How much does it cost to publish an open access article? This post reports a study published in F1000Research, in which the authors collected detailed data on each stage of scientific publishing, from acquisition, preparation, up to dissemination of content, considering six scenarios with different editorial service providers. The average cost varies between US$460 and US$520, depending on the number of articles published per year. … Read More →
How will the Rights Retention Strategy affect scholarly publishing? [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in September/2021]
The extent that authors retain control over their published research is dependent on what rights they sign over to their publisher prior to publication. As part of efforts to promote the immediate open publication of research a number of research funders have endorsed the Rights Retention Strategy (RRS), by which authors can declare their author-accepted manuscript to be open access. In this post Stephen Eglen, explores the rights retention strategy and discusses the potential impact it might have on scholarly communication more broadly. … Read More →
The Holy Grail does not exist: OPERAS-P and OASPA’s workshops for publishers on innovative business models for books [Originally published in the OAPEN blog in July/2020]
In May 2021, OPERAS and OASPA hosted a series of three European workshops on business models for open access books targeted specifically at small and medium-sized academic book publishers.. As part of the OPERAS-P project work package 6 (Innovation) OPERAS was looking into innovative, non-BPC business models. The feedback gathered in the course of these three workshops informed a report The Future of scholarly communications, published at the end of June 2021.
“The discussion showed that while the Holy Grail of OA book publishing does not exist, what does exist however, is a strong will to experiment with various approaches, spearheaded by small and medium sized academic book publishers.” … Read More →
Accelerating Plan S: open access agreements with smaller publishers
Open Access (OA) agreements between consortia, libraries and smaller independent publishers are increasingly being used around the world, reflected by the growing number of published OA articles. A recent report from the Association of Learned & Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), of which SciELO is a member, shows the progress being made in other regions of the world. On the other hand, Latin America, a pioneer in OA journals, does not suffer from these limitations, but for small publishers in many countries there is still a long way to go. … Read More →
Integration of national academic databases in Europe
The need for a comprehensive infrastructure for scholarly publications has been on the European Union’s agenda for a long time. In particular, the European Commission’s open science policy highlights the need for a good database for monitoring Open Access publications in Europe. However, many publications are still missing to rely on a comprehensive information infrastructure on open research. Over the past 10 years, European countries have invested significantly in national infrastructures, and now, at least 20 European countries have a national database for open publication research metadata. However, they are not yet integrated or widely used for cross-country comparisons. … Read More →
DOAJ to lead a collaboration to improve the preservation of open access journals [Originally published in ISSN.org in November/2020]
DOAJ, CLOCKSS Archive, Internet Archive, Keepers Registry/ISSN International Centre and Public Knowledge Project (PKP) have agreed to partner to provide an alternative pathway for the preservation of small-scale, APC-free, Open Access journals. … Read More →
Open but Unfair – The role of social justice in Open Access publishing [Originally published in the LSE Impact blog in October/2020]
Stage one of the Open Access (OA) movement promoted the democratization of scholarly knowledge, making work available so that anybody could read it. However, publication in highly ranked journals is becoming very costly, feeding the same vendor capitalists that OA was designed to sidestep. In this Q&A, Simon Batterbury argues that when prestige is valued over publication ethics, a paradoxical situation emerges where conversations about social justice take place in unjust journals. Academic freedom and integrity are at risk unless Open Access becomes not simply about the democratization of knowledge, but the ethics of its publication too. … Read More →
How effective are funding mandate for open access?
Plan S, launched in Europe late 2018 to accelerate the transition to open access starting in January 2020, imposes open access mandates to all publicly funded research. But would such mandates really be effective in promoting open access? A study showed that the results vary greatly among disciplines and funders. However, between the gold route and the green route, two-thirds of the articles are, in fact, available for reading. … Read More →
Notice to mariners – times have changed
Open access… and everything. Finally, what happened 20 years ago and felt like a utopia of copyright pirates is becoming irreversible, like a tsunami. Publishers and scientific information cannot ignore the theme of open access, so that they can compete and don’t stay out of this market. Things are changing and there’s no going back. … Read More →
SciELO updates the indexing criteria. New version takes effect from May 2020
The new criteria for indexing journals in the SciELO Brazil Collection are centered on best editorial practices and are effective as of May 2020. The criteria reflect the objectives, principles and functions of the SciELO Program and implement the priority lines of action of professionalization, internationalization and sustainability aligned with the open science modus operandi. Adjustment of editorial policy and management is the main action that journals must take to comply with the new criteria. … Read More →
SciELO Books and open access in epidemic times: More important than ever
The COVID-19 pandemic has spelled out the decisive role of open access (OA) to knowledge and scientific evidence. Globally, there is a temporary opening of collections of paid-for books and subscription journals to support overcoming the pandemic. SciELO Books permanently indexes, publishes and disseminates a collection of more than 700 books in OA, contributing to support public and professional policies, the expansion of the university, valuing the academic book, and the disciplines that make intensive use of the book. … Read More →
Why does reform of scientific communication seem so difficult and slow?
The world faces global problems for which science is needed as part of the solution. Yet the scientific communication system is not nearly as quick and open as necessary for efficient worldwide collaboration. The powers that are in a position to reform the system are too timid. Will crises like COVID-19 shake them awake? … Read More →
The SciELO publication model as an open access public policy
This post shares the brief description of the SciELO open access publication model presented by Abel L Packer, Director of SciELO, at the 14th Berlin Debate on Science and Science Policy which was themed “Who Owns Science? Reshaping the Scientific Value Chain in the 21st Century”. The description highlights the SciELO Program as a framework for the development and implementation of national policies to support quality journals and as an international cooperation program. The debate was held in the context of the Falling Walls Conference commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. … Read More →
Transparency: What Can One Learn from a Trove of Invoices? [Originally published in the Scholarly Kitchen blog in November/2019]
A new dataset from the Gates Foundation offers insights into author choices and APC pricing. … Read More →
Tropical Medicine/Infectious and Parasitic Diseases journals align with open science editorial practices
Three of the most important journals in the areas of Tropical Medicine/Infectious and Parasitic Diseases of the SciELO Brazil Collection decided to adopt open science practices to provide more transparency, increase sharing and open access to the research results they report. This is the first of a series of novel pilot projects promoted by SciELO to inform editorial policies as well as to enable the management and operation of journals in the appropriation of and interoperability with preprints, research data and other content underlying the article texts for subsequent progressive opening of the peer review process. … Read More →
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