Archives des mots-clés : Scholarly Publishing

The strain on scientific publishing

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Authors : Mark A. Hanson, Pablo Gómez Barreiro, Paolo Crosetto, Dan Brockington

Scientists are increasingly overwhelmed by the volume of articles being published. Total articles indexed in Scopus and Web of Science have grown exponentially in recent years; in 2022 the article total was 47% higher than in 2016, which has outpaced the limited growth, if any, in the number of practising scientists.

Thus, publication workload per scientist (writing, reviewing, editing) has increased dramatically. We define this problem as the strain on scientific publishing. To analyse this strain, we present five data-driven metrics showing publisher growth, processing times, and citation behaviours.

We draw these data from web scrapes, requests for data from publishers, and material that is freely available through publisher websites. Our findings are based on millions of papers produced by leading academic publishers.

We find specific groups have disproportionately grown in their articles published per year, contributing to this strain. Some publishers enabled this growth by adopting a strategy of hosting special issues, which publish articles with reduced turnaround times. Given pressures on researchers to publish or perish to be competitive for funding applications, this strain was likely amplified by these offers to publish more articles.

We also observed widespread year-over-year inflation of journal impact factors coinciding with this strain, which risks confusing quality signals. Such exponential growth cannot be sustained. The metrics we define here should enable this evolving conversation to reach actionable solutions to address the strain on scientific publishing.

URL : The strain on scientific publishing

Alternative location : https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.15884

The Oligopoly’s Shift to Open Access. How the Big Five Academic Publishers Profit from Article Processing Charges

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Authors : Leigh-Ann Butler, Lisa Matthias, Marc-André Simard, Philippe Mongeon, Stefanie Haustein

This study aims to estimate the total amount of article processing charges (APCs) paid to publish open access (OA) in journals controlled by the five large commercial publishers Elsevier, Sage, Springer-Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley between 2015 and 2018.

Using publication data from WoS, OA status from Unpaywall and annual APC prices from open datasets and historical fees retrieved via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we estimate that globally authors paid $1.06 billion in publication fees to these publishers from 2015–2018.

Revenue from gold OA amounted to $612.5 million, while $448.3 million was obtained for publishing OA in hybrid journals. Among the five publishers, Springer-Nature made the most revenue from OA ($589.7 million), followed by Elsevier ($221.4 million), Wiley ($114.3 million), Taylor & Francis ($76.8 million) and Sage ($31.6 million).

With Elsevier and Wiley making most of APC revenue from hybrid fees and others focusing on gold, different OA strategies could be observed between publishers.

URL : The Oligopoly’s Shift to Open Access. How the Big Five Academic Publishers Profit from Article Processing Charges

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00272

Varieties of diffusion in academic publishing: How status and legitimacy influence growth trajectories of new innovation

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Authors : Kyle Siler, Vincent Larivière

Open Access (OA) publishing has progressed from an initial fringe idea to a still-growing, major component of modern academic communication. The proliferation of OA publishing presents a context to examine how new innovations and institutions develop.

Based on analyses of 1,296,304 articles published in 83 OA journals, we analyze changes in the institutional status, gender, age, citedness, and geographical locations of authors over time. Generally, OA journals tended towards core-to-periphery diffusion patterns.

Specifically, journal authors tended to decrease in high-status institutional affiliations, male and highly cited authors over time. Despite these general tendencies, there was substantial variation in the diffusion patterns of OA journals. Some journals exhibited no significant demographic changes, and a few exhibited periphery-to-core diffusion patterns.

We find that although both highly and less-legitimate journals generally exhibit core-to-periphery diffusion patterns, there are still demographic differences between such journals. Institutional and cultural legitimacy—or lack thereof—affects the social and intellectual diffusion of new OA journals.

URL : Varieties of diffusion in academic publishing: How status and legitimacy influence growth trajectories of new innovation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24844

Presence and consequences of positive words in scientific abstracts

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Authors : Moritz Edlinger, Finn Buchrieser, Guilherme Wood

Abstracts are the showcase of scientific studies, crafted to make an impression on the reader within a limited space and to determine the amount of attention each study receives. Systemic conditions in the sciences may change the expressive norm and incentive scientists to hype abstracts to promote their work and career. Previous studies found that terms such as “unprecedented”, “novel” and “unique” have been used increasingly in recent history, to describe one’s own research findings.

The present study investigates the use of valence-loaded scientific jargon in the abstracts of scientific articles. Sentiment analysis with dictionaries specifically attuned to detect valence-loaded scientific jargon was employed to analyze more than 2,300,000 MEDLINE abstracts from the fields of psychology, biology, and physics. Results show that over the last four decades, abstracts have contained an increasing amount of valence-loaded scientific jargon, as previously observed in earlier studies.

Moreover, our results reveal that the positive emotional content of abstracts is increasing in a way that cannot be accounted for by the increase in text length, which has also been observed in the same time period. There were small differences between scientific disciplines. A detailed analysis of the distribution of valence-loaded scientific jargon within abstracts reveals a strong concentration towards the end of the text.

We discuss these results in light of psychological evidence relating positive emotions with the propensity to overestimate the value of information to inform judgment and the increase in the competition for attention due to a pressure to publish.

URL : Presence and consequences of positive words in scientific abstracts

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04864-6

The Predatory Paradox : Ethics, Politics, and Practices in Contemporary Scholarly Publishing

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Authors : Amy Koerber, Jesse C. Starkey, Karin Ardon-Dryer, R. Glenn Cummins, Lyombe Eko, Kerk F. Kee

In today’s ‘publish or perish’ academic setting, the institutional prizing of quantity over quality has given rise to and perpetuated the dilemma of predatory publishing. Upon a close examination, however, the definition of ‘predatory’ itself becomes slippery, evading neat boxes or lists which might seek to easily define and guard against it.

This volume serves to foreground a nuanced representation of this multifaceted issue. In such a rapidly evolving landscape, this book becomes a field guide to its historical, political, and economic aspects, presenting thoughtful interviews, legal analysis and original research. Case studies from both European-American and non-European-American stakeholders emphasize the worldwide nature of the challenge faced by researchers of all levels.

This coauthored book is structured into both textual and supplemental materials. Key takeaways, discussion questions, and complete classroom activities accompanying each chapter provide opportunities for engagement and real-world applications of these concepts.

Crucially relevant to early career researchers and the senior faculty, library scholars, and administrators who mentor and support them, ‘The Predatory Paradox: Ethics, Politics, and Practices in Contemporary Scholarly Publishing’ offers practical recommendations for navigating the complex and often contradictory advice currently available. University instructors and teaching faculty will also find the reading essential in order to properly prepare both graduate and undergraduate students for the potential pitfalls endemic to scholarly publishing.

URL : The Predatory Paradox : Ethics, Politics, and Practices in Contemporary Scholarly Publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0364

The Importance of Single Source Publishing in Scientific Publishing

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Authors : Antoine Fauchié, Yann Audin

Academic publishing currently raises several issues, such as the production of multiple artifacts from a single source. The expression “single source publishing” refers to generating several formats from a single source.

A single document can be used to produce various formats, without having to switch from one process to another, whether it is a PDF format for printing, an XML export for a digital platform, or a digital version in HTML format. This editorial challenge brings up both theoretical and technical questions, such as the legitimization of content, the evolution of publishing practices, and the creation of adequate tools.

At the intersection of media studies, publishing studies, and literature, the concepts of hybridity (McLuhan, 1968), hybridization (Ludovico, 2012), or editorialization (Vitali-Rosati, 2016) allow us to question the principles of this editorial design.

URL : The Importance of Single Source Publishing in Scientific Publishing

DOI : https://doi.org/10.16995/dscn.9655

Scientific Excellence and Publication Patterns: The Winning Applicants of the Bolyai János Research Scholarship in Hungary in 2021

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Authors : Péter Sasvári, Tamás Kaiser, Krisztián Várföldi, Csaba Fási

The following paper examines some of the publishing habits observed among the winning applicants of the Bolyai János Research Scholarship. As an academic support programme, the Bolyai Research Scholarship forms a bridge between scholars with the title of doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) and the young generation of researchers with an academic degree. The winning applicants in 2021 were researchers under the age of 45, cooperating with international co-authors, having highly cited publications and showing a continuous publication history of 15 years on average.

The scholarship holders come primarily from research centres and universities. The paper argues that the achievements of scholarship holders follow the international patterns of academic excellence and publication as well as the requirements for international cooperation and publishing mainly in open access journals.

In doing so, they prefer journals under the umbrella of Elsevier for performing their publication activities; however, there has been a significant increase in those publishing in MDPI journals, recently. The results show that one-third of the applicants had published before and a fifth of them had published in one of the journals of MDPI two months after announcing the list of the winning applicants.

At the same time, differences in publication traditions and award systems reveal marked differences in publication strategies and evaluation criteria across fields of science. Based on this, the descriptive statistics presented in this paper contribute to our understanding of the conscious career planning of young scholars in line with international standards.

URL : Scientific Excellence and Publication Patterns: The Winning Applicants of the Bolyai János Research Scholarship in Hungary in 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications11030043