Global Nature Publishing Index 2012 supplement released, United States continues to dominate world science

June 22, 2013

The United States remains the superpower of science, dominating a ranking of the world’s top 200 institutions in 2012, published today in the first Nature Publishing Index (NPI) Global supplement. The UK, Germany and Japan make up a solid top four countries in terms of high quality science output. China is nipping at France’s heels for the number five slot. The NPI ranks countries and institutions according to their output of primary research articles in the 18 Nature research journals in 2012, and includes data from 2008-2011 for comparison.

The United States was number one in the Global Top 100 countries for science in 2012 by a clear margin, in front of the UK and Germany respectively. US institutions claim 32 of the top 50 positions in a ranking of the world’s top 200 institutions. Harvard University was the number one scientific institution in the world, with as many articles in Nature research journals in 2012 (368) as the whole of China (303). Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Washington also featured in the global top 10.

The UK has always “punched above its weight in science” say the supplement editors, and “solidly occupies the second position in the NPI.” Germany and Japan and France make up the top five global countries in the NPI, with China rapidly rising close behind in sixth position.

Identified by the supplement editors as one of its five “countries to watch”, authors based in China contributed 8.5 % of all research papers published in Nature research journals in 2012. The country also had nine institutions in the Top 200 – up from three in 2011. The editors predict that China will overtake France in the 2013 rankings, saying “It will be a surprise if France is not relegated to sixth by further Chinese improvement in 2013.”

The other “countries to watch”; Brazil, Ireland, Kenya and Saudi Arabia; are currently publishing relatively small numbers of articles in Nature research journals, but are making gains. Ireland has jumped from 30th to 20th in the NPI between 2008 and 2012, while Brazil has moved up seven places to 27th. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s fastest improvers with a marked increase in research articles and similarly Kenya has made an ascent up the NPI ranking to 38th place.

The Global Nature Publishing Index 2012 supplement is available online at nature.asia/publishing-index-global and is published as a supplement to Nature today. The ranking is a snapshot based on papers published in 2012, with 2008-2011 data also included to show trends.

Royal Society of Chemistry journals continue to make a big impact

June 21, 2013

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s publishing portfolio has once again shown outstanding excellence, with the publication of the latest Impact Factors (IF) report from Thomson Reuters.

Six out of the top 20 multidisciplinary chemistry journals are published by the RSC – more than any other publisher.

And the RSC has more journals than any other publisher in the top 20 for 5-year impact factors, demonstrating that the society is consistently publishing high quality research.

Altogether, more than 30 per cent of RSC journals have an IF greater than 5.000, and more than a quarter of the RSC’s journals are in the top 10 per cent of their ISI category.

Natural Product Reports came out top in both the ‘Chemistry: Medicinal’ and ‘Chemistry: Organic’ categories with a figure of 10.178. Other individual journal highlights include

Energy & Environmental Science (11.653), Chemical Science (8.314), Green Chemistry (6.828) and Chemical Communications (6.378).

Meloney Bartlett, the RSC’s head of journal publishing said: “This year’s results show once again that you can trust RSC journals to consistently deliver high quality content.

“The figures reflect the world-class publishing service we strive to provide to our authors, rapidly delivering cutting-edge chemical science with unparalleled accessibility to researchers throughout the world.

“The results are also a great reflection on the dedication and commitment of our editors, editorial boards and referees, and we thank them for their support.”

The Institute of Physics & IOP Publishing recognise student science writers through award sponsorship

June 21, 2013

At last night’s Science Writers’ Awards in London, the Association of British Science Writers (ABSW) announced the addition of a new award which is being sponsored by the Institute of Physics (IOP) and its publishing company, IOP Publishing.

The IOP Student Science Publication Award will be launched in 2014 and will reward student journalists who produce a regular science publication, such as a newspaper or magazine, either in print or online. The award will be presented to the editor of a specific publication but will recognise all contributors to it.

Connie St Louis, President of the ABSW said: “Thanks to the support of the Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing, this new award will recognise and reward student editorial teams who produce a popular science publication. There are now many such publications being produced by students in Britain and Ireland and it is really important that the ABSW recognises and supports these initiatives as they provide a great training ground for the science journalists of tomorrow.”

Dr Beth Taylor, Director of Communications and International Relations at IOP, said: “As a society working to advance physics education, research and application, we recognise the contribution to science communication made by student publishers through this new award with ABSW. Our aim is to help the next generation of science writers to get established.”

OCLC launches WorldCat Metadata API

June 20, 2013

OCLC has launched the new WorldCat Metadata API that will enable member libraries and partners to build and share applications on the OCLC WorldShare Platform for libraries to catalog their collections in WorldCat.

The WorldCat Metadata API supports a variety of cataloging functionality for libraries to catalog their collections in WorldCat. Libraries will be able to create applications with the new API to add new and enrich existing WorldCat bibliographic records, and maintain WorldCatinstitution holdings and local bibliographic data.

Libraries can continue to catalog their collections in WorldCat using OCLC-built applications such as Connexion and the upcomingWorldShare Metadata Record Manager, or they can create new applications using the WorldCat Metadata API to manage their cataloging workflows.

“The information ecosystem defined by the Web demands access to data, services, applications and partnerships to thrive and meet the demands of today’s information seeker,” said Kathryn Harnish, Director, OCLC Network Experience. “Release of the WorldCat Metadata API will help library staff and partners create applications that can integrate with the services they choose, to help streamline their workflows and get the most from their services and service partners.”

The WorldCat Metadata API is the latest in a series of APIs released by OCLC on the OCLC WorldShare Platform, a global, interconnected Web architecture that supports OCLC’s cloud-based services and applications, and provides flexible access to library data through APIs and other Web services. Librarians and developers can use these tools to innovate together to build and share solutions for libraries that streamline and enhance library workflows.

The WorldCat Metadata API complements the WorldCat Search API. These Web services provide read and write access to libraries’ bibliographic and holdings data. A number of library- and partner-built applications already use the WorldCat Search API and have been well-received by the OCLC membership.

Visit the OCLC Developer Network to learn how libraries can get started using the new WorldCat Metadata API.

The British Library and Portico partner to preserve thousands of e-journals for future generations

June 20, 2013

The British Library and digital preservation specialist Portico announced today that they will be working together to ensure that thousands of electronic journal titles will be collected, preserved and made available to current and future generations of researchers.

The partnership will help the British Library—along with five other legal deposit libraries—to meet regulations that recently became law in the United Kingdom and that extend the practice of legal deposit from traditional print publications to non-print publications such as e-journals, blogs and websites in the UK web domain.

Portico will utilize its established workflow and processes to create standardized and uniform journal content that can be exported to the British Library. They have started with 1,500 journals from three publishers that are already preserving content with Portico. As necessary, Portico will develop new tools for processing additional publisher content.

The British Library and Portico began their work together through a pilot project in 2012. The two organizations developed their systems as part of the pilot and were thus able to “turn on” automatic delivery of content to the British Library as soon as legislation passed.

Alasdair Ball, head of Collection Acquisition and Description at the British Library said, “We’re delighted to be working with Portico, using their expertise and technical infrastructure to help us meet the requirements of the new regulations. By working with a respected and well-established provider we’ll gradually enable publishers to deposit their electronic journal content easily and securely, thereby ensuring that it’s collected, preserved and made accessible for future generations of researchers.”

“I am excited that together we have identified a way to ensure that the library community is able to use the same set of tools they’ve invested in through Portico to meet national digital preservation needs,” stated Kate Wittenberg, managing director, Portico.

Wolters Kluwer Health announces suite of local-language search and navigation capabilities for UpToDate

June 20, 2013

Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information for healthcare professionals and students, announced the launch of Search in Your Own Language, a suite of local-language search and navigation capabilities for UpToDate®, an evidence-based, clinical decision support resource. Search in Your Own Language enables clinicians and healthcare enterprises around the world to improve patient care with tools to research clinical questions more quickly and accurately in their native language.

Search in Your Own Language from UpToDate streamlines searching for clinical information and graded recommendations by leveraging an advanced, patent-pending translation system for search terms in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish (in addition to existing English and Japanese search capabilities). Plus, the auto-complete feature of UpToDate search also predicts words or phrases in a clinician’s native language.

To improve ease-of-use overall, the UpToDate navigation can be customized to default to a user’s local language. Clinicians can also rate translations of search terms and submit suggestions for improvements.

“Time spent with patients is an important measure of the quality of patient care,” said Denise Basow, M.D., Vice President/General Manager and Editor-in-Chief, UpToDate at Wolters Kluwer Health, Clinical Solutions. “By launchingSearch in Your Own Language, UpToDate helps doctors worldwide find the best clinical answers to their questions more quickly so they can spend less time searching and more time caring for their patients.

Serials Solutions Expands Russian E-Book Content in the Summon Service

June 20, 2013

Serials Solutions, a ProQuest business, is working with the ibooks.ru to index metadata from 8,000 e-book titles covering educational, scientific and business topics. ibooks.ru is an e-library project founded in 2009 by leading Russian publishing houses Piter Publishing House and BHV-Petersburg in close cooperation with the Association of Regional Library Consortia (ARBICON).

Widely subscribed to by academic universities throughout Russia, ibooks.ru has grown from 1,000 titles published by the two founding publishers to more than 8,000 from 100 publishers. Titles cover a range to fields including computer science, economics and business management, psychology and law.

Serials Solutions continues to fulfill its commitment to make the most comprehensive discovery service for researchers around the world with the addition of this collection of ibooks.ru Russian-language content to the Summon service. With an interface available in 32 languages and dialects, the Summon service makes global content discoverable by scholars worldwide,. It applies native-language searching capabilities and language-tuned relevancy for 17 languages.

Elsevier Launches Open Access Journal: GeoResJ

June 20, 2013

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, is pleased to announce the launch of a new open access journal, GeoResJ.

With the launch of GeoResJ, Elsevier’s earth and planetary science journals portfolio has its first open access only journal. The journal aims to provide a forum for rapid publication of top research within the entire earth science field. The journal will be co-edited by six Executive Editors, each covering a different discipline, including geophysics, geochemistry, space science, volcanology, atmospheric sciences and paleontology.

“I am excited and proud to be a part of the launch of GeoResJ offering researchers a new venue for rapid and open access publishing of their work,” said Professor Lyatt Jaeglé of the University of Washington who will serve as one of the Executive Editors. “With the journal being open access, published research will be available for all to read anytime, anywhere, an appealing prospect for most scholars,” Professor Simon George of Macquarie University, also an Executive Editor, added.

“GeoResJ adds to Elsevier’s existing earth and planetary science journals which already offer authors an open access option, including renowned journals such as Earth and Planetary Science Lettersand Quaternary Science Reviews,” said Clare Lehane, Executive Publisher at Elsevier. “Authors now have more choice to determine which journal best suits their needs in terms of scope and access.”

GeoResJ will publish its first four volumes in 2014. Any articles accepted for publication in 2013 will be available online on ScienceDirect. For more information or to submit a paper, go to: www.elsevier.com/locate/georesj.

Springer launches French- and Italian-language eBook collections

June 20, 2013

Springer is now offering two more language-specific eBook collections, in French and Italian. The French collection is comprised of about 330 titles, and the Italian collection offers over 400 titles, both ranging from 2005 through 2013. These collections aim to address the needs of the French- and Italian-language research communities who now have the option of accessing relevant scientific content from medicine, mathematics, computer science and other fields. The Italian package is available in three subject collections, while the French package can be purchased in two subject collections.

These eBook collections will strengthen Springer’s position in France and Italy, and in other countries where French and Italian are prevalent, by bringing valuable research information to researchers and students in their own languages. It will also help meet the needs of public libraries in those countries.

“We are extremely pleased that the new language-specific eBook collections will allow us to better serve the needs of French and Italian research and education in the future,” said Dagmar Laging, Springer’s Vice President of Library Sales for Southern Europe. “Instruction at universities and schools in Italian- and French-speaking countries happens mostly in their native language. With these collections we will be able to connect with new customers who were previously out of reach,” she added.

Springer launched its eBook program in 2006 and now offers more than 100,000 titles via its online platform, SpringerLink (link.springer.com). With the completion of the Springer Book Archives by the end of 2013, the total number of titles is targeted to reach well over 150,000 eBooks, including valuable historic research dating back to the 1840s. The French- and Italian-language eBooks were previously available only as part of the larger English/International package, but are now offered separately as well.

Springer eBook Collections (in both PDF and HTML formats) are fully searchable and free of digital rights management. Titles can be downloaded, printed and loaded onto mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones. In addition, once a library purchases a Springer eBook Collection, it has continuous access to the book content, without recurring license fees. There are currently 13 different subject collections available in the English/International package and five in German.

Journals from IOP Publishing show Impact Factor growth for the ninth year running

June 20, 2013

The 2012 Impact Factors, published by Thomson Reuters, once again show growth for many of the journals published by IOP Publishing (IOP) for the ninth year running.

This year, 33 of the titles published by IOP have seen an increase in citations from last year. Additionally, 26 titles have had an increase of over 5% and 53% of IOP’s journals have Impact Factors above 2.000.

Dr Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director of IOP said: “The Impact Factor continues to be a widely recognised measure of the quality and prestige of a journal and we are pleased to see increases in the Impact Factor for the majority of our journals.

“However, we know that our authors are under more and more pressure to look at a range of measures to evaluate the impact of their work. Alongside the Impact Factor we also publish article level metrics to provide authors with information that reveals the potential wider impact of individual articles.

“We would also like to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge the hard work undertaken by our authors, referees, editors, boards and publishing staff in maintaining the high standards of our journals.”

There were high performances from individual journals including:

– Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physicsincreased by 27% to 5.326.

– Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics increased by 8% to 2.031.

– Bioinspiration & Biomimeticsincreased by 24% to 2.142.

– Science and Technology of Advanced Materialsincreased by 7% to 3.752. Published in partnership with National Institute of Materials Science.

– Journal of Opticsincreased by 27% to 1.990.

– Nonlinearity increased by 16% to 1.602. Published in partnership with the London Mathematical Society.

Our full results will be published on IOPscience shortly.

CUP Implements Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® for Open Access Solution

June 20, 2013

Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), a not-for-profit organisation and leading provider of licensing and Open Access (OA) solutions, announces that Cambridge University Presshas selected CCC’s RightsLink® for Open Access to manage Article Processing Charges (APCs) for its Open Access publications.

“RightsLink for Open Access enables scholarly and academic publishers to quickly and effectively execute APCs as well as page and color changes, submission fees and author reprints,” said Roy Kaufman, Managing Director, New Ventures, CCC. “By implementing RightsLink for Open Access for its publications, Cambridge University Press will not only save time and money, but also enable its authors to place orders with confidence and ease.”

“CCC’s RightsLink for Open Access can be integrated with any journal production system and manuscript submission workflow,” said Simon Ross, Managing Director, Cambridge University Press. “This will streamline processes and increase efficiency for our customers, which include authors, institutions and research funders.”

CCC has been helping publishers improve the author experience in collecting APCs for over six years and welcomes efforts toward standardization and transparency. It recently joined the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), working with its members on issues such as collecting Article Processing Charges (APCs) and Open Access-aware licensing. The not-for-profit, named one of “10 to Watch” by information industry analyst Outsell in its 2013 Open Access Market Report, recently endorsed the Research Information Network’s call for cooperation among funders, universities and publishers.

CCC hosts webinars and podcasts on many aspects of Open Access and, as part of its non-profit mission, works with organizations such as the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) on creating standards related to Open Access.

UK science is facing a knowledge drain says RSC chief executive

June 20, 2013

The Science is Vital campaign group today issued a report on the legacy of the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review for UK science.

The science budget saw a cash freeze in 2010, but this has been a 10 per cent cut in real terms. The report shows that, as a result, researchers are reporting a drop in grants, difficulty in finding money for equipment and consumables and a struggle to recruit PhD students.

In response to the report, the chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Dr Robert Parker said: “The findings outlined in this report are deeply concerning. This is the first attempt that has been made to find out what is really happening in universities across the UK as a result of the 2010 science budget freeze, and we’re hearing straight from the horses’ mouths so to speak, that it has had a profound effect on how effectively scientists are able to carry out their research.

“This is damaging our ability to generate and capitalise on new ideas that will lead to economic growth.”

Dr Parker continued: “What is most striking and concerning about the feedback from researchers in this report is that the UK looks to be facing a knowledge drain. There is a clear feeling that the science funding situation here is worse than in other countries, and that young, talented scientists are feeling forced to leave the UK to pursue their careers abroad in countries like the USA and Australia, or worse still, to leave science altogether.

“Britain cannot afford to lose its science base. It’s clearer now more than ever that we need a long-term commitment to our knowledge economy to stay in the global race.

“The UK currently spends less than 0.6 per cent of GDP on funding for research – lower than the average EU spend and lower still than the average G8 spend on government science funding. Science is Vital is calling for a goal to meet the G8 average of 0.8 per cent of GDP. This is certainly what we should be aiming for, but we have to face the fact that we are living in austere times and, in reality, that figure is at least 10 years away.

“As a stepping stone to this, the Royal Society of Chemistry would like to see politicians commit to increase UK science spending to the EU average, 0.7 per cent of GDP, by the end of the next Parliament in 2020. This is not an insignificant rise, but it is not impossible. We need to put a stop to this downward turn, before the damage becomes irreversible.”