Archives des mots-clés : Scholarly Publishing

How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

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Author : Hendrik P. van Dalen

The publish-or-perish principle has become a fact of academic life in gaining a position or being promoted. Evidence is mounting that benefits of this pressure is being countered by the downsides, like forms of goal displacement by scientists or unethical practices.

In this paper we evaluate whether perceived work pressure (publishing, acquisition funds, teaching, administration) is associated with different attitudes towards science and the workplace among economists working at Dutch universities.

Publication pressure is high and is related to faculty position and university ranking position. Based on a latent class analysis we can detect a clear divide among economists. Around two third of the economists perceives that this pressure has upsides as well as serious downsides and one third only perceives upsides and no downsides.

Full professors see more than other faculty members the positive sides of the publish-or-perish principle and virtually no downsides. These different perceptions are also reflected in their appreciation of the academic work environment.

URL : How the publish-or-perish principle divides a science: the case of economists

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03786-x

Enforcing public data archiving policies in academic publishing: A study of ecology journals

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Authors : Dan Sholler, Karthik Ram, Carl Boettiger, Daniel S Katz

To improve the quality and efficiency of research, groups within the scientific community seek to exploit the value of data sharing. Funders, institutions, and specialist organizations are developing and implementing strategies to encourage or mandate data sharing within and across disciplines, with varying degrees of success.

Academic journals in ecology and evolution have adopted several types of public data archiving policies requiring authors to make data underlying scholarly manuscripts freely available. The effort to increase data sharing in the sciences is one part of a broader “data revolution” that has prompted discussion about a paradigm shift in scientific research.

Yet anecdotes from the community and studies evaluating data availability suggest that these policies have not obtained the desired effects, both in terms of quantity and quality of available datasets.

We conducted a qualitative, interview-based study with journal editorial staff and other stakeholders in the academic publishing process to examine how journals enforce data archiving policies.

We specifically sought to establish who editors and other stakeholders perceive as responsible for ensuring data completeness and quality in the peer review process. Our analysis revealed little consensus with regard to how data archiving policies should be enforced and who should hold authors accountable for dataset submissions.

Themes in interviewee responses included hopefulness that reviewers would take the initiative to review datasets and trust in authors to ensure the completeness and quality of their datasets.

We highlight problematic aspects of these thematic responses and offer potential starting points for improvement of the public data archiving process.

URL : Enforcing public data archiving policies in academic publishing: A study of ecology journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951719836258

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

Scrutinising what Open Access Journals Mean for Global Inequalities

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Authors : Márton Demeter, Ronina Istratii

In the current article, we tested our hypothesis by which high-impact journals tend to have higher Article Processing Charges (APCs) by comparing journal IF metrics with the OA publishing fees they charge.

Our study engaged with both journals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) and included Hybrid, Diamond and No OA journals.

The overall findings demonstrate a positive relationship between APCs and journals with high IF for two of the subject areas we examined but not for the third, which could be mediated by the characteristics and market environment of the publishers.

We also found significant differences between the analysed research fields in terms of APC policies, as well as differences in the relationship between APCs and the IF across periodicals. The study and analysis conducted reinforces our concerns that Hybrid OA models are likely to perpetuate inequalities in knowledge production.

URL : Scrutinising what Open Access Journals Mean for Global Inequalities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-020-09771-9

Transformative agreements: Do they pave the way to open access?

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Authors : Ángel Borrego, Lluís Anglada, Ernest Abadal

Transformative agreements, also known as ‘offsetting’, ‘read and publish’, or ‘publish and read’ agreements, have shifted the focus of scholarly journal licensing from cost containment towards open access publication.

An analysis of 36 full‐text transformative agreements recorded in the ESAC registry shows that ‘transformative agreement’ is an umbrella term that encompasses different kinds of contracts. We differentiate between pre‐transformative, partially transformative, and fully transformative agreements.

Pre‐transformative agreements are traditional subscription licences that grant article processing charge (APC) discounts or vouchers for open access publication of a limited number of articles. Partially transformative agreements differentiate between a read fee and a publish fee to cover the processing charges of a certain number of articles.

Fully transformative agreements allow unlimited open access publication of the scholarly output of the subscribing institution. In all three categories, some agreements restrict open access publication to hybrid journals, whereas others allow publication in both hybrid and gold journals.

Transformative agreements are more transparent than traditional journal licences, allow authors to retain copyright, and make provisions to facilitate the management of open access workflows.

It is hard to assess whether these agreements are just a temporary phase in the transition towards open access or will perpetuate the current structure of the scholarly communication system and its associated high costs.

URL : Transformative agreements: Do they pave the way to open access?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1347

How is open access publishing going down with early career researchers? An international, multi-disciplinary study

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Authors : David Nicholas, Hamid R. Jamali, Eti Herman, Jie Xu, Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri, Anthony Watkinson, Blanca Rodríguez-Bravo, Abdullah Abrizah, Marzena Świgoń, Tatiana Polezhaeva

This study explores early career researchers’ (ECRs) appreciation and utilisation of open access (OA) publishing. The evidence reported here results from a questionnaire-based international survey with 1600 participants, which forms the second leg and final year of a four year long, mixed methods, longitudinal study that sought to discover whether ECRs will be the harbingers of change when it comes to scholarly communications.

Proceeding from the notion that today’s neophyte researchers, believed to hold millennial values of openness to change, transparency and sharing, may be best placed to power the take-up of OA publishing, the study sought to discover: the extent to which ECRs publish OA papers; the main reasons for their doing or not doing so; and what were thought to be the broader advantages and disadvanta-ges of OA publishing.

The survey data is presented against a backdrop of the literature-based evidence on the subject, with the interview stage data providing contextualisation and qualitative depth. The findings show that the majority of ECRs published in OA journals and this varied by discipline and country.

Most importantly, there were more advantages and fewer disadvantages to OA publishing, which may be indicative of problems to do with cost and availability, rather than reputational factors.

Among the many reasons cited for publishing OA the most important one is societal, although OA is seen as especially benefiting ECRs in career progression. Cost is plainly considered the main downside.

URL : How is open access publishing going down with early career researchers? An international, multi-disciplinary study

Alternative location : http://www.elprofesionaldelainformacion.com/contenidos/2020/nov/nicholas-herman-jamali-xu-boukacem-watkinson-rodriguez-abrizah-swigon-polezhaeva.pdf

How is open access accused of being predatory? The impact of Beall’s lists of predatory journals on academic publishing

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Authors : Franciszek Krawczyk, Emanuel Kulczycki

The aim of this paper is to investigate how predatory journals are characterized by authors who write about such journals. We emphasize the ways in which predatory journals have been conflated with—or distinguished from—open access journals.

We created a list of relevant publications on predatory publishing using four databases: Web of Science, Scopus, Dimensions, and Microsoft Academic.

We included 280 English-language publications in the review according to their contributions to the discussions on predatory publishing. Then, we coded and qualitatively analyzed these publications.

The findings show the profound influence of Jeffrey Beall, who composed and maintained himself lists of predatory publishers and journals, on the whole discussion on predatory publishing.

The major themes by which Beall has characterized predatory journals are widely present in non-Beall publications. Moreover, 122 papers we reviewed combined predatory publishing with open access using similar strategies as Beall.

The overgeneralization of the flaws of some open access journals to the entire open access movement has led to unjustified prejudices among the academic community toward open access.

This is the first large-scale study that systematically examines how predatory publishing is defined in the literature.

URL : How is open access accused of being predatory? The impact of Beall’s lists of predatory journals on academic publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102271