Archives des mots-clés : scientific communication

An intersectional approach to analyse gender productivity and open access: a bibliometric analysis of the Italian National Research Council

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Authors : Roberta Ruggieri, Fabrizio Pecoraro, Daniela Luzi

Gender equality and Open Access (OA) are priorities within the European Research Area and cross-cutting issues in European research program H2020. Gender and openness are also key elements of responsible research and innovation.

However, despite the common underlying targets of fostering an inclusive, transparent and sustainable research environment, both issues are analysed as independent topics. This paper represents a first exploration of the inter-linkages between gender and OA analysing the scientific production of researchers of the Italian National Research Council under a gender perspective integrated with the different OA publications modes.

A bibliometric analysis was carried out for articles published in the period 2016–2018 and retrieved from the Web of Science. Results are presented constantly analysing CNR scientific production in relation to gender, disciplinary fields and OA publication modes.

These variables are also used when analysing articles that receive financial support. Our results indicate that gender disparities in scientific production still persist particularly in STEM disciplines, while the gender gap is the closest to parity in medical and agricultural sciences.

A positive dynamic toward OA publishing and women’s scientific production is shown when disciplines with well-established open practices are related to articles supported by funds. A slightly higher women’s propensity toward OA is shown when considering Gold OA, or authorships with women in the first and last article by-line position.

The prevalence of Italian funded articles with women’s contributions published in Gold OA journals seems to confirm this tendency, especially if considering the weak enforcement of the Italian OA policies.

URL : An intersectional approach to analyse gender productivity and open access: a bibliometric analysis of the Italian National Research Council

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03802-0

‘Communists of Knowledge’? A case for the implementation of ‘radical open access’ in the humanities and social sciences

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Author : Eleanor Masterman

Open access (OA) has widely been touted as a ‘radical’ alternative to the traditional scholarly publishing system, which has faced heavy criticism in the last twenty years for its oligopolistic market and high profit margins.

Yet, this dissertation argues that – especially in scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishing – OA under the ‘author-pays’ model has largely become part of that system, as another revenue stream for the largest commercial publishers.

My study contributes to a growing body of literature that seeks instead to re-politicise OA for the humanities and social sciences (HSS), a sector where the topic is still marked by discussion and debate, by critiquing its subordinance to market logic.

Adopting an explicitly political definition of ‘radical’, this study attempts to answer the question ‘Could open access facilitate a radical approach to academic publishing in the humanities and social sciences?’.

By performing a landscape study of the not-for-profit Radical Open Access Collective (Collective), this dissertation assesses and evaluates the radicalism of various different routes to OA in HSS.

It promotes the benefits of a self-reflexive approach to OA and the Collective’s networked model of smaller presses, while noting that low levels of marketing and indexing are detrimental to its research’s discoverability.

It also highlights that OA practice, even in the Collective, remains unduly influenced by harmful vestiges of the competitive market, notably prestige and academic colonialism.

Finally, this work proposes distinguishing ‘radical open access’ as a specific subsection of the wider OA movement and offers recommendations for a more radical future of HSS publishing.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/t5n3-x550

Waiving article processing charges for least developed countries: a keystone of a large-scale open access transformation

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Authors : Niels Taubert, Andre Bruns, Christopher Lenke, Graham Stone

This article investigates whether it is economically feasible for a large publishing house to waive article processing charges for the group of 47 so-called least developed countries (LDC). As an example, Springer Nature is selected.

The analysis is based on the Web of Science, OpenAPC and the Jisc Collections’ Springer Compact journal list. As a result, it estimates an average yearly publication output of 520 publications (or 0.26% of the worldwide publication output in Springer Nature journals) for the LDC country group.

The loss of revenues for Springer Nature would be US$1.1 million if a waiver was applied for all of these countries. Given that the subject categories of these publications indicate the output is of high societal relevance for LDC, and given that money is indispensable for development in these countries (e.g. life expectancy, health, education), it is not only desirable but also possible in economic terms for a publisher like Springer Nature to waive APCs for these countries without much loss in revenues.

URL : Waiving article processing charges for least developed countries: a keystone of a large-scale open access transformation

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.526

Academic Impact of Articles by Practitioners in the Field of Library and Information Science

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Author : Yu-Wei Chang

This study measured the relative academic impact of articles by LIS practitioners by analyzing library and information science articles published between 2005 and 2014. The results revealed that, although practitioners were not the main knowledge contributors, the academic impact of articles by practitioners was not significantly lower than that of articles by academics.

No significant differences in academic impact were present between any two types of coauthored articles. Articles from academic–practitioner collaboration were cited earlier than articles from practitioner–practitioner and academic–academic collaborations.

This study suggests that LIS practitioners appear to benefit from collaborative scholarship with LIS researchers through more citations and higher impact.

URL : Academic Impact of Articles by Practitioners in the Field of Library and Information Science

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.82.1.59

Open access to health and education research outside academia: perspectives of research users, research intermediaries and researchers

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Author : Emily Nunn

The thesis investigates how publics outside academia engage with ideas of open access (OA) to research publications. To do this, it analyses data from interviews with users of health and education research in two non-academic contexts, as well as with researchers interested in communicating their work to wider audiences. It draws on constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) and situational analysis (Clarke, 2005).

The literature review highlighted a need to empirically explore OA outside academia. The study focused on the ways in which publications were accessed and used outside academia and the factors enabling and preventing access.

It also explored perceptions of OA within a wider context of communicating research to non- academic audiences, and identified areas of contestation. The study found that there was a demand for OA, although the demand was perceived to be limited. There were significant sources of friction in accessing research publications, including paywalls, which could be circumvented through file/password sharing and drawing on contacts.

Conceptual access (e.g. understandability) was also found to prevent engagement with research publications in some cases, although this varied according to levels of expertise. The study identified research intermediaries as playing an important dual role, as they accessed research in order to make it accessible to a wider audience.

The study found a disconnect between some OA advocacy and research-user perceptions. and a disconnect between researchers’ commitment to communicating their work outside the academy and their support of OA.

Attitudes towards OA were influenced by bureaucratic mandates, high APCs and belief that there would be little demand for their research. Findings indicated however, that OA could complement other forms of research communication in specific contexts.

Finally, the study suggested that a narrow focus on ‘tangible outcomes’ for non- academic publics (Moore, 2019) risked obscuring attempts to develop a more equitable scholarly communications system.

URL : Open access to health and education research outside academia: perspectives of research users, research intermediaries and researchers

Original location : https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/23582/

Can scholarly pirate libraries bridge the knowledge access gap? An empirical study on the structural conditions of book piracy in global and European academia

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Authors : Balázs Bodó, Dániel Antal, Zoltán Puha

Library Genesis is one of the oldest and largest illegal scholarly book collections online. Without the authorization of copyright holders, this shadow library hosts and makes more than 2 million scholarly publications, monographs, and textbooks available.

This paper analyzes a set of weblogs of one of the Library Genesis mirrors, provided to us by one of the service’s administrators. We reconstruct the social and economic factors that drive the global and European demand for illicit scholarly literature.

In particular, we test if lower income regions can compensate for the shortcomings in legal access infrastructures by more intensive use of illicit open resources. We found that while richer regions are the most intensive users of shadow libraries, poorer regions face structural limitations that prevent them from fully capitalizing on freely accessible knowledge.

We discuss these findings in the wider context of open access publishing, and point out that open access knowledge, if not met with proper knowledge absorption infrastructures, has limited usefulness in addressing knowledge access and production inequalities.

URL : Can scholarly pirate libraries bridge the knowledge access gap? An empirical study on the structural conditions of book piracy in global and European academia

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242509

Implementing the RDA Research Data Policy Framework in Slovenian Scientific Journals

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Authors: Janez Štebe, Maja Dolinar, Sonja Bezjak, Ana Inkret

The paper aims to present the implementation of the RDA research data policy framework in Slovenian scientific journals within the project RDA Node Slovenia. The activity aimed to implement the practice of data sharing and data citation in Slovenian scientific journals and was based on internationally renowned practices and policies, particularly the Research Data Policy Framework of the RDA Data Policy Standardization and Implementation Interest Group.

Following this, the RDA Node Slovenia coordination prepared a guidance document that allowed the four pilot participating journals (from fields of archaeology, history, linguistics and social sciences) to adjust their journal policies regarding data sharing, data citation, adapted the definitions of research data and suggested appropriate data repositories that suit their disciplinary specifics.

The comparison of results underlines how discipline-specific the aspects of data-sharing are. The pilot proved that a grass-root approach in advancing open science can be successful and well-received in the research community, however, it also pointed out several issues in scientific publishing that would benefit from a planned action on a national level.

The context of an underdeveloped data sharing culture, slow implementation of open data strategy by the national research funder and sparse national data service infrastructure creates a unique environment for this study, the result of which can be used in similar contexts worldwide.

URL : Implementing the RDA Research Data Policy Framework in Slovenian Scientific Journals

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-049