Scholarly communication 2016/11/04 Emanuela Casson
What we talk about Definition and players Scientific journals o brief history o functions o types of journal articles Peer-review The STM journals market New models of publishing o Open Access journals -- Predatory publishers o Open Access archives
What is scholarly communication? http://wiki.ubc.ca/file:tslupdated.png
ThemajorplayersinSC The traditional/formal process of scholarly communication consists of four major groups of players with different roles: researchers publishers libraries consumers/users
The origins of the scientific journal article and scholarly communication 1665 Journal des Sçavans Its content included obituaries of famous men, church history, and legal reports. The scope was to inform about everything that was happening in the community of savants Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London The functions of the journal, as registration (date stamping and provenance), certification (peer review), dissemination and archiving
The functions of scientific journals Registration: third-party establishment by date-stamping of the author s precedence and ownership of an idea Dissemination: communicating the findings to its intended audience Certification: ensuring quality control through peer review and rewarding authors Archival record: preserving a fixed version of the paper for future reference and citation
Types of journal articles (1) Letter or communication: short description of important current research findings that are usually fast-tracked for immediate publication because they are considered urgent, usually without experimental data. It may be followed by paper in which the research is further developed. Research note: short descriptions of current research findings that are considered less urgent or important than Letters (or Communications)
Types of journal articles (2) Review: provides an overview and critical analysis of relevant published scholarly articles, research reports, books, theses etc. on the topic or issue to be investigated. Reviews are secondary sources; they do not report any new or original experimental work. Paper or article: complete description of current original research findings, with clearly defined structure. They are usually between five and twenty pages. Scientific articles published in scientific journals are primary sources.
The structure of the scientific article The structure of the scientific article gradually came to be extremely well-organised (IMRaD) http://leml.asu.edu/jingle/wu-publications-pdfs/2011/wu-2011-scientificwriting.pdf
The advantages of formal printed communication 1. information can be spread to a widely scattered group of readers; 2. detailed information, such as descriptions of methods, tables, diagrams, results etc can easily be given; 3. printed documents contain information which can be critically examined and verified; 4. the documents can easily be referred to as and when required; 5. published documents provide a means for establishing "priority" of academic work, and thereby contribute to establishing academic merit for the author(s)
Peer-review Peer review in all its forms is central to scholarly communications. Peer-review is radically different from domain to domain, from discipline to discipline. And, often enough, from journal to journal. In the peer review process, editors, reviewers, and authors cooperatively work together to ensure the quality of scientific research before it is published. Peer review means that other scientific experts in the field check research papers for validity, significance and originality
Peer-review: acceptance rates (1) The average acceptance rate across all STM journals is about 50% (The STM report 2015 http://www.stm-assoc.org/2015_02_20_stm_report_2015.pdf) But: Science now accepts less than 7% of the original research papers submitted. Nature Chemistry the overall acceptance rate of the journal was roughly 9%
Peer-review: acceptance rates (2) Acceptance rates for Wiley Journals (2010-2012): Rejection rates for Springer Journals (2009-2013)
Peer-review: single and double blind Single Blind Review The reviewers know who the authors are, but the authors do not know who the reviewers are. The most common system in science disciplines. PROS :This allows reviewers to provide honest, critical reviews and opinions without fear of reprisal from the authors. CONS: Lack of accountability, allows unscrupulous reviewers to submit unwarranted negative reviews, delay the review process and steal ideas. Double Blind Review The reviewers do not know who the authors are, and the authors do not know who the reviewers are. Main form of peer review used in the humanities and social sciences. PROS : Reduces possible bias resulting from knowing who the authors are or where they come from, work assessed on its own merits. CONS: Involves some effort to make sure manuscripts are anonymised, reviewers can often guess who the authors are
Peer review is not without critics or fault of course
Retraction Watch <http://retractionwatch.com/> is a blog that reports on retractions of scientific papers. The blog was launched in August 2010 August 2015, 64 more papers retracted for fake reviews, this time from Springer journals http://retractionwatch.com/2015/08/17/64- more-papers-retracted-for-fake-reviews-this-time-from-springerjournals/ Sarah Kaplan, Major publisher retracts 64 scientific papers in fake peer review outbreak, Washington Post, 18/08/2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/18/outbreak-offake-peer-reviews-widens-as-major-publisher-retracts-64-scientific-papers/
SAGE Publications busts peer review and citation ring, 60 papers retracted http://retractionwatch.com/2014/07/08/sage-publications-busts-peerreview-and-citation-ring-60-papers-retracted/ SAGE Publishers is retracting 60 articles from the Journal of Vibration and Control after an investigation revealed a peer review and citation ring involving a professor in Taiwan.
New forms of peer review (1) Open peer review: the reviewers know who the authors are and the authors know who the reviewers are. PROS: Greater accountability and reduced opportunity for bias or inappropriate actions. CONS: Potential reviewers may be more likely to decline to review. Revealing reviewer identity may lead to animosity from authors, damaged relationships and repercussions for job prospects, promotion and grant funding. Transferable peer review: This is a new system to help transfer peer review between journals es. Wiley journals Transferable peer review pilot http://olabout.wiley.com/wileycda/section/id- 819213.html
New forms of peer review (2) Post-publication peer review: is when a paper is scrutinised, replicated and commented on by experts after it is published. New web technologies allow readers to rate papers, and add comments and notes to online articles for readers to see. Es. PubPeer https://pubpeer.com/ 85% of reviewers spend a median 5 hours (mean 9 hours) per review, and evaluate about 8 papers over 12 months. ---- Publons is a website and free service for researchers to share, discuss and receive credit for peer review of academic publications. https://publons.com/
The STM journals market -who Large commercial publishing houses increase their control of the science system http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502
The STM journals market - price Periodicals price survey 2015 http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/04/publishing/whole-lotta-shakin-goin-on-periodicals-price-survey-2015/#
Transformation of scholarly communication The crisis in scholarly communication is mainly because of the following factors: There is the high cost of scholarly journals Increasing control of the scholarly journals industry by the commercial firms. Libraries budgets do not match up with escalating prices of journals. Ultimately, libraries subscribe to fewer journals.
The paradoxes of Scholarly Communication
New models of SC There are three important new ways apart from scholarly communication in which the internet enables the communication of scholars: open access archives open access publishing other means of scholarly communication: web 2.0 (ResearchGate, Academia.edu)
What is Open Access? Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions (Peter Suber) OA removes: price barriers (subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions)
What is the OA movement? It s a global movement to make scientific and scholarly literature openly accessible online to all users, free of charge so that everyone benefits from the dissemination of knowledge and information. Open Archives Initiative (1999) Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002) Berlin declaration (2003) Dichiarazione di Messina (2004) Timeline of the open access movement http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
Gold road and green road There are two primary vehicles for delivering OA to research articles: publishing in OA journals ("gold road") self archiving in repositories ("green road") The chief difference between them is that OA journals conduct peer review and OA repositories do not.
Gold road OA journals ("gold OA"): conduct peer review (es. BioMed Central). it easier than let authors retain copyright. it easier than OA repositories to provide libre OA. some OA journal publishers are non-profit (e.g. PLoS) and some are for-profit (e.g. BioMed Central). sometimes journals have a subsidy from a university or professional society. Sometimes journals charge a publication fee (APS) on accepted articles, to be paid by the author or the author's sponsor (employer, funding agency). For a list of OA journals in all fields and languages, see the DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals
Predatory publishers : Beall's List Beall's List : potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly openaccess publishers http://scholarlyoa.com/p ublishers/
Predatory publishers: exemple http://lanzaimer.wordpress.com /2013/10/09/ed itoriapredatoria/#co mments http://lanzaimer.wordpress.com /2013/11/
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing by dell Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) http://oaspa.org/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-inscholarly-publishing/
Green road OA repositories : can be organized by discipline (e.g. arxiv for physics) or institution (e.g. Padua@research) do not perform peer review. However, they generally host articles peer-reviewed elsewhere. can contain preprints, postprints, or both. If authors transfer copyright to a publisher, then OA archiving requires the publisher's permission.
SHERPA/RoMEO http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
SPARC Author Addendum The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that modifies the publisher s agreement http://www.sparc.arl.org/sites/default/files/sparc_authorrights2006_0.pdf
Open Access doubts SOAP Study of Open Access publishing 2008-2011(project funded by the European Commission under FP7) http://projectsoap.eu quality of repositories fear of plagiarism lack of time other?
References Theresa Velden, Carl Lagoze, The value of new Scientific Communication models for Chemistry : white paper, october 2009 https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/14150/whitepaper_final.pdf?sequence=4&isallowed=y Jianguo Wu, Improving the writing of research papers: IMRAD and beyond, Landscape Ecology, 2010, 26(10), p. 1345-1349 http://leml.asu.edu/jingle/wu-publications-pdfs/2011/wu-2011-scientificwriting.pdf Matthew P. Long, Roger C. Schonfeld, Supporting the changing research practices of Chemists, New York, Ithaka S+R, 2013 http://www.sr.ithaka.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/supporting-the-changing-research-practices-of-chemists-final.pdf Mark Ware, Michael Mabe, The STM Report : an overview of scientific and scholarly journal publishing, 4. ed., The Hague : International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers,2015 http://www.stmassoc.org/2015_02_20_stm_report_2015.pdf Stephen Bosch, Kittie Henderson, Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On. Periodicals Price Survey 2015, LibraryJournal, 23 april 2015, http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/04/publishing/whole-lotta-shakin-goin-on-periodicals-price-survey-2015/# Sarah Kaplan, Major publisher retracts 64 scientific papers in fake peer review outbreak, Washington Post, 18/08/2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/08/18/outbreak-of-fake-peer-reviews-widens-as-majorpublisher-retracts-64-scientific-papers/ Larivière V, Haustein S, Mongeon P., The oligopoly of academic publishers in the Digital Era, PLoS ONE, 2015 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0127502