Integrating OA Content with Discovery Systems

Jisc released an update on the next steps for their OA Button Project, following the publication of their findings in October. Having identified three possible service options for further exploration, a decision was made to focus on ‘Integration of OA search into library systems’ as the one to pursue. Separate to this project, but clearly relevant, was the announcement that the CORE service, which aggregates open access research papers from around the world, is now working with ProQuest to integrate search results in their library discovery systems (Primo and Summon). Based on this development a decision was made that ‘…Jisc will be developing work with CORE at the centre of any OA discovery focussed solutions, initially by addressing the issue of search and discovery integration with library systems,’ and that their collaboration with the OA Button would be put on hold for now.

Monitoring the Transition to Open Access

This report, commissioned by the Universities UK Open Access Coordination Group, examines recent trends in OA in the UK. Five strands were explored, including the OA options available to authors, the take-up of those options, levels of downloads of OA and non-OA articles, financial implications for funders and universities, and implications for learned societies. Key findings included the fact that over half of UK-authored articles are made accessible through Gold or Green OA within 12 months, and that the proportion of UK-authored articles published OA has increased from 12% in 2012 to 30% in 2016. As well as mentioning the positive increase in OA shown by the report, this THE article also points out the finding that ‘UK universities’ journal subscription costs have risen 20 per cent in three years despite their simultaneously paying far more to make research open access.’

Considering the Impact of Finch 5 Years On

In a presentation at the London Info International conference, Danny Kingsley (Deputy Director, Scholarly Communication and Research Services Cambridge University Library) raised some interesting and challenging points about the effectiveness of the RCUK Open Access Policy thus far. As with the UUK report mentioned above, the presentation acknowledged that there has certainly been a notable increase in the amount of UK research now available OA. However, journals have not ‘flipped’ to an open access model as was intended, and the costs of publishing in the hybrid Gold OA format or maintaining Green OA are arguably unsustainable, meaning new solutions should be explored.

Universities Spend Millions on Accessing Results of Publicly Funded Research

In this article, a Senior Lecturer from the University of Auckland explains how he used FOI laws to find out how much universities in New Zealand had spent on journal subscriptions in recent years. He found that in 2016 alone US$15 million was paid to just four publishers, that some universities were getting much worse deals than others, and that the rate of increase for subscriptions greatly exceeded the Consumer Price Index inflation rate. While open access could be a solution, the author points out that a large shift to the Gold OA model currently available would not save money. He suggests a movement to ‘the right kind of open access’, whereby control is given back to the scholarly community as outlined in the Fair Open Access Principles.

100% Open Access to Swiss National Science Foundation-funded Research

A decision has been made by the National Research Council of Switzerland that all resulting publications from SNSF-funded projects will be freely available online as of 2020, fitting in with a broader national aim for all publications financed by public money to be freely available by 2024. Funding will be available not only for publishing in OA journals, but also for publishing OA books and book chapters. Matthias Egger, President of the National Research Council, argues that ‘…researchers themselves stand to benefit the most from Open Access: their results will be seen by more people. And they will have unrestricted access to the publications of their colleagues. This will be a big step forward for science.’

Decolonising Open Access

This article from journalologik challenges the perception in the Global North that the OA movement is universally seen as a force for good around the world, and addresses the idea that there may be a ‘neo-colonial face of open access’. The author shares recent views on the subject from African researchers, such as Piron et al.: “… if open access is to facilitate and accelerate the access of scientists from the South to Northern science without looking into the visibility of knowledge of the South, it helps to redouble their epistemic alienation without contributing to their emancipation. Indeed, by making the work of the center of the world-system of science even more accessible, open access maximizes their impact on the periphery and reinforces their use as a theoretical reference or as a normative model, to the detriment of local epistemologies.” To address these issues, and change the relationship between Global North and South, it is suggested that there needs to be ‘…a realignment of this relationship from mere access to empowerment through sustainable capacity building.’

The Altmetric Top 100 2017

As they have been doing each year since 2013, Altmetric released their list of their top 100 most popular articles for the year. In a blog post Altmetric pointed out that medical and public health issues gained the most attention, as has been the case for previous years, taking up the top three spots and over half of the list as a whole. A useful feature is the ability to filter by articles that are open access or free to read, with many falling into these categories.

A Call for Open Citations

Members and supporters of the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) have signed a letter aimed at scholarly publishers, requesting that they ‘…make references openly available by providing access to the reference lists they submit to Crossref,’ in order to create a full and open data source for analysing research. The letter points out that many have already opened up their reference lists, but that there are several large publishers who are still to do so, meaning many millions of references remain closed.