Category Archives: oa.criminology

Job Information – The University of Manchester

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“The Criminology department sits within the School of Social Sciences and is a research-oriented department delivering excellent teaching to undergraduate and postgraduate students. We are seeking to appoint a Research Assistant to support CrimRxiv, undertake research on the legal, ethical and technical barriers faced by green open access platforms across disciplines, and contribute to the sustainability of CrimRxiv.

CrimRxiv is the only open access repository devoted to criminology, and ensures that anyone can read the publications it makes available, entirely for free. This site offers functionalities for authors to share their research articles (working papers, preprints, versions of record, and postprints), preregistrations, reviews, chapters and books in open access, at no cost for authors or readers. Since its launch in 2020, CrimRxiv has freely shared over 2,000 publications, with nearly 230,000 views by more than 112,000 readers from 209 countries. In March 2023, it was officially announced that The University of Manchester would become the new home of CrimRxiv, the global repository and hub for open access publications in criminology. This was the result of collaborative efforts from UoM’s Department of Criminology and Library, with the support of UoM’s Leadership team, and further strengthens UoM’s reputation as global leader in criminology and open research.

The successful candidate will work alongside Dr David Buil-Gil (Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Criminology and CrimRxiv’s Managing Moderator), Prof Judith Aldridge (Professor of Criminology and Director of CrimRxiv), and Prof Scott Jacques (Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Georgia State University and Founder of CrimRxiv) to undertake a first-of-its-kind study on the legal, ethical and technical barriers of open access hubs, ensure an efficient moderation of manuscripts submitted to CrimRxiv, design marketing campaigns to ensure CrimRxiv is widely known and used by criminologists worldwide, and apply for grants to ensure the site’s medium and long-term sustainability….”

Nordic Journal of Criminology goes open access | Nordic Journal of Criminology

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“This issue of the Nordic Journal of Criminology marks an important shift in the journal’s publication policy. In this issue, and in those to come, all articles will be published under Diamond Open Access, which means that they are distributed and preserved online with no fees to either reader or author. The hope is that this will broaden the journal’s readership and facilitate knowledge exchange on criminological issues across the Nordics and beyond. As described in previous editorials, the Nordic Journal of Criminology is a cross-disciplinary forum with a long history, which prioritizes research of Nordic relevance, and which cultivates diversity and international collaboration (Aromaa 2000; Tutenges 2022). With Diamond Open Access, we have a powerful tool to further solidify this forum.

This issue marks another important shift for the journal. We have a new publisher, Scandinavian University Press, along with a new website that you can visit here: https://www.idunn.no/journal/njc. We hope you will like it! On the website, new articles will be published on a rolling basis, meaning that they are made accessible as soon as the review and editing process is completed. We will continue the tradition of assembling articles in two annual volumes, but these will only appear online. Like so many other journals, we are switching to online only publishing and will no longer print and snail mail journal issues to subscribers, authors, and other key stakeholders….”

Ethical data sharing in forensic research – ScienceDirect

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“In the United States, a centralized protected database does not exist for criminal data, likely due to the decentralized nature of data within the criminal justice system. As such, crime labs within state or municipal jurisdictions do not necessarily participate in a nationalized data warehouse. Therefore, academic collaborators often work directly with a local crime lab or law enforcement agency to obtain data. Currently, enforced standards for ensuring victim privacy in this decentralized data environment in forensic science do not exist. With the skyrocketing popularity of ‘data science’, there is a growing interest in analyzing crime data to improve the justice system. As an example, we note two papers recently published about using machine learning to predict outcomes of evidence from sexual assault kits [12,13]. These efforts used very similar variables in their models, including time between the assault and forensic exam, age of the victim, gender of the victim, and whether a probative DNA profile was generated from the sexual assault kits. Other data – much more sensitive and private data – detailing the victim, assailant, and nature of the crime do exist in both crime labs and law enforcement databases. We fear that the lack of regulatory systems and the lack of education/awareness will lead to inappropriate data release as well as inappropriate publication of private data….”

The University of Manchester becomes the new home of CrimRxiv – The global open access hub for Criminology · CrimRxiv

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“The University of Manchester is the new home of CrimRxiv, a repository and hub for open access (free) criminology and criminal justice publications. This strengthens UoM’s reputation as a global leader in criminology and in open research. Since its launch in July 2020, CrimRxiv has freely shared over 2,000 publications, with nearly 230,000 views by more than 112,000 readers from 209 countries….”

Ranking the openness of criminology units: An attempt to incentivize the use of librarians, institutional repositories, and unit-dedicated subpages to increase scholarly impact and justice · CrimRxiv

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Abstract:  In this article, I describe and explain a way for criminologists—as individuals, groups and, especially, as university units (e.g., colleges, departments, schools)—to increase the quantity and quality of open criminology: ask university librarians to make their outputs open access on their “unit repositories” (URs), which are unit-dedicated subpages on universities’ institutional repositories (IR). I try to advance this practice by devising and employing a metric, the “URscore,” to document, analyze, and rank criminology units’ contributions to open criminology, as prescribed. To illustrate the metric’s use, I did a study of 45 PhD-granting criminology units in the United States (US). I find almost all of them (98%) have access to an IR; less than two-thirds (62%) have a UR; less than one-third (29%) have used it this decade (up to August 11, 2022); their URs have a total of 190 open outputs from the 2020s, with 78% emanating from the top-three “most open”—per my ranking—PhD-granting criminology units in the US: those of the University of California, Irvine (with 72 open outputs), the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (with 47 such outputs), and the University of Nebraska, Omaha (with 30 such outputs). Each URscore reflects a criminology unit’s scholarly productivity and scholarly justice. I hope they see the ranking as a reward or opportunity for improvement. Toward that end, I conclude with a discussion of critical issues, instructions, and futures.

Open Research practices in the study of concealed information detection | Open Research Award | University of Groningen

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“To find reliable ways to detect concealed crime-relevant information has long been a major goal of forensic scientists. A newly developed concealed information test (CIT), with items presented in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), is a promising tool to detect concealed information in combination with electroencephalography (EEG). This new method can prevent the use of countermeasures to avoid detection, a deficit of the original CIT. Since EEG is not applicable in practice, we proposed a solution using pupil dilation as a measure that only requires a camera for data collection. During the whole study, we used Open Science Frame to share all of the code and data as well as preregister our analysis plan. We also published the paper with full open access….”

FIU launches open-access Forensic Research Library | FIU News – Florida International University

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“Florida International University (FIU) has launched a first-of-its-kind resource for forensic science practitioners, students, researchers, and the general public. The Research Forensic Library provides access to thousands of articles and reports in the scientific literature, a critical step in the forward momentum required of forensic science and its varied applications.

 
From daily digest emails to curated search results, the Research Forensic Library provides easy, online accessibility to material covering all disciplines of the forensic sciences. The library is part of Global Forensic and Justice Center (GFJC), an FIU program with a focus on innovation from the crime scene to the courtroom.
 
A cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded FIU $300,000 for three years to assist in the creation and curation of the Research Forensic Library. NIJ is the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to improve the quality and efficiency of forensic practice in the U.S., particularly at the state and local levels. The Research Forensic Library’s public accessibility exemplifies a key pillar of NIJ’s mission….”

Criminology Open Association of Diamond Outlets (COADO)

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“COADO increases the utility of criminology journals that are free to read and publish in. This involves increasing their impact, improving their production quality, and lowering the costs of publishing them. The association is a collaboration between Criminology Open and member journals. Through the sharing of expertise, commitment to shared quality standards, and comarketing, COADO is advancing the free and timely dissemination of criminological knowledge. This is to the benefit of all stakeholders—researchers, students, policymakers and practitioners, journalists, and the general public.”

The open-access availability of criminological research to practitioners and policy makers | Matt Ashby

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Abstract:  Criminology produces policy-relevant research and criminologists often seek to influence practice, but most criminological research is confined to expensive subscription journals. This disadvantages researchers in the global south, policy makers and practitioners who have the skills to use research findings but do not have journal subscriptions. Open access seeks to increase availability of research, but take-up among criminologists has been low. This study used a sample of 12,541 articles published in criminology journals between 2017 and 2019 to estimate the proportion of articles available via different types of open access. Overall 22% of research was available to non-subscribers, about half that found in other disciplines, even though authors had the right to make articles open without payment in at least 95% of cases. Open access was even less common in many leading journals and among researchers in the United States. Open access has the potential to increase access to research for those outside academia, but few scholars exercise their existing rights to distribute freely the submitted or accepted versions of their articles online. Policies to incentivise authors to make research open access where possible are needed unlock the benefits of greater access to criminological research.

Open Letter to the American Society of Criminology Concerning Access to Its Journals: Make It Legal for Authors to Immediately, Publicly Share the Accepted Version of Their Manuscripts · Criminology Open

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“We are writing with respect to the American Society of Criminology’s journals, Criminology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and Criminology & Public Policy.undefined Their self-archiving policy prohibits authors from sharing the accepted version of their manuscripts, or “postprints,”undefined for a period of 24 months on all publicly accessible websites.

This policy is in conflict with the Society’s Purpose & Objective and Code of Ethics. It directly opposes free and open access to knowledge; hinders the study of crime and social control; impedes exchange and cooperation among stakeholders; shrinks the forum for disseminating criminological knowledge; thwarts public discourse on findings and dissemination of them; and, forbids a key countermeasure to social injustice. 

Therefore, we ask the Society to revise the journals’ self-archiving policy. It should be legal for their authors to immediately share their postprints on any website….” 

Open (Access) Letter to Criminologists · Criminology Open

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“We can make our written works free to everyone, with only a little extra effort. Too much of what we write is behind publisher paywalls. The current system is socially unjust and irrational. It hampers the spread of scholarship’s benefits, costing more than it should, limiting our impact.1 It is easy to blame the publishers or ignore the problem. But today, we have the power — and thus the moral responsibility — to make our works Open Access (OA). This letter is a call to action: From now on, we must make our works freely available to everyone.2 Below, I explain how….

 First, though, I should confess that I am breaking a promise: to create an OA criminology journal, which I titled Criminology Open.3 While trying to develop it, I learned a lot about journal publishing, OA, and open science more broadly.4 Ironically, the biggest lesson is we do not need OA journals to make our works OA. Already, we are able to share the vast majority of our works in a legal, free, public manner over the internet. The major problem, then, is not publishers, copyright or technology. It is us….”

Green Access Rank of Most Cited Journals in Criminology · Criminology Open

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“Authors should consider this ranking when deciding where to publish articles. For more information on (1) the ranking, visit this companion page; (2) copyright/access at the ranked journals and many others, view the Wiki List of Criminology Journals and Determining Copyright at Criminology Journals; and, (3) the importance of green access to criminology, read my Open (Access) Letter to Criminologists. (Table is better viewed on computer or tablet than smartphone.)

Green Access Rank of Most Cited Journals in Criminology….”

What is open-access publishing and what it means for the forensic enterprise – ScienceDirect

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“Currently, two journals in the forensic science realm publish as Open Access, Forensic Science International: Synergy and Forensic Science International: Reports. Forensic Science International: Synergy welcomes significant, insightful, and innovative original research with the aim of advancing and supporting forensic science while exceeding its expectations for excellence. By being freely available to anyone, we seek to promote and support open discourse across diverse areas of interest, avocation, and geography. Papers are invited from all forensic sciences and influencing disciplines, including but not limited to the humanities, life sciences, social sciences, and the law….”