academic publishers.
This study contributes to the evolving empirical basis for funding these charges and examines how much German universities and research organisations spent on open access publication fees.
Using self-reported cost data from the Open APC initiative, the analysis focused on the amount that was being spent on publication fees, and compared these expenditure with data from related Austrian (FWF) and UK (Wellcome Trust, Jisc) initiatives, in terms of both size and the proportion of articles being published in fully and hybrid open access journals.
We also investigated how thoroughly self-reported articles were indexed in Crossref, a DOI minting agency for scholarly literature, and analysed how the institutional spending was distributed across publishers and journal titles.
According to self-reported data from 30 German universities and research organisations between 2005 and 2015, expenditures on open access publication fees increased over the years in Germany and amounted to € 9,627,537 for 7,417 open access journal articles.
The average payment was € 1,298, and the median was € 1,231. A total of 94% of the total article volume included in the study was supported in accordance with the price cap of € 2,000, a limit imposed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) as part of its funding activities for open access funding at German universities.
Expenditures varied considerably at the institutional level. There were also differences in how much the institutions spent per journal and publisher. These differences reflect, at least in part, the varying pricing schemes in place including discounted publication fees.
With an indexing coverage of 99%, Crossref thoroughly indexed the open access journals articles included in the study. A comparison with the related openly available cost data from Austria and the UK revealed that German universities and research organisations primarily funded articles in fully open access journals.
By contrast, articles in hybrid journal accounted for the largest share of spending according to the Austrian and UK data. Fees paid for hybrid journals were on average more expensive than those paid for fully open access journals.
URL : A study of institutional spending on open access publication fees in Germany
Author : Luis Reyes-Galindo
This paper describes the intense software filtering that has allowed the arXiv eprint repository to sort and process large numbers of submissions with minimal human intervention, making it one of the most important and influential cases of open access repositories to date.
The paper narrates arXiv’s transformation, using sophisticated sorting-filtering algorithms to decrease human workload, from a small mailing list used by a few hundred researchers to a site that processes thousands of papers per month.
However there are significant negative consequences for authors who have been filtered out of the main categories. There is thus a continued need to check and balance arXiv’s boundaries, based in the essential tension between stability and innovation.
URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.03824
Authors : Anna Krzak, Dominic Tate
Journal papers and conference proceedings accepted for publication from April 2016 must be deposited in an institutional and/or subject repository within three months of acceptance, and following this must be made open access, in order to be eligible for submission to the next Research Evaluation Framework in the United Kingdom.
This paper describes the programme to facilitate this at the University of Edinburgh’s College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine.
Authors : David Solomon, Mikael Laakso, Bo-Christer Björk
This report identifies ways through which subscription-based scholarly journals have converted their publishing models to open access (OA).
The major goal was to identify specific scenarios that have been used or proposed for transitioning subscription journals to OA so that these scenarios can provide options for others seeking to “flip” their journals to OA.
The report is based on the published literature as well as “gray” literature such as blog posts and press releases. In addition, interviews were conducted with eight experts in scholarly publishing.
The report identifies a variety of goals for converting a journal to OA. While there are altruistic goals of making scholarship more accessible, the literature review and interviews suggest that there are also many practical reasons for transitioning to an OA model.
In some instances, an OA business model is simply more economically viable. Also, it is not unusual for a society or editorial board to transition to an OA business model as a means of gaining independence from the current publisher.
Increasing readership, the number and quality of submissions, and impact as measured in citations are important goals for most journals that are considering flipping. Goals and their importance often differ for various regions in the world and across different disciplines.
Each journal’s situation is unique and it is important for those seeking to flip a journal to carefully consider exactly what they hope to achieve, what barriers they are likely to face, and how the changes that are being implemented will further the goals intended for their journal.
We found that there are many issues that must be addressed in the process of changing a journal’s business model to OA.
The transition process is complex and in most cases requires at least a year. For example, it is necessary to address manuscripts in process and how to manage back issues. Obligations to subscribers must be negotiated, particularly when the journal’s subscription is bundled with other journals in multi-journal contracts, called “big deal” agreements.
A great deal of effort should go into marketing so that authors and readers are adequately informed of the change. Implementing the transition at the beginning of a volume also helps to avoid confusion.
Society-owned journals have specific challenges, such as losing the membership perk of free or discounted subscriptions for members. The wishes of the society’s membership and its willingness to accept sacrifices, such as increased dues or reduced services, must be considered if the society must give up income to flip.
Commercial publishers have a somewhat different set of goals from nonprofit or small societies. The goals and funding options for flipping journals to OA vary across disciplines and in different parts of the world. While there are many similarities across journals, each has its own unique challenges when converting from subscription to OA.
There are a variety of factors that facilitate conversion to OA. These forces are both top down and bottom up. Governments, funding agencies, and library cooperatives through large-scale initiatives such as mandates and special funding programs can facilitate conversion and directly and indirectly influence journals converting to OA.
Also, individuals and small groups, such as editors, the editorial board, or society members, have converted journals through their own efforts. There is no process that works for all journals and there are important variations in circumstances for each journal.
There are also barriers and risks to consider. Whether or not article processing charges (APCs) are used, ensuring adequate resources to publish the journal over the long term is critical.
Unintended consequences are also a concern. APCs, or even just the change to OA, may discourage submissions or decrease their quality. Loss of free or discounted subscriptions may decrease membership for societies.
Obtaining a good understanding of the potential risks and benefits of flipping through surveys, focus groups, and pilot programs, such as flipping only a section of a journal, are strategies for understanding and substantially reducing the risks associating with changing the business model.
The scenarios are organized into those based on APC funding and those based on obtaining resources or funding through other sources. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis was performed on a number of journal scenario examples to assess the risks and benefits of each scenario.
URL : Converting Scholarly Journals to Open Access: A Review of Approaches and Experiences
Alternative location : https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/27803834
Authors : Oya Y. Rieger, Gail Steinhart, Deborah Cooper
As part of its 25th anniversary vision-setting process, the arXiv team at Cornell University Library conducted a user survey in April 2016 to seek input from the global user community about arXiv’s current services and future directions.
We were heartened to receive 36,000 responses from 127 countries, representing arXiv’s diverse, global community. The prevailing message is that users are happy with the service as it currently stands, with 95 percent of survey respondents indicating they are very satisfied or satisfied with arXiv.
Furthermore, 72 percent of respondents indicated that arXiv should continue to focus on its main purpose, which is to quickly make available scientific papers, and this will be enough to sustain the value of arXiv in the future.
This theme was pervasively reflected in the open text comments; a significant number of respondents suggested remaining focused on the core mission and enabling arXiv’s partners and related service providers to continue to build new services and innovations on top of arXiv.
URL : arXiv@25: Key findings of a user survey
Alternative location : http://arxiv.org/abs/1607.08212
Author :
Libraries have a mission to educate users about copyright, and library publishing staff are often involved in that work. This article investigates a concrete point of intersection between the two areas – copyright statements on library-published journals.
Journals published by members of the Library Publishing Coalition were examined for open access status, type and placement of copyright information, copyright ownership, and open licensing.
Journals in the sample were overwhelmingly (93%) open access. 80% presented copyright information of some kind, but only 30% of those included it at both the journal and the article level.
Open licensing was present in 38% of the journals, and the most common ownership scenario was the author retaining copyright while granting a nonexclusive license to the journal or publisher. 9% of the sample journals included two or more conflicting rights statements.
76% of the journals did not consistently provide accurate, easily-accessible rights information, and numerous problems were found with the use of open licensing, including conflicting licenses, incomplete licenses, and licenses not appearing at the article level.
Recommendations include presenting full copyright and licensing information at both the journal and the article level, careful use of open licenses, and publicly-available author agreements.
URL : Write up! A Study of Copyright Information on Library-Published Journals