tag:tagteam.harvard.edu,2005:/hub_feeds/2159/feed_itemswhires@gmail.comBookmarks2013-10-15T22:24:30-04:00TagTeam social RSS aggregratortag:tagteam.harvard.edu,2005:FeedItem/2924612013-10-15T22:24:30-04:002013-10-15T22:24:30-04:00Scirus Says Goodbye<p> </p><span>The </span><strong><a href="http://www.scirus.com/">Scirus</a></strong><span> search engine, owned by </span><strong><a href="http://www.elsevier.com/government/scirus">Elsevier</a></strong><span>, posted the following message on its homepage:</span><blockquote><p>Scirus is set to retire in early 2014. An official <a title="Click to Continue > by Text-Enhance" href="http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/Digest/Scirus-Says-Goodbye-92580.asp#">retirement</a> date will be posted here as soon as it is determined. To ensure a smooth transition, we are informing you now so that you have sufficient time to find an alternative search solution for science-specific content. Thank you for being a devoted user of Scirus. We have enjoyed serving you.</p></blockquote>tag:tagteam.harvard.edu,2005:FeedItem/2980082013-10-25T09:11:02-04:002013-10-25T09:11:02-04:00Library Publishing Directory<p></p><h3>Announcing the 1st edition of the Library Publishing Directory.</h3><p>Published in October 2013, the <em>Library Publishing Directory</em> provides a snapshot of the publishing activities of 115 academic and research libraries, including information about the number and types of publications they produce, the services they offer authors, how they are staffed and funded, and the future plans of institutions that are engaged in this growing field.</p>tag:tagteam.harvard.edu,2005:FeedItem/2281022013-07-24T10:07:50-04:002013-07-24T10:57:50-04:00Scholarly Group Seeks Up to 6-Year Embargoes on Digital DissertationsBy Stacey Patton <p>The American Historical Association has published a <a href="http://blog.historians.org/2013/07/american-historical-association-statement-on-policies-regarding-the-embargoing-of-completed-history-phd-dissertations/">new policy statement</a>
that "strongly encourages" graduate programs and university libraries
to allow new Ph.D.'s to extend embargoes on their dissertations in
digital form for as many as six years.</p>
<p>The association says its stance seeks to balance the competing ideals
of the profession: timely dissemination of new historical knowledge and
the ability of young historians to choose when to release their
research without jeopardizing a future publishing contract or tenure.</p>
<p>The statement, which was released last week, says that because many
university libraries no longer store hard copies of dissertations, more
and more institutions are requiring graduate students to file their
theses and dissertations electronically. The institutions then often
post those documents online so that they are free and accessible to
anyone who wants to read them.</p>
<p>History-association officials say they drafted the statement in
response to complaints by new Ph.D.'s and assertions by university-press
editors who say they are reluctant to offer publishing contracts to
young scholars whose dissertations are already widely available online.</p>
<p>Graduate students who've successfully defended their dissertations
are commonly allowed to embargo them from one to three years. Once that
initial term is up, scholars can request to extend the embargo for a
limited amount of time.</p>
<p>"History has been and remains a book-based discipline," the statement
says, "and the requirement that dissertations be published online poses
a tangible threat to the interests and careers of junior scholars in
particular."</p>
<h4>Squeamish Publishers</h4>
<p>Association officials say they are acting to protect the interests of
new Ph.D.'s and to make sure that book publishers still have a stake in
historical scholarship.</p>
<p>"Our concern is that students have choices," says James R. Grossman,
executive director of the association and a senior research associate in
the history department at the University of Chicago. "We are aware that
some university presses are getting squeamish about publishing
dissertations that are available widely and freely across the Internet
and even if they are substantially revised."</p>
<p>Jacqueline Jones, vice president of the association's professional
division and a professor of history at the University of Texas at
Austin, says that extending an embargo can be beneficial because it
gives new Ph.D.'s more time to revise a dissertation into a publishable
monograph. Students can fine-tune their work by excising some material,
incorporating new archival findings, and further developing their
arguments in a style and tone that can resonate with a wider audience.</p>
<p>Supporters of the association's statement say that new Ph.D.'s are
operating in a world where the market for scholarly books, which are
often specialized and expensive, is shrinking and so, too, are library
budgets. The option for extra embargo time, the supporters say, will
help young scholars protect their work from predatory publishers and
from being scooped by other researchers as they navigate a tough job
market for tenure-track positions.</p>
<p>Critics of the statement note that the movement for open access to
scholarly material has picked up steam in the past few years, and they
suggest that the association's new policy reflects how it feels
threatened by that movement. The bid to extend the embargo length, the
critics say, is a maneuver to delay a movement that is not going away.</p>
<p>The critics also argue that, by putting the printed book on a
pedestal at a time when research is taking many other forms, the
association is marginalizing historical research. Meanwhile, there's a
standoff between the competing priorities of university presses,
libraries, and hiring, tenure, and promotion committees. Graduate
students are caught in the middle or are being used as proxies in
debates over scholarly publishing, they say.</p>
<h4>'Anecdotes, Ghost Stories, and Fear'</h4>
<p>The association's statement has sparked much debate on social media and academic blogs.</p>
<p>"Surprise, surprise, open-access advocates everywhere have started
sniveling," Adam Crymble, a doctoral student in history at King's
College London, wrote in a <a href="http://adamcrymble.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/students-should-be-empowered-not.html?m=1">blog post</a> titled "Students Should Be Empowered, Not Bullied Into Open Access."</p>
<p>"No! they cry," Mr. Crymble continued: "We shouldn't support a
resolution passed in good faith to protect the career progression of new
scholars against scholarly presses that are allegedly refusing to
accept manuscripts based on openly available dissertations. We should be
burning books and the ortag:tagteam.harvard.edu,2005:FeedItem/2281282013-07-24T10:47:19-04:002013-08-16T12:09:14-04:00Publish First, Ask Questions Later - Wired Science<ul>
<li>By Jeffrey Marlow</li>
<li>
<p>The academic publishing process is a pain. You format your research
article just so, in accordance with the typographic whims of a given
journal. You receive feedback from experts; if salvageable, rounds of
resubmission follow, and if not, you reformat and peddle your wares
elsewhere. Ultimately, most articles are published in one venue or
another, but the time from data to publication can take months, if not
years.</p>
<p>Of course, quality control in an industry where only a few people
have the means to get answers is essential, and after going through the
gauntlet, your research is vetted, sealed with the imprimatur of peer
review. But does it have to take so long? And does the whole process
really need to be so mysterious?</p>
<p><span></span></p>
<p>The <a href="http://f1000research.com/"><em>F1000Research</em> journal</a>,
published by Faculty of 1000, is hoping to solve these issues with a
new model of peer review and open access. After undergoing a quick check
for egregious errors (roughly 90% of submissions pass this obstacle), a
submitted article is published online, free and available to all, with a
note that peer review is pending. Three expert referees must then
evaluate the paper, offering one of three assessments: approval,
approval with reservations, or rejection. As long as at least two
referees give a vote of approval, the paper is marked as peer reviewed
and indexed as a published article. The journal has published 250 papers
since its inception in July of last year, and just five submissions
have been rejected by all three reviewers.</p>
<p>There are clearly fewer barriers to publication with F1000Research, but how does the finished product stack up? A <a href="http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2013/03/27/how-rigorous-is-the-post-publication-review-process-at-f1000-research/">thorough investigation</a> by Tim Vines at <em>Scholarly Kitchen</em> revealed that <em>F1000Research</em>
reviewers’ comments are significantly shorter and less substantive than
those in four renowned medical journals. And while authors are
“strongly encouraged” to incorporate reviewers’ suggestions into
subsequent iterations of the paper, anything less than a “reject”
verdict is unlikely to inspire such effort. Vines concludes that
“responsible researchers should therefore approach every paper from <em>F1000 Research</em>
as if it has never been through peer review, and before using it in
their research they should essentially review it themselves.”</p>
<p>Rebecca Lawrence, the managing director at <em>F1000Research</em>,
believes this argument is overblown, and that the nature of academic
research results in a self-policing push toward high quality work. “In
the end, you need to stand by what you say,” says Lawrence, pointing out
that a scientist’s long-term credibility is far more important than any
single publication.</p>
<p>She also notes that <em>F1000Research</em> isn’t necessarily aiming to dethrone the <em>Science</em>s and <em>Nature</em>s
of the academic publishing world. “Our focus isn’t exclusively on the
high novelty, high impact science,” she notes. “If it’s solid science it
will be published,” she notes, adding that negative results (i.e.,
experiments that don’t work) may not earn headlines, but do represent an
important repository of knowledge from which the scientific community
would benefit enormously.</p>
<p>But perhaps the most important benefit that <em>F1000Research</em>
brings to the table is its quick turnaround. The lengthy process of
traditional academic publishing isn’t merely frustrating and
inefficient, it might also be irresponsible: in fields that bear on
public policy or have health repercussions, there’s a societal
imperative to get data into the public domain quickly. “It’s crazy that
it takes so long for others to benefit from research,” says Lawrence,
noting that “eventually most work will be published in some journal, so
the process is just slowing everything down.”</p>
<p>Several authors have published in <em>F1000Research</em> in order to avoid being scooped. A paper by Soong Ho Kim on the <a href="http://f1000research.com/articles/1-70/v1">potential influence of air pollution on Alzheimer’s Disease development</a> was published in a record 34 hours.</p>
<p>It takes years for a new journal to gain a reputation (the
all-important “impact factor” is only bestowed after two full years of
continuous publication), so the jury’s still out on the quality and
impact of work being published in <em>F1000Research</em>. If the
scientific community buys in, the publication may benefit from a
positive feedback loop, as prominent researchers seek to place their
work in <em>F1000Research</em>.</p>
<p>As with any upstart entrant into an established field, it will take time to see how <em>F1000Research</em>
fits into the broad ecosystem of 21st century academic publishing. But
the journal is certainly a welcome entrant in the field, a breath of
frtag:tagteam.harvard.edu,2005:FeedItem/2273332013-07-23T10:42:13-04:002013-07-23T10:42:13-04:00Swets Introduces Open Access Management Service<span>Swets has a new<span> </span></span><strong><a href="http://www.swets.com/open-access-services">open access (OA) service</a></strong><span><span> </span>to help librarians manage their OA-related workflows. Library administrations have to pay publishers article processing charges (APCs) for gold OA papers, and Swets’ new APC management service helps libraries with those invoices and payment processes.</span><p>The service’s features include options to keep track of spending, a single contact for all publisher relationships, concise handling of micro-transactions, reduction in the number of invoices for processing, and detailed reporting on transaction statuses.</p><p>“APC management is costing libraries and institutions more time and resources than is necessary,” says David Main, Swets CEO. “There’s a direct and urgent need for this service” and Swets’ goal was to “put solid processes in place” for customers as its first step in promoting OA.</p><p>Swets aims to improve and standardize other parts of OA-related workflows in the future.</p><p>Source: Swets </p>