scholarly journals Editorial - Open Access and accessing openness

Seminar.net ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yngve Nordkvelle
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Research Assessment ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
International Publishing ◽  
Publishing Houses ◽  
The Uk ◽  
National Languages

Seminar.net enters it’s fourth year, and has reached a state of maturity in a number of meanings: it receives manuscripts from all continents, the articles are read from 134 countries, of which India represents the highest number of readers, a number of articles have been read by more than 10 000 interested persons, and the frequency of issues is now three per year, and will reach four by next year. Interested parties now approach us in order to learn about our policies and practices.It takes time to become established and influential in the sense that articles are cited and referred to in prestigious publications. Still, the most prestigious publications are on paper. Many countries now embark on a policy that rewards researchers that publish in international journals, preferably in English. National languages are rendered less significant. In the UK, the research assessment exercise (RAE), and several other countries with a publication or citation based reward system in research, tend to favour quantitative dimensions at the expense of the quality of the publication. International publishing houses are huge profit-making companies that over years have increased their profit rates, charging increasingly economically pressured higher education institution with high subscription rates. With the advent of electronic publishing their position is severely challenged. It has been noted that the most significant publication of the last couple of decades was an electronic publication: Tim Berners Lee published the protocol for the World Wide Web in 1990. It was never refereed, nor was controlled by appointed gatekeepers of the “establishment”. The number of Open Access publications is rising every day, and the number of e-journals for academic publishing is reaching higher and higher numbers. In a recent case The Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University decided, that Harvard employees must publish all their material simultaneously on the electronic archive in their home institution. This means they should avoid publishing in articles that refuse parallel publishing. This is one of many encouraging events that might pave the way for more Open Access journals. In this issue of Seminar.net, we present four articles and a book review.

scholarly journals An Investigation of open access publications’ attractiveness among academic researchers from three European countries

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calin Gurau
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Research Work ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Journal Ranking ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
The Uk

A thriving open access publication (OAP) system represents a sound basis for Open Science development. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear what are the factors determining that academic researchers use OAPs, both as a source of knowledge and relevant references, and as an outlet to present their work to their peers, students and/or the general public. To investigate this topic, we assume an interpretative framework rooted in the institutional theory. Considering the development and evolution of the OAP system as a coherent set of structures, norms and routines, our research aims to (i) identify the factors that determine academic researchers in the business field to become active participants in this system; and (ii) to compare the way in which these factors influence academic researchers’ choices and professional strategies in three different European countries, which are traditionally different in terms of research culture and orientation: France, Romania and the UK. We adopt a research methodology based on semi-structured interviews, as our research objectives require a qualitative approach to identify not only the individual reasons for using the OAP system, but also the influence of the professional environment in shaping these decisions in terms of institutional standards, rules and practices. To collect primary data, we interviewed a total of 42 academics, who are active in both teaching and research in higher education institutions located in France, Romania or the UK (14 respondents from each country). The interviews lasted between 30 and 45 minutes, being conducted either face-to-face or through skype. With the permission of respondents – but under strict confidentiality standards, the interviews were transcribed, coded and analysed. The findings draw a highly complex picture indicating a set of conflicting factors and forces that determine the official perception and use of the OAP system. Although each of the investigated countries has specific features in terms of higher education quality standards and practices, respondents indicated a strong tendency towards uniformization, determined by the global spread of the North American academic system, which directly connects the professional status and evolution of academic researchers to their capacity to publish in peer-reviewed journals that are highly ranked in national or international publications lists (e.g., ISI, ABS, CNRS, FNEGE, etc.). Presently, there are relatively few open access journals included in national/international journal ranking lists, which prevents a widespread use of the OAP system by business academic researchers. Respondents indicated that although they currently use OAPs as a source of knowledge for teaching, they are more reluctant to use them as publication outlets for their research work, or as references in their scholarly publications. This tendency differs between these national education systems, although the general trend indicates a strong convergence of opinions and institutional practices. Overall, the academic publishing landscape can be described as a battlefield between two competing sets of institutions centred around open access and paid access systems, the paid access system still representing the standard for academic quality and professional recognition.

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 Biomedical Engineering International joins the Family of Platinum Open Access Journals

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Cristina Chircov ◽  
Monica Cartelle Gestal ◽  
Alexandru Mihai Grumezescu
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Biomedical Engineering ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Open Access Journals

We are delightfully announcing the launch of Biomedical Engineering International, a new interdisciplinary international scholarly open-access journal dedicated to publishing original and innovative research in the field of biomedical engineering. Any type of scientific paper, including reviews, original research papers, communications, or short notes, are welcome to be submitted. Any paper will further undergo the process of peer-reviewing according to the scientific standards of the journal. The scope of Biomedical Engineering International comprises all the directions of interest for the development of (pre-)clinical applications that could improve the quality of life, from tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and drug delivery systems, to microfluidics, neural engineering, and micro- and nanotechnology. Thus, Biomedical Engineering International aims to create an interdisciplinary communication tool for scientists in various fields, from chemists, engineers, biologists, to physicists, informaticians, and theoreticians. For this, the publication is done under the policy of Platinum Open Access, meaning that articles are free for readers and no article processing charges are demanded from authors, nor from their institutions. The publication charges for articles in Biomedical Engineering International are covered by AMG Transcend Association, Romania. Through this, Biomedical Engineering International addresses equality in academic publishing, by making the process available to both researchers and readers. Additionally, authors benefit from increased visibility of their research and thus, an increase of citations and higher influence in the academic world. There are no restrictions on the total length of the papers as the journal encourages the publication of detailed experimental and theoretical research. In this regard, Biomedical Engineering International paves the way to completely free academic publishing services in the biomedical engineering research field. In this manner, we gladly invite you to submit your papers in the field of biomedical engineering to be considered for publication in Biomedical Engineering International and we are looking forward to collaborating with you!

scholarly journals Adapting to a Dynamic Higher Education Environment – How the University of Glasgow Library Is Taking Up the Challenge

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Susan Ashworth
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Research Assessment ◽  
Institutional Repository ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Education Environment ◽  
Scholarly Communications ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University

The University of Glasgow Library is continuously developing space and services to meet the need of students and researchers in an evolving higher education landscape. We are an evidence-based organisation and have used tools such as ethnography, surveys and focus groups to understand how users interact with the physical and virtual library. We have also introduced new roles and created new partnerships across the University, particularly in the context of the United Kingdom Government’s policy on open access and funder requirements for the management of research data. This paper will focus on how the University of Glasgow Library is adapting to both the dynamic scholarly communications environment and the demands of our national research exercise and evidence from users and changing student needs. Every six years in the UK, there is a national research assessment exercise called the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and measurement of the performance of research outputs is a key part of that exercise. From 1st April 2016, in order to be eligible for the next REF, the accepted final version of journal articles and conference proceedings must have been deposited into an institutional repository within three months of the date of acceptance and made open access. Many research funders, such as the Wellcome Trust, also have policies on open access. The Library, in close partnership with the University’s Research Office, has taken the lead in publicising these policies to ensure that researchers are aware of their responsibilities. It has also developed new functionality in Enlighten, our institutional repository service to support compliance. In 2015, the Library commissioned an in-depth ethnographic study to help us more readily understand the changing needs of students and how they use library space. An overview of the results of this work and our next steps will demonstrate how we are “enabling progress”.

scholarly journals “Worth(less) papers” – are journal impact factor and number of citations suitable indicators to evaluate quality of scientists?

2018 ◽  
Vol XVI (2) ◽  
pp. 369-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Racz ◽  
Suzana Marković
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Impact Factor ◽  
Journal Impact Factor ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Digital Repository ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
On Line ◽  
Number Of Citations ◽  
Journal Impact

Technology driven changings with consecutive increase in the on-line availability and accessibility of journals and papers rapidly changes patterns of academic communication and publishing. The dissemination of important research findings through the academic and scientific community begins with publication in peer-reviewed journals. Aim of this article is to identify, critically evaluate and integrate the findings of relevant, high-quality individual studies addressing the trends of enhancement of visibility and accessibility of academic publishing in digital era. The number of citations a paper receives is often used as a measure of its impact and by extension, of its quality. Many aberrations of the citation practices have been reported in the attempt to increase impact of someone’s paper through manipulation with self-citation, inter-citation and citation cartels. Authors revenues to legally extend visibility, awareness and accessibility of their research outputs with uprising in citation and amplifying measurable personal scientist impact has strongly been enhanced by on line communication tools like networking (LinkedIn, Research Gate, Academia.edu, Google Scholar), sharing (Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, Google Plus) media sharing (Slide Share), data sharing (Dryad Digital Repository, Mendeley database, PubMed, PubChem), code sharing, impact tracking. Publishing in Open Access journals. Many studies and review articles in last decade have examined whether open access articles receive more citations than equivalent subscription toll access) articles and most of them lead to conclusion that there might be high probability that open access articles have the open access citation advantage over generally equivalent payfor-access articles in many, if not most disciplines. But it is still questionable are those never cited papers indeed “Worth(less) papers” and should journal impact factor and number of citations be considered as only suitable indicators to evaluate quality of scientists? “Publish or perish” phrase usually used to describe the pressure in academia to rapidly and continually publish academic work to sustain or further one’s career can now in 21. Century be reformulate into “Publish, be cited and maybe will not Perish”.

Academic opinions of Wikipedia and Open Access publishing

2014 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 332-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Xiao ◽  
Nicole Askin
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Statistical Power ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Academic Researchers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine academics’ awareness of and attitudes towards Wikipedia and Open Access journals for academic publishing to better understand the perceived benefits and challenges of these models. Design/methodology/approach – Bases for analysis include comparison of the models, enumeration of their advantages and disadvantages, and investigation of Wikipedia's web structure in terms of potential for academic publishing. A web survey was administered via department-based invitations and listservs. Findings – The survey results show that: Wikipedia has perceived advantages and challenges in comparison to the Open Access model; the academic researchers’ increased familiarity is associated with increased comfort with these models; and the academic researchers’ attitudes towards these models are associated with their familiarity, academic environment, and professional status. Research limitations/implications – The major limitation of the study is sample size. The result of a power analysis with GPower shows that authors could only detect big effects in this study at statistical power 0.95. The authors call for larger sample studies that look further into this topic. Originality/value – This study contributes to the increasing interest in adjusting methods of creating and disseminating academic knowledge by providing empirical evidence of the academics’ experiences and attitudes towards the Open Access and Wikipedia publishing models. This paper provides a resource for researchers interested in scholarly communication and academic publishing, for research librarians, and for the academic community in general.

scholarly journals Cost of Open access publishing in the light of global developments in scholarly publishing: Springer’s Open access initiative

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Scholarly Publishing ◽  
Biomed Central ◽  
Alternative Methods ◽  
Open Access Publishing ◽  
Impact Factors ◽  
Academic Publishing ◽  
Steady Increase ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Wide Range

>> See video of presentation (25 min.)BioMed Central is the open access publisher who pioneered this publishing model and has been part of Springer since 2008. We launched our first journal in the year 2000, and have since seen several positive global developments which have helped establish open access as an important trend in the evolvement of scholarly communication.  We have consequently observed a steady increase in awareness of open access and specifically, of our wide range of specialist as well as broad interest titles which is reflected in our growing submission numbers.BioMed Central as one of the main open access publishers has helped to establish open access as a new way of making academic research available to researchers and the public, and to introduce a change of the subscription business model in academic publishing and libraries. While BioMed Central also offers a solution for the Green Route of open access (“Open Repository”) the main part of our publishing activity is centred around our fully or “gold” open access journals. BioMed Central and SpringerOpen practise the “author pays” model, whereby the author is asked to pay a fee to cover the publisher’s cost of publishing and distributing the article. While the awareness of open access is growing among the academics, there is still uncertainty among many of how open access works and why they are asked to pay a fee. To cover that fee can still be a major obstacle for a researcher attempting to publish an article in an open access journal, as the SOAP report stated in 2011.I will present an analysis of the most recent open access developments and studies globally; as well as the effect that this has had on a number of factors that play a role in scholarly publishing, such as Impact Factors, citations and awareness of open access among academics. I will give an update on BioMed Central and Springer’s own development in the arena of open access and visibility of research, including  experimenting with alternative methods of evaluating research such as Altmetric and the SCImago Journal & Country Rank.  I will conclude with an overview of how we are working with research organisations and universities to offer financial support to their researchers in order to cover the fee for publishing in BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals in the context of our institutional membership program.

scholarly journals Open Access dynamics and prospects

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Grynkiewicz ◽  
Katarzyna Filip
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Electronic Publishing ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
New Era ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Open Access Journals ◽  
Green Route

The www has started a new era in dissemination of scientific information, which is already to such extent propagated by electronic media that it has become practically independent from the system of subscription driven printed journals. These developments of marked increase in availability of scientific information, commonly described as Open Access, have profound consequences for functioning of all segments of scientific community and also strategically influence education systems. Generally, there are growing expectations for freely available results of publicly funded research. Open Access (OA), which is developing for ca 25 years, has generated a number of large publishers (i.e. BioMedCentral) and over 5 000 of scholarly peer reviewed journals, which can be checked in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ; https://doaj.org/). Leaving aside new types of business models which evolved in connection with widespread of electronic publishing, we will analyze the OA phenomenon from the point of view of an active life science researcher, as a reader and an author. Thus, the OA “for profit” publishing modalities, distinguished as “green route” and “gold route” will be presented as well as some extracts from ongoing debate on the economics of particular variants. Finally, the question of choice between publishing options for prospective results in getting cited, will be touched upon.

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