scholarly journals ‘No comment’? A study of commenting on PLOS articles

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-100
Author(s):  
Simon Wakeling ◽  
Peter Willett ◽  
Claire Creaser ◽  
Jenny Fry ◽  
Stephen Pinfield ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Community Perceptions ◽  
Substantial Variation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Broad Scope ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Academic Discussion

Article–commenting functionality allows users to add publicly visible comments to an article on a publisher’s website. As well as facilitating forms of post-publication peer review, for publishers of open-access mega-journals (large, broad scope, open-access journals that seek to publish all technically or scientifically sound research) comments are also thought to serve as a means for the community to discuss and communicate the significance and novelty of the research, factors which are not assessed during peer review. In this article we present the results of an analysis of commenting on articles published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS), publisher of the first and best-known mega-journal PLOS ONE, between 2003 and 2016. We find that while overall commenting rates are low, and have declined since 2010, there is substantial variation across different PLOS titles. Using a typology of comments developed for this research, we also find that only around half of comments engage in an academic discussion of the article and that these discussions are most likely to focus on the paper’s technical soundness. Our results suggest that publishers are yet to encourage significant numbers of readers to leave comments, with implications for the effectiveness of commenting as a means of collecting and communicating community perceptions of an article’s importance.

scholarly journals Managing an Open Access Fund: Tips from the Trenches and Questions for the Future

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Zuniga ◽  
Lilian Hoffecker
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Junior Faculty ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Public ◽  
University Of Colorado ◽  
School Of Medicine ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
The Future ◽  
The University

The authors describe the process and results of an ongoing Open Access Fund program at the Health Sciences Library of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.  The fund has helped students and other early career researchers pay for the article processing charge or APC to publish their articles in an OA journal since 2013.  In the three years since, the fund has paid the APC for 39 applicants with a total expenditure of $37,576.  Most applicants were students as intended, however the fund supported a surprisingly large number of medical residents and junior faculty.  Individuals associated with the School of Medicine overwhelmingly represented the awardees compared to other units, and the Public Library of Science (PLoS) journals were the most common journal they published in.  While acknowledging the undeniable benefit of the fund to the awardees, the authors also pose challenging questions about the future role of libraries in subsidizing open access journals.

scholarly journals Reforming Science Publishing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled Moustafa
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Review Process ◽  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
Open Access Journals

Over the past few years, different changes have been introduced into the science publishing industry. However, important reforms are still required at both the content and form levels. First, the peer review process needs to be open, fair and transparent. Second, author-paid fees in open access journals need to either be removed or reconsidered toward more affordability. Third, the categorization of papers should include all types of scientific contributions that can be of higher interest to the scientific community than many mere quantitative and observable measures, or simply removed from publications. Forth, word counts and reference numbers in online open access journal should be nuanced or replaced by recommended ranges rather than to be a proxy of acceptance or rejection. Finally, all the coauthors of a manuscript should be considered corresponding authors and responsible for their mutual manuscript rather than only one or two.

Evolving landscape of scholarly journals in open access environment

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (6/7) ◽  
pp. 550-567
Author(s):  
Sumeer Gul ◽  
Sangita Gupta ◽  
Tariq Ahmad Shah ◽  
Nahida Tun Nisa ◽  
Shazia Manzoor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Peer Review Process ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
High Income ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Finnish Meteorological Institute ◽  
Open Access Journals

Purpose Open access journals (OAJs) offer immediate, free and unrestricted online access to the scholarly literature. The purpose of this study is to trace the status and characteristics of OAJs published across the globe. Various trends that have evolved in OAJ market have been studied. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on data collected from one of the largest OA journal directory – Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The data were downloaded on 02 January 2018 and details of OAJs added to DOAJ till 31 December 2018 were harvested, codified and further analyzed in SPSS software. A Microsoft-Excel template application – MAKESENS – developed by Finnish Meteorological Institute (Finland) in 2002, was explored to perform Mann–Kendall Test and Sen’s Slope Estimates. Findings A less score of OAJs offer access to their archival content. An increasing trend is witnessed in the OAJ publishing with Elsevier, Sciendo and BioMed Central (BMC) as the top publishers. Majority of publishers are from high-income zone countries, followed by upper-middle and lower-middle zone countries. Majority of OA publishers are from the UK, Indonesia and Brazil. A lesser score of journals offer article processing charges and/or author submission charges. Majority of OAJs from high- and lower-middle-income zone countries levy submission/processing charge to authors compared to OA journals from upper-middle- and lower-income zone countries (p < 0.01). OJS stays a prioritized platform for hosting OA journal content. Portico and CLOCKSS/LOCKSS are mostly used for long-term preservation purposes. Majority of OAJs from high-income zone countries participate in digital arching initiatives compared to ones from other income zones. Majority of the journals adopt a peer review (double-blind peer review, blind peer review, peer review and open peer review) process for validation of their scholarly content. The time lag between submission and publication ranges from one to 53 weeks, with majority of OAJs having a time lag of 11-20 weeks. Creative Commons Licenses are mainly adopted by OAJs. Research limitations/implications As the study is based on the data offered by DOAJ, any gaps in the DOAJ data will also get reflected in the study. Further, there might be other OAJs also that have yet to show compliance with DOAJ standards and get indexed with it. Originality/value The study tries to showcase the current status and characteristics of OAJs.

scholarly journals How Frequently Are Articles in Predatory Open Access Journals Cited

Publications ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo-Christer Björk ◽  
Sari Kanto-Karvonen ◽  
J. Tuomas Harviainen
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Random Sample ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Scientific Impact ◽  
Predatory Journals ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Citation Statistics

Predatory journals are Open Access journals of highly questionable scientific quality. Such journals pretend to use peer review for quality assurance, and spam academics with requests for submissions, in order to collect author payments. In recent years predatory journals have received a lot of negative media. While much has been said about the harm that such journals cause to academic publishing in general, an overlooked aspect is how much articles in such journals are actually read and in particular cited, that is if they have any significant impact on the research in their fields. Other studies have already demonstrated that only some of the articles in predatory journals contain faulty and directly harmful results, while a lot of the articles present mediocre and poorly reported studies. We studied citation statistics over a five-year period in Google Scholar for 250 random articles published in such journals in 2014 and found an average of 2.6 citations per article, and that 56% of the articles had no citations at all. For comparison, a random sample of articles published in the approximately 25,000 peer reviewed journals included in the Scopus index had an average of 18, 1 citations in the same period with only 9% receiving no citations. We conclude that articles published in predatory journals have little scientific impact.

scholarly journals Scientific Publications – Free For All?

2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-217
Author(s):  
DAVID WALTON
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Antarctic Treaty ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
New Religion

One of the most important elements of the Antarctic Treaty is the requirement to provide open and free access to all information collected south of 60° S. For this reason the current focus on making all published science free for everyone strikes a sympathetic cord. Led by various institutions promoting web posting of published material and the Public Library of Science enthusiasts proposing open access through the author-pays model there is a ferment of activity at present around the world to convert scientists and librarians to this new religion.

Open sesame: Analysing Public Library of Science as a site of production and distribution for open access scientific information and knowledge

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-238
Author(s):  
Scott S.D. Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Biological Information ◽  
Social Production ◽  
The Public ◽  
Production And Distribution ◽  
A Site

This article explores the Public Library of Science as a site that produces and disseminates open access scientific information and knowledge for the public good. Through this case study, issues of property ownership, the nature and political economy of biological information, scientific expertise and accessibility of information and scientific knowledge as a public good are considered. Drawing on a cultural industries perspective, I examine the various intermediaries and institutional arrangements that continue to impact and shape the production and dissemination of this open access knowledge. I suggest that Public Library of Science embodies a new mode for the social production of scholarly knowledge and its dissemination, with important implications for how scientific knowledge and expertise are created, certified and circulated.

scholarly journals Commercial Buildings as Public Spaces

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Gregorius Prasetyo Adhitama ◽  
Hisashi Komatsu
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Commercial Buildings ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
The Public ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
Open Access Article ◽  
Research Show

This research aims to verify the contribution of three commercial buildings in providing places for public in Bandung and Jakarta city in Indonesia. To achieve this goal, some field observations, interviews and evaluation of public activities at the buildings were conducted. The public uses and the ways the company manages the buildings that enable public activities were evaluated. The results of this research show that some types of public activities are identified. The types of the public activities are related to the ways the company manages the places and the physical characters of the places.Keywords: commercial; buildings; public spaceeISSN 2398-4279 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

scholarly journals Conserving the English Landscape of Taiping Lake Garden: Gaining public awareness

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Sharifah Khalizah Syed Othman Thani ◽  
Nur Kamilah Ibrahim ◽  
Nik Hanita Nik Mohamad ◽  
NurIzzati Mohd Rodzi
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Peer Review ◽  
Landscape Architecture ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
The Public ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
Open Access Article

Taiping Lake Garden (TLG) is one of the remaining British legacies located in Taiping, Perak. TLG is facing the transformation of English landscape environment, and diminishing the public appreciation on its historical value. This study aims to investigate the transformation of TLG’s historical value in the current environment, and to propose suggestions in promoting public awareness towards conserving the historical value in historic garden. This study has assessed the public awareness through a combination of survey and case study. The outcome of this study could offer the landscape architecture industry to moving towards conservation of historic garden in Malaysia.Keywords: English landscape; Taiping Lake Garden; public awareness; historical park conservationeISSN 2398-4295 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

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