1. The impact of article processing charges on libraries and what is being done to help
Following significant growth in gold open access publishing, Katie Shamash, in her post in The Impact Blog , looks at the available APC data and picks out some key insights. APCs are now an increasingly significant portion of institutions’ overall spend, with the quickly narrowing gap between gold open access APCs and those of hybrid journals representing an additional concern.
The blog post says (quote): Open APC data is crucial to promote a transparent market. However, there are some administrative difficulties that make it difficult to record APCs. One major difficulty is recording APCs that have been paid for from offset deals or prepaid accounts. Many institutions record these at £0, since they don’t know their true cost at the time of payment. This leads to underreporting of spend with publishers who offer offset deals. A second difficulty is that institutions are asked to prepare reports both for Jisc and for funders, all of which have different reporting periods........ (unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Mind the (Pay) Gap
We know that women are under-represented at the most senior levels of scholarly publishing, but is there also a male/female pay gap at the top? The analysis of publicly available data from 46 US non-profit organisations provides some answers, as well as showing the need for more work on this important topic, says Alice Meadows, in her post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): of the 321 individuals in the sample, 40 percent were women (130) and 60 percent were men (191). The average compensation was $314,586. At $287,291, women earned 86 percent of their male counterparts’ $333,164 average - slightly better than the US average. Like total and publications revenue, the range of individual compensation was quite broad - from $115K (the reportable minimum) to over $2M. Given this, median compensation is probably a more accurate indicator; women fared better on that basis, earning 93 percent of their male counterparts’ compensation - a median of $244,613 versus $264,140 for men. While these aggregate results are compelling on their own, there is more to learn from analysing compensation by job title and function, both on average and in relation to organisation size. This is particularly true when looking at the very top - among CEOs / executive directors....... (unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Impact in Action: Understanding open access content usage as it occurs
We all want our research to be read, cited and talked about as widely as possible, and promoting this work should be the mission of an open access publisher. But how do we monitor the impact of this promotion? Dylan Parker, in his post in the BioMed Central Blog, explores how metric services like Altmetric shed light on exactly where and how far your research is reaching.
The blog post says (quote): Complementary metrics services like Altmetrics help open access publishers give research stakeholders a broader overview of article activity across various channels where an author’s research might have impact at any given time. Many types of article usage, access and sharing are tracked and then proportionately represented in the color bar also seen in the article metrics section in the image above. Once clicked upon, we come to the detailed page with the affectionately-called Altmetric "donut." Research stakeholders can then easily see when and where an article is referred to and shared across policy documents, social media channels, platforms like Wikipedia and shared in tools like Mendeley......(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Doubts about data: US survey on academic attitudes to technology
Most faculty members say data-driven assessments and accountability efforts aren't helping them improve the quality of teaching and learning at their colleges and universities, according to the 2016 Inside Higher Ed Survey of Faculty Attitudes on Technology. Instead, instructors and a large share of academic technology administrators say the efforts are mainly designed to satisfy accreditors and politicians – not to increase degree completion rates, notes Carl Straumsheim, in his post in the Inside Higher ED post.
The blog post says (quote): This year's survey included a new section on scholarly communication that explored faculty members' views on publishing and their interactions with journals, including whether where an article is published affects their opinion about the work. Overall, faculty members are divided on the question: they either say they have more respect for scholarship published in subscription journals (49 per cent) or that it doesn't matter where the research is published (48 per cent). The gap was at its widest among tenured faculty members, 56 per cent of whom said they favoured research published in subscription journals. Very few faculty members said they have more respect for scholarship published in open-access journals (8 per cent)........ (unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Brock hosting Open Access Week events surrounding global movement
Open Access week, a global movement promoting free access to academic research, asks questions like, "How are scholarly publishing issues, such as the crisis in journal pricing, affecting the Brock community?" The idea of "open access" refers to unrestricted research. Basically, it's the idea that such knowledge and research should be accessible to those who are interested, in the name of furthering education for more people by making the secondary material and literature available to them, notes Shannon Parr, in her post in The Brock Press.
The blog post says (quote): Open Access week is an internationally recognised and celebrated event, despite only entering its eighth year. According to its self-named website and online publication, Openaccessweek.org, Open Access Week is "an invaluable chance to connect the global and momentum toward open sharing with the advancement of policy changes on the local level." All research institutions, libraries, think tanks and more have used the week in order to hold a variety of events. This year, Brock University is holding some of their own......(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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