You may be interested in the announcement of a new journal from Nature Publishing that it is to be fully Open Access. While the majority of Nature’s journals already have an open access option, this is a significant move for such a major publisher. The business model for Scientific Reports will mean it is freely available to the global research community without subscription.
From their website: http://www.nature.com/srep/marketing/index.html
"Online and open access, Scientific Reports is a brand new primary research publication from the publishers of Nature, covering all areas of the natural sciences - biology, chemistry, physics and earth sciences.
Scientific Reports exists to facilitate the rapid peer review and publication of research that is of interest to specialists within any given field in the natural sciences, without barriers to access."
Article fees for 2011 are only £890, and the journal meets the requirements for Wellcome-funded outputs. It aims to have an Impact Factor by 2013.
Further comment from Bill Hubbard on the RSC blog
Times Higher Education looks at the possible effects on subscription models in an article about Nature's launch
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Increasing our open access content
The results of a JISC project have been useful in populating Research@StAndrews:FullText. The MERIT project, which collated and enhanced RAE2008 submission data, provides a searchable database that can be analysed by institution and subject area. I describe how we have used the data on the RSP blog.
Monday, 10 January 2011
Alternative funding model for Open Access journals
A report for Knowledge Exchange puts forward a business model based on submission fees as a way to help journals become Open Access.
The report 'Submission Fees – a tool in the transition to open access?' by Mark Ware concludes that there could be benefits in adopting a model where authors pay a fee when submitting articles, but publishers are as yet unsure about the advantages. Funders also need to be more explicit about whether these costs could be claimed from research grants.
The report 'Submission Fees – a tool in the transition to open access?' by Mark Ware concludes that there could be benefits in adopting a model where authors pay a fee when submitting articles, but publishers are as yet unsure about the advantages. Funders also need to be more explicit about whether these costs could be claimed from research grants.
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Research blog from RPO
The University's Research Policy Office have just launched a blog to bring you highlights of research activity in St Andrews.
Wednesday, 8 December 2010
Research@StAndrews:FullText grows by 60%
St Andrews reasearch repository has grown significantly in the last year, with the number of items it contains increasing by 60% since 2009.
175 theses and 116 research publications were added in 2010, to bring the total content to 783.
Research publications have more than doubled since the University's Research Information System (Pure) was launched in June 2010. 100 journal articles and 16 other items were submitted, bringing the total to 194. Virtually all research publications are available in full text.
In the last year there were over 31,000 visits to Research@StAndrews:FullText from 157 countries.
The top 5 downloaded items in November 2010 were:
Infernal imagery in Anglo-Saxon charters [Thesis]
Retrospective power analysis [Journal article]
WinBUGS for population ecologists: Bayesian modeling using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods [Journal article]
Os vínculos culturais Galicia-Uruguay [Cultural connections between Galicia and Uruguay] [Book]
Lewis, counterfactual analyses of causation, and pre-emption cases [Thesis]
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Balancing rights
Pushing the boundaries for Open Access while maintaining good relationships with publishers can be a tricky balancing act.
Organisations are constantly negotiating on a global scale to ensure a 'balance of rights' between stakeholders concerned with scholarly communication - the Statement of Principle published by the Research Information Network is a good example of this, describing how to take advantage of new technologies to move practice forward while recognising publishers' concerns.
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) aims to "correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system" and has produced a briefing paper on how to change copyright transfer agreements - http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/SPARC_AuthorRights2006.pdf
The Copyright Toolbox produced by JISC and the SURF Foundation states that rights "need to be managed in a way that respects the interests of both author and publisher", in keeping with the Zwolle Principles.
The RCUK, in its position statement supporting open access, also acknowledges the need for both authors and publishers to respect this balance: "Full implementation of these requirements must be undertaken such that current copyright and licensing policies, for example embargo periods or provisions limiting the use of deposited content to non-commercial purposes, are respected by authors. The research councils' position is based on the assumption that publishers will maintain the spirit of their current policies."
We encourage our researchers to take full advantage of the benefits of making their research outputs available in Research@StAndrews:FullText, while respecting the current scholarly publishing framework.
Organisations are constantly negotiating on a global scale to ensure a 'balance of rights' between stakeholders concerned with scholarly communication - the Statement of Principle published by the Research Information Network is a good example of this, describing how to take advantage of new technologies to move practice forward while recognising publishers' concerns.
SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) aims to "correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system" and has produced a briefing paper on how to change copyright transfer agreements - http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm~doc/SPARC_AuthorRights2006.pdf
The Copyright Toolbox produced by JISC and the SURF Foundation states that rights "need to be managed in a way that respects the interests of both author and publisher", in keeping with the Zwolle Principles.
The RCUK, in its position statement supporting open access, also acknowledges the need for both authors and publishers to respect this balance: "Full implementation of these requirements must be undertaken such that current copyright and licensing policies, for example embargo periods or provisions limiting the use of deposited content to non-commercial purposes, are respected by authors. The research councils' position is based on the assumption that publishers will maintain the spirit of their current policies."
We encourage our researchers to take full advantage of the benefits of making their research outputs available in Research@StAndrews:FullText, while respecting the current scholarly publishing framework.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
UK alliance backs Open Access
The Wellcome Trust has announced the formation of the UK Open Access Implementation Group to " coordinate evidence, policies, systems, advice and guidance, to make open access an easy choice for authors and one that benefits all universities."
The high level group is chaired by Martin Hall, Vice Chancellor at the University of Salford who spoke at the recent Future of Research conference, and includes senior members of RLUK, the UK Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust. They aim to drive debate and maximise the impact of UK research.
The high level group is chaired by Martin Hall, Vice Chancellor at the University of Salford who spoke at the recent Future of Research conference, and includes senior members of RLUK, the UK Research Councils and the Wellcome Trust. They aim to drive debate and maximise the impact of UK research.
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