Category Archives: oa.publishing

OPEN SCIENCE IN CHINA: AN OPEN OR CLOSED CASE?

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“China’s place in the global system of science has become increasingly prominent. In 2016, China published the highest number of scientific articles and in 2022 it was home to the most cited papers.1 However, whether the world’s population can access and benefit from these scientific outputs largely depends on them being openly available. Academic and governmental institutions, as well as the public, connect the open science (OS) movement with two main practices, the publishing of open access (OA) research articles and sharing open data. Since the early 1990s, OS has been an umbrella term used to refer to all the different technology-enabled initiatives to strengthen openness, one core ethos of science.”

Next REF delayed to end of 2029 | Research Professional News

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Research Excellence Framework team confirms a number of proposed reforms are to be implemented

The next Research Excellence Framework has been pushed back from 2028 to 2029, it has been announced.

In a “next steps” document published on 7 December, the REF team said there is to be a delay to the exercise to resolve several issues, including the implementation of plans to fully break the link between individual staff and institutional submissions.

Other challenges that require more time to resolve include the preparations for using Higher Education Statistics Agency data to determine REF volume measures and the reworking of institutional codes of practice.

The results will now be published in December 2029, with an updated timeline to be published “as soon as possible”, the REF team said.

[…]

 

Tender 737455-2023 “Open Source Software technical infrastructure for the European Open Research Publishing Platform” | TED Tenders Electronic Daily

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Open Research Europe (ORE) is the open access peer-reviewed publishing platform offered by the Commission as an optional service to Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries at no cost to them. It was launched in March 2021 and currently has approximately 500 publications and 900 peer-reviews. ORE follows an innovative open access publishing model for articles, which is based on open peer-review after publication (post-publication peer-review). The Commission’s vision, in collaboration with a number of national funders, is that as of 2026 ORE will transition from a publishing platform for Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe beneficiaries into a publishing platform for which responsibility could be shared with Member State funders and possibly also research performing organisations. The Commission is herewith tendering the open source publishing platform that will underpin ORE as of 2026, which will be largely based on existing open source software for scientific publishing.

CONUL Conference 2024, theme “Libraries as Changemakers”. May 29-30, 2024. Call for papers now open, end of play Jan 15, 2024.

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The 2024 conference theme is ‘Libraries as Changemakers’. A changemaker is someone who is taking creative action to solve a social problem. Changemaking involves empathy, thoughtfulness, creativity, taking action and collaborative leadership.

CONUL invites submissions for presentations and posters which address topics including, but not limited to:

   Libraries and global citizenship
   Libraries supporting environmental responsibility
   Libraries as a catalyst for community transformation
   Culture and Collections for a just and fair world
   Open Research and transformational change
   Change makers as digital makers
   Collaboration as a strategy for change
   AI:  A changemaker for All
   Libraries Learning through Change
   Libraries and developmental change
   Change and Organisational culture

Submit Your Abstract

Submit Here

 

The Conference Committee welcomes proposals on the theme and sub-themes which include trends which may shape the future and practical elements of research and academic librarianship. Papers that may not fit into the above topics but relate to the overall theme are equally welcome.

An abstract can be submitted for consideration as one of the following conference session formats:

Parallel Paper: a 20 minute presentation followed by Q&A
Lightning Talk: a 10 minute presentation followed by Q&A
Show & Tell: a 5 minute presentation followed by an opportunity for delegates to have 1-1 discussions with presenters
Workshop: an interactive 60 minute session which involves the audience participation throughout the session
Poster Presentation: highlight and share your library activities or research

Oral presentations: 300 word abstract submission

Poster presentations: 100 word abstract submission

The closing date for abstract submission is Midnight (GMT), Monday 15th January 2024.

 

ResearchGate and AAAS announce new Journal Home partnership | Research Information

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“ResearchGate, the professional network for researchers, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society, have announced a new partnership that will see all AAAS Science Partner Journals benefit from enhanced visibility and reach through ResearchGate’s new Journal Home offering. 

AAAS, a leading publisher of cutting-edge research renowned for its Science family of journals, launched its Science Partner Journal (SPJ) program in 2017. Consisting of 14 high-quality, fully open access journals produced in collaboration with international research institutions, foundations, funders, and societies, the SPJ program will now expand its reach through Journal Home on ResearchGate. With Journal Home, all version-of-record content from the 14 SPJs will be available to researchers on ResearchGate, including all archive content, and all new articles on publication. Reading usage data will be consistently provided to AAAS via COUNTER-compliant reporting that can be included in institutional usage reporting, providing increased value for institutional customers.

ResearchGate will create dedicated journal profiles on the platform that will be prominently featured on all associated articles and touchpoints on ResearchGate, significantly boosting the visibility of these titles with highly relevant authors and readers….”

Official Launch of the Experimental Publishing Compendium · Copim

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“The compendium is a guide and reference for scholars, publishers, developers, librarians, and designers who want to challenge, push, and redefine the shape, form, and rationale of scholarly books. The compendium gathers and links tools, examples of experimental books, and experimental publishing practices with a focus on free and open-source software, platforms, and digital publishing tools that presses and authors can either use freely or can adapt to their research and publishing workflows. With the compendium we want to promote and inspire authors and publishers to publish experimental monographs and to challenge and redefine the shape, form, and rationale of scholarly books. …”

Copim and SCONUL webinar “”Exploring practical problems and potential strategies to fund equitable OA book publishing” Jan 25, 2024, 10am (GMT) | Zoom registration

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SCONUL and Copim Open Book Futures invite you to join a webinar featuring UK library leaders from a range of institutions to explore the difficulties of funding open access books, and how different libraries have developed strategies to tackle these challenges.

There is a growing shift towards open access (OA) for books, with policies such as UKRI mandating OA publication and a number of OA presses springing up at different universities. But when some institutions are not eligible for funding, and budgets are under increasing pressure, can libraries support this shift to open access for books? If so, how might it be done?

The challenges include: budget constraints, a lack of adequate funding (or byzantine administration to access it), scant institutional buy-in higher up the chain, and even “we don’t know where to start”. When one-off Book Processing Charges (BPCs) cost too much to be practical, what other options are available?

This session will begin with a frank discussion of the challenges of supporting OA for books, before featuring case studies of how some different libraries have devised solutions and potential routes to OA for books. These include exploring collective programmes, in which each library pays a small amount to jointly fund OA initiatives; setting up an institutional outlet of one’s own; new strategic policies and ringfenced OA budgets, and more.

This webinar will create a forum for discussion, and equip attendees with advice and practical strategies, with case studies from a range of libraries in the UK that have begun to make important steps in this direction.

Speakers:

Chaired by Andrew Barker – Library Director, Lancaster University
Phil Brabban – Library Director, Coventry University
Dominic Broadhurst – Head of Content & Discovery at The University of Salford
Anna Clements – Director of Library Services & University Librarian, University of Sheffield

PUB IN/DIAMAS Webinar “Good Practices in Diamond Open Access (journals)”, Dec 06, 2023 | Zoom registration

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This session has as its theme the quality and sustainability of magazines in open access diamond. It aims to be a space to discuss the best practices, ways to promote the quality and sustainability of editorial projects. The presentation of the speakers will be recorded and there will be a space for questions, which can be asked at the time or before (through the last question of this form).

 

More information:

https://www.pubin.pt/event/webinar-pub-in-diamas-good-as-practics-in-access-open-diamond/

 

Esta sessão tem como tema a qualidade e a sustentabilidade de revistas em acesso aberto diamante. Pretende ser um espaço para discutir as melhores práticas, formas de promover a qualidade e a sustentabilidade dos projetos editoriais. A apresentação das oradoras será gravada e existirá um espaço para perguntas, que podem ser feitas no momento ou previamente (através da última pergunta desta formulário). Mais informação: https://www.pubin.pt/evento/webinar-pub-in-diamas-boas-praticas-em-acesso-aberto-diamante/

 

Exploring the Dimensions of Scientific Impact: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis Investigating the Influence of Gender, Mobility, and Open Access

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Abstract: The Science of Science field advances the measurement, evaluation, and prediction of scientific outcomes through the study of extensive scholarly data. For these purposes, bibliometrics is an appropriate approach that studies large volumes of scientific data using mathematical and statistical methods, and is widely used to assess the impact of papers and authors within a specific field or community. However, conducting bibliometric analyses poses several methodological, technical, and informational challenges (e.g., collecting and cleaning data, calculating indicators) which need to be addressed. This thesis aims to tackle some of these challenges and shed light on the factors influencing scientific impact, specifically focusing on open access publishing, international mobility, and influential factors on the h-index. This thesis tackles methodological contributions, such as author disambiguation and co-authorship network analysis, as they provide insights into methodological and informational challenges within bibliometric analysis. Another methodological challenge addressed in this research is the inference of gender for a significant number of authors to obtain gender-related insights. By employing gender inference techniques, the research explores gender as an influential factor in scientific impact, shedding light on potential gender inequalities within the scholarly community. The research employs a bibliometric approach and utilizes mainly Scopus, a comprehensive dataset encompassing various disciplines to make the following contributions:

• We explore the impact of publishing behavior, particularly the adoption of open access practices, on knowledge dissemination and scholarly communication. With this intention, we investigate the impact of journals flipping from closed access to open access publishing models [74]. Changes in publication volumes and citation impact are analyzed, demonstrating an overall increase in publication output and improved citation metrics following the transition to open access. However, the magnitude of changes varies across scientific disciplines. In another study [76], we utilize a dataset of articles published by Springer Nature and employ correlation and regression analyses to examine the relationship between authors’ country affiliations, publishing models, and citation impact. Utilizing machine learning approach, we estimate the publishing model of papers based on different factors. The findings reveal different patterns in authors’ choices of publishing models based on income levels, availability of Article Processing Charges waivers, and journal rank. The study highlights potential inequalities in access to open access publishing and its citation advantage.

• We investigate the association between scholars’ mobility patterns, socio-demographic characteristics, and their scientific activity and impact. By utilizing network and regression analyses, along with various statistical techniques, we investigate the international mobility of researchers. Furthermore, we conduct a comparative analysis of scientific outcomes, considering factors such as publications, citations, and measures of co-authorship network centrality. The findings reveal gender inequalities in mobility across scientific fields and countries and positive correlations between mobility and scientific success.

• Centered on the prediction of scholars’ h-index as a metric of scientific impact, another one of our studies [77] employs machine learning techniques. We examine author, coauthorship, paper, and venue-specific characteristics, in addition to prior impact-based features. The results emphasize the significance of non-prior impact-based features, particularly for early-career scholars in the long term, while also revealing the limited influence of gender on h-index prediction. 

The findings of this research hold implications for researchers, academic institutions, and policymakers aiming to advance scientific knowledge and foster equitable practices. By unviii covering the influential factors that shape scientific impact and addressing potential gender disparities, this research contributes to the broader objective of promoting diversity, inclusivity, and excellence within the scholarly community. 

Launching the Experimental Publishing Compendium | Centre for Postdigital Cultures

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The Copim community and Open Book Futures are pleased

to announce the launch of the

Experimental Publishing Compendium

https://compendium.copim.ac.uk/

The compendium is a guide and reference for scholars, publishers, developers, librarians, and designers who want to challenge, push, and redefine the shape, form, and rationale of scholarly books. The compendium gathers and links tools, examples of experimental books, and experimental publishing practices with a focus on free and open-source software, platforms, and digital publishing tools that presses and authors can either use freely or can adapt to their research and publishing workflows. With the compendium we want to promote and inspire authors and publishers to publish experimental monographs and to challenge and redefine the shape, form, and rationale of scholarly books.

We are celebrating the official launch of the Experimental Publishing Compendium with a festive calendar on Twitter (#ExperimentalPublishingCompendium) and Mastodon, featuring 24 experimental publishing tools, practices & books from the compendium.

The compendium includes experiments with the form and format of the scholarly book; with the various (multi)media we can publish long-form research in; and with how people produce, disseminate, consume, review, reuse, interact with, and form communities around books. Far from being merely a formal exercise, experimental publishing as we conceive it here also reimagines the relationalities that constitute scholarly writing, research, and publishing. Books, after all, validate what counts as research and materialise how scholarly knowledge production is organised.

We hope that the linked entries in this compendium inspire speculations on the future of the book and the humanities more in general and encourage publishers and authors to explore publications beyond the standard printed codex format.

The Experimental Publishing Compendium has been curated by Janneke Adema, Julien McHardy, and Simon Bowie and has been compiled by Janneke Adema, Simon Bowie, Gary Hall, Rebekka Kiesewetter, Julien McHardy, and Tobias Steiner. Future versions will be overseen, curated, and maintained by an Editorial Board. Back-end coding by Simon Bowie, front-end coding by Joel Galvez, design by Joel Galvez & Martina Vanini.

The Experimental Publishing Compendium is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). All source code is available on GitHub at https://github.com/COPIM/expub_compendium under an MIT License.

The compendium grew out of the following two reports:

Adema, J., Bowie, S., Mars, M., and T. Steiner (2022) Books Contain Multitudes: Exploring Experimental Publishing (2022 update). Community-Led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM). doi: 10.21428/785a6451.1792b84f& 10.5281/zenodo.6545475.
Adema, J., Moore, S., and T. Steiner (2021) Promoting and Nurturing Interactions with Open Access Books: Strategies for Publishers and Authors. Community-Led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs (COPIM). doi: 10.21428/785a6451.2d6f4263and 10.5281/zenodo.5572413

COPIM, Open Book Futures, and the Experimental Publishing Compendium are supported by the Research England Development (RED) Fund and by Arcadia.

 

New report “Recognising Digital Scholarly Outputs in the Humanities” | ALLEA

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This report underscores the transformative impact of digital practices on humanities scholarship. It highlights the importance of recognising interdisciplinary work, innovative research methods, and non-traditional scholarly outputs. In the first part, the ALLEA Working Group E-Humanities addresses challenges in digital humanities, focusing on transparency in linking resources to publications, recognising updates as scholarly contributions, reevaluating authorship, fostering digital skills, and adjusting evaluation methods.

The second section offers recommendations for assessing specific digital outputs like editions, databases, infographics, code, blogs, and podcasts. Each case study includes practical examples and suggested readings.

 

Job: Head of Publishing (LSE Press). Applications invited by Jan 7, 2024 | London School of Economics

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LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university

Library

Head of Publishing (LSE Press)

Salary from £50,606 to £58,505 pa inclusive with potential to progress to £65,157 pa inclusive of London allowance

LSE is a world-leading social science research institution with global impact. Launched in May 2018, LSE Press is a platform for high quality, open access research in the social sciences. Through rigorous peer-review and the use of innovative digital approaches, the Press aims to promote the widest possible engagement with social science research.

Since its launch the Press has published 13 books covering a range of topics from both LSE and external authors and 5 journals. LSE Press publications demonstrate wide public engagement and growing the Press is one of the key objectives of the LSE Research Strategy. Student work is published through our Houghton Street Press imprint, both as part of taught programmes and as discrete student-led publication enterprises.

The Press is managed by a small, dedicated Library team and a well-established Editorial Board, led by the newly appointed Chair of Editorial Board.

We are seeking a highly motivated, creative individual with experience of working in academic publishing, as our Head of Publishing, to lead the next phase of LSE Press growth, one of the key deliverables of the School’s new Research Strategy. The Head of Publishing will lead the business development of the Press, managing an efficient, author-focused publishing service and building a distinctive publication portfolio of the highest academic quality. They will drive continuous evolution and innovation of the Press by contributing specialist and forward-thinking knowledge and experience from the scholarly publishing field.

We are looking for people who can use initiative and creativity to expand the LSE Press, leading the LSE Press team to deliver an excellent service and building positive relationships with authors. You must have excellent communication skills and extensive experience in publishing. Your creativity and people skills must be underpinned by strong organisational ability and a focus on delivering successful publication projects.

We offer an occupational pension scheme, generous annual leave, hybrid working, and excellent training and development opportunities.

 

Open Book Collective Development Fund: Scoping Survey | OBC Information Hub

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The Open Book Collective invites participants to complete our Collective Development Fund Scoping Survey.

This survey is designed to help inform the way the Open Book Collective designs forthcoming grant funding calls for its ‘Collective Development Fund’. This fund will be issuing around £100,000 in grant funding between early 2024 and early 2026 to Open Access book publishers and infrastructure providers. One of its key aims is to support publishers, infrastructure providers and other organisations to build capacity to increase the quantity, quality and diversity of Open Access books.

The Collective Development Fund is funded from two sources: directly, from funders as part of the Open Book Futures project, as well as from our publisher and service provider members. The Open Book Collective allocates around half of the fees it charges publishers and infrastructure providers to the Collective Development Fund.

[…]

 

Q&A: Phillip Sharp and Amy Brand on the future of open-access publishing | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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“A group of MIT scholars is releasing a new white paper about academic open-access publishing. The paper gathers information, identifies outstanding questions, and calls for further research and data to inform policy on the subject.

 

The group was chaired by Institute Professor Emeritus Phillip A. Sharp, of the Department of Biology and Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research, who co-authored the report along with William B. Bonvillian, senior director of special projects at MIT Open Learning; Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research; Barbara Imperiali, the Class of 1922 Professor of Biology; David R. Karger, professor of electrical engineering; Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga, professor of science, technology, and society; Amy Brand, director and publisher of the MIT Press; Nick Lindsay, director for journals and open access at MIT Press; and Michael Stebbins of Science Advisors, LLC.

 

MIT News spoke with Sharp and Brand about the state of open-access publishing….”

Access to Science and Scholarship: Key Questions about the Future of Research Publishing

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“The health of the research enterprise is closely tied to the effectiveness of the scientific and scholarly publishing ecosystem. Policy-, technology-, and market-driven changes in publishing models over the last two decades have triggered a number of disruptions within this ecosystem:

Ongoing increases in the cost of journal publishing, with dominant open access models shifting costs from subscribers to authors

Significant consolidation and vertical (supply chain) integration in the publishing industry, and a decline in society-owned subscription journals that have long subsidized scientific and scholarly societies

A dramatic increase in the number of “predatory” journals with substandard peer review

Decline in the purchasing power of academic libraries relative to the quantity and cost of published research To illustrate how researcher behavior, funder policies, and publisher business models and incentives interact, this report presents an historical overview of open access publishing.

The report also provides a list of key questions for further investigation to understand, measure, and best prepare for the impact of new policies related to open access in research publishing, categorized into six general areas: access and business models, research data, preprint publishing, peer review, costs to researchers and universities, and infrastructure.”