Archives des mots-clés : state of the art

E-Dissertations: Access and Restrictions (EDAR) Survey 2014 Report

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“European and American studies on electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) reveal that one part of digital PhD theses, even if not confidential, is limited to on-campus access and/or under embargo. A French-German research team conducted a survey with a small sample of academic libraries and graduate schools in France and Germany (16,508 theses) on the situation and tendencies from 2009 to 2012. Digital theses represent 38% of the whole sample. 84% digital theses are Open Access while 5% are limited to on-campus access, 2% are under embargo and 1% are confidential. For 9%, data on accessibility are missing. The 84% OA digital theses represent 32% of all theses (print and digital). The survey reveals also differences between France and Germany, especially: France: The part of OA theses compared to all theses increased from 12% of the PhD theses in 2009 to 24% of the PhD theses in 2012. There is an increase of embargoed PhD theses as enforced by the libraries, from 1% of the ETD in 2009 to 7% in 2012. On-campus access restrictions of ETD increased from 5% in 2009 to 28% in 2012. Germany: The number of OA theses increased from 41% of all theses in 2009 to 47% in 2012. Furthermore, very few libraries reported access restrictions. There are however some individual cases – less than 1% – where the author asked for restrictions because of confidential material etc. Following the EDAR project, the project team prepares a proposal for the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The project “Electronic Theses and Dissertations for Open Access” (ETD4OA) will support the coordination of European infrastructures and open access (OA) policies in the field of electronic theses and dissertations. Together with stakeholders and OA initiatives, it will address barriers and access restrictions, and it will take actions (active communication, recommendations, advice) to promote and develop input, openness and impact of ETD in existing open repositories and portals.”

URL : http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_01045115/fr/

A Current Snapshot of Institutional Repositories: Growth Rate, Disciplinary Content and Faculty Contributions

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“INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study was to examine current institutional repository (IR) content in order to assess the growth and breadth of content as it reflects faculty participation, and to identify successful strategies for increasing that participation. Previous studies have shown that faculty-initiated submissions to IRs, no matter the platform, are uncommon. Repository managers employ a variety of methods to solicit and facilitate faculty participation, including a variety of print marketing tools, presentations, and one-on-one consultations.

METHODS This mixed method study examined faculty content in IRs through both a quantitative analysis of repository content and growth rate and a qualitative survey of repository administrators. Repositories using the Digital Commons repository platform, hosted by Berkeley Electronic Press, were examined in the fall and winter of 2013-2014 to assess the disciplinary scope of faculty content (n=107) and to measure the growth rate of IR content (n=203). Repository administrators at 205 institutions were surveyed to investigate what methods they used to facilitate faculty participation and their perceptions about the effectiveness of these methods.

RESULTS Mean and median growth rates of IRs have increased since measured in 2007, with variance depending upon size and type of academic institution and age of the IR. Disciplinary content in IRs is unevenly distributed, with the Sciences predominantly represented. IR administrators remain actively involved in the submission process and in the promotion of their IRs. Personal contact with individuals or groups of faculty is the most used and successful interaction method.

CONCLUSION Though IR growth rate has increased, the growth is not consistent across all IRs and does not yet pose a challenge to traditional models of scholarly publication. The rising amount of faculty content in IRs indicates faculty are increasingly willing to participate in the IR movement. However, faculty involvement may be more passive than active.”

URL : A Current Snapshot of Institutional Repositories: Growth Rate, Disciplinary Content and Faculty Contributions

Alternative URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss3/3/

Identification of Core Journals and Analysis of Collaboration Networks Among Researchers in Ibero America

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“INTRODUCTION In this paper we survey scientific production published in Ibero American journals in four subject areas: Medicine, Education, Administration & Finance, and Psychology. The aim of the paper is to provide a view of the available state-of-the-art of Ibero American publications in Open Access journals compiled in well-respected repositories such as Redalyc.

METHODS The scholarly Open Access production in Ibero America was analysed using data from Redalyc during the period between 2005 and 2007 for the four areas mentioned above, using data and metadata such as author affiliation and subject area.

RESULTS The data analysis carried out in this paper identifies those journals that compose the core and first Bradford zone for the subject area in question. These journals are therefore those that condense the majority of relevant articles for a researcher in that particular field. The application of network analysis allows us to map the collaboration networks, per country, of researchers publishing in Ibero America.

DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION The analysis presented here reflects the status of journals in the areas in question reflecting the information held in the repository’s database. The authors conclude that a careful revision and improvement of the requirements that editors and journals require of their authors is of paramount importance for emerging online electronic libraries such as Redalyc.”

URL : Identification of Core Journals and Analysis of Collaboration Net

Alternative URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss3/4/

The evolution of open access to research and data in Australian higher education

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“Open access (OA) in the Australian tertiary education sector is evolving rapidly and, in this article, we review developments in two related areas: OA to scholarly research publications and open data. OA can support open educational resource (OER) efforts by providing access to research for learning and teaching, and a range of actors including universities, their peak bodies, public research funding agencies and other organisations and networks that focus explicitly on OA are increasingly active in these areas in diverse ways. OA invites change to the status quo across the higher education sector and current momentum and vibrancy in this area suggests that rapid and significant changes in the OA landscape will continue into the foreseeable future. General practices, policies, infrastructure and cultural changes driven by the evolution of OA in Australian higher education are identified and discussed. The article concludes by raising several key questions for the future of OA research and open data policies and practices in Australia in the context of growing interest in OA internationally.”

URL : The evolution of open access to research and data in Australian higher education

Alternative URL : http://journals.uoc.edu/index.php/rusc/article/view/v11n3-picasso-phelan

The Number of Scholarly Documents on the Public Web

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The number of scholarly documents available on the web is estimated using capture/recapture methods by studying the coverage of two major academic search engines: Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Search. Our estimates show that at least 114 million English-language scholarly documents are accessible on the web, of which Google Scholar has nearly 100 million.

Of these, we estimate that at least 27 million (24%) are freely available since they do not require a subscription or payment of any kind. In addition, at a finer scale, we also estimate the number of scholarly documents on the web for fifteen fields: Agricultural Science, Arts and Humanities, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics and Business, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geosciences, Material Science, Mathematics, Medicine, Physics, Social Sciences, and Multidisciplinary, as defined by Microsoft Academic Search. In addition, we show that among these fields the percentage of documents defined as freely available varies significantly, i.e., from 12 to 50%.

URL : The Number of Scholarly Documents on the Public Web

Alternative URL : http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0093949

Open-access repositories worldwide, 2005-2012: Past growth, current characteristics and future possibilities

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“This paper reviews the worldwide growth of open-access (OA) repositories, December 2005 to December 2012, using data collected by the OpenDOAR project. It shows that initial repository development was focused on North America, Western Europe and Australasia, particularly the USA, UK, Germany and Australia. Soon after, Japan increased its repository numbers. Since 2010, other geographical areas and countries have seen repository growth, including East Asia (especially Taiwan), South America (especially Brazil) and Eastern Europe (especially Poland). During the whole period, countries such as France, Italy and Spain have maintained steady growth, whereas countries such as China and Russia have experienced relatively low levels of growth. Globally, repositories are predominantly institutional, multidisciplinary and English-language-based. They typically use open-source OAI-compliant repository software but remain immature in terms of explicit licensing arrangements. Whilst the size of repositories is difficult to assess accurately, the available data indicate that a small number of large repositories and a large number of small repositories make up the repository landscape. These trends and characteristics are analyzed using Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) building on previous studies. IDT is shown to provide a useful explanatory framework for understanding repository adoption at various levels: global, national, organizational and individual. Major factors affecting both the initial development of repositories and their take up by users are identified, including IT infrastructure, language, cultural factors, policy initiatives, awareness-raising activity and usage mandates. It is argued that mandates in particular are likely to play a crucial role in determining future repository development.”

URL : http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/76839/

Open Access Publishing A Literature Review Within…

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Open Access Publishing: A Literature Review :

“Within the context of the Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy (CREATe) research scope, this literature review investigates the current trends, advantages, disadvantages, problems and solutions, opportunities and barriers in Open Access Publishing (OAP), and in particular Open Access (OA) academic publishing. This study is intended to scope and evaluate current theory and practice concerning models for OAP and engage with intellectual, legal and economic perspectives on OAP. It is also aimed at mapping the field of academic publishing in the UK and abroad, drawing specifically upon the experiences of CREATe industry partners as well as other initiatives such as SSRN, open source software, and Creative Commons. As a final critical goal, this scoping study will identify any meaningful gaps in the relevant literature with a view to developing further research questions. The results of this scoping exercise will then be presented to relevant industry and academic partners at a workshop intended to assist in further developing the critical research questions pertinent to OAP.”

URL : http://www.create.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/CREATe-Working-Paper-2014-01.pdf