Items tagged by djpadula5 in Open Access Tracking Project (OATP)

Advancing Health Equity and Climate Justice: Interview with AGH Senior Editor Dr. Fernando Mardones

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 12:14:00 -0400

In celebration of OA Week, Scholastica highlighted some of its customers publishing research related to climate justice. In this interview, Senior Editor for Advances in Global Health, Dr. Fernando Mardones, discusses how the journal is approaching the nexus between health equity and climate change. Launched by the University of California Press in collaboration with the UC Global Health Institute in April 2021, AGH is also one of the first publications to be framed around the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). AGH seeks research in key SDG areas, including poverty, food security, gender equality, and planetary health.

From the grassroots: 7 ways journal publishers can promote climate justice

Mon, 24 Oct 2022 12:01:00 -0400

The onus for furthering climate justice rests with all sectors, and scholarly publishing is ripe with possibilities, including opening access to critical research. The theme for this year's Open Access Week (October 24-30, 2022), "Open for Climate Justice," presented an opportunity for scholarly publishing stakeholders to come together to consider, kickstart, and build upon initiatives to advance climate justice. To help promote conversations and initiatives around climate justice in scholarly publishing, Scholastica published a new blog on some of the many ways academy journal publishers can facilitate climate justice from the grassroots. The post includes examples from publishers like the University of California Press, Cambridge University Press, and Canadian Science Publishing, among others.

New white paper explores how Agile publishing can facilitate OA pilots

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 12:23:00 -0400

At this time of unprecedented flux in the research landscape, building flexibility into journal publishing processes and planning has never been more critical or more of an opportunity. “Iterate to Innovate: How scholarly publishers can use Agile methodologies to respond to change more effectively,” a new white paper from Scholastica, explores how implementing Agile project management principles can help journal publishers respond to change factors — from the COVID-19 pandemic to new OA policies — and find ways to make research more accessible and sustainable in the process. It features case studies from publishers using Agile methodologies to pilot new OA journal models. This paper is published under a CC BY 4.0 license and available for direct download.

Initiating More Actionable Discussions About DEI in Scholarly Publishing: OA Week Series

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 07:48:00 -0400

In honor of this year’s Open Access Week theme, "Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.", Scholastica reached out to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) advocates across the scholarly communication landscape to ask their perspectives on how the community can facilitate greater action around DEI in OA publishing. This two-part blog series brings together their thoughts and recommendations.

OA week 2020: Open access has never been more important

Mon, 19 Oct 2020 07:41:00 -0400

The theme of this year’s international open access week is “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion” The urgent necessity of the theme is outlined in this blog from SPARC, who coordinate the international event, which concludes: ”Diversity, equity, and inclusion must be consistently prioritized year-round and integrated into the fabric of the open community, from how our infrastructure is built to how we organize community discussions to the governance structures we use.”

There are a number of movements happening now that seek to change academic publishing profoundly, including the use of preprints and the development of open, non-commercial infrastructure to support publishing. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an explosion of public interest in research which has highlighted the importance of good communication. All of these factors highlight the potential for transformation in scholarly communication.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has also brought to the fore many inequalities including in the way that women have been disproportionately affected, socially, financially and professionally. This disadvantage has extended to their underrepresentation in both research being conducted on the pandemic and in whose voices are being heard in public discussions about the pandemic. In Australia and New Zealand we have additional profound challenges, in the proper recognition and inclusion of Indigenous perspectives in research.

This year, the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG) has collaborated with a group of open access practitioners from the AOASG membership: Emma McLean, UNSW, Katya Henry, QUT, Luqman Hayes, AUT, Mary Filsell, Flinders, and Thomas Shafee, La Trobe who have developed a program of ten events across the week. This program brings together open access research practices, (such as preprints and open data) with broader principles (such as infrastructure, interconnectedness, and communication). The presenters, panels and workshops also aim to bring broader representation of voices to look at structural equity and inclusion from perspectives including citizen scientists and Indigenous researchers and specialists. We have also a specially recorded interview with Professor Peter Doherty, Nobel Laureate, who discusses scholarly publishing and open access.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that open research is crucial. By centering diversity, equity, and inclusion in open research this movement has the ability to change academic research and publishing for the better. We hope that the events of this week will provide a starting point to take forward discussions and action to build the foundation for long term change.

Journal Editorial Boards: Is There Space for Geographic Diversity?

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 15:11:00 -0400

Bárbara Rivera López discusses the need for greater geographic diversity in academic publishing on the OA Week blog: "Evidence shows a lack of geographical diversity in ‘international’ databases, published papers and references in a myriad of disciplines (Rivera-Lopez, 2017; Tennant et al., 2019). Unfortunately, this is also the case with journal’s Editorial Boards, which play a critical role in defining the trajectory and boundaries of knowledge in each field of study (Espin et al., 2017)."

7 Steps towards greater equity in OA publishing

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 05:18:00 -0400

As the OA landscape continues to develop, it is clear that there is still much work to be done to ensure equitable OA now and in the future, but there are also significant advances being made. This OA Week, Scholastica is highlighting some of the many ways that the academic community is actively promoting greater equity in OA, in "7 Steps towards greater equity in OA publishing."

Multiple Models for OA Publishing: Key findings from the Society Publishers Accelerating Open Access and Plan S Project

Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:34:00 -0400

The SPA-OPS project yields many useful insights around the OA publishing models that are working at scholarly societies, how societies can determine the best pilot OA publishing approaches, and how societies can develop transitional OA publishing models, including a “transformative agreement toolkit.” This blog post highlights some key takeaways from the project.

Plan S, Core Open Access Publishing Standards & Scholastica

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 05:47:00 -0400

Scholastica has released a Product Roadmap detailing new features to help journals comply with Plan S and sustainably meet core publishing standards. The roadmap page also includes answers to Plan S FAQs and a resources section to help publishers stay caught up on Plan S developments and work through the implementation guidelines.

DOAJ indexing criteria and how to apply: A guide for OA journals

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 06:11:00 -0400

If you publish open access journals, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) should be at the top of your indexing list. DOAJ indexing has long served as a mark of journal quality to scholars and their institutions, and today it’s increasingly becoming a core open access publishing standard. This blog post breaks down the DOAJ’s indexing criteria and how can to apply.

Plan S reports and resources to follow: Roundup for journal publishers

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 06:04:00 -0400

For publishers that wish to comply with Plan S, there are many factors to weigh and next steps to be decided. In this post, we round up some current and forthcoming resources to help journal publishers determine the best Plan S compliance route for their needs and fulfill the implementation guidelines.

How libraries can support society publishers to accelerate their transition to full and immediate OA and Plan S

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 05:29:00 -0400

The relationship between libraries and society publishers has not previously been a close one. There is now an opportunity for strategic new collaborations as societies seek to transition to open access (OA) and deploy business models compliant with Plan S. Wellcome, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) commissioned Information Power Limited to undertake a project in this space. This article synthesizes some of the findings from that project.

Preparing for Plan S: Answers to the top 10 journal publisher FAQs we've heard based on what is known now

Wed, 29 May 2019 13:42:00 -0400

If you still have questions about what Plan S is exactly and how it will affect the journals you publish or work with, you're not alone. We decided to compile this FAQ blog post to provide answers to some of the most common questions we've heard from our journal users based on the information available right now.

Free Webinar: How to Start or Flip an Open Access Journal

Fri, 16 Nov 2018 12:28:00 -0500

On December 5th, 2018 at 10 AM EST Scholastica is hosting a free webinar—“How to Start or Flip an Open Access Journal: Publishers and editors share their stories.” The webinar will feature journal case studies from Jaclyn Sipovic, Digital Publishing Coordinator at Michigan Publishing and Hugh Thomas, Co Editor-in-Chief of Algebraic Combinatorics.

Coko receives Sloan Foundation grant to build DataSeer: a missing piece in the data sharing puzzle

Mon, 29 Oct 2018 09:27:00 -0400

"The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is supporting Coko to develop DataSeer, an online service that uses Natural Language Processing to identify the datasets associated with a particular article, even secondary or tertiary datasets that may not be obvious. The goal is a service that guides authors through the data sharing process for their article, with reports for publishers, funders, and institutions so they can easily assess policy compliance by comparing what should be shared with what was actually shared."

An overview of the Plan S debate

Fri, 26 Oct 2018 13:33:00 -0400

Since its announcement in early September, Plan S has generated a significant amount of discussion in scholarly communication circles, including inside OSI. A number of OSI participants have expressed reservations about this plan, particularly about how it will impact the scholarly publishing world outside the US and Europe. Research-Consulting director Rob Johnson has followed this issue closely and prepared this overview for OSI.

How libraries can start and support academic-led journals to further the open access movement

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 13:08:00 -0400

"Due to rising article processing charges among corporate publishers, many libraries are creating and supporting academy-owned publishing initiatives. Using a variety of available tools and services, today it is possible to run an academic-led journal much more affordably than most corporate titles. In fact, for the cost of just four articles at Elsevier’s self-reported average APC of $1,980, a library could fund an academic-led journal for an entire year! This article looks at ways libraries are publishing and supporting academic-led journals, as well as steps libraries can take to start or build out a publishing program."

Open Data Day 2018: this year’s celebration of a growing community

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 10:26:00 -0400

"The eight edition of Open Data Day took place on March 3, 2018: an exciting milestone for the open data communities and a great opportunity to put open data into action. In this blog, we take a look back at what happened across the world on this day."

Academic journal publishing is broken: we need a new model

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 10:22:00 -0400

"A co-operative model for publishing - owned and operated by the academic community - would allow for any profit to be ploughed back into the community: in the form of workshops, scholarships or expansion of the journal(s). Given how much the research community already pays (through library subscriptions, open access article processing feeds, peer review process, etc), it makes sense for this investment to be recycled back into our community."

Why Academic-Led Journal Publishing? Liberating Research Through Tools and Services

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 09:02:00 -0400

"This post examines why academic-led journal publishing is key to lowering the rising cost of research, the technology that’s defining the academic-led publishing movement, and a detailed case study of a modern academic-led journal."

What does Icelandic fishing have to do with commercial publishing?

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:29:00 -0400

This article from In the Open looks at the academic publishing industry in comparison to the commercial fishing industry. It argues that much like there is the problem of "overfishing" in the commercial fishing industry, which can cause depletion of resources, in the academic publishing industry commercial publishers are pushing up prices to the point that customers are becoming unable to afford the resources they need.

Elsevier and other academic publishers still gouging libraries « Why Evolution Is True

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 09:22:00 -0400

This blog post assesses data outlined in the paper "Evaluating big deal journal bundles" by Theodore Bergstrom et al about what university libraries are paying for access to academic journals. The data was gathered via Freedom of Information Act requests. "They got information for 360 contracts. The results are disturbing, especially with regard to private publishers like Elsevier versus nonprofit publishers like Oxford University Press."

These Five Corporations Control Academic Publishing - Vocativ

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 09:12:00 -0400

"An analysis of the 45 million documents indexed in the Web of Science, and recently published in PLoS, reveals that Reed-Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis and Sage published more than half of all academic papers in the peer-reviewed literature in 2013. The study suggests it may be time for scientists to move away from major for-profit publishing houses and take their research elsewhere."

The Future of Science Communication

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 09:01:00 -0400

"In a video address, PLOS Executive Editor Veronique Kiermer highlights The Student Blog and the PLOS Early Career Researcher Travel Award Program, two opportunities for young researchers to engage with PLOS. Kiermer also addresses additional concerns of young researchers related to publishing in Open Access journals and outlined resources PLOS has developed to tackle these issues."

Improving Access to Archival Collections with Automated Entity Extraction

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 08:22:00 -0400

"Using a case study at Oregon Health & Science University as a lens to examine the conceptual and technical challenges associated with automated extraction of access points, we discuss using publically accessible API’s to extract entities (i.e. people, places, concepts, etc.) from digital and digitized objects. We describe why Linked Open Data is not well suited for a use case such as ours. We conclude with recommendations about how this method can be used in archives as well as for other library applications."

Open Science Happens Somewhere: Exploring the use of Science OER in Schools

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 08:17:00 -0400

"This paper concerns a pilot exploring the use of openly licensed content in secondary schools. Specifically it looks at the use of the Open University’s (OU) OpenScienceLab (OSL) in two remote rural schools in the West Highlands of Scotland. OSL is a series of online experiments openly licensed for anyone to use, they are about learning through experimentation, and are part of a wider OU interest in how to support and develop inquiry based learning at a distance (Scanlon 2012). This area is of particular relevance to Scottish schools, as the underlying pedagogy of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) promotes interdisciplinary thinking and learning through inquiry (Macintyre 2014)."

Building Open Educational Resources from the Ground up: South Africa's Free High School Science Texts : ERIC : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 08:09:00 -0400

"This article presents a case study of the development of the South African project Free High School Science Texts (FHSST). [...] The study sheds light on the challenges and successes of creating OER content within a process built from the ground up."

The Open Learning Object Model to Promote Open Educational Resources : ERIC : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 08:03:00 -0400

This paper presents the results of research work as part of the activities of the EU-funded project SLOOP: Sharing Learning Objects in an Open Perspective. It presents a model of "Learning Object" (LO) for use by educators that extends the concept of reusability.

Open access infrastructure; Open access for library schools; Vol.:2; 2015

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:47:00 -0400

The first unit of a course on open access infrastructure from UNESCO. "This module deals with open access resources of all types, their definition, nature, features, planning, executing, choosing appropriate technical standards and following set procedures and later maintenance for all parties involved i.e. host, sponsors, users and prospective content creators. Emphasis is on e - journals and e-repositories and of course emerging trends in the open access movement."

Tutorial 23: How to avoid giving your work to a “predatory open access publisher” | Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 06:23:00 -0400

A brief guide to avoiding publishing in predatory open access journals from the Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week blog.

Born Digital: building the ultimate open-access publisher

Sun, 25 Feb 2018 07:18:00 -0500

"A recent series of analyses show that Frontiers journals have risen rapidly to overtake decade-old and even century-old journals within a few years of their launch in terms of the number of articles published, impact factors and total citations generated – all at a fraction of the cost per article when compared to the subscription-model..."

Open Access Publishing in Indian Premier Research Institutions

Sun, 25 Feb 2018 07:13:00 -0500

"Introduction: Publishing research findings in open access journals is a means of enhancing visibility and consequently increasing the impact of publications. This study provides an overview of open access publishing in premier research institutes of India. [...] The study reveals that a small portion of research publications of Indian research institutes is published in open access journals, the majority in journals of Indian origin. The medical institutions are contributing more of their publications to open access journals compared to other institutions."

Key Aspects and Approaches of Open Access, Open Data and Open Science

Sun, 25 Feb 2018 07:06:00 -0500

Digital Presentation and Preservation of Cultural and Scientific Heritage international conference proceedings, "overview of the key aspects and approaches to open access, open data and open science, emphasizing on sharing scientific knowledge for sustainable progress and development."

Whoops! Are Some Current Open Access Mandates Backfiring on the Intended Beneficiaries?

Sun, 25 Feb 2018 06:59:00 -0500

"When the open access (OA) movement started, the goals were to provide taxpayers with greater value by making scientific reports of research funded by taxpayers freely available. As part of this, some hoped that publishers would be transformed, that some big publishers might be eliminated or at least humbled, and that publishing itself would be reimagined. Academics and universities would benefit, the public would get more for their tax dollar, and a general liberalization in scientific communication would emerge. [...] The OA bargain is becoming a bit more fraught as more people get involved and as founding concepts are stress-tested by practical matters. If the OA movement remains dogmatic about the details, and is not willing to compromise or improve on ideas established years ago and never thoroughly validated on a large scale, it run some serious risks of losing support in the wider world."

The Conversations We're Not Having - Overcoming Uncertainty, Chilling Effects, and Open Access Complacency - The Scholarly Kitchen

Tue, 20 Feb 2018 08:38:00 -0500

Publishers and librarians have noted that an important topic for libraries’ futures, and for librarianship in general is how open access (OA) threatens to defund libraries and marginalize their librarians and staffs...