Open access in Europe: a national and regional comparison | SpringerLink

Maddi, A., Lardreau, E. & Sapinho, D. Open access in Europe: a national and regional comparison. Scientometrics (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-021-03887-1

Abstract:

Open access to scientific publications has progressively become a key issue for European policy makers, resulting in concrete measures by the different country members to promote its development. The aim of paper is, after providing a quick overview of OA policies in Europe, to carry out a comparative study of OA practices within European countries, using data from the Web of Science (WoS) database. This analysis is based on two indicators: the OA share that illustrates the evolution over time, and the normalized OA indicator (NOAI) that allows spatial comparisons, taking into account disciplinary structures of countries. Results show a general trend towards the development of OA over time as expected, but with large disparities between countries, depending on how early they begin taking measures in favor of OA. While it is possible to stress the importance of policy and its influence on open access at country level, this does not appear to be the case at the regional level. There is not much variability between regions, within the same country, in terms of open access indicators.

Do open access journal articles experience a citation advantage? Results and methodological reflections of an application of multiple measures to an analysis by WoS subject areas | SpringerLink

Abstract:  This study is one of the first that uses the recently introduced open access (OA) labels in the Web of Science (WoS) metadata to investigate whether OA articles published in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed journals experience a citation advantage in comparison to subscription journal articles, specifically those of which no self-archived versions are available. Bibliometric data on all articles and reviews indexed in WoS, and published from 2013 to 2015, were analysed. In addition to normalised citation score (NCS), we used two additional measures of citation advantage: whether an article was cited at all; and whether an article is among the most frequently cited percentile of articles within its respective subject area (pptopX %). For each WoS subject area, the strength of the relationship between access status (whether an article was published in an OA journal) and each of these three measures was calculated. We found that OA journal articles experience a citation advantage in very few subject areas and, in most of these subject areas, the citation advantage was found on only a single measure of citation advantage, namely whether the article was cited at all. Our results lead us to conclude that access status accounts for little of the variability in the number of citations an article accumulates. The methodology and the calculations that were used in this study are described in detail and we believe that the lessons we learnt, and the recommendations we make, will be of much use to future researchers interested in using the WoS OA labels, and to the field of citation advantage in general.

 

 

Clarivate Collaboration with Open Access Monitor Germany to Provide Web of Science Data Across DACH region

” Clarivate Plc (NYSE:CCC), a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, is supporting the Open Access Monitor (OA Monitor), Germany with the provision of Web of Science™ publication, grant and funding data to increase the impact of scientific scholarship and to enable more equitable participation in research. Clarivate™ will provide weekly customised data from the Web of Science covering the publication literature for the DACH region (which includes Germany, Switzerland and Austria).   

Supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and managed by Forschungszentrum Jülich, the OA Monitor provides evaluations of both the volume and financing of publications at federal, state and institutional level in the DACH region. The ability to connect the corresponding author data from the Web of Science with the publication fee information sourced by OA Monitor will have particularly broad implications for the German academic library community. The data will also help policy makers gauge the status of the transformation to Open Access (OA).  …”

Which Academic Search Systems are Suitable for Systematic Reviews or Meta?Analyses? Evaluating Retrieval Qualities of Google Scholar, PubMed and 26 other Resources – Gusenbauer – – Research Synthesis Methods – Wiley Online Library

Abstract:  Rigorous evidence identification is essential for systematic reviews and meta?analyses (evidence syntheses), because the sample selection of relevant studies determines a review’s outcome, validity, and explanatory power. Yet, the search systems allowing access to this evidence provide varying levels of precision, recall, and reproducibility and also demand different levels of effort. To date, it remains unclear which search systems are most appropriate for evidence synthesis and why. Advice on which search engines and bibliographic databases to choose for systematic searches is limited and lacking systematic, empirical performance assessments.

This study investigates and compares the systematic search qualities of 28 widely used academic search systems, including Google Scholar, PubMed and Web of Science. A novel, query?based method tests how well users are able to interact and retrieve records with each system. The study is the first to show the extent to which search systems can effectively and efficiently perform (Boolean) searches with regards to precision, recall and reproducibility. We found substantial differences in the performance of search systems, meaning that their usability in systematic searches varies. Indeed, only half of the search systems analysed and only a few Open Access databases can be recommended for evidence syntheses without adding substantial caveats. Particularly, our findings demonstrate why Google Scholar is inappropriate as principal search system.

We call for database owners to recognise the requirements of evidence synthesis, and for academic journals to re?assess quality requirements for systematic reviews. Our findings aim to support researchers in conducting better searches for better evidence synthesis.

To Measure is to Know: Open Access at Your Institution

“How much is your institution spending on APC fees? 

How does your institution’s Open Access footprint compare to your peers?

In this session, learn how you can use data from the Web of Science to calculate your institution’s spend on Open Access, and to benchmark your institution’s participation in OA publishing against activity at peer institutions. 

We’ll also discuss recent market developments, including how Plan S, a multi-national initiative aimed at making an increasing share of research findings available in OA publications, may impact faculty at U.S. institutions….”

Emerald Publishing joins Web of Science Group Initiative to Open Up Peer Review

“The Web of Science Group (a Clarivate Analytics company) has entered into a new partnership with Emerald Publishing, to pilot the industry’s first cross-publisher, scalable and transparent peer review workflow from Publons and ScholarOne across three of Emerald’s leading journals. 

Transparent peer review shows the complete peer review process from initial review to final decision, and has gained popularity with authors, reviewers and editors alike in recent years.

The new transparent peer review service will be rolled out across Online Information Review, Industrial Lubrication and Tribology and International Journal of Social Economics. The workflows ensure that alongside the published article, readers can access a comprehensive peer review history, including reviewer reports, editor decision letters and authors’ responses. Each of these elements is assigned its own digital object identified (DOI), which helps readers easily reference and cite the peer review content. Transparency can also aid teaching of best practice in peer review. The transparent peer review workflow complies with best-practice data privacy regulation, ensuring the individual preferences of authors, peer reviewers and journals are met….”

Emerald Publishing joins Web of Science Group Initiative to Open Up Peer Review

“The Web of Science Group (a Clarivate Analytics company) has entered into a new partnership with Emerald Publishing, to pilot the industry’s first cross-publisher, scalable and transparent peer review workflow from Publons and ScholarOne across three of Emerald’s leading journals. 

Transparent peer review shows the complete peer review process from initial review to final decision, and has gained popularity with authors, reviewers and editors alike in recent years.

The new transparent peer review service will be rolled out across Online Information Review, Industrial Lubrication and Tribology and International Journal of Social Economics. The workflows ensure that alongside the published article, readers can access a comprehensive peer review history, including reviewer reports, editor decision letters and authors’ responses. Each of these elements is assigned its own digital object identified (DOI), which helps readers easily reference and cite the peer review content. Transparency can also aid teaching of best practice in peer review. The transparent peer review workflow complies with best-practice data privacy regulation, ensuring the individual preferences of authors, peer reviewers and journals are met….”

Two new kids on the block: How do Crossref and Dimensions compare with Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and the Web of Science?

Abstract:  In the last 3 years, several new (free) sources for academic publication and citation data have joined the now well-established Google Scholar, complementing the two traditional commercial data sources: Scopus and the Web of Science. The most important of these new data sources are Microsoft Academic (2016), Crossref (2017) and Dimensions (2018). Whereas Microsoft Academic has received some attention from the bibliometric commu-nity, there are as yet very few studies that have investigated the coverage of Crossref or Dimensions. To address this gap, this brief letter assesses Crossref and Dimensions cover-age in comparison to Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus and the Web of Science through a detailed investigation of the full publication and citation record of a single academic, as well as six top journals in Business & Economics. Overall, this first small-scale study suggests that, when compared to Scopus and the Web of Science, Crossref and Dimensions have a similar or better coverage for both publications and citations, but a substantively lower coverage than Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic. If our find-ings can be confirmed by larger-scale studies, Crossref and Dimensions might serve as good alternatives to Scopus and the Web of Science for both literature reviews and citation analysis. However, Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic maintain their position as the most comprehensive free sources for publication and citation data

What does the Web of Science tell us about Plan S? | Research Information

Only 120,000 (6.4 per cent) of papers indexed in the Web of Science acknowledge Plan S funders, but these are comparatively well-cited, published in high impact journals and as we have seen, often in journals from major publishing houses. They won’t just influence the publishing landscape – these are papers that will change their fields of scientific discovery. 

Post-Plan S, we would expect to see about 90,000 papers that are published in journals that are not compliant with Plan S move to Gold OA journals, which increase the number of papers in Gold OA journals by 29 per cent and, on the flipside, decrease the number of non-open access papers and Hybrid Open Access papers by 5 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. 

Unless there is confirmation from Plan S on whether ‘read and publish’ deals – such as Wiley’s recent agreement with Projekt DEAL – will be considered compliant in the long term, the market can be expected to change in response by ‘flipping’ existing hybrid journals to become fully OA, or Plan S papers being redirected to compliant Gold OA journals. There are only a few hybrid journals with a medium-to-high percentage of open access content that might easily flip, which implies that challenging business decisions lie ahead for publishers. …”

Churchill Capital Corp and Clarivate Analytics Announce Merger Agreement – Clarivate

Churchill Capital Corp (“Churchill”) (NYSE: CCC), a public investment vehicle, and Clarivate Analytics (“Clarivate”), a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation, announced they have entered into a definitive agreement to merge. The combined company will operate as Clarivate and will become publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The transaction implies an initial enterprise value of approximately $4.2 billion1 with a multiple of approximately 12.5x Clarivate’s estimated 2019 Standalone Adjusted EBITDA before synergies at the time of close….”

Analytical Support for Bibliometrics Indicators: Open access availability of scientific publications

“In recent years, the level of availability has reached a tipping point, whereby at least half of the articles published become available in open access within 12 to 18 months of their publication….This report compares established commercial databases—namely, the Web of Science and Scopus—with a bibliographic database that has been produced with the goal of facilitating the retrieval of gold and green2 open access articles published in peer-reviewed journals. In addition to examining the strengths and limitations of large-scale measurement, this report performs a number of measures, particularly at the country and academic-field levels. It also examines the question of whether articles available in open access are more highly cited that those available strictly with a subscription….The evidence presented in this report shows that at least two-thirds of the articles published between 2011 and 2014 and having at least one U.S. author can be downloaded for free as of August 2016. In the case of Brazil, the proportion reaches 75%. More broadly, the vast majority of the large scholarly publishing countries have more than 50% of their articles published from 2010 to 2014 freely available for download in gold and/or green gratis open access. Examining the availability of articles by domains of scholarly activity shows that health sciences has the most articles available for free (at least 59% of the articles published in 2014 could be read for free in 2016), followed by the natural sciences (55%), applied sciences (47%), economic and social sciences (44%), and arts and humanities (24%)….Whereas current data suggests that gold OA is prevalent in health sciences, green dominates the natural sciences, applied sciences, and economic and social sciences. In the humanities, green and gold are more or less on the same level. …There is evidence that articles available in green OA are overall the most highly cited….”

Open access availability of scientific publications

This report details population-level measurements of the open access (OA) availability of publications indexed in two bibliometric databases—the Web of Science (WoS) by Clarivate Analytics and Scopus by Elsevier. This was achieved by matching the bibliometric database populations to the 1science database to determine the availability of the papers in OA form. 

A comparative analysis of the recall and precision levels of the 1science database was performed using Scopus and the WoS. This helped to characterize the 1science database. Two policy-relevant indicators were selected for in-depth analyses: country affiliation of authors on publications, and scientific disciplines. These indicators were selected because they are very frequently used in bibliometric studies, including those performed by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and they appear in the NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators….”