So it is up to us, particularly the more senior, not only to push RCUK to state categorically that impact factors will not be used in the assessment of researchers in the future, as Stephen urges and as is the stated case in the current REF guidelines, but also to reinforce that position any time we find ourselves in a position of ‘judging’ others: appointments, promotions and so on. We should not use impact factors as a spurious proxy for judging the science itself.

Athene Donald’s Blog.

We discuss the results of a survey conducted in fall 2012 and covering 2,151 researchers in Germany. We show that there are significant differences between the scientific disciplines with respect to researcher’s awareness of and experience with both open access (OA) journals and self-archiving. Our results reveal that the relevance of OA within a discipline may explain why researchers from particular disciplines do (not) publish OA. Besides, several aspects like copyright law, age, profession or the inherent reward system of a discipline play a role. As a consequence, the paper emphasizes that a “one-size-fits-all” approach as promoted by most recent policy approaches is little promising for providing an effective framework for shaping the future of scholarly publishing.

Natalia Madjarevic, Dave Puplett, and Neil Stewart clarify the existing capabilities of institutional repositories and highlight the powerful transitional role they can play in providing greater access and benefits for individuals, institutions and disciplines.