IOP Publishing and the Japan Society of Applied Physics convert Applied Physics Express to fully gold OA    – IOP Publishing

“IOP Publishing (IOPP) and the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP) announce that Applied Physics Express (APEX) is to become fully open access (OA). From January 2024, all articles published in APEX, the journal devoted to rapid dissemination of new findings in applied physics, will be immediately and openly accessible for anyone to read. The move reflects the increasing demand for more accessible and open science, and funders’ mandates requiring authors to publish their work in OA journals….

Together, IOPP and JSAP endorse equal opportunities for everyone to contribute to physical science and are committed to ensuring that the transition to OA is inclusive. IOP Publishing will support researchers based in low-income and lower-middle-income countries by covering their article publication charges (APCs), with waivers for eligible authors applied automatically.  

In addition, all JSAP official members receive a 20% APC discount.”

The story behind the journal: Physics Access – DOAJ News Service

“The journal is an international open access journal, established in 2020 by the Department of Physics, Kaduna State University, Nigeria. The journal publishes all Physics research, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies. The journal is mainly funded by the department, but has received some support from the university as well. We also get some funds through APCs, though we have one of the lowest APCs in the field….

Open access is the present and the future. It opens a lot of possibilities for journals like ours and researchers around the world, because it enhances visibility, makes the spreading of knowledge more accessible, increases the visibility of both local and international research and leads to citation impact advantage. However, the cost of publishing open access journals is a major concern and I feel there is a need for a continuous conversation about how to fund open access. But I am totally for open access. …”

(IUCr) 75 years of IUCr Journals: 1948 to 2023, an Editor-in-Chief’s perspective

“The IUCr came into being 75 years ago in 1948 and others will recount the history of its origins as part of these 75th Anniversary celebrations. Also, please see earlier histories of the IUCr (Kamminga, 1989) and of the IUCr journals, especially on their 60th anniversary (Authier, 2009). Right from the start, the IUCr recognized the importance of high-quality publication of crystallographic research and structural data with its own journal, Acta Crystallographica (Acta Cryst.). Acta Cryst. remained the sole IUCr journal for some 20 years, but in 1968, it was expanded into two sections: Acta Cryst. A for crystal physics, diffraction, and theoretical and general crystallography, and Acta Cryst. B for structural crystallography and crystal chemistry. At around this same time (and following a decision made earlier at the 1963 IUCr General Assembly) a new journal was founded: Journal of Applied Crystallography for reporting methods, apparatus, problems and discoveries in applied crystallography. In 1983, Acta Cryst. was further expanded into three sections with the founding of Acta Cryst. C to handle crystal structure communications, and in 1993 it was expanded again with Acta Cryst. D to provide a needed home for the increasing number of biological crystallography submissions. The following year, in October 1994, another new IUCr journal was founded: the Journal of Synchrotron Radiation for submissions across the whole remit of synchrotron science (and later free-electron laser X-ray sources).A key development was the introduction of online journal versions in 1999. Up to this point, both the review process and journal publication, itself, took place almost exclusively in hardcopy form, and this author can just remember (as a new Co-editor in 2002) inheriting a `Not for publication – for review only’ stamp to use on hardcopy submissions received and then sent out to review. Over the following five years or so, the review system became entirely electronic and eventually web-based. A number of other important changes came to the journals in this period, such as the advent of an open-access option for authors in 2004. Partly to take advantage of these changes, two new sections were added to Acta Cryst.: Acta Cryst. E in 2001 to carry structure reports online, and Acta Cryst. F in 2005 for rapid structural biology communications. In 2008, Acta Cryst. E became the first IUCr journal to flip to `open-access only’ while in 2014 all the IUCr journals went to online publication only. Also, coinciding with the United Nations declaration of the International Year of Crystallography in 2014, the IUCr launched a new fully open-access journal, IUCrJ, to attract high-quality cross-cutting papers of broad scientific significance from all areas of structural science and crystallography. IUCrJ now covers seven main subject areas with papers pre-selected by the Main Editors prior to review.Completing the complement of IUCr journals is IUCrData, fully open access from its inception in 2016, at least initially to take data reports formerly submitted to Acta Cryst. E. This was associated with the transformation of Acta Cryst. E from a journal focused on Structure Reports Online to one more focused on Crystallographic Communications. The transformation of Acta Cryst. E was necessitated in part by its removal from the main journal citation index in 2012. Both journals have continued to develop and evolve over the years with a Raw Data Letters section recently started in IUCrData, while Acta Cryst. E has become fully re-i

2023 SCOAP3 for Books Program Call for Participation Survey

“In 2021, the SCOAP3 for Books pilot phase was successful in making a number of backlist titles available Open Access (OA) on the OAPEN platform. Beginning in 2023, the SCOAP3 Governing Council approved the implementation of an ongoing program for front list books.

 

The book titles and all relevant information is available at:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qvxIQI2NnMkV_9ehZeXlJmC7vfAFcaVg/edit. The SCOAP3 for Books program will only fund titles published with CC-BY or CC-BY-NC licenses. The final list of titles to be funded is based on the total amount received from libraries in countries around the world.

On behalf of the US SCOAP3 Governing Council representatives, Lyrasis invites your institituion to participate in funding for the 2023 SCOAP3 for Books collection. We need all final decisions by September 28, 2023….”

Nobel laureate James Cronin’s papers open to research in Special Collections – The University of Chicago Library News – The University of Chicago Library

“The James Cronin Papers are open for research. The collection was processed and preserved in part with support from The Grainger Foundation.

James Cronin (1931-2016) was a physics professor at the University of Chicago and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1980 for discovering the CP violation. He specialized in particle physics for the first half of his career, later focusing on cosmic rays and their origin. The papers primarily document Cronin’s research and discovery of the CP violation, his research on cosmic rays, and the building of the Pierre Auger Observatory, highlighting Cronin’s dedication to science and the breakthroughs he made within the field….”

AIP Publishing Launches Subscribe to Open Pilot in Two Flagship Journals – AIP Publishing LLC

“AIP Publishing is excited to announce the launch of a pilot program for the Subscribe to Open (S2O) model in two of its most esteemed journals, Physics of Plasmas and Journal of Applied Physics.

The pilot, which reflects AIP Publishing’s commitment to equity, accessibility, and open science, is set to launch in 2024.

The S2O model helps publications and publishers bridge the transition into open access (OA). It works like this: Current subscribers are offered continued access to their publications through the normal subscription process. If enough subscribers renew, that year’s content for those publications is then flipped over to OA. Importantly, all of this is done without service disruption, additional costs, or extra effort on the part of the community. Subscribers need only to renew their subscriptions normally, and the articles are made OA at no direct cost to authors….”

IOP Publishing accelerates OA publishing in Oman with Sultan Qaboos University agreement  – IOP Publishing

“Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) and society publisher IOP Publishing (IOPP) have established a transformative agreement enabling researchers to publish their work openly for anyone to read at no cost to them. It is IOPP’s first unlimited publishing agreement in Oman supporting the University’s ambition to make scientific research accessible to as many people as possible.  

The three-year agreement allows SQU researchers unlimited open access (OA) publishing across all IOPP owned journals and most partner journals while retaining their copyright. The contract also gives unrestricted reading access to IOPP’s entire journal portfolio….”

EDP Sciences – EDP Sciences and ESO Enhance Research Discoverability with Direct Links between Astronomy & Astrophysics and ESO Telescope Bibliography Records

“EDP Sciences, in collaboration with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is delighted to announce the introduction of links between Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) articles and corresponding ESO datasets. This initiative establishes A&A as the first major astronomy journal to feature such links, significantly enhancing research discoverability and facilitating a more comprehensive reader experience.

The ESO Telescope Bibliography (ESO telbib), a longstanding resource developed and curated by the ESO Library, Documentation and Information Services (LDIS) department, references articles published in the major astronomy journals that utilize ESO data. Now, the A&A publication platform, maintained by EDP Sciences, integrates direct links to the associated datasets at ESO telbib by leveraging its API. This development offers researchers approximately 8000 links to ESO data, enabling them to explore and analyze the linked data seamlessly.

By simply following the “ESO data at telbib”* links on the A&A publishing platform, readers can easily access the corresponding datasets. This integration expands upon EDP Sciences’ existing provision of direct links to essential astronomy databases, including the NASA ADS Abstract Service and the CDS (Strasbourg astronomical Data Center)….”

Funding Round for Open Access in Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science underway – TIB-Blog

“From 1 June 2023 to 1 July 2023, a funding call for seven journals in quantum physics, mathematics, and computer science is underway. Libraries, research institutions, foundations, companies and individuals can make a financial contribution to ensure that these journals can exist sustainably as open access journals – without author-facing publishing fees….”

Global Open Access Initiative, SCOAP3, Drives Dramatic Increase in Reach and Readership of Taylor & Francis Books – Taylor & Francis Newsroom

The pilot phase of SCOAP3 for Books has demonstrated the power of open access to help authors boost the readership and reach of their books. The average annual usage of the 19 Taylor & Francis titles in the pilot leapt by over 3,000% for 2021 and 2022, compared with the usage in the three years before they were converted to OA. Open access also made these titles available in regions where library budgets are limited, resulting in a five-fold increase in the average number of countries accessing the content.

Altmetrics and their relationship with citation counts: a case of journal articles in physics | Emerald Insight

Abstract:  Purpose

The first purpose of the present study is to investigate the coverage of journal articles in Physics in various sources of altmetrics. Secondly, the study investigates the relationship between altmetrics and citations. Finally, the study also investigates whether the relationship between citations and altmetrics was stronger or weaker for those articles that had been mentioned at least once in the sources of altmetrics.

Design/methodology/approach

The journal articles in Physics having at least one author from an Indian Institution and published during 2014–2018 in sources of altmetrics have been investigated. Altmetric.com was used for collecting altmetrics data. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (?) has been used as the data found to be skewed.

Findings

The highest coverage was found on Twitter (22.68%), followed by Facebook (3.62%) and blogs (2.18%). The coverage in the rest of the sources was less than 1%. The average Twitter mentions for journal articles tweeted at least once was found to be 4 (3.99) and for Facebook mentions, it was found to be 1.48. Correlations between Twitter mentions–citations and Facebook mentions–citation were found to be statistically significant but low to weak positive.

Research limitations/implications

The study concludes that due to the low coverage of journal articles, altmetrics should be used cautiously for research evaluation keeping in mind the disciplinary differences. The study also suggests that altmetrics can function as complementary to citation-based metrics.

Originality/value

The study is one of the first large scale altmetrics studies dealing with research in Physics. Also, Indian research has not been attended to in the altmetrics literature and the present study shall fill that void.

Citation pattern of open access and toll-based research articles in the field of biological and physical sciences: a comparative study | Emerald Insight

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine the relationship between the access mode of research articles [Open Access (OA) and Toll-Access (TA)] and their subsequent citation counts in Biological and Physical Sciences in three Impact factor zones (High, Medium and Low).

Design/methodology/approach

Three subjects each from Biological Sciences (Biochemistry, Cell Biology and Genetics) and Physical Sciences (Astronomy, Oceanography and Optics) were selected for the study. A comprehensive list of journals (TA and OA) in select subjects of Biological and Physical Sciences was prepared by consulting Journal Citation Report’s Master Journal List (for the compilation of both Open Access and Toll Access journal list) and Directory of Open Access Journals (for the compilation of Open Access journal list). For each journal, essential details like content language, format, year of publication, access mode (Open Access or Toll Access), etc. were obtained from Ulrich’s Periodical Directory. Web of Science (WoS) was used as citations indexing tool in this study. The data set was run on the WoS to collect the citation data.

Findings

The results of the study indicate that open mode of access is not a prerequisite for higher citation boost as in the majority of the cases in this study, TA articles have garnered a greater number of citations as compared to open access articles in different Impact factor zones in Biological and Physical Sciences.

Originality/value

A novel approach has been adopted to understand and compare the research impact of open access (OA) and toll access (TA) journal articles in the field of Biological and Physical Sciences at three Impact factor zone levels to reveal the citation metrics encompassing three parameters, i.e. citedness, average citation count and year wise distribution of citations in select subjects of Biological and Physical Sciences.

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

“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….”

Trio of OA agreements in Asia mark a first for IOP Publishing – IOP Publishing

“The three-year read and publish agreements with the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) will deliver a range of benefits, including:  

No article publication charges for authors publishing in all IOPP journals and almost all partner journals 
Publications in both hybrid and gold OA journals are covered 
Publishing under an open licence (CC-BY), allowing authors to retain copyright 
Reading access to all IOPP research published over the last 10 years…”