“A preconsidered & coherent set of choices regarding the why, what, when, how and where of sharing/publishing research.
What are your or your team’s priorities for the next project coming up? What role for open science practices in your publishing?
Tick your goals, look at the suggestions appearing in the other columns, then decide on your own preferences….”
Abstract: Purpose
This mixed-methods study integrates bibliometric and altmetric investigation with a qualitative method in order to assess the prevalence and societal-impact of Open-Access (OA) publications, and to reveal the considerations behind researchers’ decision to publish articles in closed and open-access.
Design/methodology/approach
The bibliometric-altmetric study analyzed 584 OA and closed publications published between 2014 and 2019 by 40 Israeli researchers: 20 from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and 20 from SSH (Social Sciences and Humanities) discipline. We used a multistage cluster sampling method to select a representative sample for the STEM disciplines group (engineering, computer science, biology, mathematics, and physics), and for the SSH disciplines group (sociology, economics, psychology, political science, and history). Required data were extracted from Scopus and Unpaywall databases, and the PlumX-platform. Among the 40 researchers who were selected for the bibliometric-altmetric study, 20 researchers agreed to be interviewed for this study.
Findings
Comparing bibliometrics and altmetrics for the general publications did not reveal any significant differences between OA and closed publications. These were found only when comparing OA and closed publications across disciplines. STEM-researchers published 59 % of their publications in OA, compared to just 29 % among those in SSH, and they received significantly more bibliometric and altmetric citations from SSH OA publications and from their own closed-access publications. The altmetrics findings indicate that researchers are well acquainted and active in social media. However, according to the interviewees, there is no academic contribution for sharing research findings on social-media; it is viewed as a “public-service”. Researchers’ primary consideration for publishing in closed or OA was the journal impact-factor.
Research limitations/implications
Our findings contribute to the increasing body of research that addresses OA citations and societal-impact advantages. The findings suggest the need to adopt an OA-policy after a thorough assessment of the consequences for SSH disciplines.
“Octopus publications are not equivalent to journal articles or papers. Instead, there are 8 smaller publication types aligned with the publication process.
Think of Octopus like a ‘patent office’ where you can register all your work, including theories, data, and analyses. Whatever you publish should be the formal ‘version of record’, ready to be assessed by others and publicly recorded against your name and ORCID iD.Publishing on Octopus is quick and easy by design. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get you started: …”
“The pandemic has underlined the significance of open science and spurred further growth of preprinting. Nevertheless, preprinting has been adopted at varying rates across different countries/regions. What is the level of adoption of preprinting and how does this differ across countries/regions? What do researchers see as benefits of preprinting and what are their concerns? What do researchers see as ways to encourage preprinting?
To investigate researchers’ experience with and attitudes toward preprinting, we conducted a survey of authors of research papers published in 2021 or 2022. We find that respondents in the US and Europe had a higher level of familiarity with and adoption of preprinting than those in China and the rest of the world. Respondents in China were most worried about the lack of recognition for preprinting and the risk of getting scooped. US respondents were very concerned about premature media coverage of preprints, the reliability and credibility of preprints, and public sharing of information before peer review. Respondents identified integration of preprinting in journal submission processes as the most important way to promote preprinting.”
“What this means in practice is that for the general public open access articles are even more beneficial than those published in traditional titles, since they frequently turn up as Wikipedia sources that can be consulted directly. They are also advantageous for the researchers who write them, since their work is more likely to be cited on the widely-read and influential Wikipedia than if the papers were not open access. As the research notes, this effect is even more pronounced for “articles with low citation counts” – basically, academic work that may be important but is rather obscure. This new paper provides yet another compelling reason why researchers should be publishing their work as open access as a matter of course: out of pure self interest.”
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Abstract: Author attitudes towards Open Access (OA) remains an important area of investigation in academic publishing. The successful implementation of new OA infrastructure and business models depend on their reception within scholarly communities. This paper proposes “Open Access Culture” — the set of beliefs, practices, and attitudes towards OA publishing shared by members of an academic field — as a framework to understand how OA innovations are and will be received by different scholarly communities. The investigation of OA culture helps identify the needs of individual academic fields (e.g., the importance of print publishing for a particular field), thus foregrounding author preferences in the publishing process. The University of Michigan Press (UMP) is drawing upon the OA Culture framework to aid the implementation of its OA monograph initiative. UMP has undertaken research (author survey as well as editor, author, and librarian interviews) to understand how the monograph initiative will integrate different fields. This paper presents results of this research demonstrating the application of the OA Culture framework to several fields, as well the Humanities, Arts, and Humanistic Social Sciences (HSS) more broadly. This is one way that University Presses may take an author-centered approach to OA publishing programs, one that foregrounds the needs of individual authors and considers their unique disciplinary context. Moreover, the paper offers a recent view of sentiments towards OA in the HSS and thus helps to contextualize the current OA landscape.
Abstract: While guest or honorary authorship on academic papers is a broadly and widely discussed phenomenon in biomedical research, the issue of the use – or abuse – of article processing charges (APCs) as a form of potential authorship exchange currency, i.e., the “APC ring”, is not being discussed. The APC is central to the open access (OA) movement, specifically gold OA, including hybrid subscription models. It is conceivable that poorly-funded researchers aiming to publish in ranked (e.g., with a Clarivate journal impact factor or indexed in a major database such as Scopus) OA journals with expensive APCs (sometimes costing thousands of US dollars or Euros) might turn to richer researchers to foot the bill in exchange for authorship. Despite this, extensive web and database searches revealed no published cases on APC-for-authorship schemes as a form of guest authorship, which seems inconceivable. One possible explanation is that if such unethical behavior, and a form of fraud, were to be detected by APC-charging journals, that it might not be reported as such. Alternatively, if it has been detected as such, it might be reported (e.g., to the public) more broadly as “authorship issues” without detailing that an APC-based guest authorship scheme (i.e., “APC ring”) was involved. In such a situation, APC-dependent journals would be conflicted between receiving a financial lifeline, the APC, and exposing authors that abuse the APC in exchange for authorship. How would OA publishers justify receiving APCs derived from an “APC ring”? Although this form of guest authorship is currently hypothetical, it is also highly likely, so this issue needs greater debate. If actual case studies exist, these need to be openly and publicly debated to better appreciate how widely this phenomenon may be taking place.
Abstract: This study investigates the interplay between open access (OA), coauthorship, and international research collaboration. While previous research has dealt with these factors separately, there is a knowledge gap in how these interact within a single data set. The data includes all Scopus-indexed journal articles published over 11 years (2009–2019) where at least one of the authors has an affiliation to a United Arab Emirates (UAE) institution (30,400 articles in total). To assess the OA status of articles, the study utilized Unpaywall data for articles with a digital object identifier, and manual web searches for articles without. There was consistently strong growth in publication volume counts as well as shares of OA articles across the years. The analysis provides statistically significant results supporting a positive relationship between a higher number of coauthors (in particular international) and the OA status of articles. Further research is needed to investigate potentially explaining factors for the relationship between coauthorship and increased OA rate, such as implementation of national science policy initiatives, varying availability of funding for OA publishing in different countries, patterns in adoption of various OA types in different coauthorship constellations, and potentially unique discipline-specific patterns as they relate to coauthorship and OA rate.
“Africa PID Alliance is a project by Helix Analytics Africa and Training Centre in Communication (TCC-AFRICA), which, encompasses a community of PID enthusiasts in and from Africa aiming to lead and realize a FAIR sharing of access to data using Persistent Identifiers in innovation, research, and technology within the cultural, scientific and cross-industry ecosystems. We provide the following solutions to achieve robust PIDs Digital Object Identifiers (DOI); Personal Data Protection (Control & Compliance); Data Auditing & Reporting…”
Abstract: “Persistent Identifiers are the pillars of an interoperable, persistent and reliable Open Research Infrastructure. This is the reason why a lot of countries/regions and organizations took the initiative to contribute to this network and help promote the use of PIDs through their academic and publishing ecosystems. The objective of this document is to structure the feasibility, implementation and manageability of the project. A survey on the African continental level will shed light on or provide insights on the need of a DOI Registration Agency tailored to the continental context. One of the innovations that this agency will bring is a specific prefix for Africa that will provide; Ownership to African researcher over their content…”
Nabil Ksibi, Joy Owango, & Sara. (2023). Africa PID Alliance Digital Object Identifiers Registration Concept Note (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7924069
Abstract: This study examines the patterns of faculty solicitations by open-access (OA) publishers in radiology. The purpose of the research is to determine the factors that predict the likelihood of receiving such solicitations. We recruited 6 faculty members from 7 subspecialties in radiology to collect emails from OA journals for 2 weeks. We assessed the number of publications by each faculty member in 2022 and 2023, the previous 5 years, and entire career in PubMed. For each email, the solicitation was categorized for article submission, article review, and editorial board membership. An invitation to submit a manuscript was the most common type of solicitation received, followed by editorial boards and reviewer invites. Faculty with more than 10 indexed articles in PubMed since January 2022 were significantly more likely to receive article solicitations than those with 10 or fewer publications. Additionally, scholars with more than 40 articles since 2018 were significantly more likely to receive more than 10 article solicitations. Full professors were significantly more likely to receive solicitations to serve on editorial boards. A multivariate linear regression model predicted that publications since 2022 had the highest predictive value for the number of article solicitations and total solicitations. This study provides insight into the patterns of mass communication and various solicitations by OA publishers in radiology. The study highlights the importance of publication productivity as a predictor of article and total email solicitations and of professorial rank for editorial board invitations.
OA and the Academy: Evaluating an OA Fund with Authors’ Input
Abstract: The pandemic has underlined the significance of open science and spurred further growth of preprinting. Nevertheless, preprinting has been adopted at varying rates across different countries/regions. To investigate researchers’ experience with and attitudes toward preprinting, we conducted a survey of authors of research papers published in 2021 or 2022. We find that respondents in the US and Europe had a higher level of familiarity with and adoption of preprinting than those in China and the rest of the world. Respondents in China were most worried about the lack of recognition for preprinting and the risk of getting scooped. US respondents were very concerned about premature media coverage of preprints, the reliability and credibility of preprints, and public sharing of information before peer review. Respondents identified integration of preprinting in journal submission processes as the most important way to promote preprinting.
“This guide describes how authors can retain rights on their “author’s accepted manuscripts” using the Rights Retention Strategy.”