Catégories
EN

Peer Community In and Peer Community Journal: A Two-Step Diamond OA Process Giving Research Communities Back Control of Publishing

Authors : Barbara Class , Denis Bourguet, Thomas Guillemaud

The current academic publishing system faces many well-identified issues. Not only is it slow and costly, but it is also an opaque system that produces a substantial amount of non-reproducible results.

Peer Community In (PCI) is a non-profit organisation that allows research communities to organise the open and free peer-review of preprints on different thematic platforms. The authors of preprints that are recommended by these platforms can then choose to submit them to any journal or to Peer Community Journal, a diamond open access journal, which publishes any and only PCI-recommended preprints.

Because PCI follows the highest standards for evaluations and openness, many institutions and journals publicly recognise PCI-recommended preprints as being of similar value to accepted journal articles.

This two-step process hence decouples the evaluation of research articles from their publication, while offering a free open-access publication venue for its recommended preprints. Doing so allows researchers to reappropriate the publishing system, and the increasing number of submissions, publications, and communities shows a growing demand for such alternative publishing models.

Ongoing developments aim to further increase the robustness and reproducibility of published research via increasing requirements and checks at submission and promoting the use of registered reports.

URL : Peer Community In and Peer Community Journal: A Two-Step Diamond OA Process Giving Research Communities Back Control of Publishing

HAL :  https://hal.science/hal-05536120

Catégories
EN

Generative artificial intelligence in the publishing industry: adoption, use, intellectual property, and other challenges

Author : Marco Giraldo-Barreto

Taking as a starting point how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) works, this text explores the level of adoption of such technology in the publishing sector (in particular for Latin America), shows examples of legislation challenges faced by states and the publishing industry in terms of intellectual property, and the implications of GenAI misuse in the academic publishing context. Finally, it proposes a course of action for a responsible adoption for the publishing chain of value.

URL : Generative artificial intelligence in the publishing industry: adoption, use, intellectual property, and other challenges

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2026.1759242

Catégories
EN

Data as a new research publication type: What could be the role of research libraries as service providers?

Authors : Mari Elisa Kuusniem, Susanna Nykyri

This article examines the evolving role of research libraries in supporting the recognition of datasets as legitimate academic outputs through data publishing. Although the academic community increasingly acknowledges the value of treating research data as standalone contributions, there remains a lack of comprehensive frameworks and services to support this shift. Research libraries are well-positioned to lead in data curation and publication by collaborating with researchers, institutions, and other stakeholders.

Using a qualitative, multi-method approach—including a literature review, an exploratory survey of university libraries in the Nordic and Baltic countries, and professional experience—we investigate current practices, challenges, and institutional perspectives on data publishing. Our findings highlight inconsistent terminology in data policies and evolving services for data appraisal and visibility. We differentiate data publishing from general data sharing, emphasizing critical aspects such as data citability, quality control, and ethical reuse.

The article discusses various publishing pathways—such as data journals, repositories, and article supplements—and their respective implications. We identify key service gaps in libraries, particularly in data evaluation and discoverability, and propose strategies for libraries to promote data journals and domain-specific repositories. Ultimately, we advocate for libraries to expand their role by developing integrated services for data appraisal, curation, and preservation, and by strengthening staff competencies in data management. Such efforts are essential for increasing the visibility, credibility, and scholarly impact of research data.

This paper is a continuation to a presentation provided in Liber Conference 2022. The presentation paper was acknowledged with the Innovation Award.

URL : Data as a new research publication type: What could be the role of research libraries as service providers?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.53377/lq.19415

Catégories
EN

Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines

Authors : Kaitlin Stack Whitney, Julia Perrone, Christie A. Bahlai

In recent decades, there has been a move to “open” science and research. One component of open access is “accessibility,” often used to mean that data and other products are free to use by others. However, accessibility also refers to considering and meeting the needs of people with disabilities.

Our objective was to evaluate how open access journals incorporate disability accessibility as part of publishing. Using a random sample of 300 English-language journals and image accessibility as a lens, we assessed author guidelines. Of 289 journals with guidelines, 38 (13%) included color choice, six (∼2%) included contrast ratios, and none included alternative text.

We also assessed the open access statements for the same 300 journals to understand how they conceive of openness and accessibility. Of the 298 journals with open access statements, 228 (∼77%) included the words access or accessibility. Yet none included disability or disabled and only two journals (<1%) mentioned inclusive or inclusion.

Our findings indicate that the open access journals sampled are not considering disability accessibility in their submission guidelines or open access frameworks. Incorporating disability accessibility into open scholarship considerations is critical to bridge, and not exacerbate, information inequalities for people with disabilities.

URL : Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00338

Catégories
EN

Can ChatGPT write better scientific titles? A comparative evaluation of human-written and AI-generated titles

Authors : Paul Sebo, Bing Nie, Ting Wang

Background

Large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 are increasingly used in scientific writing, yet little is known about how AI-generated scientific titles are perceived by researchers in terms of quality.

Objective

To compare the perceived alignment with the abstract content (as a surrogate for perceived accuracy), appeal, and overall preference for AI-generated versus human-written scientific titles.

Methods

We conducted a blinded comparative study with 21 researchers from diverse academic backgrounds. A random sample of 50 original titles was selected from 10 high-impact general internal medicine journals. For each title, an alternative version was generated using GPT-4.0. Each rater evaluated 50 pairs of titles, each pair consisting of one original and one AI-generated version, without knowing the source of the titles or the purpose of the study.

For each pair, raters independently assessed both titles on perceived alignment with the abstract content and appeal, and indicated their overall preference. We analyzed alignment and appeal using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and mixed-effects ordinal logistic regressions, preferences using McNemar’s test and mixed-effects logistic regression, and inter-rater agreement with Gwet’s AC.
Results

AI-generated titles received significantly higher ratings for both perceived alignment with the abstract content (mean 7.9 vs. 6.7, p-value <0.001) and appeal (mean 7.1 vs. 6.7, p-value <0.001) than human-written titles. The odds of preferring an AI-generated title were 1.7 times higher (p-value =0.001), with 61.8% of 1,049 paired judgments favoring the AI version. Inter-rater agreement was moderate to substantial (Gwet’s AC: 0.54–0.70).

Conclusions

AI-generated titles were rated more favorably than human-written titles within the context of this study in terms of perceived alignment with the abstract content, appeal, and preference, suggesting that LLMs may enhance the effectiveness of scientific communication. These findings support the responsible integration of AI tools in research.

URL : Can ChatGPT write better scientific titles? A comparative evaluation of human-written and AI-generated titles

DOI : https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.173647.2

Catégories
EN

Artificial intelligence in academic practices and policy discourses across ‘Big 5’ publishers

Authors :  Gergely Ferenc Lendvai, Aczél Petra

The present study investigates how the five largest academic publishers (Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE) are responding to the epistemic and procedural challenges posed by generative AI through formal policy frameworks.

Situated within ongoing debates about the boundaries of authorship and the governance of AI-generated content, our research aims to critically assess the discursive and regulatory contours of publishers’ authorship guidelines (PGs).

We employed a multi-method design that combines qualitative coding, semantic network analysis, and comparative matrix visualization to examine the official policy texts collected from each publisher’s website. Findings reveal a foundational consensus across all five publishers in prohibiting AI systems from being credited as authors and in mandating disclosure of AI usage.

However, beyond this shared baseline, marked divergences emerge in the scope, specificity, and normative framing of AI policies. Co-occurrence and semantic analyses underline the centrality of ‘authorship’, ‘ethics’, and ‘accountability’ in AI discourse. Structural similarity measures further reveal alignment among Wiley, Elsevier, and Taylor & Francis, with Springer as a clear outlier.

Our results point to an unsettled regulatory landscape where policies serve not only as instruments of governance but also as performative assertions of institutional identity and legitimacy.

Consequently, the fragmented field of PG highlights the need for harmonized, inclusive, and enforceable frameworks that recognize both the potential and risks of AI in scholarly communication.

URL : Artificial intelligence in academic practices and policy discourses across ‘Big 5’ publishers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvag004

Catégories
EN

How multilingual is scholarly communication? Mapping the global distribution of languages in publications and citations

Authors : Carolina Pradier, Lucía Céspedes, Vincent Larivière

Language is a major source of systemic inequities in science, particularly among scholars whose first language is not English. Studies have examined scientists’ linguistic practices in specific contexts; few, however, have provided a global analysis of multilingualism in science.

Using two major bibliometric databases (OpenAlex and Dimensions), we provide a large-scale analysis of linguistic diversity in science, considering both the language of publications (N = 87,577,942) and of cited references (N = 1,480,570,087).

For the 1990–2023 period, we find that only Indonesian, Portuguese, and Spanish have expanded at a faster pace than English. Country-level analyses show that this trend is due to the growing strength of the Latin American and Indonesian academic circuits. Our results also confirm the same-language preference phenomenon (particularly for languages other than English), the strong connection between multilingualism and bibliodiversity, and that social sciences and humanities are the least English-dominated fields.

Our findings suggest that policies recognizing the value of both national-language and English-language publications have had a concrete impact on the distribution of languages in the global field of scholarly communication.

URL : How multilingual is scholarly communication? Mapping the global distribution of languages in publications and citations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70055