Category Archives: oa.ir

University of Sussex connects Figshare to Symplectic Elements to create a joined-up research data management solution – Symplectic

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“Digital Science, a technology company serving stakeholders across the research ecosystem, is pleased to announce that the University of Sussex has successfully integrated Figshare and Symplectic Elements from Digital Science’s flagship products to create a seamless, interoperable research information and data management solution….

Sussex has been using Symplectic Elements as its Current Research Information System (CRIS) since 2020, initially integrated with EPrints as its institutional repository (called Sussex Research Online, or SRO). In 2022, Sussex took the decision to migrate SRO from EPrints to Figshare in order to create a more joined-up solution to support its Open Access needs. Moving to a full Figshare institutional repository supports the streamlining of IT Services and also enables repository staff teams to be more flexible as they work with Figshare alone, as opposed to two varying systems for papers and data….”

Citation Impact of Institutional Repositories in Selected Higher Learning Institutions in Tanzania | East African Journal of Science, Technology and Innovation

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Abstract:  Institutional Repositories (IRs) development in Tanzania has made publications readily available, accessible, and retrievable. IRs have increased the visibility of researchers and institutions and have contributed to the University ranking. Several Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs) in Tanzania have developed their IRs hosting institutional publications. This study assessed the citation impact of IR contents of selected Tanzanian HLIs. The study evaluated the citation impact of IR contents using publications indexed in the Scopus database. Four HLIs were purposively selected. The search within reference advanced feature for the Scopus database was conducted. The publications indexed in Scopus citing the selected IR contents from 2018 to 2022 were identified and extracted. Data analysis was carried out using Microsoft Excel and SPSS. The study findings indicated that the Tanzanian IR contents had a low citation impact. The study recommends that Tanzanian HLIs devise strategies for increasing IR content visibility. The strategies may include registering the IRs in online platforms and ensuring the Handle System is implemented to improve the accessibility of the IR content. Furthermore, the HLIs should create awareness of research visibility, enabling researchers to publish and increase their visibility.

 

Open Science and Policy Interface: The Tanzania Perspective | East African Journal of Science, Technology and Innovation

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Abstract:  The 21st century has seen a paradigm shift in scholarly communication, with digital technology changing the entire process of the scholarly communication lifecycle. As the cost of online reference materials for research continues to rise and restrictive conditions persist, global academic and research communities are pursuing countermeasures to make knowledge equitable and accessible. This is made possible through the Open Science (OS) movement that aims to make knowledge accessible to researchers and citizens irrespective of their technical or financial capability. This paper explores open science to ascertain the status of open science practices in Tanzania. The paper highlights the policy interfaces and frameworks that favor open science practices in research endeavors. Also, it provides a baseline for understanding the situation to inform scientific research and education communities about the status of open science and possible areas of intervention. Open science is still in its infancy, although certain steps have been taken in adopting it for example the adoption of open access practices, including the creation of institutional repositories and the adoption of policies that direct its implementation. Additionally, the implementation of open data practices has been quite slow. Also, researchers and organizations in Tanzania are gradually adopting open data practices. Currently, some academic institutions, particularly public universities, have adopted and used open journal publishing systems, particularly the online journal system (OJS). The published journal articles through journal systems are freely accessible online like other open-access content, however, the journals are not yet registered in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) despite the fact that some are already indexed in different abstracting services such as Africa Journal Online (AJOL) and they have Digital Object Identifiers (DOI). The policy interface of open science needs to be harmonized and COSTECH is strategically positioned to take the lead.

 

USC Press and University Libraries launch open-access publishing platform – Office of the Provost | University of South Carolina

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“The University of South Carolina Press and University Libraries are embarking on a new collaborative venture: Open Carolina, an open-access publishing platform….

That’s where University Libraries enters the picture. Many ventures into open scholarly resources are planned as temporary pilot operations because they are funded by time-limited grant pools. Thanks to consistent funding from the Libraries, Open Carolina has a sustainable model that will allow scholars with limited publishing funds to share their research via the platform, partially or totally foregoing associated fees. In its inaugural year, the Libraries aim to fund four full-length books and support is in place to make the program sustainable for years to come and allow Open Carolina to grow steadily.

 

Open Carolina will offer opportunities to a wide range of scholars and researchers regardless of university affiliation. Proposed works will undergo the same intensive peer review and editorial processes as traditionally published books and articles, allowing the university to maintain high standards and join the conversation with other Research 1 institutions that prioritize equitable, open access publishing….”

Job Details: Open Scholarship Librarian

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“Reporting to the Head of Special Collections, the Open Scholarship Librarian provides leadership in identifying, developing, and coordinating services and programs to support campus awareness of and participation in the evolving scholarly landscape. Particular emphasis is on open access, author rights, copyright, fair use, and digital rights and access. The position will be responsible for maintaining awareness of national and international publishing trends, intellectual property rights, and copyright that affect access to scholarly information, including researchers’ output. The position will provide vision and planning for the library’s institutional repository and will promote its digital publishing use for faculty, staff, and students, including seeking out and maintaining partnerships across campus. Typical hiring range for this position is $51,183 to $70,000 commensurate with qualifications and experience….”

CONCORDIA OPEN SCIENCE WORKING GROUP RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FOSTERING OPEN SCIENCE AT CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

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“Concordia should: ? Broaden the university’s senate resolution on open access (dated to 2010) and update it to reflect the current state of open science and the need for widespread departmental and researcher buy-in. ? Continue to support foundational initiatives, like the Open Science @Concordia conference (inaugurally held in May 2022) and the Concordia Open Science Working Group led by Drs. Byers-Heinlein and Alessandroni, alongside library-hosted Open Access Week and Open Education Week events and services, which are crucial milestones along this pathway. These are key to creating awareness of the benefits of adopting open science practices, both broadly and in discipline-specific ways. ? Further the development of copyright support through an institutionally supported rights retention strategy, which can support green open access and diversify how research can be made openly accessible. ? Promote public outreach by creating (and enhancing existing) training programs in popular science writing for faculty and students using local expertise from the Department of Journalism, the Department of Communication Studies, and the Library. ? Strengthen ties with other institutions and organizations to secure long-term funding and resources for the implementation of open science. ? Position principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion at the core of open science practices, including designing, generating, and publishing science. ? Promote open education at Concordia, for example by highlighting in course calendars which courses use open materials, open software, and renewable assignments….”

Recommendations for Fostering Open Science at Concordia University – Spectrum: Concordia University Research Repository

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Abstract:  Open science—and open scholarship more broadly—is revolutionizing how research is conducted by democratizing access to knowledge and bringing inclusion and transparency to the forefront. By making research processes and products open and accessible to all, open science promotes fairness, efficiency, and accountability in the scholarly enterprise and ensures that the benefits of scientific and humanistic progress are shared with all segments of society.

In Canada, fostering the practical implementation of open science practices (e.g., open access, open educational resources, open data, open labs, open notebooks, open evaluation, open hardware, open-source software, and citizen science) is rapidly becoming a top priority. The Government of Canada’s Roadmap for Open Science envisions a complete transition to an “open by design and by default” model by 2025. This transition is underway, with policies being promoted by federal and provincial funding agencies. For example, the federal funding agencies, also known as the Tri-Council, have enacted an open-access policy requiring grant recipients to ensure that publications funded by the agencies are freely accessible within 12 months of publication. This can be achieved by depositing peer-reviewed manuscripts in institutional or disciplinary repositories or publishing them in open-access journals. Departing from the Tri-Agency model and aligning with Plan S, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec (FRQ) updated its Open-Access Policy in 2022, requiring that articles and theses be made freely available under an open license upon publication or institutional deposit. The fast-approaching date of 2025, in combination with new mandates and policies, will require institutional support and advocacy to achieve effective solutions.

On May 27, 2022, Concordia University took a decisive step towards advancing open science by hosting the Open Science @Concordia conference, which brought together a diverse group of open science advocates and stakeholders from Concordia University and other institutions. The conference included keynote talks by national and international speakers, interdisciplinary lightning-talk sessions, and roundtables. Ten national and international speakers presented on topics like open access, open data, open infrastructures, open educational resources, and citizen science. Jessica Polka (ASAPbio, USA) delivered a powerful keynote on the pressures of publishing with preprints, and Malvika Sharan (The Turing Way, UK) presented on fostering open communities.

Building upon the momentum generated from the conference, we established the Concordia Open Science Working Group, whose first workshop was held on September 30, 2022. During this half-day session, more than 20 faculty members, trainees, and students from 8 different academic units, including Psychology, Computer Science and Software Engineering, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Biology, Mechanical, Industrial, and Aerospace Engineering, Education, Communication Studies, and the Library, gathered at the Loyola Campus to explore the challenges and possibilities of promoting open science at Concordia. This report presents the key insights derived from this workshop, as well as a comprehensive examination of the methodologies used and a full account of the results.

Taubert et. al. (2023) Understanding differences of the OA uptake within the Germany university landscape (2010-2020) — Part 2: repository-provided OA | ArXiv

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by Niels Taubert, Anne Hobert, Najko Jahn, Andre Bruns, Elham Iravani

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2308.11965

This study investigates the determinants for the uptake of institutional and subject repository Open Access (OA) in the university landscape of Germany and considers three factors: the disciplinary profile of universities, their OA infrastructures and services and large transformative agreements. The uptake of OA as well as the determinants are measured by combining several data sources (incl. Web of Science, Unpaywall, an authority file of standardised German affiliation information, the ISSN-Gold-OA 4.0 list, and lists of publications covered by transformative agreements). For universities OA infrastructures and services, a structured data collection was created by harvesting different sources of information and by manual online search. To determine the explanatory power of the different factors, a series of regression analyses was performed for different periods and for both institutional as well as subject repository OA. As a result of the regression analyses, the most determining factor for the explanation of differences in the uptake of both repository OA-types turned out to be the disciplinary profile, whereas all variables that capture local infrastructural support and services for OA turned out to be non-significant. The outcome of the regression analyses is contextualised by an interview study conducted with 20 OA officers of German universities. The contextualisation provides hints that the original function of institutional repositories, offering a channel for secondary publishing is vanishing, while a new function of aggregation of metadata and full texts is becoming of increasing importance.

Making the Case for Institutional [Data] Repository Services

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“Join the Data Curation Network for a webinar on “Making the Case for Institutional [Data] Repository Services.” During this session, our speakers will try to address questions like:

What makes Institutional Data Repositories (IDRs) critical to data sharing infrastructure and what is their place in the repository ecosystem? 
How will developing a roadmap toward meeting Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories help IDRs underscore their role as essential, critical infrastructure? 
If IDRs were able to collectively adopt the desirable characteristics, what would that do for the ecosystem as a whole? 
Which characteristic(s) might have the most impact for resources invested?…”

Proactive Institutional Repository Collection Development Techniques: Archiving Gold Open Access Articles and Metadata Retrieved with Web Scraping: Journal of Library Administration: Vol 0, No 0

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Abstract:  Many institutions face low deposit rates with their institutional repositories despite investing substantial resources in implementing and supporting these systems. Deposit rates are higher in IRs that offer mediated deposits; however, this can be a time and labor intensive process. This article describes a method for copying open access articles and corresponding descriptive metadata from open repositories for archiving in an institutional repository using Beautiful Soup and Selenium as web scraping tools. This method quickly added hundreds of articles to an IR without relying on faculty participation or consulting publisher policies, increasing repository downloads and usage.

 

Institutional Repository Readiness Virtual Learning Series – Data Curation Network

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“In April, we shared our new research project, “Sustaining Open Research: Institutional Repository Readiness,” which focuses on supporting IRs that share data in demonstrating alignment with and evaluation of the Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research (DC-DR). As part of this work, we are hosting a series of virtual learning days that include lecture, discussion, and exercises. Each session will have a different topic and set of exercises– and while each session can be attended individually, we invite those that are able to participate in all of them, as the content is cumulative. For those that cannot attend, we plan to record the presentations….”

The Medical Institutional Repositories in Libraries (MIRL) Symposium: a blueprint designed in response to a community of practice need | Journal of the Medical Library Association

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Abstract:  Background: Health sciences libraries in medical schools, academic health centers, health care networks, and hospitals have established institutional repositories (IRs) to showcase their research achievements, increase visibility, expand the reach of institutional scholarship, and disseminate unique content. Newer roles for IRs include publishing open access journals, tracking researcher productivity, and serving as repositories for data sharing. Many repository managers oversee their IR with limited assistance from others at their institution. Therefore, IR practitioners find it valuable to network and learn from colleagues at other institutions.

Case Presentation: This case report describes the genesis and implementation of a new initiative specifically designed for a health sciences audience: the Medical Institutional Repositories in Libraries (MIRL) Symposium. Six medical librarians from hospitals and academic institutions in the U.S. organized the inaugural symposium held virtually in November 2021. The goal was to fill a perceived gap in conference programming for IR practitioners in health settings. Themes of the 2021 and subsequent 2022 symposium included IR management, increasing readership and engagement, and platform migration. Post-symposium surveys were completed by 73/238 attendees (31%) in 2021 and by 62/180 (34%) in 2022. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Discussion: Participant responses in post-symposium surveys rated MIRL highly. The MIRL planning group intends to continue the symposium and hopes MIRL will steadily evolve, build community among IR practitioners in the health sciences, and expand the conversation around best practices for digital archiving of institutional content. The implementation design of MIRL serves as a blueprint for collaboratively bringing together a professional community of practice.

 

No-pay publishing: use institutional repositories

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“The European Council’s recommended open, equitable and sustainable scholarly publishing system, free to readers and authors, has been dismissed as unsustainable and too costly (see Nature https://doi.org/kjwj; 2023). However, institutional repositories run by research institutions offer an inexpensive and sustainable route to realizing this aspiration.

Such non-profit repositories are ubiquitous and capable of hosting ‘diamond’ open-access academic journals, which are free to publish and to read. In Spain, for example, the journal Psicológica is owned by the Spanish Society for Experimental Psychology and published on DIGITAL.CSIC, the institutional repository of the Spanish National Research Council (see go.nature.com/3jxaw9z).

Transferred in 2022 from a commercial publisher, Psicológica publishes about 50 articles, preprints and peer reviews annually. Publication costs are shared between the journal — which is financially supported by the society — and the publicly funded repository, which provides services such as archiving, DOI assignation and metadata curation. At an estimated cost of €30 (US$34) per publication, Psicológica can increase its output without incurring substantial extra costs. This underscores the sustainability of such models.”

Habits and perceptions regarding open science by researchers from Spanish institutions | PLOS ONE

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Abstract:  The article describes the results of the online survey on open science (OS) carried out on researchers affiliated with universities and Spanish research centres and focused on open access to scientific publications, the publication process, the management of research data and the review of open articles. The main objective was to identify the perception and habits of researchers with regard to practices closely linked to open science and the scientific value added is that offers an in-depth picture of researchers as one of the main actors to whom this transformation and implementation of open science will fall. It focuses on the different aspects of OS: open access, open data, publication process and open review in order to identify habits and perceptions. This is to make possible an implementation of the OS movement. The survey was carried out among researchers who had published in the years 2020–2021, according to data obtained from WoS. It was emailed to a total of 8,188 researchers and obtained a total of 666 responses, of which 554 were complete, the rest being forms with some questions unanswered. The main results showed that open access still requires the diffusion of practices and services provided by the institution, as well as training (library or equivalent service) and institutional support from the competent authorities (vice rectors or equivalent) in specific aspects such as data management. In the case of data, around 50% of respondents stated they had stored data in a repository, and of all the options, the most frequently given was that of an institutional repository, followed by a discipline repository. Among the main reasons for doing this, we found transparency, visibility of data and the ability to validate results. For those who stated they had never stored data, the most frequent reasons for not having done so were privacy and confidentiality, the lack of a mandated data policy or a lack of knowledge of how to do it. In terms of open peer review, participants mentioned a certain reticence to the opening of evaluations due to potential conflicts of interest that may arise or because lower-quality content might be accepted in order to avoid conflicts. In addition, the hierarchical structure of senior researcher versus junior researcher might affect reviews. The main conclusions indicate a need for persuasion of OA to take place; APCs are an economic barrier rather than the main criterion for journal selection; OPR practices may seem innovative and emerging; scientific and evaluation policies seem to have a clear effect on the behaviour of researchers; researchers state that they share research data more for reasons of persuasion than out of obligation. Researchers do question the pathways or difficulties that may arise on a day-to-day basis and seem aware that we are undergoing change, where academic evaluation or policies related to open science, its implementation and habits among researchers may change. In this sense, more and better support is needed on the part of institutions and faculty support services.

 

Acceso abierto: aprender de casos de éxito en universidades | blok de bid

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From Google’s English:  “The document is organized in three sections. In the first part, the Working Group makes a comparison of the evolution of the positions reached by its institutions (members of the 2019-2020 Open Access Working Group) in the 2019-21 editions of the CWTS Leiden Open Access ranking . The classification is based on the percentage of open access publications available, which makes it possible to evaluate the progress of the institutions in the implementation of open access. 

In the second part, four key factors of Group institutions that have helped to achieve outstanding open access results and thus to achieve a good position in the CWTS Leiden ranking in that category are identified and described :

Open access policies. Institutions with strong policies perform better than those without specific policies, beyond those required by funders. These policies should place deposit work flows at the center of academic activity and promote the consolidation of an institutional team to support the implementation of open access.
 
Availability and configuration of the institutional system (repositories/CRIS). The presence of an interconnected institutional repository and research information management system (CRIS) is crucial. The importance of capturing bibliographic metadata in CRIS and the transfer flow of metadata and files with the appropriate version of the text to the repository, where it is offered in open access or with an embargo period, is highlighted. 
 
Institutional research support staff. It is critical to have a dedicated Open Access/Open Science training and support team within the institution, usually within the library. This team should offer guidance and assistance to researchers in preparing their publications for open access, validation of publications in CRIS, as well as in meeting the requirements of funding policies. Open access training may include topics such as copyright, user licences, and research data management.
 
Collaboration and institutional commitment. Collaboration and commitment between different actors are essential to successfully introduce open access in institutions. This implies the active participation of researchers, libraries, IT services and other relevant departments. The institution should foster an environment in which open access is valued and supported, and where its importance to research and institutional reputation is recognized….”