New IEEE Open Access Journals Receive First Impact Factors

July 28, 2023

IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization advancing technology for humanity, announced today that 12 of IEEE’s new fully open access journals launched in 2020 were accepted for indexing by Clarivate and received their first Journal Impact Factors according to the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Clarivate, released in late June 2023.

The annual JCR study examines the influence and impact of scholarly research and offers a well-established, objective means to evaluate the world’s leading journals. By compiling articles’ cited references, the JCR’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is one of several measurements available to authors to gauge quality, impact, and trustworthiness of publications, along with, for example, Article Influence Score, Eigenfactor or Scopus CiteScore. These measurements are especially important to help new authors navigate the publications landscape as they make important decisions as to where to publish their research and helps them avoid journals of a predatory nature. Each year, many established IEEE journals dominate the citation rankings across multiple technology fields.

In 2020, in an effort to meet the evolving needs of authors to offer more fully open access options to broadly share their research and meet the requirements of key funder mandates, IEEE launched new fully open access journals in a wide range of technologies including biomedical engineering, computing, nanotechnology, power electronics, telecommunications, vehicular technology, and more. IEEE has continued to rapidly expand this portfolio and today offers more than 30 fully open access journals, in addition to over 170 hybrid open access journals.

The IEEE fully open access journals launched in 2020 that were awarded their first Journal Impact Factors are:

IEEE Open Journal of Antennas and Propagation
IEEE Open Journal of Circuits and Systems
IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society
IEEE Open Journal of the Computer Society
IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology
IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society
IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems
IEEE Open Journal of Nanotechnology
IEEE Open Journal of Power Electronics
IEEE Open Access Journal of Power and Energy
IEEE Open Journal of Signal Processing
IEEE Open Journal of Vehicular Technology

According to Clarivate, the Web of Science Core Collection™ follows a unique selection process conducted by expert in-house editors using a set of 24 quality criteria designed to select for editorial rigor and best practice at the journal level. Journals that meet the quality criteria, a criteria that less than 20% of submitted journals are able to meet, are entered into the Clarivate Emerging Sources Citation Index™ (ESCI). The IEEE journals listed above successfully met this set of quality criteria within just a few short years of launch and were entered into the Web of Science index.

“In keeping with our mission, in 2020, IEEE made the bold move to launch many new open access journals at once to meet the needs of thousands of expert researchers and authors, ensuring that we provided outstanding outlets for their research, no matter who funds their discoveries,” said Sergio Benedetto, IEEE Vice President-Publication Services and Products. “This achievement reinforces IEEE’s commitment to journal quality as each publication, no matter the model, follows IEEE’s established publishing principles and high standard of peer review. These new publications play an important role in serving the community in publishing critical new discoveries for the millions of IEEE Xplore users around the world. IEEE continues to support open science and provide more options and choices to support the work and needs of all authors and researchers.”

For more detailed information on IEEE citation rankings and how each bibliometric measurement is calculated, please see the full results. For more information on IEEE open access journals and programs for authors and institutions, please visit the IEEE Open site.

Launch of New National Open Science Strategies

July 26, 2023

Several European countries have launched or renewed national open science strategies in recent months. These policies aim to co-ordinate the development and implementation of open access, research assessment reform, and other elements of open science between national actors.

Science Europe welcomes the new national strategies that are fully in line with our Direction Paper on Open Science as part of a well-functioning research system.

Recent national strategies that have been launched include those in Spain (May 2023), Slovenia (May 2023), and Romania (December 2022). They join longstanding strategies elsewhere in Europe, for example those in France and the Netherlands.

Beyond Europe, the US White House Office of Science and Technology Policy launched the Year of Open Science in January 2023, featuring actions across the federal government throughout the year to advance a national open science policy in the United States.

Role of National Strategies Discussed at Conference on Open Science

The role of national strategies in the development and implementation of open science policies was explored during the Science Europe Conference on Open Science that took place on 18–19 October 2022.

Expert speakers and participants discussed the various ways in which these strategies and action plans provide coherence to national systems, notably ensuring that all relevant actors and researchers at all stages of their careers are meaningfully engaged in this process. For more information, please see the presentations on the conference webpage and the conference report.

NISO Approves Working Group to Develop Recommended Practice for Operationalizing Open Access Business Processes

July 26, 2023

Voting members of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) have approved the formation of a Working Group to develop a Recommended Practice for operationalizing open access (OA) business processes. NISO is seeking members from across the information community to join the Working Group, which will address the lack of infrastructure supporting OA content by helping stakeholders in scholarly communications to track, assess, and report on OA publications, authors, and funding more easily.

The volume of OA content has proliferated in recent years, but the systems and workflows currently used by publishers and librarians were designed for traditional, pay-to-read models. Business processes are currently inadequate to address the requirements of—for example—transformative agreements, which require complex financial management and the tracking of authors and publishing outputs across large institutions. Libraries face challenges in managing micropayments and assessing the financial impact of such agreements, and authors often have difficulty determining whether their manuscript is eligible for OA publication under agreement terms. These complexities also impact publisher editorial and financial systems. As a result, organizations often adopt manual processes for managing these agreements, giving rise to inefficiencies across the ecosystem.

NISO’s Working Group will address the problem by identifying gaps in the infrastructure for OA publications and agreements, developing terminology to describe the surrounding processes, and outlining best practices for exchanging data and analytics and metrics. The work will focus first on the metadata required for exchange prior to publication as well as for article-level financial transactions, and then address reporting following publication. As the new Recommended Practice will be of interest to publishers, libraries, authors, funders, and OA advocates and community initiatives, the group is seeking volunteers representing a range of stakeholder groups from across the scholarly communications industry.

Jack Maness, Associate Dean, University of Denver Libraries, who helped develop the Working Group proposal, states, “The industry clearly needs better infrastructure to support the volume of OA publications and agreements. The new Working Group has an excellent opportunity to address this problem with NISO Recommended Practices that will standardize business processes around OA content and make workflows more efficient for multiple stakeholders.”

“In the 1990s, the shift from print to digital transformed systems and workflows in scholarly communications,” says Nettie Lagace, NISO Associate Executive Director. “NISO is excited to help facilitate a new transformation in business processes, one that will accommodate the growth in OA publications and complex business models we’re seeing today.”

For more information or to volunteer to join the Operationalizing OA Business Processes Working Group, please contact nisohq@niso.org.

STM joins Year of Open Science

July 26, 2023

In accordance with STM’s mission to advance credible and accessible research, STM has joined a coalition of US federal agencies, organizations, and universities in supporting the Year of Open Science and NASA’s Transform to Open Science initiative.

As a part of the coalition, STM and other member organizations commit to transforming the culture of science to emphasize openness and inclusion in research.

“The Year of Open Science is a great way to catalyze action to ensure that validated, quality articles reporting on the latest discoveries are available widely to help society, linked to related data and other outputs,” said STM CEO Caroline Sutton.

“STM and its members have been key partners with stakeholders, including federal agencies, to provide access to high quality, validated information that advances innovation. Through the Year of Open Science, STM looks forward to opportunities to work with federal agencies to enable sharing in a supported, sustainable manner.”

STM cited four key commitments to this initiative. The commitments include supporting sustainable pathways to open access in collaboration with federal agencies and other stakeholders, continuing work to protect the integrity and trust of the open scholarly record, improving research data sharing through STM’s Research Data initiative, and mapping the open research infrastructure to identify gaps and seek opportunities to improve linking and discoverability.

Learn more about STM’s statements of commitment to open science.

Springer Nature continues open research drive with acquisition of protocols.io

July 26, 2023

Springer Nature, the world’s leading publisher of protocols, has acquired protocols.io – a secure platform for developing and sharing reproducible methods.

Scientific advancement depends on data credibility and work that can be verified, built upon and reproduced. Sharing all elements of research, including data, methods and materials, and even negative results, makes research more efficient, enables reproducibility and therefore builds trust in science. Studies show that lack of awareness of existing work or negative results leads to unnecessary duplication and could waste up to €26 billion in Europe alone.

By laying out detailed step-by-step instructions for research methods, aiming to standardise the process, ensure accuracy of results and enabling research to be reproduced, protocols have a vital role to play in addressing this. With protocols.io joining Springer Nature’s leading protocol offering, researchers will now have the option to make their protocols openly available on the protocols.io platform (fully OA) as well as publishing them in peer-reviewed publications (searchable via the Springer Nature Experiments).

Commenting, Harsh Jegadeesan, Chief Publishing Officer Springer Nature, said:

“Springer Nature’s commitment to open research shines through with our leadership in open access in all aspects of research, including data, code, and protocols. With protocols.io on board, we’re driving forward an open, more reproducible research ecosystem that accelerates solutions to the world´s most urgent challenges”

Founded in 2012 protocols.io has gained a trusted reputation as an innovator within the protocols and methods space, providing a secure platform for scientific collaboration outside of traditional protocols and methods workflows. Alongside its offering for hosting protocols, researchers also benefit from the ability to write and share methods, within the platform, supporting greater collaboration and enabling more efficient, and effective, workflows.

protocols.io will form part of Springer Nature’s expanding Solutions business which is committed to providing researchers, and their institutions, with a comprehensive suite of tools and services designed to bolster their success, enhance their impact, and boost productivity.

Lenny Teytelman, CEO and co-founder of protocols.io, added:

“Springer Nature has a long history of innovation and leadership in the area of promoting protocol-sharing and recognition for method development. Our 2021 partnership with Springer Nature underscored a strong alignment and a common vision between our companies in this area. The collaboration also highlighted a shared commitment towards open research and further innovation in protocol sharing. We are very proud to be joining Springer Nature, taking advantage of their expertise and scale in the protocols space, but also now collaboratively building on ways in which we can bring high quality methods to help the research community facilitate discussion, revision, optimization, and reuse. We are excited to expand our offering as part of a global publisher and to continue improving protocols.io, so that scientists and their research can benefit further from access to dynamic and interactive protocols.”

In 2022 Springer Nature published over 154,000 OA articles, with nearly 6000 protocols, and supported over 2.5million authors in publishing their work OA. More on its commitment to open research can be read here and in its latest annual progress report.

Taylor & Francis Launches New Open Access Books Initiative Supported by Jisc

July 24, 2023

Taylor & Francis announces a new international collective funding pilot, Pledge to Open, which aims to publish 70 open access (OA) books on a broad range of global issues, including climate change, mental health, women’s rights, and race.

All higher education institutions in the UK can take part in the OA scheme thanks to an agreement struck with Jisc, the UK’s higher education library consortium.

Institutions can support one or more of seven interdisciplinary themed collections, each comprising 10 frontlist research books. If funding targets are met, the books will be published open access for everyone to read online, download and share.

The themed collections for this initial pilot are: climate change; green renewable energy; pandemic; populism and extremism; race and racism; wellbeing and mental health; and women’s health and rights.

Jeremy North, Managing Director of Advanced Learning at Taylor & Francis, said: “This ambitious pilot harnesses the power of OA to increase the reach and impact of research on key issues for the future of our societies and our planet. Support for open access books is growing and we hope Pledge to Open will enhance that by providing an equitable option that doesn’t rely on authors having access to funding to cover OA publishing charges.”

Caren Milloy, Jisc’s director of licensing, commented: “As we progress towards the commencement of the UKRI’s OA policy for long form publications, and as one of the largest publishers of UK research monographs, this agreement supports the transition to open access for monographs through collective funding rather than book processing charges. Diamond models such as this are imperative to driving a more equitable and sustainable open access publishing environment.”

Alex Robinson, Chief Commercial Officer at Taylor & Francis, added: “Accelerating the growth of open access books is an objective we share with Jisc, so we’re delighted they are supporting the launch of Pledge to Open. We’re also keen to hear from additional organizations who would like to explore the potential of this collective funding model.”

Institutions can join Pledge to Open straight away. The required pledge varies by institution, according to their size as well as the number and subjects of the collections they want to support.

All 10 books in a collection will be published open access once its funding goal has been reached. If over half the target is achieved in the 12-month pledging period, a proportion of the titles will still be made OA. Pledging institutions will have perpetual unlimited access to all books in their selected collections, regardless of whether the funding goal is met.

Taylor & Francis marks 10 years of open access book publishing in 2023. With over 1,500 fully OA titles in its portfolio, combined with thousands of individual open chapters, Taylor & Francis is one of the leading open access book publishers. Responding to feedback from institutions, funders and knowledge makers, the range of innovative Taylor & Francis OA book publishing options continues to evolve, offering choice, sustainability, impact and value.

“Open Access: Understanding Mission, Models, and Mandates” Features Sessions Tailored to Beginner and Advanced Levels

July 19, 2023

Don’t miss your chance to register for SSP’s highly interactive workshop, “Open Access: Understanding Mission, Models, and Mandates,” back by popular demand for its third year, July 19 and 20. Led by Professor and Coordinator for Research and Teaching Professional Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Scholarly Kitchen Chef Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, we’ve expanded this year’s workshop across two sessions tailored to experience levels—OA 101: The Basics, which will cover the history and evolution of OA, and OA 201: The Models, which will cover emerging business models and funder mandates. Attend either session or attend both to fully enhance your understanding of Open Access issues.

Session 1 | OA 101: The Basics
Wednesday, July 19, 2023, 12:00 – 2:00 pm ET

Over the past two decades, Open Access publishing has evolved from an idea into a widely accepted practice in scholarly communications. Participants in this introductory workshop will learn about the history and evolution of OA principles and practices, from the Budapest Open Access Initiative of 2002 to Plan S and the recent OSTP memo, emphasizing distinguishing green and gold OA. Participants will explore how these considerations impact publishing at the article and journal level and how copyright and creative commons licenses may also factor in author compliance with funder mandates.

Session 2 | OA 201: The Models
Thursday, July 20, 2023, 12:00 – 2:00 pm ET

Open access publishing is funded through various models, including micropayments, transformative agreements, pure publish agreements, memberships, and collective action. Participants in this workshop will learn about the various business models, their applicability in different contexts, and how they can complement one another. The workshop will also explore how these models impact author compliance with funder mandates.

This workshop has become a must-attend for early-career professionals as well as those more experienced in scholarly communications who want to enhance their understanding of the latest developments in open access publishing and their contexts in the wider academic ecosystem. Individuals can register for one or both sessions based on their experience level. Organized by SSP’s Training Task Force (chaired by Patti Davis and Jeff Mahoney), this Open Access workshop is a cornerstone of our efforts to develop programs that offer foundational knowledge on important issues for scholarly publishing professionals.

Discounted rates are available for AUPresses, NASIG, NISO, LPC, and ACSE Members, and bulk discounts make this a perfect professional development opportunity. Both sessions are designed to be very interactive, so space is limited. Registration is limited to 60 individuals at each session, and there are only a few seats remaining. Save your spot now!

Science funding agencies say no to using AI for peer review

July 19, 2023

News from science.org

Neuroscientist Greg Siegle was at a conference in early April when he heard something he found “very scary.” Another scientist was gushing that ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) tool released in November 2022, had quickly become indispensable for drafting critiques of the thick research proposals he had to wade through as a peer reviewer for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Other listeners nodded, saying they saw ChatGPT as a major time saver: Drafting a review might entail just pasting parts of a proposal, such as the abstract, aims, and research strategy, into the AI and asking it to evaluate the information.

NIH and other funding agencies, however, are putting the kibosh on the approach. On 23 June, NIH banned the use of online generative AI tools like ChatGPT “for analyzing and formulating peer-review critiques”—likely spurred in part by a letter from Siegle, who is at the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues. After the conference they warned the agency that allowing ChatGPT to write grant reviews is “a dangerous precedent.” In a similar move, the Australian Research Council (ARC) on 7 July banned generative AI for peer review after learning of reviews apparently written by ChatGPT.

Other agencies are also developing a response. The U.S. National Science Foundation has formed an internal working group to look at whether there may be appropriate uses of AI as part of the merit review process, and if so what “guardrails” may be needed, a spokesperson says. And the European Research Council expects to discuss AI for both writing and evaluating proposals.

ChatGPT and other large language models train on vast databases of information to generate text that appears to be written by humans. The bots have already prompted scientific publishers concerned about ethics and factual accuracy to restrict their use for writing papers. Some publishers and journals, including Science, are also banning their use by reviewers.

For the funding agencies, confidentiality tops the list of concerns. When parts of a proposal are fed into an online AI tool, the information becomes part of its training data. NIH worries about “where data are being sent, saved, viewed, or used in the future,” its notice states.

Critics also worry that AI-written reviews will be error-prone (the bots are known to fabricate), biased against nonmainstream views because they draw from existing information, and lack the creativity that powers scientific innovation. “The originality of thought that NIH values is lost and homogenized with this process and may even constitute plagiarism,” NIH officials wrote on a blog. For journals, reviewer accountability is also a concern. “There’s no guarantee the [reviewer] understands or agrees with the content” they’re providing, says Kim Eggleton, who heads peer review at IOP Publishing.

In Australia, ARC banned grant reviewers from using generative AI tools 1 week after an anonymous Twitter account, ARC_Tracker, run by a researcher there reported that some scientists had received reviews that appeared to be written by ChatGPT. Some got similar appraisals when they pasted parts of their proposals into ChatGPT, ARC_Tracker says. One review even included a giveaway, the words “regenerate response” that appear as a prompt at the end of a ChatGPT response. (ScienceInsider confirmed ARC_Tracker’s identity but agreed to anonymity so this scientist and others can use the account to freely critique ARC and government policies without fear of repercussions.)

Scientists may think ChatGPT produces meaningful feedback, but it essentially regurgitates the proposal, ARC_Tracker’s owner says. Admittedly, some human reviewers do that, too. But, “There is a very big difference between a proper review–which should provide insight, critique, informed opinion and expert assessment–and a mere summary of what’s already in a proposal,” the scientist wrote in an email to ScienceInsider.

Some researchers, however, say AI offers a chance to improve the peer-review process. The NIH ban is a “technophobic retreat from the opportunity for positive change,” says psychiatric geneticist Jake Michaelson of the University of Iowa. Reviewers could use the tools to check their critique to see whether they’ve overlooked anything in the proposal, help them assess work from outside their own field, and smooth language they did not realize sounds “petty or even mean,” Michaelson says. “Eventually I see AI becoming the first line of the peer-review process, with human experts supplementing first-line AI reviews. … I would rather have my own proposals reviewed by ChatGPT-4 than a lazy human reviewer,” he adds.

The landscape is likely to change over time. Several scientists noted on NIH’s blog that some generative AI models work offline and don’t violate confidentiality—eliminating at least that concern. NIH responded that it expects to “provide additional guidance” for a “rapidly evolving area.”

Mohammad Hosseini, an ethics postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University who has written about AI in manuscript review, agrees the NIH ban is reasonable, for now: “Given the sensitivity of issues and projects the NIH deals with, and the novelty of AI tools, adopting a cautious and measured approach is absolutely necessary.”

Oable and RightsLink partner to support open access workflows in libraries worldwide

July 18, 2023

Oable, Wiley’s cross-publisher payment and reporting solution for institutions, and RightsLink for Scientific Communications, the industry-trusted platform for shared OA management by Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), are partnering to connect libraries and publishers globally. The agreement between the two companies entails the seamless exchange of metadata between two market-leading systems with the goal of speeding up open access article payments and easing reporting.

“Interoperability of metadata and collaboration in the interest of our customers both on the library and the publisher side are key to make open access efficient,” says Dr. Sven Fund, Senior Director at Wiley. “With this partnership, we remove costly barriers to a broader adoption of OA.”

“For CCC, transparency and efficiency in publisher and library workflows are paramount,” says Jamie Carmichael, Senior Director, Information and Content Solutions at CCC. “We are delighted to collaborate with Oable to create a new option for seamless OA data management within institutions working across multiple publishers.”

The planned integration marks the evolution of an existing pilot between the two systems in which publishers opt to help librarians streamline OA management across RightsLink and Oable.

IEEE Journals Dominate Citation Rankings Across Technology Categories

July 18, 2023

IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization advancing technology for humanity, announced today that its journals once again dominated the citation rankings across multiple technology fields including Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Telecommunications, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Hardware, Automation & Control Systems, Cybernetics, Imaging Science, and more, according to the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Clarivate, released in late June 2023.

Some highlights from the report:

● The new JCR data reveals that IEEE publications indexed by Clarivate have been cited nearly six million times from 2018 to 2022, demonstrating a significant impact in shaping new research and innovation across multiple technology categories.

● IEEE has more top quartile publications than any other publisher in many core fields of interest including Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications, Automation and Control, Computer Hardware Imaging Science and more.

● A wide range of IEEE publications were consistently listed among the most-cited journals in multiple technology categories.

● Several IEEE journals saw significant increases in Journal Impact Factor, with some increasing as much as 30%, 40%, or even 70% over the prior year.

● In addition, 12 of IEEE’s new fully open access journals launched in 2020 have received their first Journal Impact Factors (JIF) in record time.

Top-Cited Journals in a Range of Technology Categories

In the most recent JCR report, a wide range of IEEE publications were consistently listed among the most-cited journals in multiple categories of the JCR findings as measured by Journal Impact Factor. IEEE periodicals led in many technology-related categories:

● 15 of the top 20 journals in Electrical & Electronic Engineering

● 10 of the top 10 journals in Telecommunications

● 5 of the top 10 journals in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence

● 3 of the top 5 journals in Automation and Control systems

● 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Cybernetics

● 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Hardware & Architecture

● 3 of the top 5 journals in Computer Science, Information Systems

● 3 of the top 5 journals in Imaging Science

#1 Ranked Journals in Several Categories

The following IEEE journals ranked No. 1 in their respective JCR categories:

● Cybernetics, Computing – IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (JIF: 11.8)

● Information Systems, Computing – IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (JIF: 35.6)

● Imaging Science – IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine (JIF 14.6)

● Telecommunications – IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials (JIF: 35.6)

● Remote Sensing – IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine (JIF: 14.6)

Significant Increases in Journal Impact Factor

Several IEEE Journals saw significant increases in JIF, with some increasing as much as 30%, 40% or even 70%. Below are a few examples of several titles that saw significant increases in the latest report:

● IEEE Access: JIF of 3.9, an increase of 12%

● IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology: JIF of 8.4, an increase of 43%

● IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine: JIF of 6.9, an increase of 71%

● IEEE Communications Magazine: JIF of 11.2, an increase of 24%

● IEEE Transactions on Communications: JIF of 8.3, an increase of 34%

● IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles: JIF of 8.2, an increase of 64%

● IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics: JIF of 6.7, an increase of 12%

● Proceedings of the IEEE: JIF of 20.6, an increase of 38%

● IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications: JIF of 16.4, an increase of 25%

● IEEE Wireless Communications Letters: JIF of 6.3, an increase of 19%

● IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications: JIF of 10.4, an increase of 25%

The annual JCR study by Clarivate examines the influence and impact of scholarly research and offers a systematic, objective means to evaluate the world’s leading journals. By compiling articles’ cited references, the JCR helps to measure research influence and impact, and shows the relationship between citing and cited journals.

“In addition to publisher reputation and readership, the JCR Impact Factor rankings are one of several mechanisms used by researchers to assess the quality of journals when deciding where to submit their articles,” said Sergio Benedetto, IEEE Vice President-Publication Services and Products. “The rankings demonstrate the important role of IEEE publications in publishing important new discoveries in our fields of interest and disseminating that critical new information to the global community of millions of IEEE Xplore users. I would like to thank all of our many authors, reviewers, and editors for their important contributions to help IEEE continue to publish the highest quality information in the field.”

First Impact Factors for 12 New Fully Open Access Journals

In addition, 12 of IEEE’s new fully open access journals launched in 2020 have received their first Journal Impact Factors in Clarivate’s Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI). For example, the IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, one of IEEE’s recently launched open access titles, was ranked as the number two title in the Telecommunications category of the ESCI with an impact factor of 7.9.

Bibliometrics Beyond the Journal Impact Factor

IEEE also monitors other common bibliometric journal measurements such as Article Influence® Score and Eigenfactor®. Although calculated differently than Impact Factor, IEEE journals rank highly in those additional citation measurements as well:

● IEEE Access, IEEE’s largest fully open access publication, is ranked as the No. 1 journal by Eigenfactor in Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications. In fact, IEEE has 9 of the top 10 journals in Electrical Engineering by Eigenfactor Score.

● IEEE Transactions on Image Processing was ranked as the No. 1 journal by Eignefactor in Artificial Intelligence. This was followed by IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, and IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, respectively, taking the top 4 spots in the AI category.

● In addition, IEEE has 8 of the top 10 journals in Electrical Engineering and the top 10 journals in Telecommunications as calculated by Article Influence Score.

For more detailed information on IEEE rankings and how each bibliometric measurement is calculated, please see the full results.

Wiley Rolls Out New Initiatives to Accelerate Innovation in Research Publishing

July 18, 2023

Wiley a knowledge company and global leader in research, publishing and knowledge solutions, has rolled out a series of new initiatives to accelerate innovation in research publishing including its Innovation Lab, Researcher Fellowship program, and Innovation Certification in Scholarly Publishing.

These new initiatives are led by Wiley Partner Solutions, which serves associations, scientific publishers, societies, libraries and corporations as they transform their business strategies and publishing processes in the open research era.

“These initiatives help us meet the pressing needs of the research community so that they can focus on solving global challenges,” said Guido F. Herrmann, Senior Vice President of Wiley Partner Solutions. “By bringing researchers in-house early in the product development process, we’releveraging the expertise of our partners to accelerate innovation and discovery.”

These initiatives include:

Wiley’s Innovation Lab, which opened in June 2023 in Wiley’s new Berlin office, serves as a dedicated space where researchers, customers and industry experts gather to share ideas and actively work on the top issues in scholarly publishing. Wiley hosts thought leadership events and innovation engagement workshops in the Innovation Lab throughout the year to empower collaboration across the publishing industry.
The Researcher Fellowship program, launched in April 2023, brings the voice of the researcher directly into active product development discussions across Wiley Partner Solutions. These paid engagements allow researchers to work with strategy, product and innovation teams to define and build solutions that reduce barriers for researchers and authors to research, write, publish, and share their expertise globally.
The Innovation Certification Program, started in January 2023, recognizes the contributions of researchers, customers, end-users, subject-matter experts, product owners, and visionaries who have worked with Wiley’s innovation team on pressing industry issues and reflects a network of innovators in scholarly publishing.

Together, these innovation initiatives underscore Wiley’s commitment to supporting researchers and driving value across the entire publishing ecosystem. To receive more information on these programs, and Wiley Partner Solutions, contact us here.

IOP Publishing’s latest Environmental Research series journals now open for submissions

July 18, 2023

IOP Publishing’s (IOPP) new environmental research journals are now open for submissions. Announced earlier this year, the two new open access (OA) journals: Environmental Research: Energy and Environmental Research: Food Systems are the latest additions to IOPP’s expanding Environmental Research Series which now includes eight open access titles.

IOPP’s Environmental Research series builds on the established reputation of the journal Environmental Research Letters (ERL) and shares the same outstanding levels of author service, inclusive editorial policies, strict quality assurance and has open science principles at its core.

IOP Publishing will waive all OA article publication charges (APCs) for manuscripts submitted to the journals before 2025. Launched in response to growing demand from their research communities, and aligned with several of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), all content will be published OA to remove barriers for all readers and deliver maximum visibility and dissemination for authors and their work. IOPP data shows that content published OA is downloaded 81% more than paywalled content and cited 31% more, demonstrating the substantial benefits to publishing OA.

Dr Tim Smith, Head of Portfolio Development at IOP Publishing, said: “As the body of essential environmental research increases, researchers want to know that their work is having the greatest impact and reaching the widest audience possible. The new titles will be part of our Environmental Research series of Open Access journals, and we look forward to publishing content which delivers significant benefits for our authors and the wider community, creating forums that lead to enhanced collaboration, maximum multidisciplinary reach and the opportunity to shape policies that ultimately drive positive global change for our planet.”

In the spirit of transparency and reproducibility, all authors publishing in the journals are encouraged to share data and code where appropriate for the benefit of the research community. The journals also apply double anonymous and transparent peer review and reviewers can invite a colleague to review with them under the newly introduced co-review policy.