Monthly Archives: December 2018

Knowledge without boundaries: Advocacy campaign in Kenya for open access and institutional repositories | EIFL

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“KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

  • The University of Nairobi OA Policy was approved in December 2012 by the Senate members, who supported it overwhelmingly, and signed by the Vice Chancellor. The OA IR is now online. The policy became the third OA policy in the country following two other OA mandates adopted by Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology’s (JKUAT) Senate in April 2012 and Strathmore University in 2011.

  • Collaboration on OA advocacy between the Medical Students Association of Kenya (MSAKE), the University of Nairobi Library and the office of DVC Research, Production and Extension of the University of Nairobi has been strengthened. This has proved to be a good strategy to reach students and to work with them to ensure success of OA initiatives.

  • Ten repositories have been set up at ten institutions that participated in DSpace installation trainings, half of them are already on the web with the others are on local Intranets (pending  OA and IR policies approval by the relevant bodies).

  • Ten new OA and IR policies have been drafted, five of them have already been approved and five others are still pending approval by the Universities Management Boards and Senates.

  • Over 30 research institutions in Kenya are now aware of the importance of OA initiatives including the national policy makers. Government officials in ministries, top level managers in Higher Learning Institutions, researchers and students, ICT managers and the press are better informed about OA initiatives and many participants were ready to support their respective institutions in OA developments.

  • 300 researchers, students, research administrators and managers, publishers and policy makers were trained, which resulted in increased awareness of OA.

  • Great impact on OA Initiatives in KLISC Member Institutions and in Kenya as a whole. Was able to sensitize different stakeholders on OA initiatives….”

Science Europe – The Scientific Committee for the Social Sciences

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“Following Science Europe’s Position Statement: ’Principles on the Transition to Open Access to Research Publications‘ (April 2013), a sub-group of the Committee’s members is currently advising the Science Europe Working Group on Open Access (OA) on how the policy affects different fields within social sciences, for example how the potentially higher costs associated with OA will impact on junior researchers or on those working in fields where the costs of publishing monographs will become prohibitive….”

Open access monograph business models

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Abstract:  In recent years, a number of business models have been developed for open access (OA) monographs in the humanities and social sciences (HSS). While each model has been created in response to specific circumstances and needs, some commonalities can be observed. This article outlines some of the main types of model to support the costs of publishing OA books and provides examples of these models across the world.

It is followed by three short sketches providing more depth on: firstly, a traditional publisher’s OA monograph offer; secondly, a licensing-based model which draws from existing library budgets; and finally, an experiment with delayed open access for books in philosophy: http://dx.doi.org/10.1629/2048-7754.118

Congress votes to make open government data the default in the United States | E Pluribus Unum

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“On December 21, 2018, the United States House of Representatives voted to enact H.R. 4174, the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2017, in a historic win for open government in the United States of America.

The Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary Government Data Act (AKA the OPEN Government Data Act) is about to become law as a result. This codifies two canonical principles for democracy in the 21st century:

  1. public information should be open by default to the public in a machine-readable format, where such publication doesn’t harm privacy or security
  2. federal agencies should use evidence when they make public policy….”

The Wellcome Trust funds OpenCitations | OpenCitations

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“We are looking for a post-doctoral computer scientist / research engineer specifically to achieves the aforementioned objectives. This post-doctoral appointment will start the 1st of March 2019. We seek a highly intelligent, skilled and motivated individual who is expert in Python, Semantic Web technologies, Linked Data and Web technologies. Additional expertise in Web Interface Design and Information Visualization would be highly beneficial, plus a strong and demonstrable commitment to open science and team-working abilities….”

How to reach a wider audience with open access publishing: what research universities can learn from universities of applied sciences

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Abstract:  In Amsterdam, the libraries of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS) cooperate closely. In this cooperation, the differences between a research university (i.c. UvA) and a university of applied sciences (i.c. AUAS) become particularly clear when we look at the aim and implementation of open access policies. The open access plan of the AUAS removes not only financial and legal barriers, but also language barriers. This makes the research output FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) to the primary target group of the product, and more importantly, it enables interaction between the AUAS and a wide audience, consisting of researchers from other disciplines, and a wide range of professionals, enterprises, civil servants, schools and citizens. In the search for co-financing by enterprises and other stakeholders, and to fulfil their valorisation requirements, these target groups are currently becoming more important for research universities as well. Here, we show what research universities can learn from the open access policy of the AUAS.

Open Access Information Service for Researchers in Theology

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Abstract:  Tübingen University Library offers a continuously improved next generation bibliographic database for theology and religious studies. The “Index theologicus” database is available worldwide in open access. It is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) in the funding program “specialised information services” . This paper informs about the background of the project and the steps the Library took in order to transform a legacy online content database system into one of the most important international bibliographies in theology without increasing the number of staff involved.

Opening Science with Institutional Repository: A Case Study of Vilnius University Library

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Abstract:  The future strategies for opening science have become important to libraries which serve scientific institutions by providing institutional repository infrastructures and services. Vilnius University Library provides such an infrastructure for Vilnius University, which is the biggest higher education institution in Lithuania (with more than 20,200 students, 1,330 academic staff members, and 450 researchers ), and manages services and infrastructure of the national open access repository eLABa and the national open access data archive MIDAS. As the new platforms of these repositories began operating in the beginning of 2015, new policies and routines for organizing work with scientific publications and data had to be implemented. This meant new roles for the Library and librarians, too. The University Senate approved the new Regulations of the Library on 13 June 2017 with the task to develop the scholarly communication tools dedicated to sustaining open access to information and open science. Thus, Vilnius University Library performs the leading role in opening science by providing strategic insights and solutions for development of services dedicated to researchers, students and the public in Lithuania. As it was not presented properly at the international level before, this article presents the case of Vilnius University Library which actively cooperates with other Lithuanian academic institutions, works in creating and coordinating policies, conducts research on the improvements and services of eLABa and MIDAS, and suggests and implements the integral solutions for opening science.

Supporting FAIR Data Principles with Fedora

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Abstract:  Making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable is an important but challenging goal. From an infrastructure perspective, repository technologies play a key role in supporting FAIR data principles. Fedora is a flexible, extensible, open source repository platform for managing, preserving, and providing access to digital content. Fedora is used in a wide variety of institutions including libraries, museums, archives, and government organizations. Fedora provides native linked data capabilities and a modular architecture based on well-documented APIs and ease of integration with existing applications. As both a project and a community, Fedora has been increasingly focused on research data management, making it well-suited to supporting FAIR data principles as a repository platform. Fedora provides strong support for persistent identifiers, both by minting HTTP URIs for each resource and by allowing any number of additional identifiers to be associated with resources as RDF properties. Fedora also supports rich metadata in any schema that can be indexed and disseminated using a variety of protocols and services. As a linked data server, Fedora allows resources to be semantically linked both within the repository and on the broader web. Along with these and other features supporting research data management, the Fedora community has been actively participating in related initiatives, most notably the Research Data Alliance. Fedora representatives participate in a number of interest and working groups focused on requirements and interoperability for research data repository platforms. This participation allows the Fedora project to both influence and be influenced by an international group of Research Data Alliance stakeholders. This paper will describe how Fedora supports FAIR data principles, both in terms of relevant features and community participation in related initiatives.

From Open Access to Open Data: collaborative work in the university libraries of Catalonia

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Abstract:  In the last years, the scientific community and funding bodies have paid attention to collected, generated or used data throughout different research activities. The dissemination of these data becomes one of the constituent elements of Open Science. For this reason, many funders are requiring or promoting the development of Data Management Plans, and depositing open data following the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). Libraries and research offices of Catalan universities –which coordinately work within the Open Science Area of CSUC– offer support services to research data management. The different works carried out at the Consortium level will be presented, as well the implementation of the service in each university.

Towards Open Access Self Archiving Policies: A Case Study of COAR

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Abstract:  This paper examines Open Access (OA) self archiving policies of different Open Access Repositories (OARs) affiliated to COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) as partner institutes. The process of scrutiny includes three major activities – selection of databases to consult; comparison and evaluation of Open Access policies of repositories listed in the selected databases and attached to COAR group; and critical examination of available self archiving policies of these OA repositories against a set of selected criteria. The above steps lead to reporting the following results: key findings have been identified and highlighted; common practices have been analyzed in relation to the focus of this paper; and a best practice benchmark has been suggested for popularizing and strengthening OARs as national research systems. This paper may help administrators, funding agencies, policy makers and professional librarians in devising institute-specific self archiving policies for their own organizations.

A Very Long Embargo: Journal Choice Reveals Active Non-Compliance with Funder Open Access Policies by Australian and Canadian Neuroscientists

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Abstract:  Research funders around the world have implemented open access policies that require funded research to be made open access, usually by self-archiving, within 12 months of publication. Elsevier is unique among major science publishers because it produces several journals with non-compliant self-archiving embargoes of more than 12 months. We used Elsevier’s Scopus database to study the rate at which Australian and Canadian neuroscientists publish in Elsevier’s non-compliant (embargoes > 12 months) and compliant journals (embargoes ? 12 months). We also examined publications in immediate open access neuroscience journals that had the DOAJ Seal and neuroscience publications in open access mega-journals. We found that the implementation of Australian and Canadian funder open access policies in 2012/2013 and 2015 did not reduce the number of publications in non-compliant journals. Instead, scientific output in all publication types increased with the greatest growth in immediate open access journals. This data suggests that funder open access policies that are similar to the Australian and Canadian policies are likely to have little effect beyond an association with a general cultural trend towards open access.

Being a deliberate prey of a predator: Researchers’ thoughts after having published in predatory journal

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“The literature claims that mainly researchers from low-ranked universities in developing countries publish in predatory journals. We decided to challenge this claim using the University of Southern Denmark as a case. We ran the Beall’s List against our research registration database and identified 31 possibly predatory publications from a set of 6,851 publications within 2015-2016. A qualitative research interview revealed that experienced researchers from the developed world publish in predatory journals mainly for the same reasons as do researchers from developing countries: lack of awareness, speed and ease of the publication process, and a chance to get elsewhere rejected work published. However, our findings indicate that the Open Access potential and a larger readership outreach were also motives for publishing in open access journals with quick acceptance rates. …”

An Open Approach to Huntington’s Disease – Rachel Harding – Project Presentation – YouTube

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“Since February 2016, Dr Harding has been keeping an open lab notebook for the huntingtin structure-function project through the blog labscribbles.com and the data repository Zenodo. By sharing data widely and more quickly than is normally done in biomedical science, Dr Harding hopes to catalyze research on this disease….”

Max Planck Society cancels Elsevier subscription over open access | Times Higher Education (THE)

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“Germany’s Max Planck Society – one of the world’s largest research organisations – is cancelling its subscription to Elsevier journals in a bid to secure a decisive shift towards open access publishing….

The society expressed its support for Germany’s Project Deal initiative, led by the German Rectors’ Conference, which is seeking to replace the subscription model with a system under which articles are made freely available in return for the payment of article processing charges. Nearly 200 German universities and research institutions have cancelled their Elsevier agreements in the past two years in protest at the publisher’s refusal to strike a deal on its terms.

Elsevier, for its part, maintains that it supports open science, but argues that German researchers cannot have free access to articles in its portfolio published by academics from other countries that still use the subscription system – a key demand of Project Deal. Negotiations between the company and Project Deal were suspended in July….”