The Future of OA: A large-scale analysis projecting Open Access publication and readership

Authors : Heather Piwowar, Jason Priem, Richard Orr

Understanding the growth of open access (OA) is important for deciding funder policy, subscription allocation, and infrastructure planning.

This study analyses the number of papers available as OA over time. The models includes both OA embargo data and the relative growth rates of different OA types over time, based on the OA status of 70 million journal articles published between 1950 and 2019.

The study also looks at article usage data, analyzing the proportion of views to OA articles vs views to articles which are closed access. Signal processing techniques are used to model how these viewership patterns change over time. Viewership data is based on 2.8 million uses of the Unpaywall browser extension in July 2019.

We found that Green, Gold, and Hybrid papers receive more views than their Closed or Bronze counterparts, particularly Green papers made available within a year of publication. We also found that the proportion of Green, Gold, and Hybrid articles is growing most quickly.

In 2019:

  • 31% of all journal articles are available as OA
  • 52% of article views are to OA article

Given existing trends, we estimate that by 2025:

  • 44% of all journal articles will be available as OA

  • 70% of article views will be to OA articles

The declining relevance of closed access articles is likely to change the landscape of scholarly communication in the years to come.

URL : The Future of OA: A large-scale analysis projecting Open Access publication and readership

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/795310

Open Social Scholarship Annotated Bibliography

Authors: Randa El Khatib, Lindsey Seatter, Tracey El Hajj, Conrad Leibel, Alyssa Arbuckle, Ray Siemens, Caroline Winter, the ETCL and INKE Research Groups

This annotated bibliography responds to and contextualizes the growing “Open” movements and recent institutional reorientation towards social, public-facing scholarship.

The aim of this document is to present a working definition of open social scholarship through the aggregation and summation of critical resources in the field. Our work surveys foundational publications, innovative research projects, and global organizations that enact the theories and practices of open social scholarship.

The bibliography builds on the knowledge creation principles outlined in previous research by broadening the focus beyond traditional academic spaces and reinvigorating central, defining themes with recently published research.

URL : Open Social Scholarship Annotated Bibliography

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/kula.58

Is Open Access to Research Data a Strategic Priority of Czech Universities?

Author : Jakub Novotný

Open access to research data is one of the key themes of current science development concepts and relevant R & D strategies at least in Europe. A systemic change in the modus operandi of science and research should lead to so-called Open Science.

The presented paper questions the extent to which the Open Science concept is reflected in the strategies of Czech universities. The paper first describes basic idea of Open Access to Research Data including principles of „FAIR data” as one of the key assumption of it.

After a brief characterization of the Czech university sector, the results of the empirical analysis of the inclusion of the Open Access to Research Data concept in the current strategic plans of the Czech universities are presented.

The conclusion of the paper is then an evaluation of the results, which reveal an underestimation of the Open Science concept in the current strategic plans of the Czech universities.

URL : Is Open Access to Research Data a Strategic Priority of Czech Universities?

DOI : https://doi.org/10.2478/ijicte-2018-0008

Enquête Archives Ouvertes COUPERIN 2017 : résultats de l’enquête

Auteurs/Authors : Emmanuelle Ashta, Louise Béraud, Christelle Caillet, Mathilde Gallet, Marine Laffont, Diane Le Henaff, Léa Maubon, Christine Okret, Nicolas Pinet, Anne Slomovici, Sandrine Girod

Les archives ouvertes s’inscrivent de plus en plus solidement et durablement dans le paysage documentaire de l’enseignement supérieur. Si les organismes de recherche ont été précurseurs pour la création d’archives ouvertes, les grandes écoles, mais surtout les universités ont désormais massivement rejoint le mouvement.

Signe de cette progression notable, 82 % des répondants disposent en 2017 d’une archive en production ou en cours de mise en œuvre, contre 62 % en 2014. L’adoption majoritaire de la plate-forme HAL (qui représente 79 % des archives en production et 84 % des archives des universités parmi les répondants) se renforce encore depuis 2014.

La structuration d’un réseau des utilisateurs de HAL au sein du club utilisateur CasuHal, même si elle est relativement récente (septembre 2016), semble portée par une vraie dynamique puisque 68 % des établissements ayant une archive ouverte adhèrent ou projettent d’y adhérer.

L’intégration des archives ouvertes à leur environnement technique progresse globalement mais toujours partiellement depuis 2014. L’intégration aux sites web institutionnels ainsi qu’aux catalogues de bibliothèques est désormais majoritairement effective, mais elle reste insuffisante vers les systèmes d’information des établissements, ENT, SI Recherche et outils de gestion RH.

La place des archives ouvertes dans le contexte global d’un marché de la publication scientifique en plein questionnement (conflits ouverts avec les éditeurs, généralisation du Gold Open Access, questionnements autour de nouveaux modèles possibles de publication et d’évaluation, Open Science) progresse depuis 2014 mais semble encore insuffisamment prise en compte par les établissements porteurs, seule une petite majorité d’entre eux (53 %, contre 30,6 % en 2014) ayant inscrit en 2017 leur Archive Ouverte dans une politique globale d’établissement.

D’où des freins récurrents au développement des projets, que l’on observe d’une part via des politiques de dépôt encore majoritairement, et notamment pour les universités, peu contraignantes et peu efficaces, mais aussi par la constance des obstacles identifiés pour la réussite des projets qui restent les mêmes depuis 10 ans : manque d’implication politique, communication institutionnelle insuffisante, faiblesse des moyens humains dédiés mais surtout et structurellement une trop faible implication des chercheurs dans la démarche.

Resserrer toujours plus les liens entre les acteurs les plus actifs du développement des archives ouvertes que sont les bibliothèques et services de documentation (72 % des répondants 2017 ne travaillent qu’en bibliothèque) et les organes scientifiques, politiques et décisionnels des établissements semble donc plus que jamais de mise pour que ce mouvement se pérennise et continue durablement de croître.

URL : https://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_01858348

Statistics on Open Access Books Available through the Directory of Open Access Books

Author : Keita Tsuji

Open Access (OA) books available through the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) are investigated and the number of titles, the distribution of subjects, languages, publishers, publication years, licensing patterns, etc., are clarified.

Their chronological changes are also shown. The sample comprised 10,866 OA books, which were available through the DOAB as of February 24, 2018.

The results show that OA books are increasing in number at an accelerating rate. As for distribution of subjects, Social Sciences (“H” in the Library of Congress Classification [LCC] codes), Science (“Q” in LCC) and World History and History of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc. (“D” in LCC) are the most popular.

As for languages, English, French, and German are the most popular. As for publishers, Frontiers Media SA, Presses universitaires de Rennes, and ANU Press are the most popular.

Many books are newly published ones, but older books, published in or before 1999, also began to be available recently. As for the licensing patterns, “CC by-nc-nd” and “CC by” are the most popular. Considering these tendencies, libraries should begin to utilize OA books.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.01541

Open Access Infrastructure in Greece: Current Status, Challenges and Perspectives

Authors : Aspasia Togia, Eleftheria Koseoglou, Sofia Zapounidou, Nikolaos Tsigilis

Open access (OA) is a global movement to make research results widely available by removing price and permission barriers. OA infrastructure is necessary for implementing open access and open science in any country.

The aim of the present paper is twofold: (i) to give a description of the Greek OA infrastructure with emphasis on academic repositories and OA journals, and (ii) to examined the OA availability of publications authored by Greek researchers and published in international journals.

Results indicated that Open access infrastructures in Greece have been steadily improving over the past years, with 28 out of 36 HEIs running their own IR and 116 OA journals being published.

The OA availability of the literature produced by Greek researchers is similar to that found in other studies and falls within the range that has been reported for European countries.

Although numbers seem rather satisfactory, there are a number of challenges that have to be addressed at both the infrastructural and the policy level, the most important being the implementation of national open policies and funders mandates.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01816716

The State of The Art in Peer Review

Author : John Tennant

Scholarly communication is in a perpetual state of disruption. Within this, peer review of research articles remains an essential part of the formal publication process, distinguishing it from virtually all other modes of communication.

In the last several years, there has been an explosive wave of innovation in peer review research, platforms, discussions, tools, and services. This is largely coupled with the ongoing and parallel evolution of scholarly communication as it adapts to rapidly changing environments, within what is widely considered as the ‘open research’ or ‘open science’ movement.

Here, we summarise the current ebb and flow around changes to peer review and consider its role in a modern digital research and communications infrastructure and discuss why uptake of new models of peer review appears to have been so low compared to what is often viewed as the ‘traditional’ method of peer review.

Finally, we offer some insight into the potential futures of scholarly peer review and consider what impacts this might have on the broader scholarly research ecosystem.

DOI : https://dx.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/C29TM