Category Archives: oa.societies

Mastodon over Mammon – Towards publicly owned scholarly knowledge | Zenodo

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Abstract:  Twitter is in turmoil and the scholarly community on the platform is once again starting to migrate. As with the early internet, scholarly organizations are at the forefront of developing and implementing a decentralized alternative to Twitter, Mastodon. Both historically and conceptually, this is not a new situation for the scholarly community. Historically, scholars were forced to leave social media platform FriendFeed after it was bought by Facebook in 2006. Conceptually, the problems associated with public scholarly discourse subjected to the whims of corporate owners are not unlike those of scholarly journals owned by monopolistic corporations: in both cases the perils associated with a public good in private hands are palpable. For both short form (Twitter/Mastodon) and longer form (journals) scholarly discourse, decentralized solutions exist, some of which are already enjoying some institutional support. Here we argue that scholarly organizations, in particular learned societies, are now facing a golden opportunity to rethink their hesitations towards such alternatives and support the migration of the scholarly community from Twitter to Mastodon by hosting Mastodon instances. Demonstrating that the scholarly community is capable of creating a truly public square for scholarly discourse, impervious to private takeover, might renew confidence and inspire the community to focus on analogous solutions for the remaining scholarly record – encompassing text, data and code – to safeguard all publicly owned scholarly knowledge.

 

Increasing agility and visibility in scientific publishing – Archives of Endocrinology and Metabolism

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“Since its inception, AE&M aimed to establish itself as a leading source of high-quality scienti?c information in the areas of endocrinology and metabolism ( 1 ). In that sense, maintaining open access to our articles was paramount to amplify the reach of such information in a globalized, albeit inequitable, world ( 2 ). Aiming to continue to serve the community of readers, authors, and reviewers in the best possible way, two new implementations are underway: AE&M has joined PubMed Central (PMC), and from May 2023, AE&M will adopt the continuous publication model.

 

AE&M’s incorporation into PMC re?ects its growth and scienti?c relevance in the ?eld. PMC is a free full-text repository of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM), directly linked to its preeminent search engine. Created in 2000, it houses more than 7.6 million records and, like SciELO, PMC-indexed journals make their issues and articles available in full format. Its global reach will certainly bring even more visibility and prominence to the research ?ndings published in AE&M….”

Innovative new open access agreement signed between PALCI and ACS Publications – PALCI

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“PALCI (Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation) and ACS Publications are excited to announce the signing of a new open access agreement that provides participating members with full financial support for open access publication in all ACS journals, as well as complete access to ACS Publications’ journal content through the end of 2025.

Building on previous agreements with individual members of the consortium, this new agreement is one of the first to employ a new approach that leverages the strengths of various institutions to enable full open access publishing and subscription access for participating members. This enables open access publication support for authors while maintaining – and, in some cases, expanding – access to current and historical subscription content from ACS’ full range of journals….”

Open Call for Volunteers for Presidential Task Forces

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“ACM President Yannis Ioannidis is planning to create 10 task forces as part of ACM 4.0, a long-term strategic plan for ACM, and is inviting volunteers to serve on these task forces

Below are brief descriptions of each of the task forces. Each will comprise a cross-section of individuals selected for their interest and relevant expertise. Although the length of service for the different task forces may vary, it is anticipated that each will produce an initial report in about six months….

The Open Science task force will establish services to help researchers operate according to the Open Science paradigm (which includes Open Access as an important component) and the demands it brings, for example, reproducibility of experiments, transparency throughout the research life cycle, and new forms of scholarly communication and reviewing….”

US societies call for studies of scholarly publishing costs – Research Professional News, 04 MAY 2023

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“AAAS and other groups warn of rise of inequalities from implementation of White House request Sixteen US scientific societies and associations have called for studies of scholarly publishing costs, as the country’s largest biomedical research funder deliberates on how to respond to government requirements on open access to papers. Last year, the White House asked federal research funders including the National Institutes of Health to ensure immediate open access to publications reporting work they have supported. Individual funders have leeway over the implementation, and the NIH recently sought input on its plan to comply….”

New Guidelines for Presenting Electrochemical Data in All ACS Journals | ACS Measurement Science Au

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“Electrochemistry has become a cornerstone in many facets of modern chemistry research. The past few years have witnessed the rapid growth of research areas that employ electrochemical principles and methods, including batteries, supercapacitors, solar cells, fuel cells, electrolyzers, carbon dioxide reduction, nitrogen reduction, and organic electrosynthesis, to just name a few. As such, there has been an expansion in the number of papers reporting electrochemical testing and characterization. Publications reporting electrochemistry-related experiments have become prevalent in many ACS journals including, but not limited to, ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, ACS Catalysis, ACS Energy Letters, ACS Measurement Science Au, ACS Organic & Inorganic Au, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Organic Letters, The Journal of Organic Chemistry, and The Journal of Physical Chemistry. There have been a variety of guidelines and checklists developed for some of the experimental protocols required for characterizing specific technologies (e.g., rotating ring disk electrochemistry measurements for oxygen reduction electrocatalysis and isotope experiments for nitrogen reduction to ammonia testing). However, no guidelines are available for the presentation of characterization data from general electrochemical measurements. This lack of standardization has resulted in papers being published with insufficient details for readers to reliably replicate the experiments. To outline best practices, we have developed a set of guidelines for reporting electrochemical experimentation and characterization in ACS journals. These guidelines, similar to the existing ACS guidelines for reporting NMR data and X-ray crystallography data for chemical compound and materials characterization, can be found on our ACS Research Data Guidelines website. (1) The guidelines for reporting electrochemical data are split into two sections: guidelines for reporting voltammetry and amperometry measurements, and guidelines for reporting bulk electrolysis procedures….”

ResearchGate and Royal Society of Chemistry announce partnership | STM Publishing News

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“ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and the Royal Society of Chemistry, a learned society founded 180 years ago – and whose mission includes providing opportunities and tools for the chemical science community to network, create and exchange knowledge, adapt and thrive – have today announced a partnership that will see all journals from the Royal Society of Chemistry’s open access portfolio benefit from an enhanced presence on ResearchGate through its new Journal Home offering.

As part of the Journal Home offering, all version-of-record content from the Royal Society of Chemistry’s eight newly launched open access journals will be syndicated directly to ResearchGate, dedicated journal profiles will be created and made accessible on the network, and each journal will be prominently represented on all of its associated article pages on ResearchGate. This enhanced presence will help to grow the readership of these journals – as measured via COUNTER-compliant reporting – as well as increase journal visibility and engagement among the highly relevant researcher audience that is active on ResearchGate.

Last year, the Royal Society of Chemistry announced its intention to transition to a wholly open access publisher within the next five years, and, given researchers specializing in chemistry represent one of the largest audiences on ResearchGate, both parties see a clear opportunity to accelerate growth in readership and submissions for the new open access journals included in the partnership.

Authors of the articles included in the partnership will see their content automatically added to their publication pages on ResearchGate, giving them access to statistics showing the impact of their work, and enabling them to connect with their readers. Additionally, researchers will be able to more easily learn about potential publishing opportunities across the Royal Society of Chemistry’s growing portfolio….”

White House open access proposal would limit research and innovation  | The Hill

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“We all share the goal of open access for taxpayer-funded research. However, the current OSTP proposal fails to address the crucial funding mechanism which allows for the peer-reviewed publication of vital research. We are eager to work with OSTP and Congress on an equitable solution which provides the necessary funding streams while ensuring the American public has open access to taxpayer-funded research….”

Science By All, For All: AIP Publishing Expands APC Waiver and Discount Policy

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“AIP Publishing is pleased to share that it has expanded its article processing Charge (APC) Waiver and Discount Policy, making Gold Open Access (OA) publishing more accessible to and equitable to researchers from lower- and lower-middle-income countries….”

ResearchGate and Royal Society extend scope of partnership after successful trial phase

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ResearchGate and The Royal Society have today expanded the partnership that sees all articles from the Royal Society’s ten-journal portfolio syndicated directly to ResearchGate.

Society and university journal publishers gradually progressing towards new OA models | Impact of Social Sciences

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“Assessing the findings of a recent survey into the publishing practices of independent academic publishers, Danielle Padula, head of marketing and community development at Scholastica, finds these publishers to be moving incrementally towards fully open access models while still working to identify the options with the best long-term growth potential in the wake of recent funder initiatives, such as Plan S and the OSTP ‘Nelson Memo’….”

Electrochemical Society powers ahead with open science – Physics World

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“In a bid to remove the cost barrier for more authors to make their work freely accessible, the society launched its forward-looking ECS Plus programme in 2016. This read-and-publish package not only provides institutions with full access to the ECS digital library, but also allows authors at those institutions to publish an unlimited number of open access articles in ECS journals for free. The uptake has been impressive, with more than 1000 research centres around the world now subscribing to the package….”