Global OA APCs (APC) 2010–2017: Major Trends

Author : Heather Morrison

The open access (OA) article processing charges (APC) project is a longitudinal study of the minority of fully OA journals (27% in 2016) that have APCs. The global average APC shows little change; in USD, 906 in 2010, 964 in 2016, 974 in 2017.

The average masks currency differences and the impact of a growing market; new APC journals often start with an APC of 0. Traditional commercial scholarly publishers are entering the OA market: the largest OA journal publishers’ portfolios in 2017 were Springer, De Gruyter, Elsevier, and Wolters Kluwer Medknow.

However, these are a small portion of OA journal publishing which is still marked by a very long tail and extensive involvement by very small, often university or society publishers. APC pricing shows a wide range and variability. The APC market can be described as volatile.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01816699

Zombie Journals: Designing a Technological Infrastructure for a Precarious Journal

Authors : Daniel Paul O’Donnell, Carey Viejou, Sylvia Chow, Rumi Graham, Jarret McKinnon, Dorothea Morrison, Reed Parsons, Courtney Rieger, Vanja Spirić, Elaine Toth

Background

The Meeting of the Minds graduate student journal is edited primarily by students from our Masters programme. This means that our editorial board is subject to high annual turnover and that our technological infrastructure and workflow needed to be easy to train for, accommodate differing levels of technological skill and editorial interest, and provide archiving that did not require a continuing interest in the journal by future generations of students.

Analysis

This article provides a detailed and comparative account of the “off-the-shelf ” systems and software used in developing the journal with an explanation of the rationale behind our choices.

Conclusion and implications

The choices we made can be adopted by other journals interested in a low-cost, “future-proof ” approach to developing a publishing infrastructure.

URL : Zombie Journals: Designing a Technological Infrastructure for a Precarious Journal

DOI : https://src-online.ca/index.php/src/article/view/296

A Case Study for a New Peer-Review Journal on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education

Author : Cristobal Salinas Jr.

In this exploratory case study, the interests, attitudes, and opinions of participants of the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE) in American Higher Education are presented.

This case study sought to understand how college and university administrators and faculty perceived the need to create a peer-reviewed journal that aimed to support and create opportunities to publish research, policy, practices, and procedures within the context of race and ethnicity in American higher education.

The findings of this study reflect that the vast majority of those surveyed (n = 605) and interviewed (n = 5) support, and are interested in, having a peer-reviewed journal that focuses on race and ethnicity in American higher education.

URL : A Case Study for a New Peer-Review Journal on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications6020026

Prepublication disclosure of scientific results: Norms, competition, and commercial orientation

Authors : Jerry G. Thursby, Carolin Haeussler, Marie C. Thursby, Lin Jiang

On the basis of a survey of 7103 active faculty researchers in nine fields, we examine the extent to which scientists disclose prepublication results, and when they do, why? Except in two fields, more scientists disclose results before publication than not, but there is significant variation in their reasons to disclose, in the frequency of such disclosure, and in withholding crucial results when making public presentations.

They disclose results for feedback and credit and to attract collaborators. Particularly in formulaic fields, scientists disclose to attract new researchers to the field independent of collaboration and to deter others from working on their exact problem.

A probability model shows that 70% of field variation in disclosure is related to differences in respondent beliefs about norms, competition, and commercialization. Our results suggest new research directions—for example, do the problems addressed or the methods of scientific production themselves shape norms and competition?

Are the levels we observe optimal or simply path-dependent? What is the interplay of norms, competition, and commercialization in disclosure and the progress of science?

URL : Prepublication disclosure of scientific results: Norms, competition, and commercial orientation

DOI : http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/5/eaar2133

Predatory Publishers using Spamming Strategies for Call for Papers and Review Requests : A Case Study

Author : Alexandru-Ionut Petrisor

Spam e-mail and calls from the predatory publishers are very similar in purpose: they are deceptive and produce material losses. Moreover, the predatory publishers show evolving strategies to lure potential victims, as their number increases. In an effort to help researchers defending against their constant menace, this article aims to identify a set of common features of spam e-mail and calls from predatory publishers.

The methodology consisted of a comparative analysis of data found on the Internet and e-mails received at several addresses during December 2017 – January 2018. The results indicate that concealed, fake or disguised identity of the sender and/or of the message, mass mailing, missing or useless opt-out option and an obvious commercial character are the most prominent common features.

Moreover, the location of predatory publishers is well disguised; the analysis of the real location, found using web-based tools, suggests a joint management or at least a concerted action of several publishers, and raises additional questions related to the reasons of masking the true location.

From a theoretical standpoint, the results show, once again, that predatory publishers are a part of the worldwide scam, and should be ‘convicted’ in a similar way, including the means of legal actions. From a practical perspective, distinct recommendations were phrased for researchers, policy makers, libraries, and future research.

URL : Predatory Publishers using Spamming Strategies for Call for Papers and Review Requests : A Case Study

Alternative location : http://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/index.php/djlit/article/view/12551

Reflections on the Future of Research Curation and Research Reproducibility

Authors : John Baillieul, Gerry Grenier, Gianluca Setti

In the years since the launch of the World Wide Web in 1993, there have been profoundly transformative changes to the entire concept of publishing—exceeding all the previous combined technical advances of the centuries following the introduction of movable type in medieval Asia around the year 10001 and the subsequent large-scale commercialization of printing several centuries later by J. Gutenberg (circa 1440).

Periodicals in print—from daily newspapers to scholarly journals—are now quickly disappearing, never to return, and while no publishing sector has been unaffected, many scholarly journals are almost unrecognizable in comparison with their counterparts of two decades ago.

To say that digital delivery of the written word is fundamentally different is a huge understatement. Online publishing permits inclusion of multimedia and interactive content that add new dimensions to what had been available in print-only renderings.

As of this writing, the IEEE portfolio of journal titles comprises 59 online only2 (31%) and 132 that are published in both print and online. The migration from print to online is more stark than these numbers indicate because of the 132 periodicals that are both print and online, the print runs are now quite small and continue to decline.

In short, most readers prefer to have their subscriptions fulfilled by digital renderings only.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1109/JPROC.2018.2816618

Understanding the needs of scholars in a contemporary publishing environment: Survey results

Author : PWW Research Team

Publishing Without Walls (PWW) is a Mellon-funded initiative at the University of Illinois led by the University Library in partnership with the School of Information Sciences, the department of African American Studies, and the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities.

Our project is developing a scalable, sustainable model for library-based digital scholarly publishing. The model aims to lower publishing barriers – both for scholars new to digital publishing and for institutions with limited resources – while opening publications to the widest possible readership.

With a goal of broad adoption in academic libraries, our model locates the humanities scholar at the center of the scholarly communication ecosystem and affords services that are informed by and responsive to scholarly needs.

The research guiding development of this model aims to identify and explore perceived gaps in the current publishing system, including the gap between what and how scholars want to publish and what existing systems accommodate; the gap between the everyday practices of humanities scholars and tools for producing and supporting digital scholarship; and the gap between digital scholarship and publishing opportunities at resource-rich institutions and resource-limited institutions, especially Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

This report gives the results of one piece of an ongoing, multimodal research effort. Through a large-scale survey and a series of interviews with humanities scholars, this effort aims to lay a solid foundation of understanding about scholarly needs in the contemporary publishing environment.

This report explains the survey method, gives a summary of participants’ self-reported demographics, and details survey results, proceeding question by question. The goal of this report is not to provide interpretation of the meaning or significance of survey results, but to document the results themselves as a foundation for future interpretation, and for informing ongoing research and development of the publishing service model.

URL : Understanding the needs of scholars in a contemporary publishing environment: Survey results

URI : http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98576