Numbers that tell a story: Measuring the impact of open access books

Open access book publishing is gaining momentum, with more than 10,000 titles published worldwide. But compared to the overall number of academic books that are produced, this is still a small percentage. With much research on the benefits to society from open access publication, what can we do to encourage more book authors to choose open access?Springer Nature is a leading academic book publisher – to date, we have published more than 550 open access books since launching OA book options in 2012. Feedback from our OA book authors has shown that metrics are important to them, as the data helps demonstrate the impact of their research to funders, and also supports conversations with their institutions for career progression. However, as highlighted in our white paper ‘The OA effect: How does open access affect the usage of scholarly books?’, some authors feel that there is a lack of information around metrics and book performance. This information may be critically important in helping authors consider the benefits of choosing to publish their book open access.Authors also state that one of the main obstacles to publishing more OA books through the gold route is funding; access to which varies globally and by discipline – a central theme that emerged at our researcher event during Academic Book Week 2018.Meanwhile, funders interviewed for ‘The OA Effect’ told us that they were keen to understand the impact of the OA books they had supported, but few had actually done so; many commented on the difficulties of measuring the impact of research. In light of these findings, in 2018 we piloted a new “impact report”, based on metrics for an individual funder of OA books. The outcomes of this pilot impact report project will help the scholarly communications community to better understand how publishers can inform funders, authors and their institutions about the impact of their research, and on a wider scale. What are the challenges of sharing the benefits of OA book publishing with researchers across different disciplines, and how can we overcome these challenges?Our poster shows excerpts from the pilot impact report, quotes from authors and funders about research impact, and considers next steps.

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How is open access publishing going down with early career researchers? An international, multi-disciplinary study

El profesional de la información ◽

10.3145/epi.2020.nov.14 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

David Nicholas ◽

Hamid R. Jamali ◽

Eti Herman ◽

Jie Xu ◽

Chérifa Boukacem-Zeghmouri ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Career Progression ◽

Early Career ◽

Open Access Publishing ◽

Openness To Change ◽

Advantages And Disadvantages ◽

Early Career Researchers ◽

Scholarly Communications ◽

The Subject ◽

The Many

This study explores early career researchers’ (ECRs) appreciation and utilisation of open access (OA) publishing. The evidence reported here results from a questionnaire-based international survey with 1600 participants, which forms the second leg and final year of a four year long, mixed methods, longitudinal study that sought to discover whether ECRs will be the harbingers of change when it comes to scholarly communications. Proceeding from the notion that today’s neophyte researchers, believed to hold millennial values of openness to change, transparency and sharing, may be best placed to power the take-up of OA publishing, the study sought to discover: the extent to which ECRs publish OA papers; the main reasons for their doing or not doing so; and what were thought to be the broader advantages and disadvantages of OA publishing. The survey data is presented against a backdrop of the literature-based evidence on the subject, with the interview stage data providing contextualisation and qualitative depth. The findings show that the majority of ECRs published in OA journals and this varied by discipline and country. Most importantly, there were more advantages and fewer disadvantages to OA publishing, which may be indicative of problems to do with cost and availability, rather than reputational factors. Among the many reasons cited for publishing OA the most important one is societal, although OA is seen as especially benefiting ECRs in career progression. Cost is plainly considered the main downside.

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Funders in Europe and incentivizing Open Science

Septentrio Conference Series ◽

10.7557/5.4919 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Vanessa Proudman ◽

Jon Øygarden Flæten ◽

Konstantinos Glinos ◽

Robert Terry

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Evaluation System ◽

Research Study ◽

Research Evaluation ◽

Intrinsic Value ◽

Open Science ◽

World Health ◽

Funding Agencies ◽

Scholarly Communications ◽

The Impact

Funders across Europe are using scholarly communications to increase the impact of their grant results, thereby incentivizing researchers to share their research more openly. This panel session will start by describing the results of a research study called the RIF Project that gleans insights into the policy, rewards and incentives being employed by European research funders to encourage open access to publications and research data for the research they fund. The panel will then respond to the findings and will present and share experience on their policies. Funders across Europe are using scholarly communications to increase the impact of their grant results. More than 60 funders responded to a survey that was conducted in early Spring 2019 coming from key international funding bodies, national funding agencies, major charities and foundations, and national academies; from over 25 countries. The study was led by SPARC Europe in consultation with Science Europe, ALLEA and the EFC. Research Consulting conducted the research. The survey is the first of its kind, since it includes national funding agencies, academies, foundations and charities in Europe. What kinds of policy choices have funders made to influence how grantees increase open access to their research results with as few restrictions as possible? How can funders contribute to changing the research evaluation system by exploring ways to evaluate the intrinsic value of research beyond the impact factor for example, by promoting, and considering a wider range of types of research when evaluating grants? How are funders contributing to the investment in open, be it through financing OA journal articles and other material, and supporting infrastructure? The session will provide answers to these questions and will also raise awareness of the areas where funders can do more to strengthen their Open Science policies. Vanessa Proudman (SPARC Europe) will report on the results of the above-mentioned research study. Jon Øygarden Flæten (The Research Council of Norway), Konstantinos Glinos (The European Commission) and Robert Terry (World Health Organization and the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases) will present the views of their funder organizations.

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Study in Grey and White: Measuring the Impact of the 8Rs Canadian Library Human Resources Study

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice ◽

10.18438/b8zg89 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 133

Author(s):

Allison Sivak

Keyword(s):

Human Resources ◽

Citation Analysis ◽

Research Impact ◽

Google Scholar ◽

Test Case ◽

Manual Method ◽

Scholarly Communications ◽

Google Search ◽

The Impact ◽

Published Research

Objective – To use the 8Rs Canadian Library Human Resources Study (the 8Rs Study) as a test case to develop a model for assessing research impact in LIS. Methods – Three different methods of citation analysis which take into account the changing environment of scholarly communications. These include a ‚manual‛ method of locating citations to the 8Rs Study through a major LIS database, an enhanced-citation tool Google Scholar, and a general Google search to locate Study references in non-scholarly documents Results – The majority of references (82%) were found using Google or Google Scholar; the remainder were located via LISA. Each method had strengths and limitations. Conclusion - In-depth citation analysis provides a promising method of understanding the reach of published research. This investigation’s findings suggest the need for improvements in LIS citation tools, as well as digital archiving practices to improve the accessibility of references for measuring research impact. The findings also suggest the merit of researchers and practitioners defining levels of research impact, which will assist researchers in the dissemination of their work.

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Evaluating the Impact of Open Access at Berkeley: Results from the 2015 Survey of Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) Funding Recipients

College & Research Libraries ◽

10.5860/crl.77.5.568 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 77 (5) ◽

pp. 568-581 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Samantha Teplitzky ◽

Margaret Phillips

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

North America ◽

Qualitative Study ◽

Research Impact ◽

University Of California ◽

Multiple Sources ◽

Access Policy ◽

The Impact

The Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII) was one of the first campus-based open access (OA) funds to be established in North America and one of the most active, distributing more than $244,000 to support University of California (UC) Berkeley authors. In April 2015, we conducted a qualitative study of 138 individuals who had received BRII funding to survey their opinions about the benefits and funding of open access. Most respondents believe their articles had a greater impact as open access, expect to tap multiple sources to fund open access fees, and support the UC Open Access Policy and its goal of making research public and accessible. Results of the survey and a discussion of their impact on the BRII program follow.

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OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit

Septentrio Conference Series ◽

10.7557/5.5581 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Christina Rachel Emery

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Collaborative Writing ◽

Book Publishing ◽

Academic Community ◽

University Libraries ◽

For Profit ◽

Not For Profit ◽

Scholarly Communications ◽

The University ◽

Further Development

The OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit is a brand new free resource for researchers, created through a collaborative writing process by global and diverse members of the academic community and scholarly communications organisations. The toolkit aims to help authors better understand open access (OA) for books, to increase trust in OA book publishing, to provide reliable and easy-to-find answers to questions from authors, and to provide guidance in the process of publishing an OA book. The toolkit was developed in a series of workshops for authors, hosted by the university libraries at Oxford, Glasgow and Utrecht, in collaboration with Springer Nature and OAPEN. The idea for this toolkit came about in a Researcher to Reader workshop where discussions concluded that a trusted single resource was needed to tackle the lack of awareness and understanding amongst authors about OA book publishing, and common misconceptions about licensing and quality which form important barriers in the transition to OA books. This poster describes the content and layout of the toolkit, and the journey in developing it. We want the academic community to get involved by spreading the word about this toolkit and providing feedback for further development. The OAPEN Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation that works with publishers to build a quality-controlled collection of open access books through the OAPEN Library and the Directory of Open Access Books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of deposit, quality assurance, dissemination, and digital preservation.

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Book PR: do readers influence on the communication of publishing company?

Innovative Marketing ◽

10.21511/im.15(4).2019.06 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 15 (4) ◽

pp. 66-77

Author(s):

Tetiana Yezhyzhanska ◽

Tetiana Krainikova ◽

Larysa Masimova

Keyword(s):

Book Publishing ◽

Communication Process ◽

User Generated Content ◽

Book Market ◽

Lack Of Information ◽

Book Fairs ◽

Publishing Houses ◽

The Impact ◽

Source Of Information

The impact of readers as target audiences of publishing houses in Ukraine on PR communication is not clearly understood. The goal of this research is to examine the role of readers in the communication process between publishing houses and customers. The readers become an important source of information about the events of the book publishing market and book novelties. The article shows the results of the poll of visitors of the largest book festivals in Ukraine – Book Arsenal Festival in Kyiv and Book Forum in Lviv for 2017–2019. These respondents (200 interviews per event) are not only the main consumers of book products publishing houses, but also they are the source of information about new books and activities of Ukrainian publishing houses themselves. According to the results of the poll, visitors of book fairs pay attention to the advice of their colleagues and friends, which are an important source of information about the events of the book publishing market and book novelties. Almost 50% of respondents create and distribute user-generated content about the events of the book publishing market. This activity is explained by the lack of information about the book market news of more than half of visitors. The results of the research confirm that readers are important publishing communications subjects, consumers are active advocates of the publisher’s brand, friends and colleagues actively create the content about the events of the book publishing market in Ukraine.

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Librarians Skills and Competencies for Scholarly Communication and Repository Management in Nigeria

Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education (TURCOMAT) ◽

10.17762/turcomat.v12i3.1022 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 1909-1915

Author(s):

Usman Ahmed Adam Et.al

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Research Output ◽

Core Competencies ◽

Scholarly Communication ◽

Rapid Change ◽

Research Impact ◽

The Impact ◽

And Storage ◽

And Training ◽

Text And Data Mining

The rapid change in scholarly communication and knowledge management has transformed the repository services and imposed new skills and competencies for repository management. This study is posed to assess the skills and competencies of librarians for repository management and scholarly communication in academic institutions in Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research design to assess the skills and competencies of the librarians using NASIG “Core Competencies for Scholarly Communication Librarians 2017”. The sample size of the study comprises 120 librarians across 40 institutions. The findings of the study indicate among others that; 74 % of the librarians have a general understanding of repository platforms, 54.17% background knowledge of open access movement, and 58% experience in advocacy for open access. At the same time, 83.3% of the librarians can capture, store, and preserve the research output. While 62.3% understand research impact, only 35.8% understand emerging alternatives measures of the impact. Although, 73.1 % understand Data description and storage, only 20.8% understand text and data mining. The study concluded that awareness, skills, and competencies of the librarians is increasing and recommends among others; setting up a framework for the employment of repository and scholarly communication librarians and training on repository management and scholarly communication.

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The Role of Threat and Economic Uncertainty in Support for Scottish Independence

Scottish Affairs ◽

10.3366/scot.2014.0007 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 103-124 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Daniel Kopasker

Keyword(s):

Economic Consequences ◽

Perceived Threat ◽

Constitutional Change ◽

Lack Of Information ◽

Economic Expectations ◽

Scottish Independence ◽

The Individual ◽

The Impact ◽

Levels Of Support

Existing research has consistently shown that perceptions of the potential economic consequences of Scottish independence are vital to levels of support for constitutional change. This paper attempts to investigate the mechanism by which expectations of the economic consequences of independence are formed. A hypothesised causal micro-level mechanism is tested that relates constitutional preferences to the existing skill investments of the individual. Evidence is presented that larger skill investments are associated with a greater likelihood of perceiving economic threats from independence. Additionally, greater perceived threat results in lower support for independence. The impact of uncertainty on both positive and negative economic expectations is also examined. While uncertainty has little effect on negative expectations, it significantly reduces the likelihood of those with positive expectations supporting independence. Overall, it appears that a general economy-wide threat is most significant, and it is conjectured that this stems a lack of information on macroeconomic governance credentials.

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Impact Of Transformational Leadership On Motivating Faculty Members

Restaurant Business ◽

10.26643/rb.v118i11.9954 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 118 (11) ◽

pp. 303-312

Author(s):

Jamal Asad Mezel ◽

Adnan Fadhil Khaleel ◽

Kiran Das Naik Eslavath

Keyword(s):

Transformational Leadership ◽

Empirical Study ◽

Leadership Styles ◽

Faculty Members ◽

Traditional Form ◽

Lack Of Information ◽

University Leaders ◽

The University ◽

The Impact

This empirical study show that the impact of all styles was well moderate. The means of effect of all styles were less than 3 out of 5. It means the expected impact of transformational affect upon the all dimensions of the activities, are not expected due to the traditional styles of leadership and the lack of information about the transformational leadership styles which can guide leaders to use such styles in the organization which may be this results due to lack of trained leaders and necessary knowledge with the leaders in all universities about transformational styles the traditional form of the leadership styles which used by the university leaders affect the communication between all levels of the administration and the faculty members which has consequence because decrease in motivation and a self-consideration from the administration.

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Open Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact Than Articles Not Freely Available

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice ◽

10.18438/b8c88z ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 1 (3) ◽

pp. 57

Author(s):

Suzanne Pamela Lewis

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Political Science ◽

Web Of Science ◽

Research Impact ◽

Sample Population ◽

Article Title ◽

Electronic Engineering ◽

Percentage Difference ◽

The Mean ◽

Leading Journals

A review of: Antelman, Kristin. “Do Open-Access Articles Have a Greater Research Impact?” College & Research Libraries 65.5 (Sep. 2004): 372-82. Objective – To ascertain whether open access articles have a greater research impact than articles not freely available, as measured by citations in the ISI Web of Science database. Design – Analysis of mean citation rates of a sample population of journal articles across four disciplines. Setting – Journal literature across the disciplines of philosophy, political science, mathematics, and electrical and electronic engineering. Subjects – A sample of 2,017 articles across the four disciplines published between 2001 and 2002 (for political science, mathematics, and electrical and electronic engineering) and between 1999 and 2000 (for philosophy). Methods – A systematic presample of articles for each of the disciplines was taken to calculate the necessary sample sizes. Based on this calculation, articles were sourced from ten leading journals in each discipline. The leading journals in political science, mathematics, and electrical and electronic engineering were defined by ISI’s Journal Citation Reports for 2002. The ten leading philosophy journals were selected using a combination of other methods. Once the sample population had been identified, each article title and the number of citations to each article (in the ISI Web of Science database) were recorded. Then the article title was searched in Google and if any freely available full text version was found, the article was classified as open access. The mean citation rate for open access and non-open access articles in each discipline was identified, and the percentage difference between the means was calculated. Main results – The four disciplines represented a range of open access uptake: 17% of articles in philosophy were open access, 29% in political science, 37% in electrical and electronic engineering, and 69% in mathematics. There was a significant difference in the mean citation rates for open access articles and non-open access articles in all four disciplines. The percentage difference in means was 45% in philosophy, 51% in electrical and electronic engineering, 86% in political science, and 91% in mathematics. Mathematics had the highest rate of open access availability of articles, but political science had the greatest difference in mean citation rates, suggesting there are other, discipline-specific factors apart from rate of open access uptake affecting research impact. Conclusion – The finding that, across these four disciplines, open access articles have a greater research impact than non-open access articles, is only one aspect of the complex changes that are presently taking place in scholarly publishing and communication. However, it is useful information for librarians formulating strategies for building institutional repositories, or exploring open access publishing with patrons or publishers.

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