Archives des mots-clés : scientific communication

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

YouTube as a source of information on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine during the COVID-19 pandemic

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Authors : Thales Brandi Ramos, Luciana Castilho Bokehi, Raphael Castilho Bokehi, Taynah da Silava Pinheiro, Erika Barreto de Oliveira, Renan da SilvaGianoti Torres, Jose Raphael Bokehi, Sabrina Calil-Elias, Selma Rodrigues de Castilho

This research aimed to analyze the quality of the information conveyed through YouTube videos in Portuguese on the use of two medicines suggested for the treatment of COVID-19: chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.

The ‘Brief DISCERN’ questionnaire was applied to assess the quality of the video content as well as baseline characteristics, such as length, views, likes and dislikes, in a total of 90 videos with almost 4,5 million views.

Traditional media accounted for 58,89% of videos. Misleading information was present in most of the videos (63,5%). Despite the ease of access, the videos showed problems in the quality of information.

URL : YouTube as a source of information on chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine during the COVID-19 pandemic

DOI : https://doi.org/10.22323/2.19070206

Open Bioeconomy—A Bibliometric Study on the Accessibility of Articles in the Field of Bioeconomy

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Authors : Marianne Duquenne, Hélène Pros, Joachim Schöpfel, Franck Dumeignil

Open access (OA) to scientific information is one of the major challenges and objectives of actual public research policy. The purpose of this paper is to assess the degree of openness of scientific articles on bioeconomy, as one of the emergent research fields at the crossroads of several disciplines and with high societal and industrial impact.

Based on a Web of Science (WoS) corpus of 2489 articles published between 2015 and 2019, we calculated bibliometric indicators, explored the openness of each article and assessed the share of journals, countries and research areas of these articles.

The results show a sharp increase and diversification of articles in the field of bioeconomy, with a beginning long tail distribution. 45.6% of the articles are freely available and the share of OA articles is steadily increasing, from 31% in 2015 to 52% in 2019.

Gold is the most important variant of OA. Open access is low in the applied research areas of chemical, agricultural and environmental engineering but higher in the domains of energy and fuels, forestry and green and sustainable science and technology.

The UK and the Netherlands have the highest rates of OA articles, followed by Spain and Germany. The funding rate of OA articles is higher than of non-OA articles. This is the first bibliometric study on open access to articles on bioeconomy.

The results can be useful for the further development of OA editorial and funding criteria in the field of bioeconomy.

URL : Open Bioeconomy—A Bibliometric Study on the Accessibility of Articles in the Field of Bioeconomy

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications8040055