Tokyo Institute of Technology Partners With Taylor & Francis in New Read and Publish Agreement | STM Publishing News

“Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and Taylor & Francis have announced a new three-year transformative partnership to increase the publication of open access (OA) articles by researchers at the leading science and technology institution.

Under the agreement, articles with a corresponding author based at Tokyo Tech will receive funding support to publish OA in Taylor & Francis and Routledge Open Select (hybrid) journals.

Tokyo Tech is the first member of the Japan Alliance of University Library Consortia for E-Resources (JUSTICE) to opt in to a new ‘read & publish’ deal negotiated by the consortium. The agreement also ensures Tokyo Tech users can continue to read all the Taylor & Francis journals the library subscribed to in 2022….”

Taylor & Francis Becomes the Newest Supporter of Open Pharma | STM Publishing News

“Open Pharma and Taylor & Francis are delighted to announce that Taylor & Francis has become the latest official Supporter of the Open Pharma initiative…

Today‘s announcement that Taylor & Francis has become an official Supporter of Open Pharma reflects the fact that the two organizations share the same commitment to connecting pharma with innovations in publishing to increase transparency and access to research outputs.

These shared values were illustrated in 2021, when Open Pharma published their recommendations for plain language summaries of peer-reviewed medical journal publications in the Taylor & Francis journal Current Medical Research and Opinion (CMRO).* One of more than 2700 peer-reviewed journals published by Taylor & Francis, Open Pharma selected CMRO because of its complete range of open access options and its commitment to publishing innovations and research in medical and scientific publishing….:

T&F copyright advice. Author, beware. | Plan S

“The information provided by T&F, whilst having a veneer of assisting authors, is nothing of the sort. The nub of the matter is, T&F wants the author’s rights so they can own and control the content of the article. This does not seem right to me – the researcher should own and control the content that they created, based on the discoveries they made, and that were paid for by others such as taxpayers, a funder, or an institution – not the publisher. 

An author may well want a publisher to carry out valuable services, such as copyediting, etc, and they should be paid for those services. This does not mean they should own and control the content. It is, therefore, imperative that authors retain their rights so they can: 

Make and distribute any print or digital copies of the content they wish 
Distribute print or digital copies to any lecture, class, conference or other group, commercial or non-commercial, as they wish
Share copies of and content from their article with whomever they choose (the entire world if wanted), whenever they choose, using whatever channel they choose.
Use their articles in any other works they create as they wish, whether dissertation, thesis, or anything else
Post their accepted manuscript wherever they choose, whenever they choose, whether their institution’s repository or a commercial academic network such as ResearchGate.

T&F is not alone in imposing such restrictions. Similar restrictions abound in other publishers’ terms and conditions. My recommendations: 

Authors: Be aware; Read the terms and conditions carefully before signing 
Researchers: Most importantly, retain your rights in line with advice from UNESCO, European Universities Association (EUA), Global Young Academy (GYA), LIBER and here, and others.
Universities: step up to the plate and support your researchers, so they don’t have to deal with unacceptable and complex terms and conditions – adopt an institutional authors’ rights retention policy as soon as possible (see numerous examples on cOAlition S blog)…”

Taylor & Francis welcomes OSTP’s memorandum on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research – Taylor & Francis Newsroom

At Taylor & Francis, we extend our support to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for its aims to make all federally funded research and subsequent data publicly available as soon as it has been published.

The Oligopoly’s Shift to Open Access. How For-Profit Publishers Benefit from Article Processing Charges | Zenodo

Butler, Leigh-Ann, Matthias, Lisa, Simard, Marc-André, Mongeon, Philippe, & Haustein, Stefanie. (2022). The Oligopoly’s Shift to Open Access. How For-Profit Publishers Benefit from Article Processing Charges (Version v1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7057144 Abstract: This study aims to estimate the total amount of article processing charges (APCs) paid to publish open access (OA) in journals controlled by the large commercial publishers Elsevier, Sage, Springer-Nature, Taylor & Francis and Wiley, the so-called oligopoly of academic publishing. Since the early 2010s, these five academic publishers control more than half of peer-reviewed journal articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS), expanding their market power through acquisitions and mergers. While traditionally their business model focused on charging subscriptions to read articles, they have now shifted to OA, charging authors fees for publishing. These APCs often amount to several thousand dollars, excluding many from publishing on economic grounds. This study computes an estimate of the total amounts of APCs paid to oligopoly publishers between 2015 and 2018, using publication data from WoS, OA status from Unpaywall and annual APC prices from open datasets and historical fees retrieved via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. We estimate that globally authors paid the oligopoly of academic publishers $1.06 billion in publication fees in the 4-year period analyzed. Of the 505,903 OA articles analyzed, 60.9% were published in gold OA journals, 8.6% in diamond (gold with APC=$0) and 30.5% in hybrid journals. Revenue from gold OA amounted to $612.5 million, while $448.3 million was obtained for publishing OA in hybrid journals, for which publishers already charge subscription fees. Among the five publishers, Springer-Nature made the largest revenue from OA ($589.7 million), followed by Elsevier ($221.4 million), Wiley ($114.3 million), Taylor & Francis ($76.8 million) and Sage ($31.6 million). With Elsevier and Wiley making the majority of APC revenue from hybrid fees and others focusing on gold, different OA strategies could be observed between publishers.

Gardner et al. (2022) Implementing the Declaration on Research Assessment: a publisher case study

Gardner, Victoria, Mark Robinson, and Elisabetta O’Connell. 2022. “Implementing the Declaration on Research Assessment: A Publisher Case Study”. Insights 35: 7. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.573

Abstract

There has been much debate around the role of metrics in scholarly communication, with particular focus on the misapplication of journal metrics, such as the impact factor in the assessment of research and researchers. Various initiatives have advocated for a change in this culture, including the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which invites stakeholders throughout the scholarly communication ecosystem to sign up and show their support for practices designed to address the misuse of metrics. This case study provides an overview of the process undertaken by a large academic publisher (Taylor & Francis Group) in signing up to DORA and implementing some of its key practices in the hope that it will provide some guidance to others considering becoming a signatory. Our experience suggests that research, consultation and flexibility are crucial components of the process. Additionally, approaching signing with a project mindset versus a ‘sign and forget’ mentality can help organizations to understand the practical implications of signing, to anticipate and mitigate potential obstacles and to support cultural change.

 

Open Science Badges at Taylor & Francis – Editor Resources

“Open Science Badges (OSB) were designed by the Center for Open Science to acknowledge and encourage open science practices. They are offered as incentives for researchers to share data, materials, or to preregister their research. The badges are a visual signal for readers, indicating that the content of the study is available in perpetuity….”

Full article: Platelets and open access – a new era dawns

“For these reasons, we can now confirm that the decision has been made to transform Platelets into a fully open access journal. This will be implemented during a period of transition over the rest of 2022, with the switch completed by the beginning of 2023. It will mean that, going forward, all articles accepted for publication in Platelets will attract an Article Processing Charge (APC) and will be fully and freely accessible to all readers. We are pleased that the proposed APC is lower than it has been previously for our journal and is overall a rate competitive with journals of similar scope and stature….”

Implementing the Declaration on Research Assessment: a publisher case study

Abstract:  There has been much debate around the role of metrics in scholarly communication, with particular focus on the misapplication of journal metrics, such as the impact factor in the assessment of research and researchers. Various initiatives have advocated for a change in this culture, including the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which invites stakeholders throughout the scholarly communication ecosystem to sign up and show their support for practices designed to address the misuse of metrics. This case study provides an overview of the process undertaken by a large academic publisher (Taylor & Francis Group) in signing up to DORA and implementing some of its key practices in the hope that it will provide some guidance to others considering becoming a signatory. Our experience suggests that research, consultation and flexibility are crucial components of the process. Additionally, approaching signing with a project mindset versus a ‘sign and forget’ mentality can help organizations to understand the practical implications of signing, to anticipate and mitigate potential obstacles and to support cultural change.

 

Petition · Stop offering paid fast-track academic publishing · Change.org

“This is an open letter to Taylor & Francis, publishers of academic journals. We are writing to ask T&F to discontinue the policy of fast-tracking submissions for a fee. We refer to the policy here. A recent clarification of this policy was published by T&F but it does not adequately address our concerns.

We have two objections to the policy. First is that we are against any form of preferential treatment for those who can pay. Fast-tracking for a fee creates a two-tier system, wherein the well-funded have an unfair advantage over the less well-to-do; in particular, it exacerbates the differences between scientists in different economic circumstances and at different points in their career. The fast-track policy at the least allows faster publication by those with funds, improving the chance for the funded to win subsequent grants and to publish before other labs working on the same topic.

Our second objection to the policy stems from our concern that fast-tracked manuscripts may receive an advantage above and beyond just faster publication. …”

Accelerated Publication clarification – Taylor & Francis Newsroom

“Over the last week, there has been much debate about the Accelerated Publication service offered by Taylor & Francis. This statement is to clarify some of the comments that have been made about this service, and correct any misunderstandings.

Taylor & Francis has offered Accelerated Publication for a small list of Biomedical Journals for over 15 years.

There are no current plans to introduce this service to any other journals.

The service is used primarily for research funded by pharma companies to manage the communication pipeline for drug and therapy development. Often the work that is being conducted by these researchers needs to be delivered in a set timeframe. Sometimes this is also commercially sensitive in relation to patent applications and product development. This means that other options of rapid dissemination (including pre-prints and open peer-review) are not suitable for the publication needs of these researchers….”

Accelerated Publication – Taylor & Francis

“If time is critical in your publishing strategy, our Accelerated Publication options are available on a select number of biomedical journals and can help you get your research into a high-quality, peer-reviewed journal, fast.

With Accelerated Publication, you can:

coordinate your publishing schedule with conferences, drug approvals, and drug launches
keep competitive advantage by getting your discoveries to market quickly
speed up the peer review process without sacrificing quality or rigor….”

Implementing an Open & FAIR data sharing policy—A case study in the earth and environmental sciences – Cannon – 2022 – Learned Publishing – Wiley Online Library

Abstract:  This paper outlines the impact of the introduction of an Open & FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data sharing policy on six earth and environmental science journals published by Taylor & Francis, beginning in November 2019. Notably, 18 months after implementing this new policy, we observed minimal impacts on submission, acceptance rates, or peer-review times for the participating journals. This paper describes the changes that were required to internal systems and processes in order to implement the new policy, and compares our findings with recent literature reports on the impact of journals introducing data-sharing policies.

ScienceDirect pilot aims to improve research discovery and access

“Now, the American Chemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, Taylor & Francis and Wiley will collaborate with ScienceDirect on a six-month pilot project to better understand how we can address these challenges.

During the pilot, researchers will be able to search and browse more than 70,000 articles in 35 journals from these participating publishers, alongside Elsevier’s content on ScienceDirect. The journals are all Organic Chemistry and Transportation titles, including most of the top journals in these fields. …”