The Transpose database, which launched on 13 June 2019, assembles thousands of science journals’ editorial policies to boost transparency and accessibility. The database was compiled by a mostly US-based group of researchers working towards reforming publishing. The database includes details about peer review, preprints and editorial policies that are often difficult or impossible to find on journal websites.
Cost is the No. 1 reason why colleges end their “big deals” with publishers, but not everyone thinks the agreements are really that expensive. Kent Anderson, CEO of publishing and data analytics company RedLink, has argued that the subscription model is actually “pretty efficient” for institutions. According to Roger Schonfeld, director of the libraries, scholarly communication and museums program at Ithaka S+R, the rise in open-access publishing has decreased the value of subscription deals as more content is available for free. To conclude, he thinks that the big deal as a bundled subscription model is definitely under threat.
In order to help journals take full advantage of the DOAJ’s indexing services, Scholastica Open Access Publishing has made it possible for those using Scholastica’s Open Access Publishing software to have their articles automatically deposited into the DOAJ. SOAP software handles all article formatting for journals.
Free access to scientific content is often limited due to the fragile technical infrastructure around it: Content is stored in a variety of versions at various locations and without any uniform search functionalities. The Open Access initiative Knowledge Unlatched has addressed this growing problem and is launching the Open Research Library together with several international partners. Its goal is to unite all Open Access (OA) book content. To this end, the Open Research Library is working with publishers and libraries worldwide and is open to all providers and users of quality-assured research content.
Metadata 2020 was established in 2017 with the mission to facilitate the collaboration of all involved in scholarly communications to consistently improve metadata and enhance discoverability. Metadata 2020 has set out four principles underlying good quality metadata: Compatibility, Completeness, Credibility and Curation. Comments are welcome. A forthcoming set of Best Practices will illustrate use cases and provide some concrete action items to support the Practices.
It is often anecdotally remarked that early career and PhD researchers have to publish their research more frequently and earlier in their careers than previous generations of academics, if they aim to secure a permanent academic job. In this post, Rob Warren lays out empirical evidence from the field of Sociology showing that this is indeed the case and highlights two market trends driving this process.
On March 26, the European Parliament adopted the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, after several years of development and negotiations marked by intense lobbying from all sides. With a final agreement little more than a formality, this new legislation is poised to impact the research community and change the environment around open science. Several meaningful improvements and the persistent concerns are stated from the research community perspective. The Directive needs to be implemented into the national law of each Member State within two years. Member States have an opportunity to develop national legislation that will be adapted to their particular circumstances.
The Future of Scholarly Publishing and Scholarly Communication is a report published in January 2019 and produced by a Group of Experts at the European Commission, created to support the Commission’s policy development on open science. The report proposes a “vision” for the future of scholarly communication. It analyses the current system – with its strengths and weaknesses – and its main actors. It reviews their roles and makes recommendations to each of them, identifying where there is room for collaboration and synergies. The report concludes that funding agencies, with their access to money and their relative freedom to act, are probably best suited to shape and develop the scholarly publishing landscape of the near future, and their growing collective commitments to open science are positive signals in this regard.
Robert Kiley and Michael Markie discuss the ambition behind creating Wellcome Open Research, an innovative funder led publishing platform, and assess the success of the platform over its first two years. Going on to imagine a future, in which all research is published using the principles behind Wellcome Open Research, they suggest the potential benefits such a publishing system would have for research and research assessment.
While journal articles are still considered the most important sources of scholarly reading, libraries may no longer have a monopoly on providing discovery and access. Many other sources of scholarly information are available to readers. This international study examines how researchers discover, read, and use scholarly literature for their work. There are still significant differences found in the reading and use of scholarly literature by discipline and geographical location. Researchers show they are willing to change or adopt new strategies to discover and obtain articles.
