“In the future, these potential benefits of requiring a peer-reviewed, publicly available comprehensive final report will be weighed against the costs. In a few years, it will be possible to determine if these final reports have expanded the reach of each research study, whether they are used in systematic reviews, and how lessons learned from peer review of the final reports have changed the way that the institute does its work. For the present, it may be enough to hope that an openly accessible peer-reviewed comprehensive final research report will help to increase public trust in research. It is possible that the sponsors of the legislation were on to something important when they set the institute on this path. However, the realization of their vision is in its infancy and its putative benefits are largely speculative. There is still much to learn….”
Monthly Archives: March 2019
Learning to manage academic resources as common property
“Nearly thirty years ago, Elinor Ostrom published her groundbreaking book Governing the Commons, in which she showed that users of natural and agricultural resources can and do govern such resources themselves. They do not have to rely on hierarchical state or corporate regulation, nor on a pricing mechanism to overcome the collective action problems that may arise. By setting up rules together, and monitoring compliance with these rules, commoners are able to manage resources themselves. Ostrom also extended her work on commons governance to knowledge commons.
Sharing resources, such as data, methods, publications, and the curriculum, is one of the foundations of university education and development. But today many academic resources such as subscriptions and the syllabus are managed in a rigid, bureaucratic way. Many users and producers of resources and knowledge lack the opportunity to express their wishes and highlight alternatives.
This workshop will introduce you to the issues, the concepts, and successful examples of governing common resources. You will be involved in applying the concept of commons to concrete cases relevant to academia and knowledge creation, not just by listening, but by doing, together.
Questions: If we want to become decision makers of our shared resources, what do we need to learn? Which tools do we need? What rights are we missing?
Take away: We develop a clearer understanding of how to increase resource control among the academic community. We understand better how that has been done by others. We know where we should start and what steps to follow.
Effort: To learn together how the lessons from the commons can help academics in their work. To share and discuss what we and others can do right now. To sketch a roadmap that show us the way forward….”
Responsible data sharing in international health research: a systematic review of principles and norms | BMC Medical Ethics | Full Text
Abstract: Background
Large-scale linkage of international clinical datasets could lead to unique insights into disease aetiology and facilitate treatment evaluation and drug development. Hereto, multi-stakeholder consortia are currently designing several disease-specific translational research platforms to enable international health data sharing. Despite the recent adoption of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the procedures for how to govern responsible data sharing in such projects are not at all spelled out yet. In search of a first, basic outline of an ethical governance framework, we set out to explore relevant ethical principles and norms.
Methods
We performed a systematic review of literature and ethical guidelines for principles and norms pertaining to data sharing for international health research.
Results
We observed an abundance of principles and norms with considerable convergence at the aggregate level of four overarching themes: societal benefits and value; distribution of risks, benefits and burdens; respect for individuals and groups; and public trust and engagement. However, at the level of principles and norms we identified substantial variation in the phrasing and level of detail, the number and content of norms considered necessary to protect a principle, and the contextual approaches in which principles and norms are used.
Conclusions
While providing some helpful leads for further work on a coherent governance framework for data sharing, the current collection of principles and norms prompts important questions about how to streamline terminology regarding de-identification and how to harmonise the identified principles and norms into a coherent governance framework that promotes data sharing while securing public trust.
Time to plan for Plan S – Watson – 2019 – Nursing Open – Wiley Online Library
“Heard of “Plan S”? You will. Plan S arose from the work of an international group called Coalition S. Their aim is to have all published research available open access immediately on publication. The coalition has some powerful membership organizations, mainly across Europe but in some other countries too. Coverage is not yet universal, and some key organizations have not signed up. However, the coalition has one powerful financial backer in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and, given the widespread—and sometimes misplaced—enthusiasm for open access, this is likely to gather momentum. On the face of it “Plan S” seems entirely laudable and altruistic, however, it raises a number of issues for both researchers and publishers….”
No Big Deal | Library Babel Fish
“While our system is dandy for finding things we’re not allowed to share, it’s not always great at discovering open access materials. Quite often, an open access publication listed in a database or a book in the catalog will fail to link to the item, and that confuses students. The behind-the-scenes work that has to go into making things connect from one database to another or from a catalog to an electronic source is complex, and it may seem silly to worry about cataloging something that can be found with a Google search – but if our shared catalogs lead to things we can’t borrow but fail to find open access books, we’re really dropping the ball….”
Ten principles for machine-actionable data management plans
“Data management plans (DMPs) are documents accompanying research proposals and project outputs. DMPs are created as free-form text and describe the data and tools employed in scientific investigations. They are often seen as an administrative exercise and not as an integral part of research practice.
There is now widespread recognition that the DMP can have more thematic, machine-actionable richness with added value for all stakeholders: researchers, funders, repository managers, research administrators, data librarians, and others. The research community is moving toward a shared goal of making DMPs machine-actionable to improve the experience for all involved by exchanging information across research tools and systems and embedding DMPs in existing workflows. This will enable parts of the DMP to be automatically generated and shared, thus reducing administrative burdens and improving the quality of information within a DMP.
This paper presents 10 principles to put machine-actionable DMPs (maDMPs) into practice and realize their benefits. The principles contain specific actions that various stakeholders are already undertaking or should undertake in order to work together across research communities to achieve the larger aims of the principles themselves. We describe existing initiatives to highlight how much progress has already been made toward achieving the goals of maDMPs as well as a call to action for those who wish to get involved….”
[GOAL] OA2020 Mainland China Signatory Libraries responded to Plan S Guidance on Implementation
“The followings are the discussed response to Plan S Guidance on Implementation.
01 We are in broad support of Plan S and its goals to ensure immediate and complete open access to journal articles resulting from publicly funded research to the world. We applaud the effort of Plan S to provide strong incentives to make research open access. We support an international effort to achieve this goal worldwide as soon as possible.
02 We fully recognize that the need for forceful and accountable policies by public funders in research, education, and libraries, to facilitate open access against various entrenched interests or the inertia of the status quo. We urge all in research, education, publishing, platforms, repositories, and libraries to engage diligently in transformative efforts abreast with time to meet the challenges.
03 We support the Final Conference Statement of the 14th Berlin Conference on Open Access with its commitments. We urge all the publishers to work with the global research community to effect complete and immediate open access according to the Statement.
04 We support the principles and roadmaps of OA2020 Initiative which aims to transform a majority of today’s scholarly journals from subscription to OA publishing, while continues to support new forms of OA publishing. We believe the transition process can be realized within the framework of currently available resources. We see no legitimate reasons for, and will object to, any attempts to increase spending from the original subscribing institutions in the transformation.
05 We support that authors retain copyrights of their publications in open access publishing through journals or open access platforms.
06 We support that open access publications are made under open licenses. We support the use of the CC_BY license as the preferred one but recommend that other CC licenses also be allowed as compliant to Plan S.
07 We recognize the strong need for compliant requirements, agreed by the research communities, for open access journals and platforms. We agree that infrastructural instruments like DOAJ and OpenDOAR can be utilized to help identifying and signaling compliance, but we urge that cOAlition S and other funders recognize and support other appropriate mechanisms for the purpose and require any such instruments are put under international oversight by the global research community to ensure their no-for-profit nature, inclusiveness, objectiveness, integrity, and efficiency.
08 We commend the recognition by Plan S that there exist different models of financing and paying for Open Access publication. We support an inclusive range of immediate open access publishing approaches. We support the transparency and monitoring of open access publication costs and fees.
09 We urge that cOAlition S and other funders, through Plan S or other means, provide financial support for no-fee OA journals. The wide range of support approaches to no-fee OA journals should be encouraged to enhance the diversity of open access publishing and competiveness of publishing market, and to avoid the perverse effect of giving no-fee journals an incentive to start charging fees. While the support can start with general term statements, measures can be timely designed and tested to encourage quality, integrity, transparency and openness, and increasing host investment and other diverse and appropriate income.
10 We support that where article processing charges (APCs) apply, efforts are made to establish a fair and reasonable APC level, including equitable waiver policies, that reflects the costs involved in the quality assurance, editing, and publishing process and how that adds value to the publication. We hold it very important that any such effort should take into consideration of the diversity in the world to ensure applicability and affordability of any such measures across countries and disciplines.
11 We commend the support and requirements of Plan S for financing APCs for open access publication in subscription journals (‘hybrid Open Access’) only under transformative agreements. These agreements should be temporary and transitional, with a shift to full open access within a very few years.
12 We understand the purposes and the benefits of using ORCIDs in journal publications. Considering different paces of adopting ORCID in different regions and disciplines, we recommend that it is implemented as a preferred condition, at least in the short beginning years. We recommend the same treatment for using DOI.
13 We support the Plan S recommendation that “all publications and also other research outputs deposited in open repositories.” We recommend that Plan S make full acknowledge and use of the full range of capabilities of open repositories to support open access, long-term preservation, research management, and re-use.
14 We encourage that Plan S takes the transformative green OA mechanism as one of venues to implement open access, as long as the embargo period of com
The value of a journal is the community it creates, not the papers it publishes | Impact of Social Sciences
“Initially PLOS ONE was a “club” of radicals who could afford to experiment with a new publishing model. This resulted in a higher than expected initial JIF and a massive influx of new authors, who were attracted to this (now) “proven” publishing model. Consequently, article processing times expanded (congestion), the initial sense of community became harder to maintain and the influx of articles ultimately reduced the JIF, leading to the flight of authors that were just seeking access to the prestige of the journal. The journal then shifted from a community (if not properly a knowledge club, as the disciplines were too disparate) to a social network market, which it could not sustain.
Scientific Reports follows a similar trajectory, but for different reasons. Initial submissions were not driven by a desire to be radical or progressive, as the concept of a mega-journal was already proven. Rather, Scientific Reports launched as a social network market, providing access to the prestige of the Nature brand. This model in turn became unsustainable, as the journal developed its own reputation and niche, which had been carefully planned through the naming (which does not include the name “Nature”) to avoid any dilution of the existing Nature brand.
What does this mean for Open Access and for initiatives like PlanS? Note that the club-theoretic model is ambivalent about how payments are made. We see similar patterns of growth and decline for subscription and APC journals alike. However the model is arguably better configured to understand how to create knowledge-value efficiently, because it asks how a community can be created and sustained, and how open access to membership can both stimulate and dilute knowledge-making itself. In our next post, we will discuss the implications of our model for planning a transition to full open access.”
American Chemical Society and Max Planck institutes partner on transformative open access plan – American Chemical Society
“The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG) announced today a collaborative open access strategic partnership that will advance shared goals for open science and enhance convenience for the MPG researcher and author community. Effective from the outset of 2019, the four-year transformative agreement provides researchers affiliated with Max Planck institutes the opportunity to disseminate immediately, under an open access license, 100 percent of their research articles upon acceptance and publication by a peer-reviewed ACS journal. MPG researchers also benefit from full reader access to all ACS Publications journals and Chemical & Engineering News….”
American Chemical Society and Max Planck institutes partner on transformative open access plan – American Chemical Society
“The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG) announced today a collaborative open access strategic partnership that will advance shared goals for open science and enhance convenience for the MPG researcher and author community. Effective from the outset of 2019, the four-year transformative agreement provides researchers affiliated with Max Planck institutes the opportunity to disseminate immediately, under an open access license, 100 percent of their research articles upon acceptance and publication by a peer-reviewed ACS journal. MPG researchers also benefit from full reader access to all ACS Publications journals and Chemical & Engineering News….”
bjoern.brembs.blog » New England Journal of Medicine – and you thought Nature was expensive?
“The New England journal of Medicine has come out strongly against Open Access. Apparently, this journal does not seem to value access to medical information very highly. This lack of valuation could be due to several reasons. For one, the NEJM is leading the medical publishing industry in retractions….
Finally and perhaps equally likely (the reasons are, of course, not mutually exclusive) it could simply be about money….
Salary sum: 4,088,010….
This would amount to an article processing charge (APC) for NEJM of around US$314,000.
Or, phrased differently, the current business model of NEJM entails the tax-payer paying more than US$300k for each research article in NEJM, which, at the same time:
- pays their management staff the 3-7 fold income of one of their professor-authors
- for each research-type article, cross-subsidizes about four other news-type or opinion articles, some of which insult scientists
- pays for the rejection costs of 95% of all submitted articles
- overpays the actual publishing costs by about 1,200-fold …”
Paywalls block scientific progress. Research should be open to everyone | Jason Schmitt | Education | The Guardian
“Academic and scientific research needs to be accessible to all. The world’s most pressing problems like clean water or food security deserve to have as many people as possible solving their complexities. Yet our current academic research system has no interest in harnessing our collective intelligence. Scientific progress is currently thwarted by one thing: paywalls.
Paywalls, which restrict access to content without a paid subscription, represent a common practice used by academic publishers to block access to scientific research for those who have not paid. This keeps £19.6bn flowing from higher education and science into for-profit publisher bank accounts. My recent documentary, Paywall: The Business of Scholarship, uncovered that the largest academic publisher, Elsevier, regularly has a profit margin between 35-40%, which is greater than Google’s. With financial capacity comes power, lobbyists, and the ability to manipulate markets for strategic advantages – things that underfunded universities and libraries in poorer countries do not have….”
Welcome to Post-digital Community Science! – Generation R
“GenR has made a conscious choice to use Community Science over the more common term Citizen Science as its umbrella term for the participation of the wider public in scholarship. The primary reason for this choice is the understanding that it is an unintended category error to denote citizenship as a prerequisite for participation in scholarship and instead being a person would be enough to take part — citizen or not.
Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche – Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER) include Citizen Science (Haklay 2018) as one of the seven focus areas for its Open Science Roadmap which shows the importance of the field for research, institutions, and policy….”
Assembly Democrats’ Bill to Make College Textbooks More Affordable Heads to Governor – Insider NJ
“The bill (A-327-3254-1149) requires each institution of higher education to submit a plan to the Secretary of Higher Education to expand the use of open textbooks and commercial digital learning materials. “Open textbooks” are educational resources for college courses that are available online for free or at a reduced cost….”
REF must ‘bring hammer down’ on open access books, says professor | Times Higher Education (THE)
“It is time to “bring the hammer down” and extend open access requirements for the UK’s research excellence framework to monographs, a professor has said.
Cameron Neylon, professor of research communication at Australia’s Curtin University, said that he was “running out of sympathy” for academics who complained that there was not enough time to prepare for the requirement that long-form scholarly works must be made available easily and free of charge, if they are to be submitted to the 2027 assessment….
While open access monographs was a complicated issue that was “the price of being the leader”, he said. “Leadership requires taking risks. If everyone was comfortable all the time, what would be the point?” “