1. Open Access Reinterpreted
‘Open Access’ (not to be confused with ‘accessibility’) is more than the removal of the cost to the reader; Open Access means the removal of other restrictions, in a way that the content can be fully used the way we use content today, with both human and computational methods, without the need to request the usual permissions, speeding things up and enabling a culture of collegial sharing and reciprocity, notes Ernesto Priego, in his post in the Inside Higher ED post.
The blog post says (quote): People are free to use terms differently, to appropriate them and re-appropriate them. However, there is a reason why interpretive communities of practice agree on terms. It is not just me personally who agrees that Open Access is not just the removal of paywalls. Many agree that achieving Open Access means a concerted, gradual effort to change scholarly communications through open licensing, allowing the legal reuse without previous permission of the published articles (or other 'outputs')........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. Co-opting "Official" Channels through Infrastructures for Openness
Last week, the news broke about a new service called DOAI that is designed to support open access. It is not a publishing model or a repository but rather a type of infrastructure. When a user inputs a DOI, DOAI connects the user to a freely available copy of the publication. This is the latest of a series of developments in terms of infrastructure and services in support of open access, discusses Roger C. Schonfeld in his post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog.
The blog post says (quote): DOAI has not yet found the right way to insert itself into a user's workflow, since it currently requires that a user copy a DOI and navigate to its alternative resolver. Building on the browser extension model, however, there is an obvious prospect for DOAI. When a user navigates to a website or loads a PDF in a browser, a DOAI extension would send any DOI links found directly to the DOAI resolver. It would thereby use this link to take the researcher seamlessly to the open or free version. Similar options could presumably be introduced into PDF management services like Mendeley. This would be an interesting example of infiltrating the standard and emerging research workflow, of co-opting it, to support not only open but apparently non-gold options as well.......(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. The role of ego in academic profile services: Comparing Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Mendeley, and ResearcherID
Academic profiling services are a pervasive feature of scholarly life. In their post in The Impact Blog, Alberto Martín-Martín, Enrique Orduna-Malea and Emilio Delgado López-Cózar discuss the advantages and disadvantages of major profile platforms and look at the role of ego in how these services are built and used. Scholars validate these services by using them and should be aware that the portraits shown in these platforms depend to a great extent on the characteristics of the "mirrors" themselves.
The blog post says (quote): Each academic profile platform offered distinct and complementary data on the impact of scientific and academic activities as a consequence of their different user bases, document coverage, specific policies, and technical features. Not all platforms have a homogenous coverage of all scientific disciplines. Likewise, their user bases aren’t uniform either. Researchers should be aware that the bibliometric portraits shown in these platforms depend to a great extent on the individual characteristics of the "mirrors" themselves..………..(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Credit where credit is due: Research parasites and tackling misconceptions about academic data sharing
Posted by Benedikt Fecher and Gert G. Wagner in The Impact Blog, this post discusses a recent editorial which faced considerable criticism for typecasting researchers who use or build on previous datasets as “research parasites”. They argue that the authors appear to miss the point, not only of data sharing, but of scientific research more broadly. But as problematic as the editorial may be, it points to a wider issue for the scientific community, which is adequate mechanisms for credit and contribution.
The blog post says (quote): However the authors touch upon a valid point: the issue of adequate credit for scientific data sharing.They indicate that the adequate form of recognition for data sharing is co-authorship. They suggest to work "symbiotically, rather than parasitically, with the investigators holding the data, moving the field forward in a way that neither group could have done on its own." While that is certainly true in particular cases, we argue that co-authorship as the sole instrument for giving credit will unnecessarily restrict the potential of data sharing and can even be to the detriment of the original researcher, for instance if the resulting publications lack quality. And in the case of replication studies, co-authorship makes no scientific sense.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. The Academic Publishing Scandal in Two Minutes
Academic and scientific publishing is a unique industry. In every other area of content creation, the interests of the publisher rest in increasing sales or exposure on behalf of creators, but publishers of academic journals have a vested interest in locking away knowledge from the majority of humanity. In his post in the Big Think Blog, Simon Oxenham presents a video with commentary from Aaron Swartz to explain why.
The blog post says (quote): The value of academic research is incalculable, so publishers can charge whatever they want. The price of access to academic research is rising exponentially, doubling three times over the last three decades; in that time it has never fallen. While every other industry rises and falls with the tides of change, the profits of academic publishers seem infallible and that's because publishers know they hold a monopoly on the information they possess, and universities and hospitals depend on this information so they will break the bank to pay........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
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