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What happens when you blog and tweet about an open access paper?

What happens when you blog and tweet about an open access paper?

“There have been almost 3 times that number of downloads from our institutional repository…I think its fair to say: It’s a really good thing to make your work open access. More people will read it than if it is behind a paywall. Even if it is the most downloaded paper from a journal in your field, open access makes it even more accessed” says Melissa Terras, Co-Director of University College London (UCL) Centre for Digital Humanities.

Open Access — What Do Authors Really Want?

Open Access — What Do Authors Really Want?

Alice Meadows, Director, Society Relations at John Wiley and Sons, suggests to support golden access as publishing method but votes if this would succeed for more funding especially for young researchers.

Funding seems to be a key issue, with only 18% of authors receiving full funding for article publication.  Additionally, young researchers are nearly twice as likely not to have funding as their older colleagues; somewhat counter-intuitively, however, they don’t see this as any more of a barrier to publishing OA.  Presumably OA will rapidly move up the ranks as a factor in where researchers choose to publish as funder mandates start to kick in – the introduction of the RCUK mandate on April 1, 2013, and corresponding increase in APC funding for articles arising from UK funded research, should be a good indicator.

Reputation Factor in Economic Publishing

Reputation Factor in Economic Publishing

Daniel Scott, Founder and Director of Social Sciences Directory and member of the Open Knowledge Foundation OKFN, sets a guideline by listing the next four steps to overcome reputation:

  • (…) Who needs journals? What you want is a large collection of articles that are well indexed and easily searchable, and freely available. (…) It will increase usage and reduce cost-per-download (…) whilst helping to increase citation and impact.
  • Ensure quality control of peer review by setting guidelines and adhering to them.
  • De-couple the link between publishing and tenure & department funding.
  • (…) University administrators need to take the bold decision to change, to pick an end date as a ‘cut off’ after which they will publicly state that they are switching to new policies in support of OA. (…) Editors, authors and reviewers will be encouraged to offer their services elsewhere, which will in turn rapidly build the reputation of new publications.

How publishers feather their nests on open access to public money

How publishers feather their nests on open access to public money

Not a peep from Finch as scholarly journal firms fly off to tax havens and grow ever more profitable. Simon Lilley, head of the University of Leicester School of Management, does the sorry sums.

See also the article below by Debby Shorley “It’s time for universities to reclaim publishing rights”.

Open Access strategies for scientific institutions: Modules and Examples

Open Access strategies for scientific institutions: Modules and Examples

The pdf is a summary of open access strategies, published this October by the task group Open Access Priority Initiative “Digital Information” by the Alliance of German Science Organisations, edited by Johannes Fournier (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) Tina Klages (Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft), Heinz Pampel (Helmholtz Gemeinschaft).

In German.

Open Access and revisionism

Open Access and revisionism

Hendrik Bunke, working for the German National Library of Economics, University of Bremen, values the open access movement in Germany as calm and comments on this rank referring to the history of the social democrats in Germany, especially the revisionism conflict. Bunke says, that they stopped being revolutionary because of their strategy to incorporate anti-party platform developments instead of sticking to their revolutionary approach. 

In German.

It’s time for universities to reclaim publishing rights

It's time for universities to reclaim publishing rights

Unless universities are bolder, open-access policies will leave control of publicly funded research in commercial publishers’ hands, says Debby Shorley, director of library services at Imperial College London: 

Maybe the real benefit of the Finch report is not that it gives us a solution—it doesn’t—but that it has sparked discussion in high places. It may make those involved in publicly funded research bold enough to turn the current scholarly communications model on its head and allow our universities to regain control of their intellectual capital by disseminating the research they produce. (…)  Publishing skills are publishing skills. What stops us from bringing them in-house, and using the prestige of our universities as brands?

Open Access grows quicker than expected

Open Access grows quicker than expected

“Approximately 17% of the 1.66 million articles published during 2011 and indexed in the most comprehensive article-level index of scholarly articles (Scopus) are available OA through journal publishers, most articles immediately (12%) but some within 12 months of publication (5%).” say Mikael Laakso and Bo-Christer Björk in their recently published study Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development and internal structure.

Open Access Growth in economic science, PhD-Comics, SCOAP-critics, ORCID online.

Linked article in German.

New crowdfunding website for open science projects

New crowdfunding website for open science projects

By removing the barriers associated with traditional finance, we will open the possibility of funding for projects which may fall outside the usual realm, including projects by schools and A-Level science students.

See also post below: a blogpost listing the current websites and platforms concerning crowdfunding for scientists (blogpost in German).

HACK DAY: Wellcome Trust commissioned hack day around open science and open data

HACK DAY: Wellcome Trust commissioned hack day around open science and open data

We’re delighted to say that the Wellcome Trust has commissioned us to run a hack day around open science, and open science data. The project was instigated by Dr Kevin Fong, Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellow, who will host the event.

December 8th and 9th 2012: London, UK.

Aggregated article level metrics

Aggregated article level metrics

The following data have been made available at launch:

  • total full-text article downloads
  • total video abstract views
  • citations through CrossRef, PubMed Central, Nature Blogs and Google Scholar
  • shares and bookmarks through Mendeley, CiteULike and Connotea
The aggregation of these data and the addition of usage information is a new service that IOP is offering as a direct result of requests from the scientific community.

What is open access all about?

What is open access all about?

Rob Chalmers, Managing Director of Adelaide Research & Innovation Pty Ltd, University of Adelaide, posted a well researched text about the differences within open access: open source, open data, open innovation etc.

See also the blogpost by Cornelius Puschmann, open science researcher at HIIG Berlin, on open science and its debate.

See also blog entry by Carly Strasser, DataUp Project Manager at UC Curation Center, California DIgital Library.

Developing Blogpost: Podiumsdiskussion zu Open Science in Berlin (#oaweek)

Developing Blogpost: Podiumsdiskussion zu Open Science in Berlin (#oaweek)

Nice summary of yesterday’s talk ‘Open Science - Chancen und Herausforderungen der digitalen Wissenschaft’.

Listen also to the audio recording (in German).

See also this article on yesterday’s talk at HU Berlin. 

Ireland has announced a National Open Access Policy

Ireland has announced a National Open Access Policy

Peer reviewed journal articles and other research outputs resulting in whole or in part from publicly-funded research should be deposited in an Open Access repository and made publicly discoverable, accessible and re-usable as soon as possible and on an on-going basis. 

The national principles are planned to effective from January 2013.

Also Taylor & Francis plans to go more open access within hybrid open access program Routledge Open Select

Also Taylor & Francis plans to go more open access within hybrid open access program Routledge Open Select

(…) we believe that adding social science, arts and humanities journals to the Open Select programme will provide important venues for scholars in these fields who wish to publish in highly-regarded journals on an Open Access basis. We will offer authors the choice to pay to make their research Open Access upon payment of an Article Publishing Charge (APC), or to publish without the APC, whereby research is available for individuals and institutions to purchase.

Librarians talk about how open access affects their business

Librarians talk about how open access affects their business

The most vocal bodies or individuals to talk about this issue have generally been from either the researcher or the publisher side, which are the two groups it most affects. But what position should the library take in these discussions, and how will an increase in the volume of open access material (and a potentially exponential one) change the type and volume of work for the librarian? (…)

We posed 4 questions about how open access will affect the role of the librarian to June Hedges (University College London, UK (UCL)) and Chuck Hamaker (University of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA (UNC)).