IOP Publishing and the National Institute for Materials Science announce new three year agreement for open access publishing

May 10, 2013

IOP Publishing has today announced a new three year agreement with the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) for the continued publication of the open access title Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM).

Beginning July 2013 the journal will offer a gold open access option for the first time. This move will mean that authors publishing with STAM will be asked to pay an article publication charge when their paper is accepted for publication in the journal (which have been set at ¥135,000 (GBP/EUR/USD prices are also available). NIMS will continue to subsidise publication of selected research.

This move will make STAM the highest impact, gold open access title in material science (the journal has an Impact Factor of 3.513 and growing). The journal is also refining its scope to emphasise the areas of nano-, bio- and eco-materials.

IOP has been publishing STAM for the last five years on behalf of NIMS and under the new contract will take responsibility for the entire production process for the journal. IOP will guarantee publication within 27 days of an article being accepted for publication.

NIMS will continue to manage the peer review.

Professor Toyonobu Yoshida of the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and Editor-in-Chief of STAM said of the new publishing arrangements: “STAM will continue its social mission, inspiring and helping researchers to contribute to the sustainable development of society. It will aim for reader oriented publishing, navigating the readers through the new developments in materials science. The introduction of the article publication charge will assist us in creating a sustainable journal publishing model, and further enhance services to authors and readers.”

Dr Nicola Gulley, Editorial Director for IOP Publishing said: “We are delighted to extend our relationship with NIMS and to continue to support STAM and the material science community. Transitioning the journal to the gold open access model will safeguard the long term sustainability of STAM and ensure the research continues to be available to all.”

STAM publishes using the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. These open access rights allow third-party users to copy, distribute and display the published version of articles in STAM, and create derivative works, subject to appropriate attribution and non-commercial exploitation.

Increased science funding drives physics in Brazil

May 9, 2013

A rapid rise in science funding is transforming Brazil’s research landscape, according to a new report published on behalf of the Brazilian Physical Society by IOP Publishing.

Brazil invested $25bn in scientific research in 2010 – up four-fold on its spend in 2000 – which has propelled the country to number 13 in the global rankings for published articles in scholarly science journals.
The report offers an in-depth analysis of the opportunities and challenges facing the Brazilian science community. The exclusive coverage emerged from extensive research and face-to-face interviews with physicists at some of Brazil’s leading scientific institutions.

Key themes explored in the report include the rise of experimental physics, increased investment in large-scale research facilities, and the challenges for science education in Brazil. Particular focus is also given to some core strengths for Brazilian physics, such as quantum information, theoretical physics, and technology solutions for agribusiness.

A digital edition of the report can be accessed at http://mag.digitalpc.co.uk/fvx/iop/scienceimpact/brazil2013/

This report on physics in Brazil forms part of the science impact series, a new and unique programme of partner publications from IOP Publishing.

The Summon Service Expands Chinese-Language Content with Taiwanese Publisher Wu-Nan Book Co. Ltd.

May 9, 2013

Serials Solutions, a ProQuest business, continues to broaden the scope of Chinese-language content in the Summon service through an agreement to index more than 1000 books from Taiwanese publisher Wu-Nan Book Co. Ltd. Wu-Nan will provide metadata and partial full-text for Summon indexing.

Long recognized as Taiwan’s leading publisher in the social sciences and humanities, Wu-Nan has further broadened its catalog of academic works and college textbooks to include technology, engineering and other applied sciences. Inclusion in the Summon service supports the company’s stated goal to disseminate culture widely and propagate learning.

Dutch Researchers Rank Higher than the Top 10 Most Research-Intensive Nations In Key Research Performance Areas

May 9, 2013

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, has announced the outcomes of a comparative study of Dutch researchers’ international performance. The study, based on Scopus data and using Elsevier’s SciVal research performance measurement tools, showed that in a comparison that includes the top 10 R&D spending nations in the world, the Netherlands ranks No. 1 in publication impact per article and number 1 by level of international collaboration.

Furthermore, within this group the Netherlands ranks number 1 in the world in citations generated per unit of R&D spending and number 2 in publications generated per unit of R&D spending. The figures were presented at the Impact of Science Conference held in Amsterdam.

Nick Fowler, Elsevier’s Managing Director of A&G Institutional Markets, said: “Two factors contribute to the success of the Netherlands: international collaboration and a geographically mobile research base. 48.7% of articles written by a Netherlands-based researcher are written in collaboration with a researcher outside the Netherlands. This is a higher proportion than any of the top 10 R&D-spending nations in the world. International collaboration is generally acknowledged as a positive force driving research impact and prestige. The second factor, the mobile research base, relates to what we call ‘brain circulation’, or cross-border mobility of researchers. The Netherlands has a history of allowing people to move in and out, also in the science world. For example no less than 74% of authors affiliated with Dutch institutions have also published at an institution in another country at some point in their careers. That hugely benefits Dutch research.”

Ireland Punches above Its Weight in Scientific Research Impact

May 8, 2013

The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters, today announced a renewed four-year commitment between the Irish Universities Association and Thomson Reuters to demonstrate the efficiency and global impact of Ireland’s scientific research. The trusted indicators of Thomson Reuters InCitesTM, a customized, web-based research evaluation tool, enable universities to measure research output and impact, monitor trends, and benchmark their performance against peers at the individual, departmental and global levels.

The strategic relationship between Thomson Reuters and the Irish Universities Association supports individual institution’s plans to develop new research strategies, retain talent, pinpoint emerging trends and identify new opportunities for collaboration through InCites indicators. The Irish Universities Association comprises the seven universities in Ireland: Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, National University of Ireland Maynooth, University College Cork, University of Limerick and University Galway. Additional consortium members include Dublin Institute of Technology, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Higher Education Authority and Science Foundation Ireland.

Built on content from Thomson Reuters Web of KnowledgeSM, the industry’s premier research platform for information in the sciences, social sciences arts and humanities, the customized data sets in InCites will provide analytics on authors, journals and fields, as well as connect to the proprietary university research management and profiling systems for full workflow integration.

“Renewing our strategic alliance with Thomson Reuters will provide all of Ireland’s universities with a comprehensive overview of how our institutions compare to each other and, even more importantly, how they fare globally,” said Conor O’Carroll, research director at the Irish Universities Association. “It will be critical in helping us extend Ireland’s global research footprint.”

“The agreement with Thomson Reuters will enable Irish institutions to improve their ability to assess and compare research performance against the world’s top universities; we will be able to see and report on where we are excelling and track the impact of our new areas of research as they emerge and develop,” said Niamh Brennan, programme manager, Research Informatics at Trinity College Dublin. “Data from InCites provide us with continuing evidence that Ireland ‘punches above its weight’ in terms of the impact of its research; using InCites alongside complementary metrics and analytics within this national collaborative initiative will strongly support our researchers and our universities to enhance their already stellar performance on the global research stage.”

InCites is a customized, web-based evaluation tool that enables universities, funding bodies and policy makers to analyze their research productivity and compare their output against that of their peers. The solution provides normalized metrics for repeatable analysis of outcomes, cross-regional impacts, discipline comparisons and standardized, accurate reviews for promotion and tenure processes. InCites also can serve as a support solution in ongoing quality assurance activities.

“The Irish Universities Association, like many academic consortiums and institutions worldwide, recognizes the growing need to measure performance by demonstrating and promoting the impact of the member institutions’ research,” said Gordon Macomber, managing director of Thomson Reuters Scientific and Scholarly Research. “We are very pleased to renew our agreement with this esteemed organization and honored to help the universities of Ireland remain on top of the latest global research trends while improving the global impact and performance of their research efforts.”

SAGE announces the fully-digital statistics textbook IntroStats Online

May 7, 2013

SAGE today announced the launch of IntroStats Online, a new interactive introductory-level statistics textbook written by Greg Francis (Purdue University). Designed to fully immerse students as they study statistical concepts, this online textbook features text, 2,000+ practice questions, interactive demonstrations and simulations, calculators, and a centralized grade book that automatically records student progress for instructor convenience.

“IntroStats Online is an entirely new kind of textbook that uses technology to encourage students to be more engaged with the material, to present complex concepts in new ways, and to enable instructors to monitor student progress,” stated Francis. “It is not just a traditional textbook that has been reformatted for the web, it is a better kind of textbook.”

IntroStats Online also includes access to STATLAB Online, an interactive statistics laboratory where students learn different statistical analyses through participation in classic behavioral experiments. Through STATLAB Online, students’ data is also graded automatically and sent to instructors.

“SAGE is dedicated to investing in new, digitally-innovative products that will satisfy the changing needs of today’s students while simultaneously improving learning outcomes,” stated Michele Sordi, SAGE’s Vice President of Editorial. “Each of the innovative features in IntroStats Online was created for student success. This born-digital textbook creates an optimum learning environment as it promotes immediate application of the learning material, provides instant feedback, and allows students to go back and spend more time on areas of statistics that they initially found challenging.”

For more information about IntroStats Online, visit sagepub.com/introstatsonline.

EBSCO Partners with Wolters Kluwer Health to Index LWW Content with EBSCO Discovery Service

May 7, 2013

EBSCO and Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading global provider of information, business intelligence and point-of-care solutions for the healthcare industry, have come to an agreement allowing metadata from Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) journals on the Ovid institutional research platform to be added to EBSCO Discovery Service™ (EDS). This agreement extends the Wolters Kluwer Health journal portfolio on EDS with its Medknow open access medical journals currently accessible to users.

Vice President Publishing, Wolters Kluwer Health, Medical Research, Jayne Marks says, “We’re pleased to bring LWW and Medknow content to EBSCO Discovery Service where more healthcare researchers and practitioners can quickly discover and access important peer-reviewed, evidence-based content to inform their work.”

EDS users will now have the ability to search the abstract and full reference (metadata) details of Wolters Kluwer Health’s prestigious LWW portfolio of 280 medical, nursing, and allied health journals. This extensive journal collection offers leading titles in medicine, nursing, and allied health including highly ranked titles in neurology, anesthesiology, orthopedics, obstetrics & gynecology, and nursing specialties. Medknow, one of the world’s largest open access medical publishers, has a portfolio of more than 250 specialty titles covering medicine, dental, pharmacy and pharmacology, alternative medicine and science disciplines from respected societies across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

Wolters Kluwer Health is part of a growing list of publishers and other content partners that are taking part in EDS to bring more visibility to their content. Partners include the world’s largest scholarly journal & book publishers including Elsevier, Wiley Blackwell, Springer Science & Business Media, Taylor & Francis Informa, Sage Publications, Nature Publishing, IEEE, ACM and thousands of others. Partners also include content providers, such as LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters (Web of Science), JSTOR, ARTstor, Credo Reference, Encyclopedia Britannica, World Book, ABC-CLIO, The Hathi Trust and many others.

EBSCO Discovery Service creates a unified, customized index of an institution’s information resources, and an easy, yet powerful means of accessing all of that content from a single search box—searching made even more powerful because of the quality of metadata and depth and breadth of coverage.

EBSCO Discovery Service is quickly becoming the discovery selection for many libraries (www.ebscohost.com/discovery/eds-news), and an obvious partner for content providers. Because the service builds on the foundation provided by the EBSCOhost® platform, libraries gain a full user experience for discovering their collections/OPAC—which is not typical in the discovery space. Further still, in the many universities and other libraries where EBSCOhost is the most-used platform for premium research, users are not asked to change their pathways or habits for searching. There’s simply more to discover on the familiar EBSCOhost platform, and the same can be said for library administrators who can leverage their previous work with EBSCOadmin™.

EBSCO Announces Intent to Collaborate with the American College of Physicians

May 7, 2013

EBSCO announces the intent to collaborate with the American College of Physicians (ACP) around evidence-based expertise. If formalized, the multi-year collaboration will bring thousands of American College of Physician images, figures and tables to EBSCO’s evidence-based clinical resources such as DynaMed™. Under the terms of the intended collaboration, EBSCO would provide ACP access to DynaMed’s evidence-based clinical summaries and access to the systematic literature surveillance that has distinguished DynaMed among other point-of-care resources.

EBSCO and ACP plan to share content in order to take advantage of shared expertise in evidence-based clinical content. DynaMed will make available to ACP its systematic literature surveillance and guideline updates, and ACP may incorporate some of DynaMed’s content into some educational resources.

EBSCO Senior Vice President of Product Management Stratton Lloyd says study after study shows that DynaMed has created a methodology to provide both currency and relevancy and the intended collaboration with ACP adds additional expertise and unique content. “The intended collaboration represents a joint effort between EBSCO and the American College of Physicians to push, promote and prescribe an approach to evidence-based medicine that benefits clinicians, patients and the practice of medicine.”

The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization, representing 133, 000 internal medicine physicians (internists). Internists are specialists who apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum from health to complex illness. ACP also publishes Annals of Internal Medicine, one of the five most widely cited peer reviewed medical journals in the world.

ACP Vice President of Publishing, Diane Scott-Lichter, says the intended collaboration will be mutually beneficial to both EBSCO and ACP. “ACP and DynaMed have a commitment to evidence-based medicine and by sharing expertise we hope to contribute to improving the practice of medicine and the care of patients.”

Thomson Reuters to Award up to $30,000 for Most Innovative Use of Web of Knowledge Application Programming Interfaces

May 7, 2013

The IP & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the launch of its Build Challenge, the second phase of a contest designed to expand the discovery experience offered by Thomson Reuters Web of KnowledgeSM. The competition challenges the research community to develop innovative visualization tools that illustrate the connections found in data, citations and research by using Web of Knowledge application programming interfaces (APIs).

Thomson Reuters will award up to $30,000 to the participant who “builds” the best web-based or mobile visualization tools that both meet the contest criteria and highlight the various data relationships among the content indexed with the Web of Science®, the main citation database within the Web of Knowledge. Each solution must be demonstrated through the entry of a prototype or workable code and white paper. The Build Challenge will be open for submissions until July 25.

The program development solutions will be based on the winning submissions from the initial phase of the competition, the Ideation Challenge. In this first part of the challenge series Thomson Reuters called upon the research community to develop concept papers on new and inventive ways for users to interact with the content and tools within the Web of Knowledge. The Ideation Challenge attracted over 830 solvers from around the world and received 177 submissions.

“While we received a broad and diverse collection of ideas during the Ideation Challenge, an overwhelming amount of submissions were primarily focused on the visualization of data,” said Ellen Rotenberg, senior innovation product manager at Thomson Reuters. “Researchers are increasingly interested in using visualizations to navigate the various relationships between artifacts and metadata related to scholarly content.”

Thomson Reuters Sciencewatch.com has interviews with the three winning Ideation Challenge innovators featuring the details and ideas behind their inventive concepts.

“There is no voice greater than that of the customer,” said Gordon Macomber, managing director of Thomson Reuters Scientific & Scholarly Research. “We engaged with the Web of Knowledge user community in a unique way during the Ideation Challenge, seeing their valuable suggestions for enhancing the progress of scientific and scholarly research. The Build Challenge takes this conversation one step further by engaging the expertise of the technologists in our community. We look forward to seeing the developments from this second stage.”

Thomson Reuters is partnering with crowdsourcing leader InnoCentive for the Ideation and Build Challenges. “ Thomson Reuters is truly a company to be emulated in its use of innovation competitions and crowdsourcing to listen to and engage its customers and users to help improve upon and bring valuable new products and services to market,” said Alph Bingham, co-founder and board member of InnoCentive. “We are very gratified to see the excellent solver participation and quality of submissions in the Ideation Challenge, and can’t wait to see our Global Solver Community take things to the next level with the Build Challenge.”

Visit www.wokinfo.com/challenge to learn more about the Build and Ideation Challenges. For the terms and conditions of the Build Challenge, visit https://www.innocentive.com/ar/contract/printUnsigned/110 . Follow the challenge and learn more about the previous challenge on the InnoCentive Seeker Spotlight blog.

PLOS Appoints Elizabeth Marincola as Chief Executive Officer

May 3, 2013

PLOS is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer. Attracting one of publishing’s most inspiring leaders, PLOS has named Elizabeth Marincola as CEO, effective August 12, 2013. For the past 8 years Marincola served as President and CEO of Society for Science & the Public (SSP), an organization dedicated to advancing public understanding and appreciation of science, with an emphasis on high school students and teachers. SSP is also publisher of the Science News family of publications. Marincola served as the Executive Director of The American Society for Cell Biology from 1991-2005, and on the Board of PLOS from 2005-2011. Marincola received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“Elizabeth is a passionate and dynamic leader with extensive experience in publishing who fully embraces the Open Access principles that drive our mission”, said Gary Ward, Chairman of the Board, PLOS. “As PLOS enters a new phase of growth and innovation, the Board believes Elizabeth will instill new energy and focus to the organization that will help us continue to be a leading force in the transformation of research communication.”

“I am thrilled to be joining PLOS, an organization for which I have profound respect as a leading scientific publisher, Open Access advocate and technology innovator”, said Marincola. “I leave SSP in the hands of outstanding governance and management and am confident that the Society will continue to grow and prosper in the coming years. I look forward to forging new relationships at PLOS as we strive to grow and innovate.”

Longtime CEO, Peter Jerram, and Chief Financial Officer, Steve Borostyan, will be leaving the organization effective May 10, 2013. “Since its establishment as a publisher more than ten years ago, PLOS has grown to become a self-sustaining organization with more than 170 employees. This is a tremendous accomplishment that both PJ and Steve have been instrumental in making happen” said Ward. “We thank PJ and Steve for their years of service to the organization. They have done a fantastic job of guiding the organization and getting us to where we are today. They are an important part of PLOS history.”

The Board has appointed an interim leadership team effective immediately to ensure that PLOS is able to continue to move projects and strategic initiatives forward. Together with the existing PLOS Executive team, they will govern the organization until Marincola’s arrival.

JISC Collections purchases SpringerProtocols

May 3, 2013

Today, Springer announced that JISC Collections has purchased the archive content of SpringerProtocols; the world’s largest database of life sciences protocols. With immediate effect the SpringerProtocols archive content (up to and including 2012) is available free of charge to UK Higher and Further Education institutions and Research Councils. SpringerProtocols currently contains more than 31,000 protocols, most of which come from the classic book series “Methods in Molecular Biology”.

SpringerProtocols combines the world’s largest collection of life sciences and bio-medicine protocols with advanced search functionality. Used primarily in the life sciences, the protocols provide sets of instructions that allow scientists to recreate experiments in their own laboratories. These documents provide written procedural methods in the design and implementation of experiments that describe the safety, bias, procedures, equipment, statistical methods, reporting, and troubleshooting standards to be used in order to successfully conduct the experiment.

Lorraine Estelle, CEO of JISC Collections, said: “SpringerProtocols was ranked as a high priority by the UK community in our recent call for archives and collections. We are pleased to have purchased this key content in perpetuity on behalf of the community and be providing free access to this vital scientific resource.”

Roné Robbetze, Vice President Library Sales Northern/Western Europe & Africa, Springer, said: “The inclusion of SpringerProtocols in the JISC Collections’ resources will benefit both undergraduate and postgraduate students. The database allows researchers to more easily complete experiments in fields such as medicine, agriculture and life sciences. This Springer content will directly meet the needs of those wishing to work for biological and life science companies based in the UK, by providing practical hands-on skills for entering working life.”

SpringerProtocols, which was launched in 2008 and is continuously growing, derived its content mainly from six book series: Methods in Molecular Biology, Methods in Biotechnology, Methods in Molecular Medicine, Methods in Pharmacology and Toxicology, Neuromethods, and the Springer Protocols Handbooks.

ARL Sponsors Accelerating Science Award Program (ASAP)

May 3, 2013

ARL today joined major sponsors Public Library of Science (PLOS), Wellcome Trust, and Google to launch the Accelerating Science Award Program (ASAP), which recognizes the use of scientific research, published through open access, that has led to innovations in any field that benefits society.

The goal of the ASAP program is to build awareness and encourage the use of open access scientific research and, through these stories, inspire greater support for open access.

“ARL’s sponsorship of ASAP signals deep support from the research library community for open access publishing and for the authors who publish in open access journals,” said Elliott Shore, ARL executive director. “Open access encourages the sharing of research and promotes innovation, activities that are central to the mission of higher education and scholarship.”

This new, innovative program recognizes individuals who have used, applied, or remixed scientific research—published through open access—to innovate and make a difference in science, medicine, business, technology, or society as a whole. Potential nominees include individuals, teams, or groups of collaborators—such as scientists, researchers, educators, social service workers, technology leaders, entrepreneurs, policy makers, patient advocates, public health workers, and students—who have used scientific research in transformative ways.

Three top awards of $30,000 each will be presented. The nomination period is open from May 1 to June 15, 2013. Winners will be announced in Washington, DC, in October 2013, at an Open Access Week kickoff event hosted by SPARC and the World Bank.

The ASAP program is sponsored by 24 global organizations that value the transformative impact of applying scientific research, published through open access, to extend the reach of science and medicine.

For more information on the ASAP program, visit http://asap.plos.org/. See also the program rules at http://asap.plos.org/nominate/rules/. Follow and tweet about the ASAP program on Twitter using the hashtag #SciASAP.