New Open Access platform for Journal of Terrorism Research

In 2010 the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at University of St Andrews launched the online Journal of Terrorism Research (JTR). With perfect timing for Open Access Week and its theme of 'Open for Collaboration', JTR celebrates its 5th anniversary with the latest volume and full journal archive published on a new and improved platform.

Since 2011 JTR has been supported by the University Library's Journal Hosting Service, and was made available through the Library's Open Journal Systems platform. Our OJS platform supports scholarly journals run by our research community, and this platform continues to be available as a free service to members of staff and students at St Andrews.

In early 2015 the decision was taken to work with Ubiquity Press to trial an alternative, collaborative service. For this pilot service we have migrated JTR to the new infrastructure with enhanced technical support and additional features provided by Ubiquity Press. Support and advice continues to be available from the Library, and the editorial control and production of content is managed by CSTPV exactly as before.

Apart from the new fresh look to the journal, immediate benefits include the production and registration of DOIs and clearer marking of articles with peer-reviewed status and CC BY license.

The journal editors are delighted with the new platform:

This is a great way to celebrate our 5th Anniversary. Thanks to all our authors and reviewers who have contributed thus far - here's to many more years of quality articles in this important field of study.

Journal of Terrorism Research is published by the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) in the School of International Relations, University of St Andrews. The aim of JTR is to provide a space for academics and counter-terrorism professionals to publish work focused on the study of terrorism. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the study of terrorism, high-quality submissions from all academic and professional backgrounds are encouraged. Students are also warmly encouraged to submit work for publication.

Luminos publishes first open access books

Luminos is an open access book publishing program run by The University of California Press. At the time of writing there are 6 open access books available, with more on the way. We mentioned the announcement of the program in a previous blogpost that focussed on the open access journal Collabra, which was launched by University of Californian Press at the same time back in March 2015.

Benner C. & Pastor M. 2015. Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas. California: University of California Press. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.6

Titles so far include:

• Equity, Growth, and Community: What the Nation Can Learn from America's Metro Areas
• By Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.6
• Migrating into Financial Markets: How Remittances Became a Development Tool
• By  Matt Bakker
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.5
• Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur
• By Joachim J. Savelsberg
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.4
• Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary.
• By Rajeev Kinra
•  http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.3
• Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism
• By Sukanya Sarbadhikary
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.2
• Art of Fugue: Bach Fugues for Keyboard, 1715–175
• By Joseph Kerman
• http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.1

Luminos have also announced the first member libraries to be part of the scheme, see here for more information http://www.luminosoa.org/site/for_libraries/. Member libraries can support the scheme by paying between $1000-$20,000+. This money goes towards supporting further monographs, forming the 'library subsidy' shown in the diagram below. Membership to the scheme also entitles the member institutions to various benefits including discounts on publication fees, the opportunity to be represented on the Luminous Advisory Board, as well as a yearly 50% discount on up to 50 University of California Press books.

© Copyright 2015 by The Regents of the University of California.

The publication costs are covered by a variety of sources, as illustrated in the digram above.

'For each title published, UC Press makes a significant financial contribution, which is augmented by membership funds from Luminos Member Libraries. Each author is then asked to secure a title publication fee to cover the remaining costs. Any additional revenue from Luminos Member Libraries, as well as funds from optional purchase of print editions, help support a waiver fund for future Luminos authors. Together, this shared financial support helps ensure a sustainable monograph publishing ecosystem for authors, readers, institutions, libraries, and UC Press.' (Luminos press release, October 2015)

 

Open for collaboration

Open Access Week is everywhere! Look out for events and activities around the world from 19-25 October 2015, celebrating the benefits of Open Access. The theme for this year’s 8^th International Open Access Week will be “Open for Collaboration.”

In London: Open Access Monographs and Publishing Models: Collaborative Ways Forward

To kick off International Open Access Week 2015 Goldsmiths is hosting an open access discussion on monographs on 19th of October, from 5 pm onwards. Given Goldsmiths' specialisms, we have decided to focus the debate on publishing models and the potential for collaboration on publishing projects.

We have put together an extraordinary panel of 5 hugely influential speakers in this field who have been involved at a national level in open access monograph debates. We'd like to extend this invite to all research engaged staff, including administrative staff who work closely with arts, humanities and social science scholars to ensure that the potential for collaboration and creative thinking around open access monographs is explored from all angles, including administrative and financial ones.

Register at: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/open-access-monographs-and-publishing-models-collaborative-ways-forward-tickets-18736643806

Online:  Wikipedia Open Access Week Edit-a-thon

In celebration of International Open Access Week and this year’s theme of “Open for Collaboration,” SPARC and the Wikimedia Foundation’s Wikipedia Library are co-hosting a global, virtual edit-a-thon for Open Access-related content on Wikipedia. 

A homepage for the Open Access Week Edit-a-thon has been setup on the Wikimedia website at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/OA_week

Read more and register interest at: http://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/oa-week-editathon

 In St Andrews: How can we help?

At a Library near you... the Open Access support team will be on hand to answer queries and discuss how we can achieve OA for our research outputs and our community.

More details to follow  - we are also welcoming invitations for us to come to Schools for drop-in sessions. Please email openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk if this sounds like something that would benefit you or your colleagues.

2015 Ethos survey launched: chance to win a Kindle

The British Library Ethos service has just launched a new user survey. Just go to the website http://ethos.bl.uk and the survey should pop up automatically. Ethos are offering respondents the chance to win a Kindle.

Ethos is a national thesis service that is designed to maximise the usability and visibility of UK doctoral theses.

"EThOS aims to provide:

• A national aggregated record of all doctoral theses awarded by UK Higher Education institutions
• Free access to the full text of as many theses as possible for use by all researchers to further their own research." Ethos http://ethos.bl.uk/About.do

Back in 2013 Ethos ran a similar survey, which can be found here. Some highlights for the previous survey were:

• 40% of Ethos users are postgraduates.
• 87% of users reported that Ethos materials had helped them in their research.
• The majority of Ethos users are undertaking academic research, and 80% of the respondents said they are from Higher Education.

Ethos are running the survey again, with similar questions to last time in order to gauge trends, but there are also some new questions, including questions regarding authors' views on open access theses.

Open Book Publishers celebrates 7th birthday

Today (24th September) is the seventh anniversary of the founding of Open Book Publishers.

CC-0. Portrait of an old man thought to be Comenius (c. 1661) by Rembrandt. Florence, Uffizi Gallery. Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_an_Old_Man,_Rembrandt.jpg. In The Scientific Revolution Revisited by Mikuláš Teich (2015)

Last time we blogged about OBP back in May they had published 55 titles, now the figure stands at 63! The University of St Andrews Library continues to contribute to the project by producing high quality MARC records for each book. MARC is a cataloguing standard for inputting metadata that makes sharing records between libraries easier. Libraries can download the MARC records we provide from the OBP website thus avoiding duplication of effort (see this page for more information).

George Washington Wilson, "Castle Urquhart.” 1867. Albumen print. Photographs of English and Scottish Scenery (Aberdeen: Printed by John Duffus, 1866-1868). British Library. http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/earlyphotos/c/largeimage53419.html. In Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph by
Lionel Gossman (2015)

"We can look back upon seven years of steady progress with satisfaction. 63 titles published. 700,000 book visits to our website. Readers from 207 countries. 400 readers per title every month. A library membership scheme with 70 members already enlisted. New partnerships bearing fruit. Our mission to change the nature of the traditional academic book and bring Open Access research to readers everywhere continues apace." Open Book Publishers Newsletter.

There are a further 19 forthcoming titles in the OBP catalogue, see the full list here. Forthcoming titles range from Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry: Reinventing the Canon to Advanced Problems in Mathematics: Preparing for University.

You can see each OBP title in our catalogue here: http://library.st-andrews.ac.uk/search/a?search=Open+Book+Publishers.

BMC Ecology image competition

CC BY Catherine Markham http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-015-0053-9

Each year BMC Ecology runs an image competition designed to allow ecologists to capture in a single frame their personal perspective on the 'beauty and mystery of our natural surroundings'. These images also provide a window into their specific research area:

'Ecologists can then educate as they draw attention to some of the outstanding science being done, while featuring their research efforts in a visual, and fun, way.' BMC Ecology

The overall winning image entitled “Palestinian sunbird female forages on Echinops sp.” was captured by Mohamed Sheb from the Suez Canal University Ismailia, Egypt.

CC BY Mohamed Shebl http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-015-0053-9.

There were 9 winning pictures, and an additional 23 that were highly commended. We highly recommend taking a look. All the pictures are published under a CC BY attribution licence so sharing them couldn't be easier too. All the pictures were published as part of an editorial here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-015-0053-9

Here's some more!

CC BY Kainaat William http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-015-0053-9.

CC BY Kenneth J. Chapin http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-015-0053-9.

New publishing initiatives: from authoring to archiving and beyond

Following on from our recent post on Outernet two recent announcements about new research publication platforms have attracted attention in the Open Access community:

Research Ideas and Outcomes (RIO) journal 
Pensoft's RIO extends publication into areas it hasn’t been associated with – project proposals for grant funding and project-related reports, methods and workflows that rarely see the light of day. It also builds on current OA trends by supporting publication of data, software, and research articles much of which is increasingly the subject of funder OA mandates. It claims “the most transparent, open and public peer-review process”; Public, Formal peer review is optional and is a paid-for service. Work will typically be accepted on the basis of a “sanity check” and public peer review:

• All outputs of the research cycle including grant proposals
• Everything from STEM to HSS
• Granularity – authors can pick and choose the services they need
• Impact - category labels help define interdisciplinary research
• It claims to be low cost
• Submissions open November 2015

It builds on the ARPHA XML authoring platform that eliminates the need for typesetting and allows reviewers to comment directly on the manuscript text as well as providing a full submission and editorial system.

Ross Mounce and Daniel Meitchen, Open Access advocates who have a deep understanding of research methods and research publication are founding editors. Peter Murray-Rust, the Cambridge-based chemist and leading light of Open Access and Open Data sits on its Advisory Board. Murray-Rust is known to be in favour of transparency in the ownership, governance and structure of OA platforms as well as in peer-review. There is some evidence that supporting researchers are responding to perceived publisher self-interest and poor service and a desire to take back control of their publishing.

As Science reported recently, there is scepticism around making grant proposals public due to the competitive nature of research funding. It will be interesting to see how researchers re-use published grant proposals and whether research is done that wouldn’t have been done otherwise.  James Wilsdon’s recent report The Metric Tide pointed out that no firm conclusion can be drawn whether funded researchers receive more citations*.

Source: Priem, J. and Hemminger, B. M. 2012. Decoupling the scholarly journal. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. Image licensed under CC BY-NC.

Rua
Ubiquity Press is developing an open source book workflow management platform in response to demands from authors and editors. The source can be found on GitHub. Its main aim is to assist with monograph publishing. This would make it a direct competitor to PKP’s well-established Open Monograph Press platform. PKP also provide the Open Journal System used at St Andrews to host the Journal of Terrorism Research and other Open Access titles.

Both platforms are the result of conversations between researchers and publishers criticising closed, traditional publishing on the one hand and supporting open, adaptable models on the other.  The effect is driving rapid change in the industry, as reported by Nature.

*Supplementary Report I: Literature Review