scholarly journals Integration of national publication databases – towards a high-quality and comprehensive information base on scholarly publications in Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 02001
Author(s):  
Hanna-Mari Puuska ◽  
Joonas Nikkanen ◽  
Tim Engels ◽  
Raf Guns ◽  
Dragan Ivanović ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Science ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
National Database ◽  
Research Information ◽  
Information Base ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
Comprehensive Information ◽  
Long Time ◽  
European Publication

The need for a comprehensive infrastructure for scholarly publication information has been on the EU’s agenda for a long time. Also, the European Commission’s open science policy highlights the necessity of a good information base to follow up open access publishing across Europe. However, an all-inclusive information infrastructure on research publications is still missing. During the past 10 years, European countries have invested significantly in national research information infrastructures. Now, at least 20 European countries have a national database for research publication metadata. The strength of these databases lies in their comprehensiveness and quality assurance since they often have a mandatory nature. They are, however, neither yet integrated nor widely used for cross- country comparisons. To this end, a proof of concept of a European publication infrastructure was carried out in the framework of ENRESSH (www.enressh.eu). The ENRESSH-VIRTA-PoC integrated publication data from four countries and the concept was built on the strengths of the Finnish national VIRTA system. This paper highlights the results from the PoC and outlines future steps towards the integration of national publication databases in Europe.

scholarly journals No deal! Sweden cancelled agreement with Elsevier to stand up for Open Science

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Heyman Widmark ◽  
Göran Hamrin
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Individual Article ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
Short Time

In this talk we highlight some results after the Swedish Bibsam consortium decided to cancel the agreement with scientific publisher Elsevier after 20 years as they couldn’t present a model that met the demands of the consortium. The requirements were immediate open access to all articles published in Elsevier journals by researchers affiliated to participating organisations as well as reading access to all articles in Elsevier’s journals. Bibsam also demanded a sustainable price model that enables a transition to open access publishing. We investigate the effects of this cancellation on Sweden’s largest technical university, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Method The study has two themes. First, we analyse the economics in earlier Bibsam-Elsevier agreements and what effects they have had for the budget and purchasing decisions made by the KTH Library. Second, we evaluate the response and the adapted behaviour of KTH researchers in the attempt to see if the cancellation has had severe negative effects for them. Results Our data collection gives an overview over the effects of the cancelled agreement at KTH. In particular, we observe how some of the money saved on the cancellation is used for individual article purchases and alternative services, thus lowering the effect of the cut-off.  During our talk, we will also review some marketing strategies employed at KTH and Swedish libraries for making this cancellation process as smooth as possible. Limitations The short time period that has elapsed after the cancellation makes it difficult to see any long-time trends. The limited time frame also affects the validity of the researchers’ responses. Moreover, it is difficult to tell how the results from a case study from one university can be generalised to a global setting.

scholarly journals Almost Halfway There: An Analysis of the Open Access Behaviors of Academic Librarians

2011 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 443-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly Mercer
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Academic Librarians ◽  
Library And Information Science ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
Scholarly Communications

Academic librarians are increasingly expected to advocate for scholarly communications reforms such as open access to scholarly publications, yet librarians do not always practice what they preach. Previous research examined librarian attitudes toward open access, whereas this article presents results of a study of open access publishing and self-archiving behaviors of academic librarians. Following an analysis of open access to library and information science literature in 2008, several strategies to encourage academic librarians to continue to embrace open access behaviors are discussed.

scholarly journals Organising RDM and Open Science Services

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-193
Author(s):  
Anne Sunikka
Keyword(s):  
Open Data ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Research Needs ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Training Material ◽  
Research Data Management ◽  
Changing Roles ◽  
Academic Personnel ◽  
And Training

This paper describes how the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture launched an initiative on research data management and open data, open access publishing, and open and collaborative ways of working in 2014. Most of the universities and research institutions took part in the collaborative initiative building new tools and training material for the Finnish research needs. Measures taken by one university, Aalto University, are described in detail and analysed, and compared with the activities taking place in other universities. The focus of this paper is in the changing roles of experts at Aalto University, and organisational transformation that offers possibilities to serve academic personnel better. Various ways of building collaboration and arranging services are described, and their benefits and drawbacks are discussed.

A Community Perspective on Research Software in the Hydrological Sciences 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Reinecke ◽  
Tim Trautmann ◽  
Thorsten Wagener ◽  
Katja Schüler
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Computer Engineering ◽  
Knowledge Community ◽  
Research Software ◽  
Software Engineering Process ◽  
First Results ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Access To Data

<div> <p>Software development has become an integral part of the earth system sciences as models and data processing get more sophisticated. Paradoxically, it poses a threat to scientific progress as the pillar of science, reproducibility, is seldomly reached. Software code tends to be either poorly written and documented or not shared at all; proper software licenses are rarely attributed. This is especially worrisome as scientific results have potential controversial implications for stakeholders and policymakers and may influence the public opinion for a long time. </p> </div><div> <p>In recent years, progress towards open science has led to more publishers demanding access to data and source code alongside peer-reviewed manuscripts. Still, recent studies find that results in hydrology can rarely be reproduced. </p> </div><div> <p>In this talk, we present first results of a poll conducted in spring 2021 among the hydrological science community. Therein, we strive to investigate the causes for that lack of reproducibility. We take a peek behind the curtain and unveil how the community develops and maintains complex code and what that entails for reproducibility. Our survey includes background knowledge, community opinion, and behaviour practices regarding reproducible software development.  </p> </div><div> <p>We postulate that this lack of reproducibility might be rooted in insufficient reward within the scientific community, insecurity regarding proper licencing of software and other parts of the research compendium as well as scientists’ unawareness about how to make software available in a way that allows for proper attribution of their work. We question putative causes such as unclear guidelines of research institutions or that software has been developed over decades by researchers' cohorts without a proper software engineering process and transparent licensing. </p> </div><div> <p>To this end, we also summarize solutions like the adaption of modern project management methods from the computer engineering community that will eventually reduce costs while increasing the reproducibility of scientific research. </p> </div>

Politicisation, professionalisation, or both? Hungary's civil service system

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
György Gajduschek
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Service System ◽  
European Countries ◽  
East European ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
Merit System

This paper aims to determine where the Hungarian civil service system might be situated on an imaginary merit system – spoils system scale. In doing so, the Hungarian system is analyzed from two angles. Firstly, regulation is scrutinized as it is manifested in the Civil Service Act. Secondly, practice is examined relying on available statistical and survey data. The author argues that, contrary to the conclusions of most of scholarly publications, the Hungarian Law is a pseudo-merit system law, not in fact preventing the prevalence of a spoils system. Practice generally reveals, however, features of a modestly politicized system with signs of increasing professionalization. The last two sections investigate the potential explanations for these somewhat surprising findings and whether the findings for the Hungarian civil service may be generalized to some or most of the Central and East European countries.

scholarly journals EPS and Open Science: an update

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-28
Author(s):  
C. Rossel ◽  
L. van Dyck
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Way

The movement towards an Open Science is well engaged and irreversible. It includes Open Access publishing, Open Data and Open Collaborations with several new orientations, among which citizen science. Indeed, in the digital era, the way research is performed, its output shared and published is changing significantly, as are the expectations of policy makers and society at large.

scholarly journals Social measures, financial support to maintain, increase population in some European countries

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Kinga Emese Zsido
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
European Level ◽  
Reasonable Time ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Long Time

AbstractThe evolution of the number of the population in many countries, even at European level, gives signs of concern, of which we should be aware: the significant decrease of the population, the negative changes in its structure can have negative and drastic economic and social effects if the governments do not intervene reasonable time. The implementation of measures must be well thought out, with the possibility of financial support and maintained for a long time, so that the expected effects appear. In Europe, some governments (especially in Eastern Europe) have already assumed this responsibility, implemented a series of measures to keep the youth in the country, to increase the number of children, with the purpose of increasing the population and balancing its structure. The paper presents a comparative analysis of the measures implemented by three European countries (Poland, Romania and Hungary) in order to increase the population in the following decades.

scholarly journals Can scholarly pirate libraries bridge the knowledge access gap? An empirical study on the structural conditions of book piracy in global and European academia

PLoS ONE ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (12) ◽  
pp. e0242509
Author(s):  
Balázs Bodó ◽  
Dániel Antal ◽  
Zoltán Puha
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
Lower Income ◽  
Scholarly Book ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Knowledge Absorption ◽  
Limited Usefulness ◽  
Knowledge Access

Library Genesis is one of the oldest and largest illegal scholarly book collections online. Without the authorization of copyright holders, this shadow library hosts and makes more than 2 million scholarly publications, monographs, and textbooks available. This paper analyzes a set of weblogs of one of the Library Genesis mirrors, provided to us by one of the service’s administrators. We reconstruct the social and economic factors that drive the global and European demand for illicit scholarly literature. In particular, we test if lower income regions can compensate for the shortcomings in legal access infrastructures by more intensive use of illicit open resources. We found that while richer regions are the most intensive users of shadow libraries, poorer regions face structural limitations that prevent them from fully capitalizing on freely accessible knowledge. We discuss these findings in the wider context of open access publishing, and point out that open access knowledge, if not met with proper knowledge absorption infrastructures, has limited usefulness in addressing knowledge access and production inequalities.

scholarly journals The Prevalence of Loneliness among University Students from Five European Countries during the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-887
Author(s):  
Andrei Shpakou ◽  
Liudmila Klimatckaia ◽  
Natalia Skoblina ◽  
Joanna Baj-Korpak ◽  
Aelita Skarbalienė ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Loneliness Scale ◽  
Long Time

At universities for students, the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduced anti-pandemic measures turned out to be psycho-traumatic factors that increased the experience of loneliness. The purpose of the study was to investigate the prevalence of the phenomenon of loneliness among university students in five European countries, taking into account the variety of anti-COVID measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the UCLA Loneliness Scale, questionnaires of 2316 students. In Russia, Poland and Ukraine a hard lockdown was introduced during the pandemic. Lithuania (in the first months) did not undertake severe restrictions, and for a long time the danger of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not recognized in Belarus. The students in Lithuania and Belarus, 33 and 35 points. Students from Poland, Russia and Ukraine: 38, 37, 37 points, respectively. All respondents were classified according to three levels of loneliness experience. A low level (<40) was noted in 1,510 cases (65.2%), medium (40‒60) — 740 people (32.0%), high (>60) experience of loneliness — 66 respondents (2.8%). Among the representatives of Lithuania and Belarus, a low level of subjective feeling of loneliness prevailed (about 70% of respondents), while in Ukraine, Russia and Poland the share of low indicators was significantly less, respectively, 65.2%, 59.8% and 57.8%. University students from five countries who participated in the study do not experience high levels of loneliness. Gradation of the prevalence of feelings of loneliness from minimum to maximum in comparison is as follows: LT — BY — RU—UA—PL. The severity of loneliness is associated with the levels of restrictions in the countries during the pandemic.

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