German Research Foundation warns against the growing influence of major publishers on research. Scientific freedom is under threat from two sides.
Die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft warnt vor dem wachsenden Einfluss der Großverlage auf die Forschung. Die Wissenschaftsfreiheit ist hier von zwei Seiten bedroht.
“This briefing paper issued by the Committee on Scientific Library Services and Information Systems (AWBI) of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) on the subject of data tracking in digital research resources describes options for the digital tracking of research activities. It outlines how academic publishers are becoming data analytics specialists, indicates the consequences for research and its institutions, and identifies the types of data mining that are being used. As such, it primarily serves to present contemporary practices with a view to stimulating discussion so that positions can be adopted regarding the consequences of these practices for the academic community. It is aimed at all stakeholders in the research landscape….
Potentially, research tracking of this kind can fundamentally contradict academic freedom and informational self-determination. It can endanger scientists and hinder the freedom of competition in the field of information provision. For this reason, scholars and academic institutions must become aware of the problem and clarify the legal, technical and ethical framework conditions of their information supply – not least so as to avoid involuntarily violating applicable law, but also to ensure that academics are appropriately informed and protected. AWBI’s aim in issuing this briefing paper is to encourage a broad debate within the academic community – at the level of academic decision-makers, among academics, and within information infrastructure institutions – so as to reflect on the practice of tracking, its legality, the measures required for compliance with data protection and the consequences of the aggregation of usage data, thereby enabling such measures to be adopted. The collection of data on research and research activity can be useful as long as it follows clear-cut, transparent guidelines, minimises risks to individual researchers and ensures that academic organisations are able to use such data if not have control over it.”
From Google’s English: “The German Research Foundation (DFG) is stepping up its efforts to ensure free access to publications and other research results online. In order to support Open Access and adapt it to the changing requirements of science and research, the DFG has decided and implemented further measures. These are networked with one another and range from improved framework conditions to the financing of publication costs and the development of a science-appropriate publication infrastructure to participation in national and international working groups….
The DFG readjusted its open access policy in 2020. Scientists are now asked to publish results from DFG-funded research projects in open access. To achieve this goal, the DFG supports both the financing of publication fees and the development of suitable publication infrastructures with its funding programs.
With its “Open Access Publication Costs” program, which was introduced in autumn 2020, the DFG grants subsidies for publication fees. Both the fees for journal articles and for Open Access monographs can be funded. Many universities and non-university research institutions are faced with the financial challenge that publishers charge for the publication of research results in Open Access. The new program is intended to support the institutions and their scientists in the Open Access transformation.
In addition to funding publication fees, the various specialist communities in Germany are dependent on the further development of science-friendly standards and infrastructures. With the newly accentuated funding program “Infrastructures for Scientific Publishing” , the DFG supports the Open Access transformation by setting up and expanding suitable publication infrastructures and thus also promotes the (further) development of structural framework conditions for the publication system….”
From Google’s English: “The German Research Foundation (DFG) is taking promising measures to drive the Open Access transformation forward. In advance, she had revised her Open Access Policy: Researchers are now asked to publish DFG-funded results in Open Access.
In January 2021, the DFG will start its new Infrastructures for Scientific Publishing program , the main goals of which are to promote the Open Access transformation through the establishment and expansion of suitable publication infrastructures and the (further) development of structural framework conditions. As early as autumn 2020, the DFG introduced the Open Access Publication Costs funding program, which subsidizes the publication fees for open access journal articles and monographs….”
From Google’s English: Since 2010, the DFG program “Open Access Publishing” has been a central instrument for the institutional funding of open access publications at German universities. In the course of a DFG program evaluation, the central library of the Research Center Jülich created a data analysis that shows the publication output of the sponsored universities illuminated in 2011-2017. The results of the study lead to the following findings:
The DFG program has proven to be structuring for the funded universities, which thus have a publication fund located at the university library.
Open access publishing is a trend at German universities, as the tenfold increase in the gold open access rate at the sponsored and non-sponsored universities between 2006 and 2017 shows.
The German university publication system is still a long way from a complete open access transformation, since the proportion of closed access publications has declined little and the absolute number of closed access publications has even increased.
With a few exceptions, the level of APCs among the publishers under review increases significantly and on average exceeds the price increase rates for subscription magazines.
Recommendations for action at the end of the article show what funded institutions and funding agencies should take into account in future monitoring procedures.
From Google’s English: “A coalition of several European research funding organizations (cOAlition S), supported by the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), has agreed to make full and immediate open access to science publications they support mandatory from 2020 onwards.
The German Research Foundation (DFG) works closely with European funding organizations in Science Europe and Knowledge Exchange, as well as with all relevant national organizations to build and develop a science and research-friendly open access environment. It therefore welcomes the coordinated cooperation of various funding organizations to implement an open access approach….
The DFG continues to support Open Access based on the interests of researchers and with a view to better cost transparency, both in terms of the cost of access to publications and publication fees. It supports the “cOAlition S” in a series of measures that the DFG has already begun implementing in the past….”
[But DFG did not endorse Plan S or join the Plan S coalition.]
“A number of European research funding organisations (cOAlition S) – with the support of the European Commission including the European Research Council (ERC) – have now agreed to require full and immediate open access to research publications resulting from their grants by the year 2020.
The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) works closely together with European funders in Science Europe and in Knowledge Exchange as well as with all relevant organisations on a national level to form and build an open access environment conducive to science and research. The DFG therefore welcomes a coordinated approach among funding organisations towards the realisation of open access. [But DFG has not signed on to Plan S.] …”
[ABSTRACT] Fast and easy access to electronic resources plays a key role in academic library services. Since 1997 the University Library of Regensburg has been providing the Electronic Journals Library (EZB, http://ezb.ur.de), a database for academic electronic journals, which is used and collaboratively maintained by more than 600 libraries. The bibliographic metadata and holdings information for e-journals of the EZB build the basis for the EZB Linking Service, a link resolver to check the availability of full texts of electronic journals and to offer links to journal contents in accordance with existing access rights. For several thousand journals of about 45 different publishers a direct link to the articles of e-journals with respect to permissions can be offered in such a way. The EZB Linking Service is involved in over 40 third-party systems, like library portals, internet portals, virtual libraries or specialized databases. With about 70 million requests in 2014, the EZB Linking Service is an intensively used service of the information infrastructure in Germany. However, research articles in institutional repositories, which are simultaneously published in scientific journals, are often not included in existing link resolvers. As part of a project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the extension of the EZB Linking Service to open access publications in different institutional repositories is planned to make the access to these publications easier for end users. As a result of the project, journal articles which are published parallel in institutional repositories will be integrated in the EZB Linking Service and offered to end users as alternative article links.
“After a month of intense conversations and negotiations, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) will bring the ‘Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act’ up for mark-up on Wednesday, July 29th. The language that will be considered is an amended version of FASTR, officially known as the ‘Johnson-Carper Substitute Amendment,’ which was officially filed by the HSGAC leadership late on Friday afternoon, per committee rules. There are two major changes from the original bill language to be particularly aware of. Specifically, the amendment Replaces the six month embargo period with ‘no later than 12 months, but preferably sooner’ as anticipated; and Provides a mechanism for stakeholders to petition federal agencies to ‘adjust’ the embargo period if the12 months does not serve ‘the public, industries, and the scientific community.’ We understand that these modifications were made in order accomplish a number of things: Satisfy the requirement of a number of Members of HSGAC that the language more closely track that of the OSTP Directive; Meet the preference of the major U.S. higher education associations for a maximum 12 month embargo; Ensure that, for the first time, a number of scientific societies will drop their opposition for the bill; and Ensure that any petition process an agency may enable is focused on serving the interests of the public and the scientific community …”
“Impact is multi-dimensional, the routes by which impact occur are different across disciplines and sectors, and impact changes over time. Jane Tinkler argues that if institutions like HEFCE specify a narrow set of impact metrics, more harm than good would come to universities forced to limit their understanding of how research is making a difference. But qualitative and quantitative indicators continue to be an incredible source of learning for how impact works in each of our disciplines, locations or sectors.”
“Open access for monographs and book chapters is a relatively new area of publishing, and there are many ways of approaching it. With this in mind, a recent publication from the Wellcome Trust aims to provide some guidance for publishers to consider when developing policies and processes for open access books. The Wellcome Trust recognises that implementation around publishing monographs and book chapters open access is in flux, and invites publishers to email Cecy Marden at c.marden@wellcome.ac.uk with any suggestions for further guidance that would be useful to include in this document. ‘Open Access Monographs and Book Chapters: A practical guide for publishers’ is available to download as a pdf from the Wellcome Trust website.”
“The purpose of this post is to shed some light on a specific issue in the transition to open access that particularly affects small and low-cost publishers and to suggest one strategy to address this issue. In the words of one Resource Requirements interviewee: ‘So the other set of members that we used to have about forty library members , but when we went to open access online, we lost the whole bunch of libraries. Yeah, so basically we sent everybody ,you know, a letter saying we are going to open access online, the annual membership is only $30, we hope you will continue to support us even though there are no longer print journals, and then a whole flu of cancellations came in from a whole bunch of libraries, which we had kind of thought might happen but given how cheap we are, I have to say I was really disappointed when it indeed did happen especially from whole bunch of [deleted] libraries [for which our journal is extremely relevant]. I was going, seriously $30?’ Comments: for a university library, a society membership fee, when not required for journal subscriptions, may be difficult to justify from an accounting perspective. $30 is a small cost; however, for a university the administrative work of tracking such memberships and cutting a check every year likely exceeds the $30 cost. With 40 library members at a cost of $30, the total revenue for this journal from this source was $1,200. A university or university library could sponsor this amount at less than the cost of many an article processing charge. The university and library where the faculty member is located have a support program for open access journals; clearly the will, and some funding, is there. One of the challenges is transitioning subscription dollars to support for open access, as I address in my 2013 First Monday article. Following is one suggestion for libraries, or for faculty to suggest to their libraries: why not engage your faculty who are independent or society publishers to gain support for cancellations or tough negotiations and lower prices for the big deals of large, highly profitable commercial publishers that I argue are critical to redirect funding to our own publishing activities? Here is one scenario that may help to explain the potential …”
[From Google’s English] “UKB , the consortium of thirteen university libraries and the National Library, the objectives of The Hague Declaration endorsed by signing the joint declaration. All signatories state that there are no copyright restrictions are scientific results and research data. Everyone should be able to freely analyze facts and data.Licensing and copyright rules may not raise barriers before. The knowledge economy has an interest in global open access or open science. According to the statement must be contained in the European copyright rules that authors the right to (re) use of data and texts not lose by signing a contract with a publisher …”
” Demand for a service to help institutions capture their research outputs remains unabated, and any drive to help automate it will need to break challenging new ground. Jisc Publications Router is now set for a new phase of development as it seeks to do just that. It aims to become a permanent service in 2016, expanding at an accelerated pace the range of content it can deliver … It’s difficult for institutions to identify accepted research articles by their academics, according to a recent report to Jisc, as they seek to make progress in implementing the open access policy for the next REF. Jisc Publications Router is a system that gathers information about journal articles from content providers such as publishers. By looking at the affiliations of the co-authors, it then sends a notification to the relevant institution(s). This could be at or near the point of acceptance, for example, or final publication. It could consist of metadata only, or it could include full-text files as well, depending on what the content provider can send. The institutions can then capture this information onto their systems, including their open repositories. In some cases, the metadata will include details of an embargo period the repository should respect before it makes the full text freely available. The initial Router project, funded by Jisc and operated by EDINA (University of Edinburgh) aimed to demonstrate a prototype system. That has been a success: the system has delivered real articles to real institutions in ways that they have used and found helpful, saving them time and effort …”
“To advance the University of Iowa’s longstanding commitments to open inquiry, the free exchange of ideas, and public access to scholarly works, the staff of the University of Iowa Libraries have adopted an open access policy that will make their publications freely available and ensure their long-term preservation and findability. This policy complements the Libraries’ support of open access to freely accessible scholarship, advances the diverse roles staff play as producers and preservers of scholarly and professional literature, and reflects the values of the University of Iowa Libraries’ mission statement. All University of Iowa Libraries staff members grant the University of Iowa the right to archive and make publicly accessible the full texts of their professional publications. These include traditional productions such as journal articles and book chapters and extends to documents in other formats, such as conference presentation slides and audio and video recordings of public talks. This agreement provides the University of Iowa the non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free license to preserve and redistribute the work. Staff members will submit electronic versions of their works to the University of Iowa’s institutional repository, Iowa Research Online (IRO), within thirty days of each work’s publication, presentation, or transmission, respecting publishers’ requests for embargoes. Ideally the submitted version will be the publisher’s final version or the author’s final accepted manuscript. On a case-by-case basis, including cases in which a publisher refuses to accommodate the terms of this policy, staff members may opt-out of this agreement by sending a message to the Chair of the Scholarly Publishing Team (see membership at https://sharepoint.uiowa.edu/sites/libraries/sc/scc/default.aspx). The Scholarly Publishing Team will be responsible for interpreting the policy, resolving related problems, and revising it as necessary. The Scholarly Publishing Team will review this policy one year after its adoption and report its findings to the University Librarian.”