Category Archives: oa.mandates

Open access movement in the scholarly world: Pathways for libraries in developing countries – Arslan Sheikh, Joanna Richardson, 2023

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Abstract:  Open access is a scholarly publishing model that has emerged as an alternative to traditional subscription-based journal publishing. This study explores the adoption of the open access movement worldwide and the role that libraries can play in addressing those factors which are slowing its progress within developing countries. The study has drawn upon both qualitative data from a focused literature review and quantitative data from major open access platforms. The results indicate that while the open access movement is steadily gaining acceptance worldwide, the progress in developing countries within geographical areas such as Africa, Asia and Oceania is quite a bit slower. Two significant factors are the cost of publishing fees and the lack of institutional open access mandates and policies to encourage uptake. The study provides suggested strategies for academic libraries to help overcome current challenges.

 

Open access movement in the scholarly world: Pathways for libraries in developing countries – Arslan Sheikh, Joanna Richardson, 2023

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Abstract:  Open access is a scholarly publishing model that has emerged as an alternative to traditional subscription-based journal publishing. This study explores the adoption of the open access movement worldwide and the role that libraries can play in addressing those factors which are slowing its progress within developing countries. The study has drawn upon both qualitative data from a focused literature review and quantitative data from major open access platforms. The results indicate that while the open access movement is steadily gaining acceptance worldwide, the progress in developing countries within geographical areas such as Africa, Asia and Oceania is quite a bit slower. Two significant factors are the cost of publishing fees and the lack of institutional open access mandates and policies to encourage uptake. The study provides suggested strategies for academic libraries to help overcome current challenges.

 

Immediate open access to research data: a federal mandate and much debate – The Publication Plan for everyone interested in medical writing, the development of medical publications, and publication planning

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“A year ago, the US White House announced plans to make all federally funded research immediately available for free by the end of 2025. So, what progress has been made, and what will this model mean for the status quo in medical publishing?

The mandate from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) instructed all federal agencies to implement plans to “deliver transparent, open, secure, and free communication of federally funded research and activities”. Under the new directive, publications must be made instantly available to the public, removing the current optional 12-month grace period. In line with a similar mandate from the WHO, the directive also applies to research data….

In an economic assessment report, the OSTP predicted that the policy would lead to changes in publishers’ business models. The move to immediate open access will inevitably make journal subscription models less desirable, and publishers’ incomes will likely become more reliant on the article processing fees levied on open access publications. As reported by Susan d’Agostino of Inside Higher Ed, this raises the question of who will bear these costs. The OSTP allows researchers to “include reasonable publication costs” in their budgets, but some researchers point out that budget squeezes may follow, with open access fees impacting on funds available for other aspects of research….”

 

The impact of open access mandates on scientific research and technological development in the U.S.: iScience

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“Highlights

We examine the impact of the U.S. Department of Energy’s open-access mandate
Scientific articles subject to the mandate were utilized on average 42% more in patents
Articles subject to the mandate were not cited more frequently by other academic papers
Small firms were the primary beneficiaries of the increased knowledge diffusion…”

A decade of surveys on attitudes to data sharing highlights three factors for achieving open science | Impact of Social Sciences

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“Over a 10 year period Carol Tenopir of DataONE and her team conducted a global survey of scientists, managers and government workers involved in broad environmental science activities about their willingness to share data and their opinion of the resources available to do so (Tenopir et al., 2011, 2015, 2018, 2020). Comparing the responses over that time shows a general increase in the willingness to share data (and thus engage in Open Science)….

The most surprising result was that a higher willingness to share data corresponded with a decrease in satisfaction with data sharing resources across nations (e.g., skills, tools, training) (Fig.1). That is, researchers who did not want to share data were satisfied with the available resources, and those that did want to share data were dissatisfied. Researchers appear to only discover that the tools are insufficient when they begin the hard work of engaging in open science practices. This indicates that a cultural shift in the attitudes of researchers needs to precede the development of support and tools for data management….

Mandated requirements to share data really do work. However, this effect was shown in the surveys as government researchers were consistently far more willing to share data than those in academia or corporations, and this willingness to share increased substantially from 2011 to 2019….

Researchers working in academia were less willing to share than those in government, but did show significant increases in willingness to share from 2011 to 2015. Researchers in the commercial sector were, unsurprisingly, the least willing to share their data….

government involvement and funding play an important role in improving the attitudes researchers have towards open science practices. The organisational influence of government funding and mandates shifts individual incentives. Researchers then realize that they lack the knowledge, tools, and training they need to properly share data, which can push the social change needed to drastically change the way that science is done for the better.”

SPARC response to NIST RFI

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“SPARC strongly supports the OSTP Memorandum’s emphasis on ensuring equity in contributing to, accessing, and benefitting from the results of federally funded research, and we appreciate NIST’s specific attention on how to ensure equity in publication opportunities for its funded authors. To ensure equity in publication opportunities, NIST should provide authors with compliance options that do not present financial barriers. To this end, NIST’s plan and associated policies and guidance should clearly state that authors can fully comply with its public access policy at no cost by depositing their author’s accepted manuscripts into PubMed Central (PMC) or any other agency-approved repository.

Further, NIST should clarify that any fee that authors may be asked to pay is a publication fee, and not a fee required by NIST for compliance. It is critical that authors do not conflate compliance with article processing charges (APCs), which create significant barriers for less-well-resourced authors and institutions to make their research available….

NIST should highlight the diversity of publication models available to authors who may face financial barriers in paying for APCs—including Subscribe to Open (S2O) and Diamond Open Access. Additionally, institutional repositories run by libraries and other research institutions generally do not charge authors to deposit articles or manuscripts, and can play an important role in easing compliance burdens on authors, improving discoverability of research outputs, and providing long-term preservation support. Therefore, we strongly recommend that NIST allow for the deposit of publications into other repositories beyond PMC, and suggest that NIST utilize the guidance set out in the U.S. Repository Network’s Desirable Characteristics of Digital Publications Repositories….” 

NIST RFI: Plan for Providing Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research – SPARC

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“On June 30, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued a request for input on the agency’s draft public access plan.

SPARC submitted comments outlining the need for NIST to clarify the language in their plan to ensure research funded by NIST is made immediately available, with no embargo, to the public as required by the Nelson Memo.

Read SPARC’s Comments: Response to NIST RFI on Draft Plan for Providing Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research.”

Reply to: Recognizing and marshalling the pre-publication error correction potential of open data for more reproducible science | Nature Ecology & Evolution

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“In response to our paper, Chen et al.2 highlighted that mandatory open data policies also increase opportunities for detecting and correcting errors pre-publication. We welcome Chen et al.’s comment and acknowledge that we omitted discussing the important, positive impact that mandatory open data policies can have on various pre-publication processes. Our study design and the interpretation of our results were probably influenced by our prior experience of reporting data anomalies and research misconduct to journals, and witnessing first-hand the challenges of post-publication error correction3,4,5. As long-standing advocates of transparency and reproducibility in research, we would celebrate empirical evidence that data sharing mandates increase pre-publication error detection….”

The Changing Medical Publishing Industry: Economics, Expansion, and Equity | SpringerLink

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Abstract:  Medical journal publishing has changed dramatically over the past decade. The shift from print to electronic distribution altered the industry’s economic model. This was followed by open access mandates from funding organizations and the subsequent imposition of article processing charges on authors. The medical publishing industry is large and while there is variation across journals, it is overall highly profitable. As journals have moved to digital dissemination, advertising revenues decreased and publishers shifted some of the losses onto authors by way of article processing charges. The number of open access journals has increased substantially in recent years. The open access model presents an equity paradox; while it liberates scientific knowledge for the consumer, it presents barriers to those who produce research. This emerging “pay-to-publish” system offers advantages to authors who work in countries and at institutes with more resources. Finally, the medical publishing industry represents an unusual business model; the people who provide both the content and the external peer review receive no payment from the publisher, who generates revenue from the content. The very unusual economic model of this industry makes it vulnerable to disruptive change. The economic model of medical publishing is rapidly evolving and this will lead to disruption of the industry. These changes will accelerate dissemination of science and may lead to a shift away from lower-impact journals towards pre-print servers.

 

a figshare webinar – The Library’s role in readying researchers for Open Data

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“Libraries need robust and trusted infrastructure to support their researchers, especially in light of the rising tide of funder policies and mandates surrounding research sharing.  

During this webinar, we will discuss the ways in which Libraries can support their researchers in the context of these policies as well as the growing momentum of the global shift towards Open Science and Open Data.

We’ll discuss:

Policy changes and regional requirements for research and research data sharing

The influence of funders and their policies
Changing attitudes towards Research Data Management (RDM)

Join this 30 minute session to inform your planning for support structures and ensure that you’re well positioned to ready your researchers for Open Data….”

2023 SSP Training Series: Open Access

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“2023 SSP Training Series: Open Access

July 19 & 20, 2023
12 PM – 2 PM ET

This highly interactive workshop series will be of interest to both early-career professionals as well as those more experienced in scholarly communications who want to enhance their understanding of the latest developments in open access publishing and their contexts in the wider academic ecosystem. Choose to attend both sessions or either session separately.

Session 1: OA 101: The Basics (Wednesday, July 19, 2023 12:00 – 2:00 pm ET)

Over the past two decades, Open Access publishing has evolved from an ideal into a widely accepted practice in scholarly communications. Participants in this introductory workshop will learn about the history and evolution of OA principles and practices, starting from the Budapest Open Access Initiative of 2002 through to Plan S and the recent OSTP memo, with particular emphasis on distinguishing green and gold OA. Participants will explore how these considerations impact publishing at both the article and journal level and how copyright and creative commons licenses may also be a factor in author compliance with funder mandates. 

Session 2: OA 201: The Models (Thursday, July 20, 2023 12:00 – 2:00 pm ET)

Open access publishing is funded through a variety of different models including micropayments, transformative agreements, pure publish agreements, memberships, and collective action. Participants in this workshop will learn about the various business models, their applicability in different contexts, and how they can complement one another. The workshop will also explore how these different models impact author compliance with funder mandates.”

Dryad in the community: New data sharing mandates and the role of academic librariesDryad news

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“Available to watch now: “New data sharing mandates and the role of academic libraries” presented at the 2023 Library Publishing Forum. 

Whether libraries become data publishers themselves or provide the types of support services that make data publishing possible–such as training, planning, and consultation–they have a critical role to play in advancing open science practices.

In this presentation, Dryad’s Head of Community Engagement, Sarah Lippincott is joined by fellow presenters Michael Casp, Head of Production Division at J&J Editorial, Emma Molls, Director of Open Research & Publishing at University of Minnesota Libraries, and Alberto Pepe, Director of Strategy and Innovation at Wiley and Co-founder of Authorea. Sarah reviews some pertinent highlights from the Nelson memo and NIH policies, two of the major developments that will impact data sharing over the next few years. and concludes with a discussion on how libraries can help researchers move from data sharing to data publishing.

Watch now to hear from the diverse perspectives of three data sharing and open data advocates: a funder, librarian, and publisher.”

NSF Public Access Plan 2.0

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“NSF’s updated public access plan integrates new agency guidance issued by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in August of 2022. This guidance, which includes zero-embargo public access for research publications and their supporting data, was developed with leadership from the National Science and Technology Council Subcommittee on Open Science, in which NSF has always been actively engaged. NSF developed its plan while considering issues of importance to our many partners across academia and industry, and in alignment with all other U.S. agencies which fund scientific research. This plan is a first step, and we look forward to its further evolution as we address changes in technology and in the needs of members across our communities. Promoting immediate public access to federally funded research results and data is a critically important aspect of achieving the NSF mission of promoting the progress of science, securing the national defense, and advancing the national health, prosperity, and welfare. Indeed, scientific openness, academic freedom, scientific integrity, equity in science, and fairness are American values that rest on the pillar of public access to federally funded research and data….

The sections of this plan describe how NSF will ensure: • That all peer-reviewed scholarly publications resulting from NSF-funded research will be made freely available and publicly accessible by default in the NSF Public Access Repository, or NSF-PAR, without embargo or delay. • That scientific data associated with peer-reviewed publications resulting from NSF awards will be made available in appropriate scientific disciplinary repositories. • That exceptions to the data-sharing requirements will be made based on legal, privacy, ethical, intellectual property and national security considerations. • That persistent identifiers, or PIDs, and other critical metadata associated with peer-reviewed publications and data resulting from NSF-funded research will be collected and made publicly available in NSF-PAR. • That the agency coordinates with other federal funders of scientific research in implementing new public access requirements….

Primary areas of interest that will shape NSF policy as implementation approaches are formulated include: • Minimizing the equity impact of over-reliance on article processing charges, or APCs, also known as the “Gold Open Access” publication model, including inequity for fields, organizations or researchers lacking access to funding; consequences of possible citation bias; the impact on ability to fund research and training activities; and potential negative impacts with respect to public trust. • Promoting use of author’s accepted manuscripts, or AAMs, as a no-cost option to comply with public access requirements. • Minimizing the consequences of changing publishing ecosystems, including impacts for organizations least able to weather dramatic changes to subscription policies, which can increase precarity for those affiliated with these organizations. • Ameliorating the possible impacts of large APCs on small awards. • Involving affected communities regarding issues associated with data collection, data governance, verifying permitted data access, and data destruction, particularly for groups that have previously suffered from the appropriation or misuse of data. 19 • Ensure accessibility of data and results, including access to data cyberinfrastructures for under-resourced and underserved institutions/researchers, as well as considerations for persons with visual disabilities. 20 • Maximizing the reach and impact of U.S. research while seeking to minimize both access barriers in underresourced and underserved communities and challenges related to the language or interpretability of data. • Identifying the full range of costs (tangible and intangible) associated with data provision and addressing any inequities introduced by these costs. • Developing processes for addressing inequities identified in sharing and accessing research findings….”

AHRQ RFI: Draft Public Access Plan – SPARC

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“On April 19, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released their draft plan for updating the agency’s policy for public access and requested public feedback.

SPARC submitted comments praising the no-cost manuscript deposit compliance option and offered additional steps for AHRQ to consider to further strengthen the plan and address rights retention to minimize burden on researchers.

Read SPARC’s Comments: Response to AHRQ RFI on Draft Public Access Plan…”

Open access publishing in India: trends and policy perspectives | Emerald Insight

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Abstract:  Purpose

This study aims to analyze Open Access (OA) publishing trends and policy perspectives in India. Different aspects, such as the growth of OA journals digital repositories, the proportion of OA availability to research literature and the status of OA mandates and policies are studied.

Design/methodology/approach

Data for analyzing OA trends were gathered from multiple data sources, including Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), OpenDOAR, SCImago and Web of Science (WoS) databases. DOAJ and OpenDOAR were used for extracting OA journals and digital repository data. SCImago Journal and Country ranking portal and WoS database were used to obtain Indian publication data for assessing the proportion of OA to research literature. ROARMAP was used to study OA mandates and policies adopted by universities, research institutions and research funders in India. OA mandates and policies of major regulatory bodies and funding agencies were also reviewed using secondary sources of information and related websites.

Findings

India ranks number 15 and 17 globally for OA journals and OA repositories, with 317 journals and 98 repositories. Although India’s proportion to OA publications is 23% (7% below the world average of 30%), the annual growth rate of OA publications is around 18%. Although the governing bodies and institutions have made efforts to mandate researchers to adopt OA publishing and self-archiving, its implementation is quite low among Indian researchers, as only three institutions (out of 18 listed in the ROARMAP) are defined the embargo period. Funding agencies in India do not provide financial assistance to authors for the payment of Article Processing Charges despite mandates that research is deposited in OA repositories. India lacks a national OA policy but plans to implement a “one nation one subscription” formula to provide OA to scientific literature to all its citizens.

Research limitations/implications

The study has certain limitations. Because much of India’s research output is published in local journals that are not indexed in WoS, the study recommends conducting further analyses of publications using Scopus and other databases to understand the country’s OA publishing proportion better. A further study based on feedback from different stakeholders through a survey may be conducted for formulating a national OA policy.

Originality/value

The study is the first that used multiple data sources for investigating different facets of OA publishing in India, including OA journals, digital repositories, OA research output and OA mandates and policies for publicly funded research. The findings will be helpful for researchers and policymakers interested in promoting OA adoption among researchers worldwide.