1. Guest Post - A Study of Commenting on PLOS Articles
Despite the near consensus about the popularity (or lack thereof) of commenting on academic articles, there is surprisingly little publicly available data relating to commenting rates. To address this, a team of academics from the Universities of Sheffield and Loughborough have recently published research into article commenting on PLOS journals. In their guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, Simon Wakeling, Stephen Pinfield and Peter Willett report on their findings.
The blog post says (quote): While comparisons with the massive volume of comments on popular news and media sharing sites are obviously imperfect, there is nonetheless a widespread perception that article commenting has failed to embed itself in academic culture. Why is this significant? Article commenting is most relevant to two related aspects of current scholarly publishing environment. The first is the concept of post-publication peer review (PPPR). Angela Cochran once argued that "post-publication peer review = online commenting". While this might not necessarily be true for every version of PPPR (F1000 Research’s process, for example, involves invited reviewers submitting an open review after initial publication of the manuscript), it is true that some proponents of PPPR envision a model wherein the community of readers provide ongoing evaluation of the scholarly literature through comments.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Is Your APC Workflow Working?
Pressure from scholarly publishing stakeholders like funding institutions promises to accelerate change for Open Access publishing in drastic ways. Kurt Heisler, in his post in the CCC Blog, discusses whether the scholarly publishing workflow is healthy enough to thrive in the new normal.
The blog post says (quote): While the research community’s perception and awareness of OA publishing has evolved in recent years, OA publishing is far from universally adopted and endorsed. At the same time, it is impossible for the University’s OA support staff to efficiently inform every single potential author about the intricacies of all the various systems. The inefficiencies posed by the intricacies of all the various systems afflict more than just authors and OA staffers at universities. Confusion permeates every part of the publishing workflow. In addition to workflow issues, the report found administrative barriers, metadata concerns, and reporting and performance gaps. There are too many options, and many of them underperform. Publishers and other workflow providers must take advantage of current technological tools like smart content, auto-populating data, and sophisticated metadata tagging.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Find out who’s talking about your funded and Open Access research
Altmetric introduced some crucial new functionality to the Altmetric Explorer. The new search and filter options allow to find out how and by whom research funded by a specific organisation and/or published Open Access has been discussed online, notes Inez van Korlaar, in her post in the Altmetrics Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Funders, research administrators and other people involved in research assessment are very interested in understanding how the Open Access status of research outputs influences the subsequent Altmetric attention that the outputs receive. For instance: do Open Access (OA) articles get more attention? Therefore, in the Advanced Search menu in the Altmetric Explorer, users can now tick a box to restrict the search results to "Open Access outputs only". This will return only research outputs that have an Open Access version publicly and freely available on the web. Whether or not a research output is OA is marked as "true" or "false" in a new column within the Research Output CSV spreadsheet exports. Open Access status is also listed in the Research Outputs and Mentions endpoints of the Altmetric Explorer API.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Open and closed - What do reverse flips tell us about the scholarly publishing landscape?
The progress of Open Access (OA) is often measured by the proportion of journals that have transitioned to OA publication models. However, a number of journals have made the opposite choice and moved from open to closed access models. In their post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, Lisa Matthias, Najko Jahn and Mikael Laakso report on findings from the first study of journals that have made this reverse flip and assess what this phenomenon says about the wider ecosystem of research communication.
The blog post says (quote): Although launching OA journals seems to be relatively easy, consistent and stable publication over several years is not, especially if financial support is lacking and the journal is largely dependent on the voluntary labour of scholars. Developing and strengthening support mechanisms for the sustainability and growth of existing scholar-led OA journals is essential in this regard. Moreover, they also found that in some cases, research articles originally published as OA were put behind a paywall when the journal reverse-flipped. This was not the main focus of their study, but they do want to raise the issue of proper content licensing and emphasise its importance to increase the likelihood that materials remain in open circulation and decrease uncertainties regarding their reusability. The OA model is not the root cause of these problems, but rather other problematic aspects of the scholarly publishing system; for example, the prestige-driven evaluation system, and the increasing concentration of journals within a few large commercial entities.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Guest Post: Evaluating Open Access in a Consortial Context
As several recent announcements and initiatives have shown, Open Access (OA) negotiations between libraries and publishers are complex, in a constant state of flux, and provide little predictability - and OA models and negotiations within library consortia contain complexities of their own. Gwen Evans, in her guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, suggests that there is no standard Read and Publish or Publish and Read deal that will fit all consortia, and significant negotiation and customisation is needed for each arrangement.
The blog post says (quote): Library consortia that fall somewhere in between “Read” and "Publish" may be faced with differential investment and commitment from "Publish" institutions versus "Read" institutions as well as having to create different models and workflows for different publishers. From the point of view of a library consortium, when assessing the agreements finalised by other consortia, and working through what works for theirs, it is important to anticipate sameness as a rarity. It’s highly unlikely that OA deals struck with one kind of consortium will be available or workable for another type. Efforts to develop OA models that work for library consortia will take time, as many of their sister consortia have already recognised. While patience, research, and the sharing of information will all be crucial at a consortial level, the ability to identify their position on the Read or Publish Continuum will hold significant weight during negotiations with publishers...........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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