Category Archives: oa.best_practices

A Guide for Social Science Journal Editors on Easing into Open Science (FULL GUIDE)

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Abstract:  Journal editors have a large amount of power to advance open science in their respective fields by incentivising and mandating open policies and practices at their journals. The Data PASS Journal Editors Discussion Interface (JEDI, an online community for social science journal editors: www.dpjedi.org) has collated several resources on open science in journal editing (www.dpjedi.org/resources). However, it can be overwhelming as a new editor to know where to start. For this reason, we have created a guide for journal editors on how to get started with open science. The guide outlines steps that editors can take to implement open policies and practices at their journal, and goes through the what, why, how, and worries of each policy/practice.

News – CESSDA Recognised for its contributions to Open Science best practices

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“CESSDA [Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives] has been recognised in the new Horizon Europe Programme Guide and the Open Research Europe publishing platform for its contribution to Open Science practices. These recognitions highlight the importance of trusted repositories in Open Science practices, particularly in preserving and making research data accessible….”

 

We accelerate the transition to Open Science | EOSC Association

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“How to accelerate the transition to Open Science? Join us!

Join us for an upcoming event at the Nordic House in Brussels, on June 12th.

As part of the build-up to the Swedish Presidency conference on “The Potential of Research Data”, the EOSC Association, alongside its esteemed Swedish members, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and the Swedish Research Council (VR), will be hosting a remarkable joint session on Accelerating the Transition to Open Science: the possible pathways for impact to accelerate the transition to Open Science as the norm for scientific publishing.

This highly anticipated gathering will take place after work on Monday, 12 June, at 17:30, and is hosted at the EOSC Association headquarters located at Rue du Luxembourg 3 in Brussels….”

Best practices for APC waivers – Research4Life

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“Article Processing or Publishing Charges (APCs) are a feature of some Open Access (OA) publishing models. Many publishers offer APC waivers to researchers from lower and middle-income countries. It can be difficult for eligible researchers to discover and understand what waiver policies exist and how they are applied.

These guidelines offer a checklist of considerations when setting and implementing a waiver policy and provide recommendations on how best to communicate your policy to potential authors from the Research4Life user community. 

These guidelines are not intended to influence how policy is set, only to make recommendations that provide maximum transparency and clarity for users, particularly potential authors….”

Beyond the Repository – ACM Queue

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“Open source is much more than a repository—it is a rich multilevel ecosystem of human contributors who collaboratively cooperate, in many capacities, to accomplish a shared creative endeavor. Consequently, when studying open source ecosystems, numerous interacting parts must be considered to understand the dynamics of the whole. Research on open source ecosystems is ultimately research about a sociotechnical ecosystem. Researchers should take care to retain the socio- element in research and understand how both their methods and results may impact entire open source ecosystems.

This article describes best practices for open source ecosystems research through multiple overarching best practices. It offers practical guidelines for conducting rigorous, ethical, respectful research that maintains the integrity of the open source ecosystem under consideration….”

ICOR’s Inaugural Public Meeting: Evidence-based implementation of open collaborative research | 17 May 2023 | Incentivizing Collaborative Open Research

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“We are pleased to announce that ICOR’s inaugural public webinar is scheduled for May 17, 10:30am – 12pm ET;  please join us by registering here.  Incentivizing Collaborative Open Research (ICOR) was founded in early 2020 with a small gathering of open science advocates, funders, practitioners and institutional leaders interested in taking constructive and immediate action to increase research transparency and accelerate scientific breakthroughs. The ‘Strategic Circle’ agreed that use of publications and associated metrics was incentivizing the wrong behaviors, leading competition over collaboration. To shift incentives, the strategists mapped out changes needed throughout the research lifecycle, as illustrated on our home page from early proposal of a research project to assessment of its outcomes….”

Publishers Learning And Community Exchange | theplace.discourse.group

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“Welcome to the Publishers Learning and Community Exchange. Things are best achieved by working together. Here at the Publishers Learning and Community Exchange we aim to make it easier for you to find solutions to problems, access the most relevant information, gain a better understanding of publishing processes and standards, and share experiences and best practices.

We realize that the sheer number of agencies involved in regulating and preserving scholarly content is in itself a challenge, and can be very confusing for new organizations. We envisaged the PLACE as a ‘one stop shop’ to information to support publishers in adopting best practices the industry developed.

We also hope that by setting the information service as a forum, we will encourage open exchange with publishers who aspire to do things right. Please browse through the topics of interest. Please ask questions in response to posts already existing on this forum, and by starting new topics within any of the forum categories (you will need to register as a user to do that).

Please don’t hesitate to introduce yourself briefly to colleagues in this community and read others’ introductions….”

Introducing The Publishers Learning And Community Exchange (PLACE) | OASPA, April 5, 2023

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“The Publishers Learning And Community Exchange (PLACE) at theplace.discourse.group is a new online public forum created for organisations who wish to adopt best practices in scholarly publishing. It has been co-developed by four organisations – Crossref, DOAJ, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA). When OASPA recently asked our Scholar Publisher members if they needed publishing support, 70% said that they did. They also said they seek connection with other scholar publishers….”

https://theplace.discourse.group/

UNESCO’s Global Call for Best Practices in Open Science (Page 1 of 4)

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“To assist Member States with the implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, UNESCO is launching a Global Call for Best Practices in Open Science to collect best practices in open science at individual, institutional, national, regional and international levels with a particular focus on the seven priority areas highlighted in the Recommendation (http://bit.ly/3VI5oHP).

The resulting compendium of best practices will be made widely available and broadly disseminated and will be a useful tool to better understand the current landscape of best practices in open science, to identify possible gaps and challenges, share lessons learned improve knowledge and understanding.

If you are involved in an open science initiative that you consider to be a good example or best practice in open science, please provide your input to the survey (available in English, French and Spanish).”

“Zayed University Library, Open Access and the Place of the University ” by Lekoko Kenosi

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Abstract:  Zayed University Library, like most academic libraries the world over, subscribes to the principle of open access to knowledge. Open access works to removes barriers to information, advocates unrestricted use of electronic resources, and strives to facilitate readers with readily available information. This approach plays a critical role in supporting universities’ core mission of teaching, faculty and student research, and community outreach engagements. Similarly, the Archives, like its library counterpart, is home to a rich array of information capable of supporting teaching, research and community outreach initiatives. However, due to the confidential nature of materials in the archives, many archival repositories do not champion unfettered access to their content. This paper will deliberate on conditions governing access to archival content by reviewing provisions of the UAE Federal Law No 7 of 2008 on the National Archives, the UAE Federal law No 13 of 2021 amending some provisions of the Federal Law No 7 of 2008, and international best practice standards, rules and regulations spelling out the place of the archives in an academic library set-up.

 

Guest Post – Advancing Accessibility in Scholarly Publishing: Recommendations for Digital Accessibility Best Practices – The Scholarly Kitchen

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“For publishers, it is also important to be up to date with the following:

PDF/UA (PDF/Universal Accessibility), formally known as ISO 14289-1:2014 (Document management applications — Electronic document file format enhancement for accessibility), is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for accessible PDF technology. PDF/UA complements WCAG 2.0 and should be used to make PDF files that also conform with WCAG 2.0.
EPUB Accessibility 1.0 Specifications: The EPUB Accessibility 1.0 EPUB Accessibility 1.1: Conformance and Discoverability Requirements for EPUB publications specification specifies content conformance requirements for verifying the accessibility of EPUB publications, as well as accessibility metadata requirements for the discoverability of EPUB publications.
The Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired, or Otherwise Print Disabled (MVT). “The treaty allows for copyright exceptions to facilitate the creation of accessible versions of books and other copyrighted works for visually impaired persons. It sets a norm for countries ratifying the treaty to have a domestic copyright exception covering these activities and allowing for the import and export of such materials.”…”

Twenty years of Creative Commons licences: key legal considerations and best practice

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“Creative Commons, the US-based non-profit organisation which has developed a scheme for freely licensing copyright, recently celebrated its twentieth year. While Creative Commons is not the only scheme which facilitates open content licensing, it is by far the most commonplace today. In this article, Owen O’Rorke and Ethan Ezra set out some “best practice” points when encountering these licences and examine the history, strengths, and critiques of the scheme….”

OASPA and DOAJ Announce the Launch of an Open Access Journals Toolkit

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The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) are pleased to announce the forthcoming launch of the Open Access (OA) Journals Toolkit, scheduled for launch in the second half of 2023. Research Consulting is supporting them in managing the Toolkit development process as well as in liaising with an expert Editorial Board.

CHECKLIST FOR OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHERS ON IMPLEMENTING THE UNESCO RECOMMENDATION ON OPEN SCIENCE

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“This document is part of the UNESCO Open Science Toolkit, designed to support implementation of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. It has been produced in partnership with the Open  Access  Scholarly  Publishing  Association  (OASPA),  a  diverse  community  of  organizations  engaged  in  open  scholarship.  The  aim  is  to  provide  practical  assistance  to  the  open  access  publishing  community  to  better  understand  the  Recommendation  by  highlighting  the  areas  that apply to open access publishers who wish to support its implementation….”

 

Incentivizing Collaborative Open Research (ICOR) Envisions a Culture That Rewards Open Science – SPARC

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“The sweeping movement towards open research has set in motion changes across funding bodies, institutions, and scholars. For open research to take off, sharing at all stages of the research cycle needs to be easy and the benefits explicitly recognized.

A new project is cataloguing best practices and promoting real incentives to work in the open, with the aim of improving reproducibility and accelerating outcomes to advance science.

Incentivizing Collaborative Open Research (ICOR) began in 2020 with discussions among a circle of 20 strategists led by Kristen Ratan, founder of Strategies for Open Science (Stratos) and Sarah Greene, founder of Rapid Science. The team set out to identify policies, tools, and practices that can be tested to provide evidence regarding the power of operating in the open. A goal of ICOR is to highlight pockets of innovation and to connect researchers with concrete practices that ease and improve their work in open science….”