scholarly journals Open access uptake in Germany 2010–2018: adoption in a diverse research landscape

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Hobert ◽  
Najko Jahn ◽  
Philipp Mayr ◽  
Birgit Schmidt ◽  
Niels Taubert

AbstractThis study investigates the development of open access (OA) to journal articles from authors affiliated with German universities and non-university research institutions in the period 2010–2018. Beyond determining the overall share of openly available articles, a systematic classification of distinct categories of OA publishing allowed us to identify different patterns of adoption of OA. Taking into account the particularities of the German research landscape, variations in terms of productivity, OA uptake and approaches to OA are examined at the meso-level and possible explanations are discussed. The development of the OA uptake is analysed for the different research sectors in Germany (universities, non-university research institutes of the Helmholtz Association, Fraunhofer Society, Max Planck Society, Leibniz Association, and government research agencies). Combining several data sources (incl. Web of Science, Unpaywall, an authority file of standardised German affiliation information, the ISSN-Gold-OA 3.0 list, and OpenDOAR), the study confirms the growth of the OA share mirroring the international trend reported in related studies. We found that 45% of all considered articles during the observed period were openly available at the time of analysis. Our findings show that subject-specific repositories are the most prevalent type of OA. However, the percentages for publication in fully OA journals and OA via institutional repositories show similarly steep increases. Enabling data-driven decision-making regarding the implementation of OA in Germany at the institutional level, the results of this study furthermore can serve as a baseline to assess the impact recent transformative agreements with major publishers will likely have on scholarly communication.

Mousaion ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 25-54
Author(s):  
Wanyenda Leonard Chilimo

 There is scant research-based evidence on the development and adoption of open access (OA) and institutional repositories (IRs) in Africa, and in Kenya in particular. This article reports on a study that attempted to fill that gap and provide feedback on the various OA projects and advocacy work currently underway in universities and research institutions in Kenya and in other developing countries. The article presents the findings of a descriptive study that set out to evaluate the current state of IRs in Kenya. Webometric approaches and interviews with IR managers were used to collect the data for the study. The findings showed that Kenya has made some progress in adopting OA with a total of 12 IRs currently listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) and five mandatory self-archiving policies listed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP). Most of the IRs are owned by universities where theses and dissertations constitute the majority of the content type followed by journal articles. The results on the usage and impact of materials deposited in Kenyan IRs indicated that the most viewed publications in the repositories also received citations in Google Scholar, thereby signifying their impact and importance. The results also showed that there was a considerable interest in Swahili language publications among users of the repositories in Kenya.


Author(s):  
Martin Fleischmann ◽  
Ombretta Romice ◽  
Sergio Porta

Unprecedented urbanisation processes characterise the Great Acceleration, urging urban researchers to make sense of data analysis in support of evidence-based and large-scale decision-making. Urban morphologists are no exception since the impact of urban form on fundamental natural and social patterns (equity, prosperity and resource consumption’s efficiency) is now fully acknowledged. However, urban morphology is still far from offering a comprehensive and reliable framework for quantitative analysis. Despite remarkable progress since its emergence in the late 1950s, the discipline still exhibits significant terminological inconsistencies with regards to the definition of the fundamental components of urban form, which prevents the establishment of objective models for measuring it. In this article, we present a study of existing methods for measuring urban form, with a focus on terminological inconsistencies, and propose a systematic and comprehensive framework to classify urban form characters, where ‘urban form character’ stands for a characteristic (or feature) of one kind of urban form that distinguishes it from another kind. In particular, we introduce the Index of Elements that allows for a univocal and non-interpretive description of urban form characters. Based on such Index of Elements, we develop a systematic classification of urban form according to six categories (dimension, shape, spatial distribution, intensity, connectivity and diversity) and three conceptual scales (small, medium, large) based on two definitions of scale (extent and grain). This framework is then applied to identify and organise the urban form characters adopted in available literature to date. The resulting classification of urban form characters reveals clear gaps in existing research, in particular, in relation to the spatial distribution and diversity characters. The proposed framework reduces the current inconsistencies of urban morphology research, paving the way to enhanced methods of urban form systematic and quantitative analysis at a global scale.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Michael Erdman

AbstractThe current work is an exploration of the life and linguistic scholarship of the Crimean Tatar linguist Bekir Çobanzade. In it, I pay particular attention to the impact of the author's socio-political environment, especially the rise of Stalinism, on his works relating to the history and classification of the Turkic languages. I demonstrate how these circumstances compelled Çobanzade to perform an intellectual migration, from an indigenous Turkic ontology focused on the structural wholeness of the Turkic languages to a rigid application of Marxist-Leninist concepts of socially-determined linguistic classification. I do this with the help of monographs and journal articles published in Crimean Tatar, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian, problematizing the multitude of his audiences and loyalties. As such, Çobanzade's story becomes a microcosm of the experience of a broader generation of Turkic writers and scholars. It was a generation that sought to take the greatest benefit from the monumental changes following World War I, and ended up being consumed by the totalitarian state that emerged in its wake. Çobanzade is one victim of many whose scholarly oeuvre can open a window to a heady and bygone period of experimentation and change.


Science ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 160 (3833) ◽  
pp. 1209-1210
Author(s):  
J. Walsh

Author(s):  
М. С. Татар

Global challenges complex affect the system of international relations, interstate relations, the nature of interaction between economic entities within the state and between economic entities of different states, requiring a radical transformation and modification of the modern global system and the actions of its actors. The aim of the research is to identification, classification of global challenges by strength of impact and probability of occurrence to further determine their impact on the economic entities behavior and the formation of relationships between them. The subject of the research is the global challenges, the strength of their impact and the probability of occurrence and change in time. The methods of the research: logical-substantive method, method of comparison, methods of induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis. The hypothesis of the research. There is a need to identify and classify global challenges to further determination of their impact on the nature of behavior and the system of relationships of economic entities in the context of global challenges. The statement of basic materials. The concepts of global challenge, global problem, global risk, global crisis, global catastrophe are considered. It is proposed to consider the global challenge as a situation facing a large number of people who are not able to solve it on their own in an adequate time and they need to join efforts to solve it, which can create a global threat that will result in global problems, risks, crises and catastrophes, and be an incentive for global positive change. The classification of global challenges is proposed, which includes geopolitical, social, economic, biological, demographic, climatic, technological, informational, cultural. The originality and practical significance of the research lies in the systematic classification of global challenges in order to further determination of the impact of each group of global challenges on changes in both interstate relations and the nature of interaction between individual entities. Conclusions and perspectives of further research. The proposed by the author classification of global challenges on the basis of the annotated critical analysis of scientific literature, which is presented by 7 groups of global challenges such as geopolitical, social, economic, biological, demographic, climatic, technological, informational, cultural – will be the basis for global challenges impact determining on the nature of behavior and the system of relationships of economic entities in the context of global challenges.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-31
Author(s):  
Cara Bradley

Objective – The goals of this study were to 1) characterize the quantity and nature of research outputs created by or in cooperation with community-based research units (CBRUs) at Canadian universities; 2) assess dissemination practices and patterns with respect to these outputs; 3) understand the current and potential roles of institutional repositories (IRs) in disseminating community-based research (CBR). Methods – The researcher consulted and consolidated online directories of Canadian universities to establish a list of 47 English language institutions. Working from this list of universities, the researcher investigated each in an attempt to identify any CBRUs within the institutions. Ultimately, these efforts resulted in a list of 25 CBRUs. All but 1 of these were from universities that also have IRs, so 24 CBRUs were included for further analysis. The researcher visited the website for each CBRU in February 2021 and, using the data on the site, created a list of each project that the CBRU has been involved in or facilitated over the past 10 years (2010-2020). An Excel spreadsheet was used to record variables relating to the nature and accessibility of outputs associated with each project. Results – These 24 CBRUs listed 525 distinct projects completed during the past 10 years (2010-2020). The number of projects listed on the CBRU sites varied widely from 2 to 124, with a median of 13. Outputs were most frequently reports (n=375, which included research reports, whitepapers, fact sheets, and others), with journal articles (n=74) and videos (n= 42) being less common, and other formats even less frequent. The dissemination avenues for these CBRU projects are roughly divided into thirds, with approximately one third of the projects’ results housed on the CBRU websites, another third in IRs, and a final third in “other” locations (third party websites, standalone project websites, or not available). Some output types, like videos and journal articles, were far less likely to be housed in IRs. There was a significantly higher deposit rate in faculty or department-based CBRUs, as opposed to standalone CBRUs. Conclusion – The results of this study indicate that academic libraries and their IRs play an important role in the dissemination of CBR outputs to the broader public. The findings also confirm that there is more work to be done; academic librarians, CBRU staff, and researchers can work together to expand access to, and potentially increase the impact of, CBR. Ideally, this would result in all CBRU project outputs being widely available, as well as providing more consistent access points to these bodies of work.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 99-101
Author(s):  
Jessica Koos

A Review of: Hampson, C., & Stregger, E. (2017). Measuring cost per use of library-funded open access article processing charges: Examination and implications of one method. Journal of Librarianship & Scholarly Communication, 5(1), eP2182. https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2182 Abstract Objective – To determine the feasibility and potential effects of a cost-per-use analysis of library funds dedicated to open access. Design – Cost-per-use analysis, case study. Setting – PLOS and BioMed Central. Subjects – 591 articles published in PLOS ONE, 165 articles published in PLOS Biology, and 17 articles published in BioMed Central. Methods – Three specific examples are provided of how academic libraries can employ a cost-per-use analysis in order to determine the impact of library-based open access (OA) funds. This method is modeled after the traditional cost-per-use method of analyzing a library collection, and facilitates comparison to other non-OA items. The first example consisted of using a formula dividing the total library-funded article processing charges (APCs) by the total global use of the specific PLOS journal articles that were funded. The second and third examples demonstrated what a library-funded OA membership to BioMed Central would cost alone, and then with APCs that cost could be divided by the total usage of the funded articles to determine cost-per-use. Main Results – The authors found both of the examples described in the article to be potential ways of determining cost-per-use of OA articles, with some limitations. For instance, counting article usage through the publisher’s website may not capture the true usage of an article, as it does not take altmetrics into consideration. In addition, article-level data is not always readily available. In addition, the cost-per-use of OA articles was found to be very low, ranging from $0.01 to $1.51 after the first three years of publication based on the cost of library-funded APCs. The second and third methods revealed a cost-per-use of $0.10 using membership-only payments, while using the cost of membership plus APCs resulted in a cost-per-use of $0.41. Conclusion – Libraries may wish to consider using these methods for demonstrating the value of OA funds in terms of return on investment, as these techniques allow for direct comparison to the usage of traditional journals. However, several barriers need to be overcome in how article-level usage is obtained in order for these methods to be more accurate and efficient. In addition, while the authors report that "The specific examples in this study suggest that OA APCs may compare favorably to traditional publishing when considering value for money based on cost per use," they also caution that the study was not designed to answer the question if the ROI is greater for OA publications than for traditional articles, stating that "...the data in this study should not be interpreted as a verification of such an argument, as this study was not designed to answer that question, nor can it do so given the limitations on the data. This paper was designed to present and illustrate a method. Further study would be necessary to verify or refute this possibility" (p. 15).


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Xianwen Kong

Abstract The type/number of operation modes of a parallel manipulator (PM) may vary with the link parameters of the PM. This paper presents a systematic classification of a 3-RER PM based on the type/number of operation modes. The 3-RER PM was proposed as a 4-DOF (degree-of-freedom) 3T1R PM in the literature. Using the proposed method, the classification of a PM based on the type/number of operation modes can be carried out in four steps, including formulation of constraint equations of the PM, preliminary classification of the PM using Gröbner Cover, operation mode analysis of all the types of PMs using primary decomposition of ideals, and identification redundant types of PMs. Classification of the 3-RER PM shows that it has 19 types. Besides the two 4-DOF 3T1R operation modes, different types of 3-RER PMs may have up to two more 3-DOF or other types of 4- DOF operation modes. This work is the first systematic study on the impact of link parameters on the operation modes of the 3-RER PM and provide a solid foundation for further research on the design and control of 3-RER PMs and other multi-mode (or reconfigurable) PMs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianwen Kong

Abstract A 3-UPU translational parallel mechanism (TPM) is one of typical TPMs. Several types of 3-UPU TPMs have been proposed in the literature. Despite comprehensive studies on 3-UPU TPMs in which the joint axes on the base and the moving platform are coplanar, only a few 3-UPU TPMs with a skewed base and moving platform have been proposed. However, the impact of link parameters on singularity loci of such TPMs has not been systematically investigated. The advances in computing CGS (comprehensive Gröbner system) or Gröbner cover of parametric polynomial systems provide an efficient tool for solving this problem. This paper presents a systematic classification of 3-UPU TPMs, especially those with a skewed base and moving platform, based on constraint singularity loci. First, the constraint singularity equation of a 3-UPU TPM is derived. To simplify this equation, the coordinate frame on the base (or moving platform) is set up such that the centers of three U joints are located on different coordinate axes. Using Gröbner Cover, the 3-UPU TPMs are classified into 20 types based on the constraint singularity loci. Finally, a novel 3-UPU TPM is proposed. Unlike most of existing 3-UPU TPMs which can transit to two or more 3-DOF operation modes at a constraint singular configuration, the proposed 3-UPU TPM can only transit to one general 3-DOF operation mode in a constraint singular configuration. The singularity locus divides the workspace of this 3-UPU TPM into two constraint singularity-free regions. This work provides a solid foundation for the design of 3-UPU TPMs and a starting point for the classification of a general 3-UPU parallel mechanism.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jess Monaghan

Does the type of open access that authors choose for their journal articles make a difference to the reach and impact of their research?  There are an increasing number of open access policies and mandates, such as Plan S’ policy which was introduced in 2021 for researchers who have been funded by certain members of cOAlition S, and UK Research and Innovation’s policy for UKRI-funded articles from April 2022 and books from 2024. However, some policies intend to exclude authors from selecting OA in hybrid journals by restricting funding only to those journals covered by Transformative Agreements. In addition, some policies seek to increase the availability of Green OA. These policies would seem to conflict with the potential benefits to authors of publishing Gold OA in hybrid journals. In 2021, Springer Nature commissioned an analysis of 60,567 articles published in hybrid journals to explore the impact and reach of different types of articles (non-OA, Gold OA and Green OA). Our findings show not only that Gold OA articles attract more citations, more downloads, and higher Altmetric Attention Scores on average, compared with non-OA articles, but for the first time we will share evidence of a stronger advantage for Gold OA compared to Green OA. We will discuss the potential implications of these findings for authors, and for institutional and funder policy decisions.


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