Monthly Archives: October 2019

Simba Information: Scientific & Technical Publishing Bucked Headwinds, Posted Strong Growth in 2018

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“The report Global Scientific & Technical Publishing 2019-2023 found that the global scientific and technical publishing market grew 3% to $10.3 billion in 2018. Currency exchange fluctuations inflated growth somewhat in 2018, but even taking that into account, this is the highest growth rate tracked by Simba since 2011 when market growth exceeded 4%.

The findings stand in stark contrast to media reports that the industry is facing a long-term decline due to the rise of open access publishing. There have been more reports of university libraries canceling their journal subscription packages in 2018 and 2019. The industry also faces threats from websites that freely share pirated copies of copyrighted research papers….”

Open Life Science ambassadors

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“The Open Life Science program helps early stage researchers and potential academic leaders in becoming Open Science ambassadors.

Through personal mentorship and cohort-based training, participants of this 15-week program:

learn essential knowledge required to create, lead, and sustain an Open Science project
connect with members across different communities, backgrounds, and identities by sharing their experiences and expertise
are empowered to become effective Open Science ambassadors in their communities.

We are recruiting for our first cohort to start in January 2020….”

Ownership, Control, Access and Possession in OA Publishing

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“The issue of whose voices are represented—in print, online or on air—by whom and for whom, is particularly salient for under-represented and historically marginalized communities. Communities of colour and Indigenous peoples have more often found themselves to be objects of scholarly interest and academic scrutiny rather than recognized as co-creators of the research and equal partners in the publishing projects that follow. The phrase ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’—while historically associated with disability inclusion and empowerment—has greater relevance than ever, and offers us an opportunity to rethink how we share information in this digitally connected world.

For Indigenous communities in North America and beyond, the institutional momentum behind open access imperatives risks infringing (and even violating) long-held cultural protocols about who should be privy to certain forms of information and traditional knowledge, and when and how these are to be shared. The First Nations principles of OCAP®—Ownership, Control, Access and Possession—are important standards that all of us working in cultural heritage need to study with care….”

Can Open Access pay the bills? | Eldis

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“For over 20 years, Eldis has provided free access to relevant, up-to-date and diverse research on global development issues. The Eldis database now includes summaries and links to over 60,000 full-text research and policy documents from a growing global network of several thousand research organisations and networks.  

Open Access has always been at the core of our values but through our long engagement in this area we are also well aware that Open Access isn’t free. For smaller research organisations, the costs required to build the technical capacity and maintain the systems required to adopt open access publishing methods can be difficult to meet. This in turn means that they might not benefit from the increased visibility and reach for their ideas that open access approaches potentially offer.  

For this reason, a large part of what we do has revolved around supporting smaller research producers to make their knowledge, visible and accessible to audiences online. 

But Eldis currently receives no core funding from any donors so continuing this support, maintaining our collection online, and keeping our services free for users, is a constant challenge for us too.  

Our solution is to offer bespoke, cost-effective products, alongside our free services, designed to help research projects and programmes to introduce their knowledge and evidence to the broad global audience of development practitioners, decision-makers and researchers that we have established over the years. …”

OpenSciEd – Free High-quality Science Instructional Materials

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“The OpenSciEd materials include Teacher and Student materials for each instructional unit in addition to the corresponding professional learning materials designed to support the use of the units. Each unit fits within a Scope and Sequence that provides coherence within and across years….

OpenSciEd units and professional learning materials are being field tested by 200+ teachers, with over 5000 students, in 100 districts across 10 states and revised based on their feedback. Learn more about this process and how teacher and student voices have informed the materials….

OpenSciEd classroom materials are developed, field-tested, and revised in tandem with professional learning materials to support teachers in the enactment of high quality science learning for all students.”

Interview: ‘Everyone Wants Change as Long as It Doesn’t Happen’

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“We are not joining Plan S. Plan S is itself evolving, and the terms that we are trying to push is something that we will ask Plan S to push for in their format.

[I asked him in a follow-up email to clarify this point; his reply follows:] Since February 2018, some water has flowed under the bridge. We have done substantial work here and had consultations with government, individual scientists and the academies. Our directions now and the next steps are what I spoke about in my lecture. Plan-S has also taken its steps and moved in some new directions. We are in touch with Plan-S, at present, to the extent that they have presented their current directions at our meeting by video and responded to clarifications we asked.

As we move along, I expect there will be overlap in our directions to open-access. However, our directions will be entirely determined by the interests of Indian academia and of India, for which our understanding of and collaboration internationally with groups such as Plan-S is important….”

 

Scholarly Communications Licence

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“PA members are deeply concerned about a proposal from a scholarly communications working group to introduce a new model licence within HEIs. The SCL would give the implementing university a non-exclusive licence to make work open access on publication, in conflict with any green open licence in place with a publisher, and with an option for a researcher to secure a waiver from the HEI should the publisher require it. 

Principal concerns are the significant administrative burden on researchers, institutions and publishers that could arise as waivers are requested; a conflict with UK policy on OA; the way the SCL seeks immediate non-commercial re-use rights for all UK research outputs; and the potential limit it places on the choice of researchers over where to publish. 

The documents on this page set out the publisher position. …”

Open Access Week 2019: Getting the ECR perspective | PLOS ECR Community

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“So this was this year’s Open Access Week. We hope you all enjoyed it and gave the development of open access (OA) a special thought. This time the theme for the week was “Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge”, certainly a relevant question for ECRs around the world.  As a not yet established researcher with own funding and projects, the cost for publishing in respected OA journals can be quite high, while it’s for free (at least for the individual researcher) in a traditional subscription based  journal. Publishing in a renowned OA journal may cost over $5000 per paper. Some institution have publisher agreements with OA journals to publish for free, but otherwise it’s a high cost for the individual researchers to bear, especially in smaller research projects without majors grants. This has become even more problematic where OA publishing in many cases have become a mandate of taxpayer-funded research and in policies like Plan S. Of the about 3 million articles published every year around one third is now available through open access in over 33 000 peer reviewed English language journals. OA research has surged from as few as 523 articles in 2001 to as much as 45% of all new research publications….”

Reaping the benefits of Open Data in public health

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Abstract:  Open Data is part of a broad global movement that is not only advancing science and scientific communication but also transforming modern society and how decisions are made. What began with a call for Open Science and the rise of online journals has extended to Open Data, based on the premise that if reports on data are open, then the generated or supporting data should be open as well. There have been a number of advances in Open Data over the last decade, spearheaded largely by governments. A real benefit of Open Data is not simply that single databases can be used more widely; it is that these data can also be leveraged, shared and combined with other data. Open Data facilitates scientific collaboration, enriches research and advances analytical capacity to inform decisions. In the human and environmental health realms, for example, the ability to access and combine diverse data can advance early signal detection, improve analysis and evaluation, inform program and policy development, increase capacity for public participation, enable transparency and improve accountability. However, challenges remain. Enormous resources are needed to make the technological shift to open and interoperable databases accessible with common protocols and terminology. Amongst data generators and users, this shift also involves a cultural change: from regarding databases as restricted intellectual property, to considering data as a common good. There is a need to address legal and ethical considerations in making this shift. Finally, along with efforts to modify infrastructure and address the cultural, legal and ethical issues, it is important to share the information equitably and effectively. While there is great potential of the open, timely, equitable and straightforward sharing of data, fully realizing the myriad of benefits of Open Data will depend on how effectively these challenges are addressed.

Frequency and format of clinical trial results dissemination to patients: a survey of authors of trials indexed in PubMed | BMJ Open

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Abstract:  Objective Dissemination of research findings is central to research integrity and promoting discussion of new knowledge and its potential for translation into practice and policy. We investigated the frequency and format of dissemination to trial participants and patient groups.

 

Design Survey of authors of clinical trials indexed in PubMed in 2014–2015.

 

Results Questionnaire emailed to 19?321 authors; 3127 responses received (16%). Of these 3127 trials, 2690 had human participants and 1818 enrolled individual patients. Among the 1818, 498 authors (27%) reported having disseminated results to participants, 238 (13%) planned to do so, 600 (33%) did not plan to, 176 (10%) were unsure and 306 (17%) indicated ‘other’ or did not answer. Of the 498 authors who had disseminated, 198 (40%) shared academic reports, 252 (51%) shared lay reports, 111 (22%) shared both and 164 (33%) provided individualised study results. Of the 1818 trials, 577 authors (32%) shared/planned to share results with patients outside their trial by direct contact with charities/patient groups, 401 (22%) via patient communities, 845 (46%) via presentations at conferences with patient representation, 494 (27%) via mainstream media and 708 (39%) by online lay summaries. Relatively few of the 1818 authors reported dissemination was suggested by institutional bodies: 314 (17%) of funders reportedly suggested dissemination to trial participants, 252 (14%) to patient groups; 333 (18%) of ethical review boards reportedly suggested dissemination to trial participants, 148 (8%) to patient groups. Authors described many barriers to dissemination.

 

Conclusion Fewer than half the respondents had disseminated to participants (or planned to) and only half of those who had disseminated shared lay reports. Motivation to disseminate results to participants appears to arise within research teams rather than being incentivised by institutional bodies. Multiple factors need to be considered and various steps taken to facilitate wide dissemination of research to participants.

Let’s just get on with it – ?‘open’ in Australia in 2019

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“This talk, given to the CAUL Research Repositories Community Days on 28 October 2019, delves into the current state of openness in Australia. It looks at some of the causes of the lack of progress and provides suggestions for ramping up activity into 2020.”

Driving Institutional Change for Research Assessment Reform

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“Academic institutions and funders assess their scientists’ research outputs to help allocate their limited resources. Research assessments are codified in policies and enacted through practices. Both can be problematic: policies if they do not accurately reflect institutional mission and values; and practices if they do not reflect institutional policies.

Even if new policies and practices are developed and introduced, their adoption often requires significant cultural change and buy-in from all relevant parties – applicants, reviewers and decision makers.

We will discuss how to develop and adopt new research assessment policies and practices through panel discussions, short plenary talks and breakout sessions. We will use the levels of intervention described in the “Changing a Research Culture” pyramid (Nosek, 2019), to organize the breakout sessions….”

Chasing cash cows in a swamp? Perspectives on Plan S from Australia and the USA | Unlocking Research

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“Rankings are a natural enemy of openness….

Australian universities are heavily financially reliant on overseas students….

University rankings are extremely important in the recruitment of overseas students….

There is incredible pressure on researchers in Australia to perform. This can take the form of reward, with many universities offering financial incentives for publication in ‘top’ journals….

For example, Griffith University’s Research and Innovation Plan 2017-2020 includes: “Maintain a Nature and Science publication incentive scheme”. Publication in these two journals comprises 20% of the score in the Academic Ranking of World Universities….”