GPO Digitizes All Congressional Directories Back to the 1800s

“The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) has digitized all historic Congressional Directories on GovInfo, the one-stop site to authentic information published by the Federal Government. The public now has free and easy access to nearly 130 years of additional directories and can explore directories from the 41st Congress (1869–1870) through the 117th Congress (2021-2022). Future Congressional Directories will continue to be released on GovInfo as they are completed.

“GPO is proud to make available these historic Congressional Directories in another step toward cultivating an America Informed,” said GPO Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern. “We hope the public enjoys exploring these directories which are rich with information on our Nation’s past and present leaders. Congratulations to our team on completing this effort.”

Historically, the Congressional Directory has been one of the most comprehensive and detailed resources for identifying the components of the three branches of the Federal Government. It includes short biographies of each member of the Senate and House, as well as terms of service and contact information for members of Congress. In addition, it provides descriptions of various Executive branch departments and Judiciary information….”

ROAPE in 2024 – an end and a new beginning – ROAPE

“From January 2024 all ROAPE’s work will be available on a single platform with no paywalls. There will be equal access for all researchers, activists, and readers, wherever they are based in the world, and for the foreseeable future. 

We are delighted to announce that from the start of 2024, our fiftieth anniversary, ROAPE [Review of African Political Economy] will become a journal which is freely available to all readers online through an open access platform. The change marks the end of the commercial publishing relationship with Taylor and Francis. We will maintain the journal’s remit and structure, as we advance our activities for researchers and activists engaged in the analysis and radical transformation of Africa. Our articles, briefings and debates will continue to be peer-reviewed and available online and in print.

The move to independent publishing removes the paywall for activists and researchers to access ROAPE content. We break from the system of paid for ‘open’ access and take advantage of recent technological changes that have permanently revolutionised the ways in which readers access content. Our website, roape.net and online publication of the journal have increased our readership, and the widening of our audience has been exciting and inspiring. We will now build on this increased readership. From January 2024 all ROAPE’s work will be available on a single platform with no paywalls. There will be equal access for all researchers, activists, and readers, wherever they are based in the world, and for the foreseeable future.”

radical online collections and archives – New Historical Express

“I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would be useful to make a list. All of those that are included are free to access (there are others that require some form of subscription). If there are any that I have missed or if any links are broken, do let me know, either by commenting below or sending me an email.”

Open Access: Benefits and Pitfalls for Political Scientists | Political Science Education and the Profession | APSA Preprints | Cambridge Open Engage

Abstract:  Who benefits from open access (OA) publishing? For whom does it present additional hurdles? We seek to understand the impact of the move to OA publishing models on scholars as producers of articles for academic journals. Specifically, we examine whether research funding, author gender and number, (location of) institutional affiliation, and the European or US origin of the journal affect the likelihood that an article is published OA. Our empirical analysis focuses on twelve well-respected journals. We find that research funding is consistently and positively associated with OA publishing, but also that relatively few articles are published OA. In addition, articles authored by scholars with European institutional affiliations are more likely than those with US institutional affiliations to be published OA. We discuss the implications of our findings and point to avenues for further work to better understand how OA affects scholars’ ability to publish their research in academic journals.

 

Open Access Journals of Political Science Available In DOAJ: A Study

Abstract:  The study deals with the “Open Access Journals available in Political Science in the  Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). It is the most recognized and authoritative list of scholarly open access journals in Political Science in DOAJ. Subject-wise, country-wise, Publisher wise, and language-wise data was collected. The data is based on open access journal available in Political science in the DOAJ. The data was collected from 2018 to 2020. Political science journals were selected from the official website of the DOAJ database  (http://www.doaj.org).

 

The Book Costs How Much??? Textbook Cost & OER Awareness in Political Science | Journal of Political Science Education

Shawna M. Brandle (2022) The Book Costs How Much??? Textbook Cost & OER Awareness in Political Science, Journal of Political Science Education, DOI: 10.1080/15512169.2022.2104164

 

Abstract

Introductory level political science courses are a near-universal experience for undergraduate students in the US. Despite the wide occurrence of introductory courses, and the increasing attention paid to student loan debt, the cost of the teaching materials for introductory courses has largely been ignored in political science. This paper brings together several data sources to show how political science has not been attentive to textbook costs and highlight one possible solution, Open Educational Resources (OER), which has the potential to increase access to political science for all students.

 

Can open data increase younger generations’ trust in democratic institutions? A study in the European Union

Abstract:  Scholars and policy makers are giving increasing attention to how young people are involved in politics and their confidence in the current democratic system. In a context of a global trust crisis in the European Union, this paper examines if open government data, a promising governance strategy, may help to boost Millennials’ and Generation Z trust in public institutions and satisfaction with public outcomes. First, results from our preliminary analysis challenge some popular beliefs by revealing that younger generations tend to trust in their institutions notably more than the rest of the European citizens. In addition, our findings show that open government data is a trust-enabler for Millennials and Generation Z, not only through a direct link between both, but also thanks to the mediator role of citizens’ satisfaction. Accordingly, public officers are encouraged to spread the implementation of open data strategies as a way to improve younger generations’ attachment to democratic institutions.

 

Converting to Open Access. The Austrian Journal of Political Science (OZP) as a case study | König | Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft

Abstract:  Open Access is a simple idea that has resulted in a confusing landscape of business models, competing policy prescriptions, and vested interests. Academic debates about the pros and cons of Open Access publishing often lack insights into the operational needs for setting up an Open Access publication. This is true particularly for the social sciences, where experiences with Open Access from the production side still seem sparse. Covering the period between 2010 and 2015, this article recapitulates one of the few cases where an existing academic journal in political science has been converted to an Open Access publication. The Austrian Journal of Political Science (OZP) is an Open Access journal since 2015; and it was the academic community that conducted the conversion process. Remaking the OZP may thus entail some broader lessons for the social sciences communities about what is important in Open Access publishing.

 

TagTeam :: Annual Review of Public Health uses Subscribe to Open to publish 2020 volume open accessGet started as a tagger – Harvard Open Access Project – peter.suber’s bookmarks – Open Access Tracking Project (OATP)

Nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews is pleased to announce that the 2020 volume of the Annual Review of Political Science has been converted from gated to open access, with all articles published under a CC BY license. The back volumes, dating from 1998, are now freely available. The Annual Review of Political Science is the third of five journals included in a 2020 pilot program for Subscribe to Open.

For further information or to set up an interview, contact Liz Allen, Director of MarCom and Strategic Development at Annual Reviews (lallen@annualreviews.org). 

 

Annual Review of Political Science uses Subscribe to Open to publish 2020 volume open access

Nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews is pleased to announce that the 2020 volume of the Annual Review of Political Science has been converted from gated to open access, with all articles published under a CC BY license. The back volumes, dating from 1998, are now freely available. The Annual Review of Political Science is the third of five journals included in a 2020 pilot program for Subscribe to Open.

For further information or to set up an interview, contact Liz Allen, Director of MarCom and Strategic Development at Annual Reviews (lallen@annualreviews.org). 

 

A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment

Abstract:  This study estimates the effect of data sharing on the citations of academic articles, using journal policies as a natural experiment. We begin by examining 17 high-impact journals that have adopted the requirement that data from published articles be publicly posted. We match these 17 journals to 13 journals without policy changes and find that empirical articles published just before their change in editorial policy have citation rates with no statistically significant difference from those published shortly after the shift. We then ask whether this null result stems from poor compliance with data sharing policies, and use the data sharing policy changes as instrumental variables to examine more closely two leading journals in economics and political science with relatively strong enforcement of new data policies. We find that articles that make their data available receive 97 additional citations (estimate standard error of 34). We conclude that: a) authors who share data may be rewarded eventually with additional scholarly citations, and b) data-posting policies alone do not increase the impact of articles published in a journal unless those policies are enforced.

 

transcript OPEN Library Political Science | National Contact Point Open Access

As part of the open-access transformation, we want to give new inspiration for open access to scientific content. Therefore, we have launched the “transcript Open Library Political Science” project in cooperation with the transcript publishing house. The aim of the pilot project is the development of a publisher and library equally manageable, transparent and economically sustainable open-access e-book business model. The deficits of existing approaches should be adequately addressed. That means, that instead of buying the E-Books, the participating libraries enable the open access publication of all forthcoming books “Political Science at transcript 2019” (20 titles) via a fee in the crowdfunding model. Through that, the library budgets unlatch the titles to the benefit of everybody instead of supporting isolated access for single institutions. The model is supported by the Political Science Information Service (FID) at Bremen State and University Library….”

Impact of Social Sciences – Making research articles freely available can help to negate gender citation effects in political science

“In short, when women political scientists make their work freely available online, their research is cited at similar rates to men’s work. This is a very positive finding given the current gender imbalance found in many aspects of the discipline. (Side note: many scholars, regardless of gender, fail to self-archive due to lack of know-how; Carling has written a very helpful primer on the subject. See also Atchison and Bull.)

A final caveat is necessary. These results should be interpreted with caution. First, the finding that OA can help to negate the gender citation advantage is surprising in light of previous research on gendered citation effects. This must be investigated further to determine whether it is an artefact of the data, whether the pattern holds when other data are used, and whether the pattern holds once self-archiving becomes more commonplace in political science. Second, as with any single-discipline study, the results may lack generalisability. There is considerable evidence that GCE varies by discipline, so it will be important to explore the GCE-OA interaction both within and across disciplines.”