« This article sets the scene for the special issue on research data and publishing. Research data – that material commonly accepted by the scholarly community as required evidence for hypotheses and insights, for verification and/or reproducibility of experiments – has become an increasingly critical issue for publishers given recent developments in funders’ mandates, technological advances, policymakers’ interests, and so forth. I outline some of the recent initiatives that are responding to policy directives, particularly Project ODE, and consider how publishers are working with data and integrating their practices with other collaborative efforts. A summary of the new policies, products, and partnerships demonstrates that the onus is now with scholarly publishers to gain an understanding of these developments and how they are affecting fellow key stakeholders within the research communications ecosystem. »
Étiquette : Scholarly Publishing
It is important for journal editors to keep up to date with the changes happening in the international journal environment to ensure that their own publications remain current and meet international expectations. Dramatic changes have taken place in the journals environment during the last two decades, frequently driven by technology but also by increased global participation in scholarly and scientific research and concern about the commercial influence on dissemination of knowledge. Technical solutions have attempted to address the growth in research but have sometimes added to the tsunami of information and increased the need to manage quality.
To this end experiments with the traditional quality control and dissemination systems have been attempted, but news of improvements are frequently overshadowed by alarms about ethical problems. There is particular concern about some of the new publishers who are not adhering to established quality control and ethical practices. Within a potentially fragmenting system, however, there are also emerging collaborative projects helping to knit together the different elements of the publishing landscape to improve quality, linkages and access.
URL : The big picture: scholarly publishing trends 2014
Alternative URL : http://dx.doi.org/10.6087/kcse.2014.1.52
« The scholarly communication and research evaluation landscape is locked into historical paradigms which inadequately reflect the opportunities of the digital era. Why hasn’t the Internet disrupted the practices and the economics of scholarly publishing? The article traces how university library budgets have become dominated by a small number of multinational publishers and attempts at scholarly communication change have only had limited impact, despite the opportunities for increased global distribution of research scholarship. Open access initiatives are assessed in relation to future scholarly communication change in which university libraries play an increasing role in campus scholarly ecosystems. »
The present study has investigated the trends of open access journals appeared in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). It provides an insight to the open access publishing in the field of chemistry based on the data collected from DOAJ. The DOAJ available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Website lists Open Access Journals and is maintained by Infrastructure Services for Open Access (IS4OA). Notably, it has listed about 9804 journals across 124 countries till 8th January 2014. Out of 9804 journals, 164 (1.67%) journals are listed under Chemistry.
The data was extracted in excel format and analysis was carried out on the basis of subject coverage, decade and year, country of origin, publisher, language, format and Indian contribution to OA journals. The select subject i.e. Chemistry is being categorised into Chemistry General, Chemical Engineering, Analytical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry. It was found that out of 164 journals from chemistry, majority of the open access journals belong to the category chemistry general and contribute some about 68.9% of the total chemistry journals in DOAJ. Though the maximum growth of these journals has been recorded in the decade 2000s, however in 2011, a record number of 30 journals of Chemistry appeared in DOAJ.
Interestingly, India contributed 24 OA journals and is placed second after Egypt in publishing OA journals in chemistry. Further, it has been found that commercial publishers with 29 journals are the major contributors to OA in DOAJ with Hindawi Publishing Corporation as the leading contributor. Moreover, English has been found as the most popular language of OA journals. While as Indian Academy of Sciences: Chemical Sciences is reported to be the oldest journal publishing since 2005.
« This study explored national differences in plagiarism and duplicate publication in retracted biomedical literature. The national affiliations of authors and reasons for retraction of papers accessible through PubMed that were published from 2008 to 2012 and subsequently retracted were determined in order to identify countries with the largest numbers and highest rates of retraction due to plagiarism and duplicate publication. Authors from more than fifty countries retracted papers. While the United States retracted the most papers, China retracted the most papers for plagiarism and duplicate publication. Rates of plagiarism and duplicate publication were highest in Italy and Finland, respectively. Unethical publishing practices cut across nations. »
« The role of publisher is increasingly assumed by academic and research libraries, usually inspired by campus-based demands for digital publishing platforms to support e-journals, conference proceedings, technical reports, and database-driven websites. Although publishing is compatible with librarians’ traditional strengths, there are additional skill sets that library publishers must master in order to provide robust publishing services to their academic communities.
To help library publishing services mature into a consistent field of practice, practitioners in this growing publishing subfield increasingly cite their need for specialized training and professional development opportunities. For example, the authors’ conversations with participants in the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC), a collaborative network of 60 North American academic libraries involved in publishing, have revealed that no existing graduate-level training program adequately prepares practitioners for the full range of theoretical, practical, and organizational issues involved in publishing. LPC participants have also noted the relative lack of continuing education opportunities targeted toward those who are engaging in publishing—whether in a library, university press, or commercial publishing environment.
This essay provides a brief history of publisher training and uses this context to think about how and where library publishers may engage in capacity building to inform and train this growing publishing subfield. Throughout the essay, we integrate findings from a series of interviews conducted by the authors with 11 industry leaders from several publishing sectors, including university presses, library publishers, and commercial publishers (see Appendix A). We conclude with recommendations for pathways forward, focusing on seven key areas in which library publishers need additional training opportunities. This essay focuses primarily on North American activities. »
« Publishing education arose in the 20th century in response to a need for trained employees in a stable industry with a well understood set of competencies and skills. Today, the publishing landscape is disrupted, and that stability is seriously threatened. Given these circumstances, what is the role for university-level publishing education? This article argues for a model of university-level (graduate and undergraduate) publishing education that builds upon a vocational self-identification of incoming students, nurtures a community of practice and professional discourse, and in doing so generates and renews the very culture of publishing. In times of transition and disruption, this is a role uniquely suited to the university, where an environment of collaborative research, development, and innovation can be cultivated. »