scientific communication – Page 180

Just Roll with It Rolling Volumes vs Discrete…

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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.”

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss4/2/

Open access publishing a catalyst for scholarly research…

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Open access publishing: a catalyst for scholarly research publication :

“Technology has been a key driving force for change and emergence of new technology has brought a revolution in disseminating and sharing of research outputs at faster speed worldwide. Open access (OA) as a means for free availability of scholarly content via the Internet has enormous benefits accrue to the OA stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to review all activities that can sensitize researchers and the scholarly community at large regarding the new publishing opportunity for dissemination of their research outputs at faster speed. The paper examines the open access OA concept, characteristics of OA and its growth. It also discusses open access models, OA benefits and copyright in digital era. Critical analysis of the rational for copyright law and fair for dealing were examined. It was inferred that OA as an accelerator for innovation, helps speedy the translation of ideas into innovative new services, products and other commercial ventures that fuel economic growth.”

URL : http://www.idpublications.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Paper-Open-access-publishing.pdf

Toward Reproducible Computational Research: An Empirical Analysis of Data and Code Policy Adoption by Journals

Posté le 1 juillet 2013 par Hans Dillaerts

Journal policy on research data and code availability is an important part of the ongoing shift toward publishing reproducible computational science. This article extends the literature by studying journal data sharing policies by year (for both 2011 and 2012) for a referent set of 170 journals.

We make a further contribution by evaluating code sharing policies, supplemental materials policies, and open access status for these 170 journals for each of 2011 and 2012.

We build a predictive model of open data and code policy adoption as a function of impact factor and publisher and find higher impact journals more likely to have open data and code policies and scientific societies more likely to have open data and code policies than commercial publishers.

We also find open data policies tend to lead open code policies, and we find no relationship between open data and code policies and either supplemental material policies or open access journal status.

Of the journals in this study, 38% had a data policy, 22% had a code policy, and 66% had a supplemental materials policy as of June 2012. This reflects a striking one year increase of 16% in the number of data policies, a 30% increase in code policies, and a 7% increase in the number of supplemental materials policies.

We introduce a new dataset to the community that categorizes data and code sharing, supplemental materials, and open access policies in 2011 and 2012 for these 170 journals.

URL : http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0067111

arXiv e-prints and the journal of record: An analysis of roles and relationships

Posté le 17 juin 2013 par Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Vincent Larivière, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Benoit Macaluso, Staša Milojević, Blaise Cronin, Mike Thelwal

Since its creation in 1991, arXiv has become central to the diffusion of research in a number of fields. Combining data from the entirety of arXiv and the Web of Science (WoS), this paper investigates (a) the proportion of papers across all disciplines that are on arXiv and the proportion of arXiv papers that are in the WoS, (b) elapsed time between arXiv submission and journal publication, and (c) the aging characteristics and scientific impact of arXiv e-prints and their published version.

It shows that the proportion of WoS papers found on arXiv varies across the specialties of physics and mathematics, and that only a few specialties make extensive use of the repository.

Elapsed time between arXiv submission and journal publication has shortened but remains longer in mathematics than in physics. In physics, mathematics, as well as in astronomy and astrophysics, arXiv versions are cited more promptly and decay faster than WoS papers.

The arXiv versions of papers – both published and unpublished – have lower citation rates than published papers, although there is almost no difference in the impact of the arXiv versions of both published and unpublished papers.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.3261

The future of scholarly communication US efforts to…

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The future of scholarly communication: US efforts to bring warring factions to common purpose in support of scholarship :

“Key stakeholders in scholarly communication have been at odds over the purpose, mission and business models of publishing. This piece reviews developments in the United States but with a particular focus on efforts at reestablishing common purpose, such as (1) the Scholarly Publishing Roundtable created in June 2009 by the Chairman of Science and Technology Committee of the US House of Representatives; (2) the Task force of the Association of American Universities and Association of Research Libraries established in 2012 to focus on university presses, scholarly journals and institutional repositories; and (3) the Office of Science and Technology Policy Memorandum of February 22, 2013 on Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research.”

URL : http://iospress.metapress.com/content/u727847272r65681/?id=U727847272R65681

Open access scholarly publications as OER This…

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Open access scholarly publications as OER :

“This article presents the rationale, common practices, challenges, and some personal anecdotes from a journal editor on the production, use, and re-use of peer-reviewed, scholarly articles as open educational resources (OER). The scholarly and professional discourse related to open educational resources has largely focused on open learning objects, courseware, and textbooks. However, especially in graduate education, articles published in scholarly journals are often a major component of the course content in formal education. In addition, open access journal articles are critical to expanding access to knowledge by scholars in the developing world and in fostering citizen science, by which everyone has access to the latest academic information and research results. In this article, I highlight some of the challenges, economic models, and evidence for quality of open access journal content and look at new affordances provided by the Net for enhanced functionality, access, and distribution.
In the seventeen years since I graduated with a doctorate degree, the climate and acceptance of open access publishing has almost reversed itself. I recall a conversation with my PhD supervisor in which he argued that publishing online was not a viable option as the product would not have permanency, scholarly recognition, or the prestige of a paper publication. His comments reflect the confusion between online resources and those described as open access, but as well illustrate the change in academic acceptance and use of open access products during the past decade. The evolution from paper to online production and consumption is a disruptive technology in which much lower cost and increased accessibility of online work opens the product to a completely new group of potential users. In the case of OER these consumers are primarily students, but certainly access to scholars from all parts of the globe and the availability to support citizen science (Silvertown, 2009) should not be underestimated.”

URL : http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1531