From: Ingegerd Rabow <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:36:39 +0000
[Apologies for cross-postings]
Welcome to the March 2013 issue of ScieCom info. Nordic - Baltic Forum
for Scientific Communication.
We are pleased to present the exciting developments from the DOAJ
team. From the DOAJ news release: milestones: "We have just completed
the transition to a new environment and launched a new platform with
integrated functionality for sharing, exporting and enhanced
search/browse functionality: at the article level, search results can
be filtered by language and publication year and by license and
publication fee; at the journal level, you can filter by subject, by
country, by license and by publication fees./- - - / For the first
time more than 50% of the journals are providing metadata at article
level./---/More than 1 million articles are now searchable in DOAJ"
COMING EVENTS:
Making Data Count: Research Data Availability and Research Assessment.
A Knowledge Exchange Workshop 11-12 April 2013 in Berlin Germany.
[http://makingdatacount.eventbrite.com/]
Book the date for Mötesplats Open Access (Meeting Place Open Access)
17-18 April 2013 at the School of Business, Gothenburg University.
[http://www.kb.se/openaccess/nyheter/2013/Motesplats-Open-Access-2013/]
The 17th International Conference on Electronic Publishing - "Mining
the Digital Information Networks" will be held June 13-14, 2013 at
Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden.
[www.sciecom.org/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/5774]
ARTICLES:
Jan Erik Frantsvåg analyses the consequences of large research
funders's use of their financial power to put pressure behind their
demands for OA. Non-compliance with the contracts between funders and
grantees will expos institutions and researchers to risks of economic
and career losses. In "Researcher, beware" these risks are discussed.
Institutions with externally funded research must teach their
researchers how to handle funding contracts and what compliance
implies. The jungle of different policies exposes researchers to risks
and frustration. This can be avoided if everyone aligns their policies
with those of the EU or NIH. Frantsvåg also comments on the CC-By
licence, required by, for instance, the RCUK
[http://nile.lub.lu.se/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/6122/5251]
***
In Iceland two important changes regarding OA took place in January
2013. Sólveig Thorsteinsdottir describes them in "Icelandic funder
mandate and revised law for publicly supported research in Iceland".
The parliament has approved a bill amending the law on public support
for scientific research. A new article on OA was added: "The results
of research funded by grants from the funds that come under this Act
shall be published in open access and made accessible to everyone,
unless otherwise agreed. Beneficiaries shall in all their research
papers resulting from the funds, state the name of the grantor." The
other important event is the OA mandate from the largest public funder
Rannís - the Icelandic Centre for Research
[http://nile.lub.lu.se/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/6123/5250]
***
Leif Longva: "Tendering the purchase of Open Access publishing" notes
that the benefits of OA now have been widely acknowledged and receive
high-level support. Prominent examples are the Research Councils UK
(RCUK), and the coming EU framework program Horizon 2020. Longva takes
a market-oriented view of the many institutional funds established to
help authors pay their article processing fees (APCs). The current
funding system lacks real incentives for authors to shop around for
the most reasonable APCs, and journals are free to set any prices they
want. To create a real market, tendering should be used to purchase
OA. This will ensure that authors get the most value for money.
Longva describes how
[http://nile.lub.lu.se/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/6124/5252]
***
Three authors from Lithuania, Gintare Tautkeviciene, Vilma Petrikaite,
and Marija Eidukeviciute present the project "Open Access from the
Perspectives of Young Researchers". It was implemented in 2012 by
Kaunas University of Technology together with the Lithuanian Society
of Young Researchers and the partners Lithuanian Research Libraries
Consortium and the Association of Lithuanian Serials. Three seminars
on OA were organized, introducing doctoral students, young scientists
and other researchers to international and regional OA initiatives,
possibilities of increased global visibility, the OA requirements of
the European Commission, the European Research Council, and other
funding bodies, copyright issues, and the concept of open science. A
series of workshops was arranged, concluding with a public discussion
on open access developments in Lithuania.
[http://nile.lub.lu.se/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/6130/5257]
***
In the Swedish report "It takes two to tango - making way for relevant
research support services at Lund University Libraries (LUB)" Hanna
Voog & Gunilla Wiklund present a 2012 project to investigate what
types of support researchers in Lund need and in what areas. Were the
existing library services adequate, should they be strengthened or
should entirely new services be developed? The project included a
literature review on definitions, examples of support services and
researcher needs, and experiences of support services. A survey was
carried out to identify support services at LUB, and focus group
interviews were arranged with researchers from participating faculty.
One important conclusion was that research support services need to be
easily accessible, visible, and close to the researchers.
[http://nile.lub.lu.se/ojs/index.php/sciecominfo/article/view/6125/5253]
***
Finally we turn to the specific subject of OA monographs, here
discussed by Jörgen Eriksson and Aina Svensson in "Monographs and Open
Access". The developments of OA publishing has mainly focused on
scientific journal articles. However, an increasing number of
initiatives concentrating on the academic monograph have been
introduced. The business models for printed monographs in Arts &
Humanities and Social Sciences tend to be regarded as unsustainable.
Publishers, universities and others look for new ways to handle
monographs. The authors present a Swedish project focusing on two
areas: to make monographs freely available, and to propose a national
model for academic review of monographs. A summary of the session on
monographs and OA at the "4th Conference on Open Access Scholarly
Publishing (COASP) 19-21 September 2012" is also presented.
Your comments and ideas are always most welcome
Ingegerd Rabow
Editor-in-chief ScieCom info
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