Category Archives: oa.taiwan

Elsevier and CONsortium on Core Electronic Resources in Taiwan establish agreement supporting open access publishing for Taiwanese researchers

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Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, and the CONsortium on Core Electronic Resources in Taiwan (CONCERT) – the negotiating body representing universities in Taiwan – have successfully reached an agreement which supports open access (OA) publishing for Taiwanese authors and continued reading access to Elsevier’s world-leading content on ScienceDirect.

JMIR – Two Decades of Research Using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Claims Data: Bibliometric and Text Mining Analysis on PubMed | Sung | Journal of Medical Internet Research

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Abstract:  Background: Studies using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) claims data have expanded rapidly both in quantity and quality during the first decade following the first study published in 2000. However, some of these studies were criticized for being merely data-dredging studies rather than hypothesis-driven. In addition, the use of claims data without the explicit authorization from individual patients has incurred litigation.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate whether the research output during the second decade after the release of the NHI claims database continues growing, to explore how the emergence of open access mega journals (OAMJs) and lawsuit against the use of this database affect the research topics and publication volume and to discuss the underlying reasons.

Methods: PubMed was used to locate publications based on NHI claims data between 1996 and 2017. Concept extraction using MetaMap was employed to mine research topics from article titles. Research trends were analyzed from various aspects, including publication amount, journals, research topics and types, and cooperation between authors.

Results: A total of 4473 articles were identified. A rapid growth in publications was witnessed from 2000 to 2015, followed by a plateau. Diabetes, stroke, and dementia were the top 3 most popular research topics whereas statin therapy, metformin, and Chinese herbal medicine were the most investigated interventions. Approximately one-third of the articles were published in open access journals. Studies with two or more medical conditions, but without any intervention, were the most common study type. Studies of this type tended to be contributed by prolific authors and published in OAMJs.

Conclusions: The growth in publication volume during the second decade after the release of the NHI claims database was different from that during the first decade. OAMJs appeared to provide fertile soil for the rapid growth of research based on NHI claims data, in particular for those studies with two or medical conditions in the article title. A halt in the growth of publication volume was observed after the use of NHI claims data for research purposes had been restricted in response to legal controversy. More efforts are needed to improve the impact of knowledge gained from NHI claims data on medical decisions and policy making.

Scientists in Germany, Peru and Taiwan to lose access to Elsevier journals : Nature News & Comment

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“Thousands of scientists in Germany, Peru and Taiwan are preparing for a new year without online access to journals from the Dutch publishing giant Elsevier. Contract negotiations in both Germany and Taiwan broke down in December, while Peru’s government has cut off funding for a licence….Elsevier and the [German] DEAL consortium, says Hippler, are still far apart with regards to pricing and the OA business model. “Taxpayers have a right to read what they are paying for,” he says. “Publishers must understand that the route to open-access publishing at an affordable price is irreversible.”

In Taiwan, meanwhile, more than 75% of universities, including the country’s top 11 institutions, have joined a collective boycott against Elsevier, says Yan-Jyi Huang, library director at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST, also known as Taiwan Tech).

On 7 December, the Taiwanese consortium, CONCERT, which represents more than 140 institutions, announced it would not renew its contract with Elsevier because fees were too high. Elsevier switched to dealing with universities individually. But the NTUST and many others — including Taiwan’s leading research institute, Academia Sinica — have each decided to uphold the boycott, from 1 January 2017….”