Category Archives: oa.iceland

Herbivore species coexistence in changing rangeland ecosystems: First high resolution national open-source and open-access ensemble models for Iceland – ScienceDirect

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Abstract:  Rangeland ecosystems are changing worldwide with the abandonment of extensive pastoralism practices and greater interest for species coexistence. However, the lack of compiled data on current changes in the abundance and distribution of herbivores challenges rangeland management decisions. Here we gathered and made available for the first time the most extensive set of occurrence data for rangeland herbivores in Iceland in an Open Access framework for transparent and repeatable science-based decisions. We mapped fine scale species distribution overlap to identify areas at risk for wildlife-livestock conflict and overgrazing. Nationwide and long term (1861–2021) occurrence data from 8 independent datasets were used alongside 11 predictor raster layers (“Big Data”) to data mine and map the distribution of the domestic sheep (Ovis aries), feral reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus), pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus), and rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta islandorum) over the country during the summer. Using algorithms of Maxent in R, RandomForest, TreeNet (stochastic gradient boosting) and MARS (Splines) in Minitab-SPM 8.3, we computed 1?km pixel predictions from machine learning-based ensemble models. Our high-resolution models were tested with alternative datasets, and Area Under the Curve (AUC) values that indicated good (reindeer: 0.8817 and rock ptarmigan: 0.8844) to high model accuracy (sheep: 0.9708 and pink-footed goose: 0.9143). Whenever possible, source data and models are made available online and described with ISO-compliant metadata. Our results illustrate that sheep and pink-footed geese have the greatest overlap in distribution with potential implication for wildlife-livestock conflicts and continued ecosystem degradation even under diminishing livestock abundance at higher elevation. These nationwide models and data are a global asset and a first step in making available the best data for science-based sustainable decision-making about national herbivores affecting species coexistence and environmental management.

 

 

Rafrænar bækur í opnum aðgangi á leitir.is – Open Access

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From Google’s English: “The database of leitir.is has added more than 19,000 peer-reviewed ebooks to DOAB – Directory of Open Access Books in open access. Among the publishers are academic associations, university editions and recognized publishers of scientific material. You can download individual book chapters or the entire ebook….”

Open access journal publishing in the Nordic countries

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Abstract:  The number of open access (OA) journals and their share of all scholarly journals are usually estimated based on indexing in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). DOAJ’s coverage of OA journals from different regions of the world is, however, far from complete, particularly of journals publishing in languages other than English. Using alternative data sources for identification and manual verification, 437 scholarly OA journals published in the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) were identified, and some key characteristics were studied. Of these, only 184 were indexed in DOAJ. A vast majority of the journals was published by scholarly societies or universities. Social sciences and humanities dominated as topics, and few journals charge authors. National or university-specific OJS portals have played a major role in enabling OA publishing. Around a third of the Nordic scholarly journals are currently OA.

Lokaverkefni: “Opinn aðgangur að rannsóknum : tækifæri og áskoranir fyrir háskólasamfélagið á íslandi” | Skemman

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A thesis by Sigurbjörg Jóhannesdóttir, submitted in October 2015. 

Abstract:  Open Access (OA) are introduced and discussed associated with open scholarship and the international scientific community. The status of Open Access in Iceland is explored through the laws and policies relating to OA, gratis and libre publications within scholarly journals, publication within open repositories, and the opportunities that scientists have to publish scholarly papers in OA.

Data was collected through interviews with experts in the Open Access field. Two questions were used from a study of OA that was conducted among scientists at Reykjavik University (RU) 2014, as well as an analysis of a list of their published articles in scholarly journals in 2013. 

The results show that OA is growing slowly in Iceland. Four institutions have OA policies. Icelandic scientists are not taking full advantage of the rules of journals about publishing articles within OA. Scientists’ beliefs concerning the barriers standing in their way for publishing sholarly papers in OA are based on a lack of knowledge and a lack of access to institutional repositories in which they might wish to publish their articles. 

The opportunities and challenges that Icelandic universities face regarding open sholarship are outlined and discussed. The universities need to have policies for OA and Open Educational Resources (OER) which are consistent with what is happening internationally. Academics need to receive helpful information on OA, they also need to receive encouragement, advice and support concerning publishing in OA. The universities and the scientific community in Iceland need to take a joint decision on what are the best ways for the continued preservation and publication of research and educational resources in OA.

Assisting living authors in opening access to their in-copyright works: a report from Iceland

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Abstract: This article reports on a project, spanning the years 2013 to 2015, that assisted living Icelandic authors in opening access to out-of-print books that they wished to make publicly available. While this effort was small in scale, it sheds light on the complexities of releasing still-in-copyright works by living authors under a Creative Commons license. The project worked primarily with books that had been digitized by Google and included in HathiTrust’s collections. The project showed that Icelandic authors of older scholarly works were generally very interested in releasing them to the public at no charge by changing their rights status in HathiTrust. Meanwhile, authors who wished to release works that had not already been scanned were sometimes frustrated in their efforts to do so. The article concludes with some reflections on the benefits and drawbacks of author-by-author rights clearance, as compared to other ways of increasing the accessibility of out-of-print titles

Open Access | University of Iceland

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“The University of Iceland has established a policy on open access and encourages staff to publish articles in open access outlets, such as open access journals, digital repositories, etc. The policy applies to publications in peer-reviewed journals but not to books or book chapters.

The UI Open Access Policy was approved by the University Council on 6 February 2014 and entered into force on 1 September 2015….”

The Icelandic Research Fund Handbook for Applicants, Expert Panels, and External Reviewers, 2d edition, 2017

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From pp. 3-4, section 2.3: “According to the Act on Public Support for Scientific Research no. 3/2003 with later amendments, results of research funded by public funds shall be published in open access, unless otherwise agreed upon. Researchers who receive funding from IRF [Icelandic Research Fund] must guarantee that their research findings will be available through open access. Researchers may either publish in open access journals, or in open searchable, digital repositories along with publication in a traditional subscription journal 5 . The final peer reviewed manuscript shall be returned to the repository immediately after the article has been accepted for publication. If the journal demands a waiting period prior to open access, the grantee shall upon submission of manuscript to repository specify that the article shall be made available for public access automatically when the waiting period expires. The rules on open access currently only apply to peer-reviewed texts published in scientific journals….”

The Icelandic Research Fund Handbook for Applicants, Expert Panels, and External Reviewers, 2d edition, 2017

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From pp. 3-4, section 2.3: “According to the Act on Public Support for Scientific Research no. 3/2003 with later amendments, results of research funded by public funds shall be published in open access, unless otherwise agreed upon. Researchers who receive funding from IRF [Icelandic Research Fund] must guarantee that their research findings will be available through open access. Researchers may either publish in open access journals, or in open searchable, digital repositories along with publication in a traditional subscription journal 5 . The final peer reviewed manuscript shall be returned to the repository immediately after the article has been accepted for publication. If the journal demands a waiting period prior to open access, the grantee shall upon submission of manuscript to repository specify that the article shall be made available for public access automatically when the waiting period expires. The rules on open access currently only apply to peer-reviewed texts published in scientific journals….”