Étiquette : Scholarly Publishing

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Journal Usage Half Life An analysis of…

Journal Usage Half-Life :

“An analysis of article downloads from 2,812 academic and professional journals published by 13 presses in the sciences, social sciences , and the humanities reveals extensive
usage of articles years after publication. Measuring usage half life — the median age of articles downloaded from a publisher’s web site — just 3% of journals had half lives shorter than 12 months. While journal usage half lives were typically shorter for journals in the Health Sciences (median half life: 25-36 months), they were considerably longer for journals in the Humanities, Physics and Mathematics (median half life: 49-60 months). Nearly 17% (475) of all journals had usage half lives exceeding six years. This study illustrates substantial variation in the usage half lives of journals both within and across subject disciplines.”

URL : http://www.publishers.org/_attachments/docs/journalusagehalflife.pdf

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Library as Scholarly Publishing Partner: Keys to Success

“Many academic libraries are looking at new ways to add value when they deliver services to faculty, and one potential area where the library can provide new services is in partnering with academic staff to support the dissemination of faculty research. Librarians have traditionally helped faculty researchers at the beginning of the research cycle, with the discovery and delivery of information sources. However, they are now playing a role at the end of the research cycle, providing services that support scholarly publishing. This paper examines library participation in faculty-led publishing ventures. In particular, it explores the value that smaller research libraries can provide to faculty editors through journal hosting, which will be analysed through an examination of the successful migration of the Australian Journal of Teacher Education, a faculty-administered journal at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia, to the University’s institutional repository. This transition provided library staff members at Edith Cowan University opportunities to develop new knowledge and skills in journal publishing, while meeting the journal’s need for a better way to manage a growing influx of article submissions. The resultant faculty-library partnership enabled more effective management of the journal and has contributed to its growing success. The evaluative framework developed to enable assessment of the success of this journal’s transition can help other libraries demonstrate the success of their own journal hosting ventures.”

URL : Library as Scholarly Publishing Partner_ Keys to Success

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1091

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Just Roll with It Rolling Volumes vs Discrete…

Just Roll with It? Rolling Volumes vs. Discrete Issues in Open Access Library and Information Science Journals :

“INTRODUCTION : Articles in open access (OA) journals can be published on a rolling basis, as they become ready, or in complete, discrete issues. This study examines the prevalence of and reasons for rolling volumes vs. discrete issues among scholarly OA library and information science (LIS) journals based in the United States.
METHODS : A survey was distributed to journal editors, asking them about their publication model and their reasons for and satisfaction with that model. RESULTS Of the 21 responding journals, 12 publish in discrete issues, eight publish in rolling volumes, and one publishes in rolling volumes with an occasional special issue. Almost all editors, regardless of model, cited ease of workflow as a justification for their chosen publication model, suggesting that there is no single best workflow for all journals. However, while all rolling-volume editors reported being satisfied with their model, satisfaction was less universal among discrete-issue editors.
DISCUSSION : The unexpectedly high number of rolling-volume journals suggests that LIS journal editors are making forward-looking choices about publication models even though the topic has not been much addressed in the library literature. Further research is warranted; possibilities include expanding the study’s geographic scope, broadening the study to other disciplines, and investigating publication model trends across the entire scholarly OA universe.
CONCLUSION : Both because satisfaction is high among editors of rolling-volume journals and because readers and authors appreciate quick publication times, the rolling-volume model will likely become even more prevalent in coming years.”

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SciELO 15 Years of Open Access an analytic…

SciELO – 15 Years of Open Access: an analytic study on Open Access and scholarly communication :

“The 15 year path taken by the SciELO Program in bringing about the improvement of the academic journals which it indexes and publishes in Open Access – a path which it continues to follow to this day – is examined from various perspectives such as the rationale and objectives of the program, its origin in Brazil and expansion to 15 other countries, the results it has achieved, its quality control and production system, the technological platform and the impact that has been made by the Program.”

URL : http://www.scielo.org/php/level.php?component=42&item=29&lang=en

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Encouraging Digital Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities White…

Encouraging Digital Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities: White Paper :

“This project, led by the University Press of North Georgia, and funded by a Digital Start-Up grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities focused on exploring the peer review process and increasing its usefulness to presses and scholars publishing digitally. By exploring this issues we have made recommendations for best practices in digital publishing, specifically for small academic presses. Through surveys and a workshop of key stakeholder groups (press directors, college administrators, humanities faculty, and library/technology center directors), we found a strong investment in the “gold standard” of double- or single-blind peer review. Working within the current academic publishing structure (including publishing in print) was a priority, even to presses and faculty members who were actively exploring digital publishing and open access models. On closer inspection, we realized that the various stakeholders valued the current peer review process for different reasons. And we found that the value of peer review goes beyond vetting the quality of scholarship and manuscript content. Based on these findings, we considered ways to obtain these benefits within the current academic structure through innovative peer review processes. At the same time, we looked for ways of offsetting potential risks associated with these alternative methods. We considered cost effective ways to accommodate the needs of the disparate constituencies involved in academic publishing while allowing room for digital publishing. While our findings focus primarily on small academic presses, they also have significant implications for the open access community.”

URL : http://ung.edu/college-of-arts-and-letters/encouraging-digital-publishing/

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Scholar Librarian Collaboration in the Publication of Scholarly…

Scholar-Librarian Collaboration in the Publication of Scholarly Materials :

“Recent developments in scholarly publication and the new directions being pursued in both humanities departments and libraries in the production of digital content provide opportunity for scholars and li-braries to explore new models for working together to produce and disseminate scholarly materials. We offer as a first step toward a model for publication the case of Opuscula: Short Texts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (OSTMAR), a hybrid form of publication that leverages the university library infrastructure to create a platform for the publication of scholarly primary materials, an area of publication formerly re-served for the commercial press. This model is dependent on close collaboration between scholar and librarian, the nuances of which are outlined in this paper.”

URL : http://collaborativelibrarianship.org/index.php/jocl/article/view/243

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Open Access And Scholarly Monographs in Canada

“The unprecedented access to knowledge enabled by the internet is a critical development in the democratization of education. The Open Access (OA) movement argues that scholarly research is a common good that should be freely available. In theory, university presses concur, however, providing such access is largely unsupportable within current business model parameters.

This study presents an overview of OA in North America and Europe, focusing on the Canadian context. Given their relatively small market and current funding models, Canadian scholarly presses differ somewhat from American and European publishers vis-à-vis OA. Drawing both on information from industry stakeholders and relevant research, this paper aims to clarify how Canadian university presses might proceed with respect to OA. While the study does not make specific recommendations, possible business models are presented that might help university presses offset the cost of offering OA to the important body of scholarship that they publish.”

URL : http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/2013/08/open-access-and-scholarly-monographs-in-canada/