Content from seven IOP Publishing journals now available on ResearchGate

March 15, 2022

ResearchGate and IOP Publishing (IOPP) today announced that 4,750 full-text articles from selected IOPP open access (OA) and hybrid journals can now be accessed on the ResearchGate platform.

This marks the successful completion of the first phase of the partnership agreement between ResearchGate and IOPP, which set out to make content from OA journals Environmental Research Letters, Materials Research Express, and New Journal of Physics, as well as from hybrid journals Biomedical Materials, Classical Quantum Gravity, Physica Scripta, and J Phys B, available on the professional network for researchers.

The partnership aims to improve the discovery process for researchers and expand access to groundbreaking research in fields including physics, materials science, and environmental science.

Over the coming weeks, an additional 36,000 OA and subscription articles previously published across the seven titles will also be added.

IOPP is the fifth publisher — and the first physics society publisher — to enter into a content syndication partnership with ResearchGate. They join Springer Nature, Wiley, Rockefeller University Press, and Hindawi in syndicating peer-reviewed scholarly content on ResearchGate’s platform.

“We’re thrilled to work with IOPP on our shared goal of increasing the accessibility and visibility of academic content. In recent years, we’ve seen a significant shift towards openness in academic publishing. We welcome this for the benefits it offers to the scientific community and to society,” says Sören Hofmayer, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of ResearchGate.

Stephen Flockton, content architect at IOP Publishing says: “We’re always looking for new ways to increase the visibility and impact of the work we publish and have been impressed with the interconnected, interactive digital environment that ResearchGate has created. The partnership supports our mission to expand the world of physics, giving researchers the opportunity to access content easily on a platform they already use.”

Clarivate to Cease all Commercial Activity in Russia

March 12, 2022

Clarivate respects and supports the rule of international law and joins the global community in condemning Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Given the continued aggression against Ukraine by Russian forces, Clarivate has made the decision to close its office in Russia effective immediately and we will work to cease commercial activity in Russia in the coming weeks. Clarivate will work closely with our customers to manage the impact of our actions to their business and provide them more information as our process moves forward.

Our focus also continues on supporting the well-being of our colleagues and contractors across the region. We are working continuously to understand their needs and are doing all we can to provide support during this incredibly difficult time.

Clarivate continues to support calls for a cease-fire, the end to hostilities, the protection of civilians, and a negotiated settlement to peacefully resolve any differences and to avoid further needless devastation and loss of life for the Ukrainian people.

This development follows our action to suspend all evaluation of new journal submissions from Russia and Belarus in the Web of Science a week ago.

#StandWithUkraine

Trends in Academic Publishing Survey 2021

March 8, 2022

In 2021, Deanta surveyed academic publishers across the globe to discover how the industry was reacting after a Covid-hit 2020. The results of that 2021 survey revealed how the skills that publishers need were diversifying and, although confidence across the industry was high, evidence of immediate meaningful change was low, even though our survey did suggest that change may be coming. No surprise perhaps from a conservative industry prone to working in hierarchical, siloed departments.

Deanta is running this survey again in 2022 to see whether the on-going Covid crisis has changed working practices, altered individual attitudes towards technological innovation or brought the industry as a whole any nearer to a tipping point for digital transformation.

Ultimately, we want to find out whether publishers have executed the changes they pledged, or whether the goal posts have changed once again.

Please make your voice heard and help us to make this survey a genuine record of how academic publishing is evolving. Your answers will be anonymous, but if compete the survey and leave your contact details you will be put into a free prize draw to win a ReMarkable paper table.

Please make your voice heard and take our survey today https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8JHWRDS.

Elsevier contributes to Open Access Monitor Germany with Scopus data

March 8, 2022

Elsevier, a global leader in research publishing and information analytics, and Forschungszentrum Jülich have today announced that they will be supporting the Open Access Monitor (OA Monitor), Germany by making metadata from Scopus, the abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, available to the database free of charge.

Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and managed by Forschungszentrum Jülich, the OA Monitor tracks the open access publications in the DACH region. By collating data from external sources and providers, the project records the publication output of German academic institutions in research journals and analyzes the development of subscription fees and (open access) publication fees.

Through this collaboration, OA Monitor gains access to Elsevier’s comprehensive and high-quality publication data supporting the initiative’s goal of monitoring and furthering Germany’s transition towards full open access. The integration of Scopus will further enhance the ability of universities, research institutions, policy makers and the German science community to monitor and evaluate an institution’s progress and reputation and help them reach their ambitious OA goals. As an expertly curated abstract and citation database with content from over 27,000 journals from more than 7,000 publishers, Scopus allows researchers to track and discover global knowledge in all fields.

Dr. Bernhard Mittermaier, Head of the Central Library at Forschungszentrum Jülich said: “We are very pleased to be able to integrate Elsevier’s Scopus database into the OA Monitor, as it further expands its capabilities as a key tool to track the progress of the Open Access transformation in Germany to the benefit of the science community.”

Claus Grossmann, Regional Director DACH, Research Solutions at Elsevier said: “We are proud that we can contribute to the important work of the OA Monitor and we would like to thank Forschungszentrum Jülich for entering into this long-term partnership with us. This collaboration will help strengthen the increasing number of open access articles published in Germany, cementing our commitment to open access in German institutions.”

Enabling Open Access through clarity and transparency: a request to publishers

March 8, 2022

cOAlition S is delighted to see many publishers making moves to increase Open Access (OA) for research publications. However, some publishers’ practices still cause difficulties for authors who wish to exercise their right to make their Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) open access immediately on publication using the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy.

To address this issue, cOAlition S requests that publishers make their policies and contracts more transparent at the outset of the submission process. The request outlined in the letter that was sent today to a large number of publishers is intended to make publisher submission workflows and processes as clear and straightforward as possible for authors and to help them meet their pre-existing grant conditions.

There are three areas where publishers could make the publishing process significantly clearer and easier for authors. Specifically, we are asking publishers to ensure that authors are aware, at the point of submission, of the following:

1. The licence they will be asked to sign if their manuscript is accepted for publication

2. Any fees which will be levied if their manuscript is accepted for publication

3. Whether their manuscript will be re-routed to another journal as a result of any prior notice of re-use rights, which is included in the submission.

This request is in accord with COPE’s “Principles of Transparency” guidelines which calls, for example, for clarity in copyright and licensing and information pertaining to any publishing fees which may be levied.

Information regarding these issues should be displayed prominently on the publisher’s website, in any “information for authors” documentation, and in the submission system at the start of the process.

Making terms and conditions clear to the author at the outset will enable the author to make an informed decision whether to proceed with their submission or not. It will help avoid problems, such as authors being required to withdraw the manuscript after having gone through a lengthy peer review process, because of restrictions in how that work can be shared, or being forced to pay out of pocket to cover APCs.

To facilitate the process, cOAlition S has prepared a response form for the publishers to complete. The responses will be made available to our grantees to help inform their publishing decisions.

It is not just cOAlition S calling for publishers to make their policies and contracts more transparent. An open letter to researchers regarding the Rights Retention Strategy and publisher equivocation, published in April 2021, was widely supported by the research community, including the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers (EURODOC), the Global Young Academy (GYA), the Young Academy of Europe (YAE) and the Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA). A separate letter, signed by CESAER, European University Association (EUA) and Science Europe also called on publishers to make their licence conditions clear “to ensure that researchers make informed choices”.

Support from library community for Subscribe-to-Open ensures continued open access for Mathematics titles in 2022

March 8, 2022

EDP Sciences and the Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et Industrielles (SMAI) have announced today that six mathematics journals will continue to publish in open access under the Subscribe-to-Open (S2O) model in 2022*. This demonstrates the support from the library community for this equitable open access model which enables open access publication without article processing charges (APCs).

Last year, due to the challenging conditions brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, the decision to publish in open access under S2O was taken based on a range of exceptional factors rather than finances alone. In 2022, we are delighted to have reached our targets at the portfolio level, and it has therefore been a straightforward decision to keep the journals open.

“We are grateful to all our subscribers and sponsors who have lent their support to S2O and believe in this equitable and collaborative subscription model,” commented Agnès Henri, Managing Director, EDP Sciences. “Our six mathematics journals will continue to need support and we encourage more libraries to join our S2O programme.”

“We are delighted that our mathematics titles will continue to be published in open access,” commented Amandine Véber, Director of Publications, SMAI. “Equitable open science is very important in the mathematics community and we are proud to support this through our publishing strategies.”

“Transparency is an essential element for all stakeholders involved in the S2O model,” commented Anne Ruimy, Senior Publisher, EDP Sciences. “As advocates of open science, we support the principle of transparency and will shortly update our Transparency Report to reflect financial and other important data from 2021.”

In 2020, Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena was the first mathematics journal in the world to adopt the S2O model. Since then, a lot of work has taken place to develop the S2O programme both with SMAI and within the Subscribe to Open Community of Practice. The S2O model received a boost in 2021 when it was endorsed by cOAlition S. In addition, the transition of our mathematics journals to open access is supported by funds from the Fonds national pour la science ouverte (FNSO), and by the CNRS as part of the Diamond OA action plan.

The Julius Kühn Institute forms publishing agreement with Frontiers

March 8, 2022

The Julius Kühn Institute, a federal research institute in Germany, and the open science publisher Frontiers announce their institutional partnership agreement.

The Institute informs and advises the federal government on all issues related to cultivated plants and plant protection. It has always supported its researchers in making their studies widely available to the research community and the public at large. Now, the agreement allows researchers from 17 Julius Kühn institutions to publish in any Frontiers’ journal at no direct cost to them while enjoying a simplified process. 

Commenting on the agreement, Dr. Anja Hühnlein, deputy head of the Information Centre and Library at the Julius Kühn Institute, says, “As publicly funded institution, we strive to make all our high-quality research openly available to everyone. We are looking forward to collaboration with Frontiers to help us improve our high Open Access rate even further.”

To date, Frontiers has signed six national publishing deals (with Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, Qatar, Sweden, and the UK) and ten additional consortia deals, including three with leading funders (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Austrian Science Fund [FWF], and the Luxembourg National Fund), providing seamless and cost-effective access to our services to over 555 individual institutions.

For more information on Frontiers’ institutional agreements, please visit institutional partnerships page.

LBF’s Research & Scholarly Publishing Forum Line-Up Announced

March 2, 2022

The London Book Fair has today announced the line-up for The Research and Scholarly Publishing Forum (7^th April 2022), which will explore technology and new concepts driving change, the nuances and realities of Open Access, as well as views from institutions, research funders and consortia.

The conference will be chaired by Malavika Legge, Publishing Director at the Biochemical Society & Chair of the Society Publishers’ Coalition (SocPC) who also curated the programme. Andy Ventris, Event Director at The London Book Fair will join Malavika in launching the conference, which will take place this year in the Pillar Hall in Olympia London.

Speakers participating in the Research and Scholarly Publishing Forum include: Alex Freeman, Director at Octopus; Yvonne Campfens, Executive Director at OA Switchboard; Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy for cOAlition S; Dr Frances Pinter, Executive Chair, Central European University Press; and Hong Zhou, Atypon’s Director of AI Research & Development, among others. Perspectives from Taylor & Francis, Jisc, and COPIM will also feature.

Sessions at the conference will tackle key topics within academic publishing, including: how AI and other technology is advancing workflows and knowledge discovery; novel approaches to sharing primary research; new data on transformative agreements; and the transition to open scholarship for books and monographs. There will also be a long-awaited opportunity for those in the field to network in person, with this being the first RSPF conference to take place physically since the pandemic.

ATYPON and Taylor & Francis will sponsor the 2022 Research & Scholarly Publishing Forum.

For more information visit https://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/en-gb/whats-on/conferences.html

Title: The Research & Scholarly Publishing Forum
Date: Thursday 7^th April
Time: 09:00 – 14:00
Price: £261.60 (incl. VAT)

PLOS Sustainability and Transformation publishes first papers

March 2, 2022

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) today announced that PLOS Sustainability and Transformation published its initial cohort of papers. The journal’s mission is to empower key decision makers to take immediate action for the sustainability of our environment, our economy, and the societies around the world who depend on it. The journal has so far received more than 70 submissions from researchers around the world.

“Our journal will bring together leading research addressing the global challenges of transitioning to a resource-efficient, food-secure, sustainable future into a single venue to amplify the impact of researchers’ collected knowledge,” said Lian Pin Koh, Editor-in-Chief, PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. “We strive to unite a diverse community of research and policy experts across natural and social sciences, technology and economics to cross-fertilize knowledge and accelerate the communication of research that advances progress in pursuit of our shared goals.”

“We will work alongside researchers to shape Open Science practices to facilitate trust, transparency, and discoverability of research that has a lasting impact on the sustainability of our planet,” said Suzanne Farley, Editorial Director, PLOS. “By ensuring that content is strengthened by diverse and equitable representation of the knowledge in the field, we will facilitate an exchange of knowledge that drives critical progress in optimizing the use of renewable resources, transforming the global economy and achieving a sustainable future.”

PLOS announced the launch of five new journals last year and PLOS Sustainability and Transformation now joins these journals with papers ready for publication. The journal is underpinned by PLOS’ Community Action Publishing (CAP) model to remove financial barriers for researchers and institutions across all geographies and funding backgrounds to participate in Open Access and Open Science at PLOS. CAP takes into account the contributions of every author — not just corresponding authors — to help distribute publishing costs equitably among the institutions who support them. This ensures institutional members are charged a fair fee based on their authors’ publication history at PLOS, or (in the case of PLOS Sustainability and Transformation), historical research output in the field. The model also automatically includes institutions in Research 4 Life countries as members so that researchers in these regions can also publish for free.

Our current Editorial Board is composed of 40 editors representing more than 20 countries, including 14 Section Editors from 12 countries, and reflects PLOS’ commitments towards building diverse, equitable and inclusive editorial boards. Our 70 submissions came from geographic areas all over the world — 40 different countries in total.

Here are links to two of the 7 papers that PLOS Sustainability and Transformation just published, as well as two opinion pieces:

● Reducing environmental impacts of marine biotoxin monitoring: a laboratory report

● Maximising sustainable nutrient production from coupled fisheries-aquaculture systems

● Identifying beneficiaries for sustainable development in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

● Are carbon offsets the key to green cryptocurrencies?

For more information about PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, visit the homepage.

More than 530 Springer Nature Journals Now Integrated with Research Square’s In Review Service

March 2, 2022

Research Square’s innovative In Review service has expanded to include more than 500 Springer Nature journal titles. The milestone was surpassed this week after 48 additional Springer Nature journals were integrated into the service.

Authors submitting their papers to more than 530 participating Springer Nature journals benefit from sharing their research upon submission, while also increasing transparency in the peer review process.

In Review, a journal-integrated service that allows researchers to post preprints of their manuscripts during article submission, supports journals across the Nature and BMC portfolios, as well as a host of other journals covering physics, engineering, plant and animal sciences, and more.

“As new journals are added to our expanding collection, the number of disciplines represented across those journals will also expand,” said Amye Kenall, Vice President of Product and Publishing at Research Square Company. “We want to help accelerate the uptake of preprints. By offering an easier way to preprint to authors across more disciplines, we can create that sea change that is needed in sharing research early in order to drive the pace of discovery in all disciplines.”

The latest journal integrations are a clear indication of Springer Nature’s commitment to early sharing and discovery, as it continues to expand the In Review service across its portfolio. It’s estimated that more than 400 journals will be added through 2022, yielding an estimated total of nearly 1,000 Springer Nature In Review integrations by the year’s end.

Eugenie Regan, Springer Nature’s Vice President, Research Solutions commented:

“Springer Nature is a strong supporter of earlier sharing and actively worked with Research Square to launch In Review back in 2018. Preprints are an increasingly important tool, with the ecosystem of research communication, further enabling the sharing, discussion and growth of open research. We continue to work with our research community to provide them with the tools and services they want to better support the advancement and discovery of knowledge. In Review is a key example of that commitment, and to now have 500 Springer Nature journals operating on the platform, enabling an increasing number of authors to benefit from this integrated service, is a fantastic milestone to reach.”

Authors posting preprints of their manuscript submissions through the In Review service immediately receive a digital object identifier (DOI) after their preprints are screened and accepted , establishing a timestamp for their research, thereby protecting the primacy of their work long before peer-reviewed publication. Once submitted, authors can track editorial decisions as their papers advance through the stages of the peer review process.

Authors submitting to In Review can also take advantage of the latest features and improvements to the service, including automatic version of record (VOR) linking for articles as they are published in peer-reviewed journals, in-browser PDF viewing of preprints, and unified search functionality.

Learn more about the Research Square preprint platform and its In Review service.

AI boost to benefit authors of open access articles

March 2, 2022

Open Access Publisher Hindawi expands its use of Writefull technology

One of the world’s largest open access journal publishers, Hindawi, is set to expand its use of AI-based technology Writefull.

Writefull, which is part of Digital Science, is an AI-based language platform that helps authors, institutions, publishers, and typesetters with all stages of manuscript and academic book and journal production. It applies machine learning, trained on millions of scientific papers.

Following two years of successful partnership – during which Hindawi’s authors have used Writefull’s Language Revise tool to improve grammar, spelling, and scientific language in their work – Hindawi and Writefull have now extended their agreement to offer structural checks on all submitted articles. This will provide authors with direct feedback on any aspects of their paper that do not meet the relevant journal’s submission criteria.

As with the language revision service, the structural checks report helps both the author and the publisher. Authors can ensure their manuscripts meet the requirements to be handled by an editor – reducing the chances of immediate rejection and helping to speed up the screening process after submission. Hindawi in turn saves a considerable amount of time checking all requirements after submission and can provide a smoother, faster, more effective experience for its authors and editorial staff.

Juan Castro, co-founder and CEO of Writefull, says: “The use of Writefull’s manuscript tracking system has seen impressive uptake over the past two years by tens of thousands of enthusiastic authors submitting their work to Hindawi’s open access journals. Automated writing feedback is useful across the whole journey of a manuscript. We are delighted that Hindawi can see the benefits for its authors, as well as for its journals’ ability to manage and guide submissions through the publishing process.”

Mathias Astell, Chief Journal Development Officer at Hindawi, says: “Being the first publisher to integrate Writefull into our submission workflow has greatly enhanced the user experience for many of our authors by helping them to easily check and improve the quality and structure of the language in their paper. Our goal through this extended partnership is to further support the researchers who submit to our 240+ journals by reducing the time and effort needed to submit a well-structured manuscript (that editors will be able to easily evaluate) and increasing the chances of their work quickly getting out to peer review.”

Knowledge Unlatched presents Open Access Heroes 2022

March 2, 2022

Knowledge Unlatched (KU), the international initiative for Open Access (OA), is pleased to announce OA Heroes 2022, highlighting the countries, institutions, publishers, disciplines and scholarly titles seeing the most usage worldwide. The number of total user interactions (including downloads and views) for KU titles has grown year on year by 16 percent and now stands at a total of 16.2 million. On average, each title unlatched through KU gets 5,450 user interactions.

Almost 3,000 books have been published OA to date owing to KU’s initiatives, and this number will grow to 3,500 titles by the end of 2022. In addition, some 6,300 institutions worldwide saw usage of KU books last year. Once again, the most popular discipline was English Language and Literature, with over 775,000 user interactions, followed by Politics and International Studies (630,000+ interactions) and History (540,000+ interactions).

“The impact of the titles we unlatch each year continues to inspire us,” says Dr. Sven Fund, KU’s Senior Director. “As we approach a new pledging cycle this spring, we are grateful to the hundreds of libraries around the world that continue to support KU and invest in our various OA collections.”

The countries that continue to see the highest usage of OA books include the United States (33 percent), Germany (8.4 percent), the United Kingdom (8.4 percent), India (4.9 percent), and Canada (3.4 percent), while the academic institutions with the most user interactions in 2021 include the University of Edinburgh, Freie Universität Berlin, Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg, University of Cambridge and University of Exeter.

The book with the most interactions in 2021 by a large margin was Frankenstein: A New Edition for Scientists and Engineers (MIT Press), with well over half a million interactions, followed by Social Theory after the Internet: Media, Technology, and Globalization (UCL Press) and A People’s History of Modern Europe (Pluto Press), with over 131,000 and 104,000 interactions, respectively.

This year’s OA usage assessment results are based on the data collected from several hosting platforms, including OAPEN, JSTOR, Project MUSE, and the Open Research Library.

An infographic that presents the usage data in one place can be downloaded from the Open Research Community website.