Tag: Open Access

Zika Fast Track

How can scientific journals assist in the response to Public Health Emergencies? The journal Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz has innovated by creating a fast track for manuscripts submitted on the topic of the Zika Virus. The fast track procedure allows manuscripts to be posted on-line within 24 hours of submission making the data within them available to reader scrutiny and sharing while the manuscripts undergo peer-review. The journal is already reaping some benefits from this approach. Read More →

Open Access reviewed: stricter criteria preserve credibility

The most comprehensive index of open access journals, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), reviewed its inclusion criteria, in view of allegations of the presence of predatory journals. This restructuring will lead to more than 3,000 journals to be removed from the database. DOAJ, besides advocating Open Access, established, in collaboration with COPE, OASPA and WAME, a code of principles and good practices in scientific publishing. Read More →

The search for scientific literature: how readers discover content

What are the sources most used by researchers and other professionals to search and access scholarly literature? A detailed study conducted by experts in publication and management of scientific journals, published in March 2016, aimed to answer this question. Through a survey with over 40,000 readers worldwide, the authors built a broad overview of users’ reading habits, comparing those with results from the last ten years. Read More →

From the NY Times: Biologists went rogue and publish directly on the Internet

The ASAP Bio conference held in February at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, US, brought together biomedicine researchers to discuss new ways to communicate research results using preprints and post-publication peer review. Renowned scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners started to deposit their articles in open access preprint repositories before proceeding with the formal publication in journals. The topic received last week the attention of the New York Times. Read More →

On the dangers of SciHub and hybrid journals

Changes and developments in the way things are done are sometimes seen as threatening, as dangers. That is a natural, instinctive reaction, perhaps, but sometimes, the danger lies not so much in the development itself as in the things that the development in question prevents. There are two developments in science publishing and science communication that are seen as dangerous by many. Both developments are seen as threatening from opposite sides of the fence, so to speak. Read More →

May excessive transparency damage Science?

The scholarly community promoted and encouraged research transparency to curb the lack of reproducibility and scientific misconduct. However, this openness also opens room for attacks and harassment of researchers, often motivated by simple discrepancy between the results and even threats of physical and psychological violence. Learn how to recognize and protect yourself from attacks of this nature. Read More →

Coupling Pre-Prints and Post-Publication Peer Review for Fast, Cheap, Fair, and Effective Science Publishing [Originally published in Michael Eisen’s blog “it is not junk”]

Leslie Vosshall and Michael Eisen have written the following white paper as a prelude to the upcoming ASAP Bio meeting in February aimed at promoting pre-print use in biomedicine. We would greatly value any comments, questions or concerns you have about the piece or what we are proposing. Read More →

Are ‘predatory’ journals completely negative, or also a sign of something positive?

Something that is generally, and justifiably, considered negative, can, however, also be a harbinger of an underlying positive development. The case in point is the existence of so-called ‘predatory’ journals, which have – inevitably – emerged in an environment in which a true market for scientific publishing services is slowly taking shape. Read More →

Results of the workshop AlterOA: recommendations for the future of open access

The future of open access, as the preferred alternative for publication of research results, was widely discussed at the Workshop on Alternative Open Access Publishing Models, held in October 2015 in Belgium. Learn about the participants’ innovative ideas and the recommendations of the European Commission to strengthen and facilitate this business model. The workshop report considers SciELO the most established among the models analyzed. Read More →

Will your paper be more cited if published in Open Access?

Is there any positive relationship between open access and the amount of citations? Last year Academia.edu announced in its website that citations to papers in its repository could raise in percentages much higher than other repositories. Is it truth or exaggeration? Read More →

Open access as a sustainable alternative to scholarly communication

The abusive price of scientific journals subscriptions, that triggered the open access movement in the 2000s, remains until today. The enormous financial pressure on academic libraries, research institutions and governments find alternative in open access business models. Innovative alternatives on open access publishing systems were created in several countries and a workshop organized by the European Commission brought together experts to discuss them. Get to know some alternatives. Read More →

European Commission debates alternative approaches to open access

The Workshop on Alternative Open Access Publishing Models organized by the European Commission in October 2015 convened experts to discuss the future of open access as preferable publication model of research results, especially those financed by public funds. The meeting’s approach prioritized issues beyond the mere access to publications and resulted in fairer and more transparent alternative models aimed at increasing the dissemination and use of research by academia and other sectors of society. Read More →

Annotating the scholarly literature online

The Internet irreversibly changed the scholarly literature, the way it is published, assessed, disseminated, read, shared and cited. The peer review process has been evolving as a result of innovations facilitated by the Web. Among them, the post-publication review and open comments on online texts constitute a strong trend. Hypothes.is is an open source initiative that allows sharing openly – or privately – comments from researchers on scientific publications, contributing to their improvement. Read More →

Open Access in Latin America free of predatory journals

Low quality non peer reviewed open access journals called ‘predatory’ compromise the credibility of open access publishing and cause damage to this business model’s reputation. A detailed study analyzes these journals and their publishers, including geographic location and authors’ profile. Read More →

Taking open access one step further: The role of SciELO in the global publication landscape [originally published in Editage Insights]

In this conversation, Abel Packer traces SciELO Program’s growth and talks about the gap in publication standards and processes between developed and developing countries. He also emphasizes the importance of establishing sustainable open access publication models. [Available only in English] Read More →