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This perspective piece on the perceived barriers and ways forward to advance data citation practices was written by members of the Make Data Count team which is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
From June 2020 to February 2021, a consortium of 10 organisations undertook a large-scale study on open access journals across the world that are free for readers and authors, usually referred to as "OA diamond journals". This study was commissioned by cOAlition S in order to gain a better understanding of the OA diamond landscape.
Finding and reusing train-the-trainer materials in Social Sciences and Humanities: The SSH Training Discovery Toolkit The Training Discovery Toolkit is an inventory of various learning and training materials that trainers of different disciplines in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) can use to find materials for re-use in their own training activities.
The paper explores options to further open access in the Netherlands from 2021. Its premise is that there is a need to look at qualitative aspects of open access, alongside quantitative ones.
This short form article was originally accepted to be published in a Special Open Access Collection in the journal, Development and Change, however, was withdrawn by the authors due to unacceptable licensing conditions proposed by the publisher. Diversity is an important characteristic of any healthy ecosystem. In the field of scholarly communications, diversity in services and platforms, funding mechanisms and evaluation measures will allow the ecosystem to accommodate the different workflows, languages, publication outputs and research topics that support the needs of different research communities. Diversity also reduces the risk of vendor lock-in, which leads to monopolization and high prices. Yet this 'bibliodiversity' is undermined by the fact that researchers around the world are evaluated according to journal-based citation measures, which have become the major currency of academic research. Journals seek to maximize their bibliometric measures by adopting editorial policies that increase citation counts, resulting in the predominance of Northern/Western research priorities and perspectives in the literature, and an increasing marginalization of research topics of more narrow or local nature. This contribution examines the distinctive, non-commercial approach to open access (OA) found in Latin America and reflects on how greater diversity in OA infrastructures helps to address inequalities in global knowledge production as well as knowledge access. The authors argue that bibliodiversity, rather than adoption of standardized models of OA, is central to the development of a more equitable system of knowledge production.
UNESCO is launching international consultations aimed at developing a Recommendation on Open Science for adoption by member states in 2021. Its Recommendation will include a common definition, a shared set of values, and proposals for action. At the invitation of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, this paper aims to contribute to the consultation process by answering questions such as: • Why and how should science be "open"? For and with whom? • Is it simply a matter of making scientific articles and data fully available to researchers around the world at the time of publication, so they do not miss important results that could contribute to or accelerate their work? • Could this openness also enable citizens around the world to contribute to science with their capacities and expertise, such as through citizen science or participatory action research projects? • Does science that is truly open include a plurality of ways of knowing, including those of Indigenous cultures, Global South cultures, and other excluded, marginalized groups in the Global North? The paper has four sections: "Open Science and the pandemic" introduces and explores different forms of openness during a crisis where science suddenly seems essential to the well-being of all. The next three sections explain the main dimensions of three forms of scientific openness: openness to publications and data, openness to society, and openness to excluded knowledges2 and epistemologies3. We conclude with policy considerations. A French version of this paper is available here: https://zenodo.org/record/3947013#.Xw-Ksx17nOQ
The current pandemic has exposed a host of issues with the current scholarly communication system, also with regard to the discoverability of scientific knowledge. Many research groups have pivoted to Covid-19 research without prior experience or adequate preparation. They were immediately confronted with two discovery challenges: (1) having to identify relevant knowledge from unfamiliar (sub-)disciplines with their own terminology and publication culture, and (2) having to keep up with the rapid growth of data and publications and being able to filter out the relevant findings.
Growing evidence suggests that the evaluation of researchers’ careers on the basis of narrow definitions of excellence is restricting diversity in academia, both in the development of its labour force and its approaches to address societal challenges. Recommendations are suggested for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.
This report provides quantitative and descriptive data on the availability and usage of various open access options in different fields and subdisciplines. Its goal was to inform Coalition S funders on the open access options and identify fields where there is a need to increase the share of open access journals/platforms.
A new report summarises the results of a survey of European research funders on Open Access and Research Data policies, commissioned by SPARC Europe.
The Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences SAHS proposes the establishment of a Platinum Open Access Fund. The funding would allow to flip and operate 15-20 scientific journals in the humanities and social sciences that are not depending on article processing charges and that are immediately open for everyone.
Abstract: There are many reasons why open source projects have difficulty attracting contributors. Current academic incentive structures are some of the strongest. Wanting to maintain a competitive advantage, too great a focus on novelty when publishing papers, and too little credit given to writing documentation and tutorials, all encourage researchers to reinvent the wheel in a closed team. Although I will discuss these barriers, my talk will focus on some challenges that are much easier to overcome. Not knowing where to start. "Imposter syndrome" and the various intersecting biases that accompany (and often underpin) it. Being unsure as to whether a project even wants any contributions. These can all be addressed with 10 simple rules. From laying out your welcome mat, through setting explicit expectations, to the graceful death of your project, these steps will will help you build and run an open and inclusive community-driven project online. (Breaking down capitalism may have to wait for another day.) Bio: Kirstie Whitaker is a research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute (London, UK) and senior research associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. Her work covers a broad range of interests and methods, but the driving principle is to improve the lives of neurodivergent people and people with mental health conditions. Dr Whitaker uses magnetic resonance imaging to study child and adolescent brain development and participatory citizen science to educate non-autistic people about how they can better support autistic friends and colleagues. She is the lead developer of "The Turing Way", an openly developed educational resource to enable more reproducible data science. Kirstie is a passionate advocate for making science "open for all" by promoting equity and inclusion for people from diverse backgrounds, and by changing the academic incentive structure to reward collaborative working. She is the chair of the Turing Institute's Ethics Advisory Group, a Fulbright scholarship alumna and was a 2016/17 Mozilla Fellow for Science. Kirstie was named, with her collaborator Petra Vertes, as a 2016 Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine. You can find more information at her lab website: whitakerlab.github.io.
Factsheet presenting the issues and recommendations surrounding open access to scientific literature and data in Switzerland and Europe.
The dominant academic publishers are busy positioning themselves to monetize not only on content, but increasingly on data analytics and predictive products on research assessment and funding trends. Their growing investment and control over the entire knowledge production workflow, from article submissions, to metrics to reputation management and global rankings means that researchers and their institutions are increasingly locked into the publishers' "value chain".
An argument that Coalition members should favour, both in words and via their spending decisions, community-controlled, no-author-fee journals over commercially owned journals charging APCs, in order to give due consideration to the non-commercial elements of the scholarly publishing ecosystem.
We are proud to announce the release of enhancements which significantly facilitate scientific software citation and discovery.
An Open Letter in response to Plan S, signed by >600 researchers from all ranks, ranging from masters students & ECRs to full professors, department heads, institute directors, and Nobel laureates, from both cOAlition S countries and beyond.
A set of complementary guides covering the main aspects of depositing software into digital repositories.
On the research data repository Zenodo you can now view the number of views and downloads on record pages, and you can sort search results by most viewed.
A formal complaint to the European Commission Ombudsman regarding the relationship between Elsevier and the Open Science Monitor.
Detailed recommendations and specific actions for different stakeholders for making FAIR data a reality.
Pilot study found that providing a digital edition that is freely available on the Internet increases the trackability, visibility and use of monographs. The study also finds that open access does not have a negative impact on printed book sales.
Slides explaining the publishing process and how Open Access fits in the traditional journal-subscription based model.
Once again, the FWF is making the publication costs spent in 2016 (esp. for Open Access) publically available.
This feature enables users to update the record’s files after they have been made public and researchers to easily cite either specific versions of a record or to cite, via a top-level DOI, all the versions of a record.
A history of the relationship between commercial interests, academic prestige and the circulation of research.
Supporting the development of new models for open research data in the digital age.
