Étiquette : scientific communication

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Evaluation of untrustworthy journals: Transition from formal criteria to a complex view

Authors : Jiří Kratochvíl, Lukáš Plch, Martin Sebera, Eva Koriťáková

Not all the journals included in credible indexes meet the ethical rules of COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAMEand equally there may be trustworthy journals excluded from these indexes which means they cannot be used as definitive whitelists for trustworthy journals.

Equally the many methods suggested to determine trustworthiness are not reliable due to including questionable criteria. The question arises whether valid criteria for identifying an untrustworthy journal can be determined and whether other assessment procedures are necessary.

Since 2017, the Masaryk University Campus Library has been developing a suitable evaluation method for journals. A list of 19 criteria based on those originally suggested by Beall, COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME were reduced to 10 objectively verifiable criteria following two workshops with librarians.

An evaluation of 259 biomedical journals using both the list of 19 and then 10 criteria revealed that 74 journals may have been incorrectly assessed as untrustworthy using the longer list.

The most common reason for failure to comply was in the provision of sufficient editorial information and declaration of article processing charges. However our investigation revealed that no criteria can reliably identify predatory journals.

Therefore, a complex evaluation is needed combining objectively verifiable criteria with analysis of a journal’s content and knowledge of the journal’s background.

URL : https://is.muni.cz/publication/1669782/en/Kratochvil-Plch-Sebera-Koritakova/Evaluation-of-untrustworthy-journals-Transition-from-formal-criteria-to-a-complex-view

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A Provisional System to Evaluate Journal Publishers Based on Partnership Practices and Values Shared with Academic Institutions and Libraries

Author : Rachel Caldwell

Background

Journals with high impact factors (IFs) are the “coin of the realm” in many review, tenure, and promotion decisions, ipso facto, IFs influence academic authors’ views of journals and publishers. However, IFs do not evaluate how publishers interact with libraries or academic institutions.

Goal

This provisional system introduces an evaluation of publishers exclusive of IF, measuring how well a publisher’s practices align with the values of libraries and public institutions of higher education (HE). Identifying publishers with similar values may help libraries and institutions make strategic decisions about resource allocation.

Methods

Democratization of knowledge, information exchange, and the sustainability of scholarship were values identified to define partnership practices and develop a scoring system evaluating publishers. Then, four publishers were evaluated. A high score indicates alignment with the values of libraries and academic institutions and a strong partnership with HE.

Results

Highest scores were earned by a learned society publishing two journals and a library publisher supporting over 80 open-access journals.

Conclusions

Publishers, especially nonprofit publishers, could use the criteria to guide practices that align with mission-driven institutions. Institutions and libraries could use the system to identify publishers acting in good faith towards public institutions of HE.

URL : A Provisional System to Evaluate Journal Publishers Based on Partnership Practices and Values Shared with Academic Institutions and Libraries

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8030039

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Stony Brook University Author Perspectives on Article Processing Charges

Authors : Victoria Pilato, Clara Y. Tran

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of Stony Brook University (SBU) author perspectives on article processing charges (APCs). Publishing an article without restrictions, also known as open access publishing, can be a costly endeavor.

Many publishers charge APCs ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars to publish an article without access restrictions. Authors who cannot obtain funding from grant agencies or their institution must pay APCs on their own. Do APCs fundamentally impact how authors choose their preferred publication venues?

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey was designed to learn SBU author perspectives on, and concerns about, APCs.

RESULTS

Responses mainly came from the sciences. Many SBU authors preferred to publish in a prestigious journal or journal of their choice rather than in an open access journal.

Most authors published their articles in open access journals even if they were required to pay APCs. Many authors found that it was difficult finding funding for APCs and some expressed their concerns about the double charging practice. DISCUSSION SBU authors might believe that publishing in established and prestigious journals could secure their career’s advancement. Authors who chose to pay open access journals with APCs might be following publishing criteria.

Libraries can encourage authors to negotiate with publishers to obtain a discount or waiver of APCs, when possible. Institutions should negotiate shifting journal subscription costs toward hybrid open access publishing.

CONCLUSION

Data will be used to inform how the SBU Libraries can help authors locate funding opportunities for APCs.

URL : Stony Brook University Author Perspectives on Article Processing Charges

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2349

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A case study exploring associations between popular media attention of scientific research and scientific citations

Authors : P. Sage Anderson, Aubrey R. Odom, Hunter M. Gray, Jordan B. Jones, William F. Christensen, Todd Hollingshead, Joseph G. Hadfield, Alyssa Evans-Pickett, Megan Frost, Christopher Wilson, Lance E. Davidson, Matthew K. Seeley

The association between mention of scientific research in popular media (e.g., the mainstream media or social media platforms) and scientific impact (e.g., citations) has yet to be fully explored.

The purpose of this study was to clarify this relationship, while accounting for some other factors that likely influence scientific impact (e.g., the reputations of the scientists conducting the research and academic journal in which the research was published).

To accomplish this purpose, approximately 800 peer-reviewed articles describing original research were evaluated for scientific impact, popular media attention, and reputations of the scientists/authors and publication venue.

A structural equation model was produced describing the relationship between non-scientific impact (popular media) and scientific impact (citations), while accounting for author/scientist and journal reputation.

The resulting model revealed a strong association between the amount of popular media attention given to a scientific research project and corresponding publication and the number of times that publication is cited in peer-reviewed scientific literature.

These results indicate that (1) peer-reviewed scientific publications receiving more attention in non-scientific media are more likely to be cited than scientific publications receiving less popular media attention, and (2) the non-scientific media is associated with the scientific agenda.

These results may inform scientists who increasingly use popular media to inform the general public and scientists concerning their scientific work. These results might also inform administrators of higher education and research funding mechanisms, who base decisions partly on scientific impact.

URL : A case study exploring associations between popular media attention of scientific research and scientific citations

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234912

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Analysing the Usage Data of Open Access Scholarly Books: What Can Data Tell Us?

Author : Alkim Ozaygen

This study explores data captured on the Internet related to OA scholarly books to provide a detailed overall picture of the dissemination of these books beginning from the point they were made OA.

To uncover the factors that impact on the digital uses of OA books, it explores relationships between book characteristics and the characteristics and motivations of the groups using and sharing books in digital landscapes.

URI : http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/79585

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Pandemic Publishing: Medical journals drastically speed up their publication process for Covid-19

Author : Serge P.J.M. Horbach

In times of public crises, including the current Covid-19 pandemic, rapid dissemination of relevant scientific knowledge is of paramount importance. The duration of scholarly journals’ publication process is one of the main factors hindering quick delivery of new information.

While proper editorial assessment and peer review obviously require some time, turnaround times for medical journals can be up to several months, which is undesirable in the era of a crisis. Following initiatives of medical journals and scholarly publishers to accelerate their publication process, this study assesses whether medical journals have indeed managed to speed up their publication process for Covid-19 related articles.

It studies the duration of 14 medical journals’ publication process both during and prior to the current pandemic. Assessing a total of 669 articles, the study concludes that medical journals have indeed drastically accelerated the publication process for Covid-19 related articles since the outbreak of the pandemic. Compared to articles published in the same journals before the pandemic, turnaround times have decreased on average by 49%.

The largest decrease in number of days between submission and publication of articles was due to a decrease in the number of days required for peer review. For articles not related to Covid-19, no acceleration of the publication process is found.

While the acceleration of journals’ publication process is laudable from the perspective of quick information dissemination, it also raises concerns relating to the quality of the peer review process and the quality of the resulting publications.

URL : https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.18.045963

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Wikipedia Citations: A comprehensive dataset of citations with identifiers extracted from English Wikipedia

Authors : Harshdeep Singh, Robert West, Giovanni Colavizza

Wikipedia’s contents are based on reliable and published sources. To this date, little is known about what sources Wikipedia relies on, in part because extracting citations and identifying cited sources is challenging. To close this gap, we release Wikipedia Citations, a comprehensive dataset of citations extracted from Wikipedia.

A total of 29.3M citations were extracted from 6.1M English Wikipedia articles as of May 2020, and classified as being to books, journal articles or Web contents. We were thus able to extract 4.0M citations to scholarly publications with known identifiers — including DOI, PMC, PMID, and ISBN — and further labeled an extra 261K citations with DOIs from Crossref.

As a result, we find that 6.7% of Wikipedia articles cite at least one journal article with an associated DOI. Scientific articles cited from Wikipedia correspond to 3.5% of all articles with a DOI currently indexed in the Web of Science. We release all our code to allow the community to extend upon our work and update the dataset in the future.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.07022