Collaborative authoring using linked-data technologies and 3D data vizualisation is a new way to publish scholarly communications through platforms like Authorea.

The “Carrefour de l’IST” brought together information professionals on 25 and 26 November  2014. The theme was the services to researchers, innovations and new developments.

A presentation has been made on this occasion on identifiers and referentials in the French open archive HAL.

The French think tank GFII (Groupement Français de l’Industrie de l’Information) made proposals to create the optimum conditions for economic development through the reuse of public information. To this end, the association has published a list of data which should become open data. The ISSN is one of them. (In French)

When a handful of authors were caught reviewing their own papers, it exposed weaknesses in modern publishing systems. Editors are trying to plug the holes.

In September 2014, the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research) Ethics Committee, known as COMETS, has published a guide that aims to promote scientific integrity. “CNRS le journal” investigates the causes, extent and consequences of the fraudulent practices in science as well as the measures taken to eradicate them. Article in French.

OpenAIRE is about to launch a new project: OpenAIRE2020, starting in January 2015. The initiative will implement the H2020 Open Access policies and mandates for publications and will be one of the key European infrastructures supporting the EC’s Research Data Pilot.

Research Consulting, a UK consultancy, was recently retained jointly by London Higher and SPARC Europe to examine what it costs UK institutions to comply with the open access (OA) requirements laid out by various UK research funders, especially Research Councils UK (RCUK) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

So far most OA-policies and mandates have a preference for green OA, although many allow payment for article processing charges (APC) via grants or dedicated OA-publication funds.

Three well-known organizations,  have recently updated their OA-policies and mandates and now emphasize and/or facilitate Gold OA for slightly different reasons.

Mehrdad Jalalian, an Iran-based researcher in publication ethics, journalism, and research methods adresses a recent phenomenon in scholarly publications : the hijacking of journals.

Feedback on the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Fourth Plenary Meeting in Amsterdam and overview of Elsevier’s Open Data pilot. This service provides authors with the option to upload their raw research data as a supplementary file. Upon acceptance of the article Elsevier will publish the data file open access alongside the article on ScienceDirect.