Open access publications drive few visits from Google Search results to institutional repositories

Authors : Enrique Orduña‑Malea, Cristina I. Font‑Julián

Given the importance of Google Search in generating visits to institutional repositories (IR), a lack of visibility in search engine results pages can hinder the possibility of their publications being found, read, downloaded, and, eventually, cited.

To address this, institutions need to evaluate the visibility of their repositories to determine what actions might be implemented to enhance them. However, measuring the search engine optimization (SEO) visibility of IRs requires a highly accurate, technically feasible method. This study constitutes the first attempt to design such a method, specifically applied here to measuring the IR visibility of Spain’s national university system in Google Search based on a set of SEO-based metrics derived from the Ubersuggest SEO tool.

A comprehensive dataset spanning three months and comprising 217,589 bibliographic records and 316,899 organic keywords is used as a baseline. Our findings show that many records deposited in these repositories are not ranked among the top positions in Google Search results, and that the most visible records are mainly academic works (theses and dissertations) written in Spanish in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

However, most visits are generated by a small number of records. All in all, our results call into question the role played by IRs in attracting readers via Google Search to the institutions’ scientific heritage and serve to underscore the prevailing emphasis within IRs on preservation as opposed to online dissemination.

Potential improvements might be achieved using enhanced metadata schemes and normalized description practices, as well as by adopting other actionable insights that can strengthen the online visibility of IRs.

This study increases understanding of the role played by web indicators in assessing the web-based impact of research outputs deposited in IRs, and should be of particular interest for a range of stakeholders, including open access and open science advocates, research agencies, library practitioners, repository developers, and website administrators.

URL : Open access publications drive few visits from Google Search results to institutional repositories

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05175-0

The promotion and implementation of open science measures among high-performing journals from Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain

Authors : Chris Fradkin, Rogério Mugnaini

This study empirically examined the promotion and implementation of open science measures among high-performing journals of Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain. Journal policy related to data sharing, materials sharing, preregistration, open peer review, and consideration of preprints and replication studies was gathered from the websites of the journals.

Four hundred articles were coded for the inclusion of data availability statements, conflict of interest disclosures, funding disclosures, DOI, ORCID, and continuous publishing. Analyses found a higher promotion of open science measures among Brazilian journals than their Portuguese counterparts, and higher promotion of open science measures among international journals than their domestic counterparts.

Analyses found higher implementation of open science measures among Brazilian journals than their Portuguese and Mexican counterparts. One journal out of 40 encouraged preregistration of studies; none encouraged replication studies and none had implemented open peer review.

These findings reveal reasonably strong implementation of secondary open science measures (e.g., DOI, ORCID, conflict of interest and funding source disclosure) among the sample, but weaker implementation of primary measures (e.g., open data, open materials, replication studies and open peer review).

The implications of these findings are considered and suggestions are made to bolster the adoption of open science measures among Ibero-American scientific journals.

URL : The promotion and implementation of open science measures among high-performing journals from Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain

Improving our understanding of open access: how it relates to funding, internationality of research and scientific leadership

Authors : María Bordons, Borja González‑Albo, Luz Moreno‑Solano

As open publication has become a goal in scholarly communication, interest in how it relates to other features of the research process has grown. This paper focuses on the relationship between funding and open access (OA) in the Spanish National Research Council’s Web of Science publications in three scientific fields with different research practices, namely, Biology & Biomedicine (BIOL), Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS) and Materials Science (MATE).

Firstly, the three fields are characterised in relation to OA practices (OA status and OA routes) and acknowledged funding (funding status and funding origin). Secondly, the relationship between OA and funding is explored, and the role of additional influential factors, such as the internationality of research and national/foreign leadership of papers, is unravelled through logistic regression. BIOL shows a higher OA share (66%) than do the other two fields (around 33%).

Funded research shows higher OA rates than unfunded research in the experimental fields, but not in HSS, where it is related to a shift towards more publications with article-processing charges.

The internationality of research, measured through international collaboration or foreign funding, increases OA, albeit with differences across fields. Foreign-funded papers are more likely to be led by foreign researchers in all three fields, but a foreign first author increases the chances of OA publication in HSS only, perhaps because Spanish leaders in this field have not internalised the importance of OA. The research’s policy implications are reviewed.

URL : Improving our understanding of open access: how it relates to funding, internationality of research and scientific leadership

DOI : Improving our understanding of open access: how it relates to funding, internationality of research and scientific leadership

URL : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04726-1

Influence of research on open science in the public policy sphere

Authors : Daniela De Filippo, Pablo Sastrón‑Toledo

This paper analyses the scientific activity related to open science in Spain and its influence on public policy from a bibliometric perspective. For this purpose, Spanish centres’ projects and publications on open science from 2010 to 2020 are studied. Subsequently, policy documents using papers related to open science are analysed to study their influence on policymaking.

A total of 142 projects and 1491 publications are analysed, 15% of which are mentioned in policy documents.

The publications cited in policy documents display high proportions of international collaboration, open access publication and publication in first-quartile journals. The findings underline governments’ leading role in the implementation of open science policies and the funding of open science research.

The same government agencies that promote and fund open science research are shown to use that research in their institutional reports, a process known as knowledge flow feedback.

Other non-academic actors are also observed to make use of the knowledge produced by open science research, showing how the open science movement has crossed the boundaries of academia.

URL : Influence of research on open science in the public policy sphere

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04645-1

Perceptions regarding open science appraised by editors of scholarly publications published in Spain

Authors : Remedios Melero, Juan-José Boté-Vericad, Alexandre López-Borrull

Pillars of open science are often included within the editorial policies of scholarly journals, including policies on open access publication, availability of underlying research data, preprints and open peer review.

The aim of this paper is to examine and analyse perceptions and editorial practices related to open access, preprints, open research data and open peer review, from the perspective of editors of scientific journals published in Spain, to gain an insight into editorial policies related to open science.

Results and data were obtained by a combined method of online interviews and an online questionnaire. The online survey was sent to editors from journals indexed in the Dulcinea directory, which at the time of the study included 1875 academic journals. A total of 420 responses (22.4%) were obtained.

The results indicated that 92% of the journals were open access journals, 2% of the journals conducted open peer review, 15% of the journals had instructions to allow archiving preprints, and out of 375 responses, only 59 journals (16%) reported having a policy on underlying research data.

Based on these results, there is a trend in favour of open access, but the perceived barriers to open peer review outweighed the advantages. There is also some reluctance to allow preprints to be made available.

This concern might be because editors want authors and readers to read and cite the contents published in their journals, rather than their preprint versions.

URL : Perceptions regarding open science appraised by editors of scholarly publications published in Spain

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1511

Presence of women on the editorial boards of the language and linguistics journals in Spain

Authors : Cristina Rodríguez-Faneca, Alexander Maz-Machado, David Gutiérrez-Rubio, Cristina Pedrosa-Jesús

Many international studies have pointed out the under-representation of women on Editorial Boards of both Science and Social Science journals. Their presence as Editorial Board members is relevant as they influence and reflect the policies of the journal itself.

This study analyses the participation of women on the Editorial Boards of the Spanish Language and Linguistics journals in SCOPUS. To this end, 54 journals indexed in SCOPUS were analysed, thus discriminating the gender of all members and the role that each member plays on the Editorial Board.

The results show no significant differences in the participation of men and women in these Editorial Boards. It was not found any evidence of gender bias in these journals.

URL : Presence of women on the editorial boards of the language and linguistics journals in Spain

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04412-8

How far does an emphasis on stakeholder engagement and co-production in research present a threat to academic identity and autonomy? A prospective study across five European countries

Authors : Annette Boaz, Robert Borst, Maarten Kok, Alison O’Shea

There is a growing recognition that needs more to be done to ensure that research contributes to better health services and patient outcomes. Stakeholder engagement in research, including co-production, has been identified as a promising mechanism for improving the value, relevance and utilization of research.

This article presents findings from a prospective study which explored the impact of stakeholder engagement in a 3-year European tobacco control research project. That research project aimed to engage stakeholders in the development, testing and dissemination of a return-on-investment tool across five EU countries (the Netherlands, Spain, Hungary, Germany and the UK).

The prospective study comprised interviews, observations and document review. The analysis focused on the extent to which the project team recognized, conceptualized and operationalized stakeholder engagement over the course of the research project. Stakeholder engagement in the European research project was conceptualized as a key feature of pre-designated spaces within their work programme.

Over the course of the project, however, the tool development work and stakeholder engagement activities decoupled. While the modelling and tool development became more secluded, stakeholder engagement activities subtly transformed from co-production, to consultation, to something more recognizable as research participation.

The contribution of this article is not to argue against the potential contribution of stakeholder engagement and co-production, but to show how even well-planned engagement activities can be diverted within the existing research funding and research production systems where non-research stakeholders remain at the margins and can even be seen as a threat to academic identify and autonomy.

URL : How far does an emphasis on stakeholder engagement and co-production in research present a threat to academic identity and autonomy? A prospective study across five European countries

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvab013