STM Publishing – January 2023
PLOS releases first results from DataSeer partnership, integrates EarthArXiv submissions
The Public Library of Science (PLOS) has released the first results from its new initiative, launched in partnership with AI-driven data sharing support body DataSeer, to measure researchers’ Open Science practices across published literature.
The two organisations have released data on three of the numerical indicators they have developed together – on data sharing, code sharing, and preprint posting – to show that good practices in research data and code sharing, along with the use of preprints, are becoming increasingly prevalent in the research community.
The partners are also sharing the full dataset behind these results, which are generated using artificial intelligence and natural language processing, and the framework used to develop it. The indicators, known as ‘Open Science Indicators’ (OSI), are intended to help establish a baseline for current adoption of open science practices and thereby to enable the tracking of progress over time; additional indicators will be developed in future, informed by feedback from the scholarly community.
PLOS has also partnered with the earth science pre-print server EarthArXiv to give authors submitting their work to PLOS Climate, PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, and PLOS Water the option to forward their manuscript automatically to EarthArXiv. The move follows similar integrations with bioRxiv and medRxiv.
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Springer Nature launches new OA initiative for authors from lower income countries
Springer Nature has announced new support for authors from countries classified by the World Bank as having low-income (LIC) or lower-middle-income economies (LMICs).
Researchers from more than seventy countries will now be able to publish work that has been accepted by either Nature or one of the Nature research journals gold open access at no cost; they will not need to ask for support but will be informed that their paper will be published open access, if they agree, with the costs covered by Springer Nature.
The initiative will be supported by a dedicated fund and will be reviewed at the end of this year; fully open access titles such as Nature Communications and Scientific Reports, along with the Springer hybrid portfolio, are not included in the agreement.
Taylor & Francis expects growth
Taylor & Francis parent company Informa has announced that it anticipates growth of three percent in academic markets in a trading update ahead of its 2022 full-year results. Citing ‘continued strong performance in traditional pay-to-read publishing combined with further progress in Open Research’, it suggested that revenues would continue to rise after a 2.4% increase in 2021. Full-year results for 2022 will be issued on 9 March 2023.
Microbiology to move to open access
Celebrating its 75th anniversary, the Microbiology Society has announced that its founding journal, Microbiology, will become the first title in its portfolio of journals to transition from hybrid to full open access.
After two years of growth in the proportion of open access articles published in the journal, following the introduction of a new publish and read licence in 2020, the transition to full open access will take place this year.
Since its launch in 1947 as the Journal of General Microbiology, the journal has published more than 20,000 articles.
Transformative and open access deals
Wiley has increased its transformative arrangements in Asia, signing its first open access deal in Hong Kong and agreeing an expansion of its existing open access agreement in Japan. The Hong Kong deal, an agreement with the Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee (JULAC), will enable researchers at the three participating JULAC libraries – the Chinese University of Hong Kong Library, Hong Kong Baptist University Library, and the University of Hong Kong Libraries – to access Wiley’s portfolio of journals and to publish their research open access in almost 2,000 of the publisher’s hybrid and gold open access journals, including those published by Hindawi.
The Japanese agreement, meanwhile, builds upon an existing deal agreed last year with Tohoku University, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, and Tokyo University of Science, to include fourteen universities from JUSTICE (the Japan Alliance of University Library Consortia for E-Resources), including the University of Tokyo, Tohoku University, Saitama University, and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Affiliated researchers will gain the same level of access as participants in the Hong Kong deal.
Springer Nature has concluded a transformative agreement with the HEAL-Link consortium of Greek academic libraries that will allow authors from 43 institutions to access subscription content in more than 2,300 Springer, Adis, and Palgrave journals, and to publish their work open access in the same titles. The deal is the company’s eighteenth national agreement.
The Company of Biologists has announced the renewal for a further three years of its existing read-and-publish deal with the Irish consortium IReL, enabling affiliated researchers at nine affiliated institutions – including Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, and University College Dublin – to continue publishing their work open access and fee-free in the Company’s hybrid journals – Development, the Journal of Cell Science, and the Journal of Experimental Biology – and now also in their fully open access journals, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open; researchers also have unlimited read access to these titles.
Globally, more than thirty further institutions across four continents have signed up to the Company’s Read & Publish Open Access initiative over the past two months, including nine Australian institutions that have signed up via the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL).
IOP Publishing has agreed three-year uncapped transformative agreements in the United States. Deals with the Ohio academic library consortium OhioLINK and the Statewide California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) will provide authors at any of the affiliated institutions – 88 for OhioLINK, 17 for SCLEC – with read access to all 72 IOPP journals, as well as the ability to publish their work open access, fee-free. Both agreements run from 1 January 2023.
Alastair Horne is a lecturer in publishing studies at the University of Stirling.
Alastair writes our STM Publishing and our Academic Publishing Newsletters.