RDM & Scholarly Communication News @ VIU Library

VIU Library participates in a number of multi-university content licensing agreements with publishers, and in some cases these include APC waivers or discounts for our affiliated authors. More information about these is available through the Library's guide to APCs.

One such arrangement is with Cambridge University Press through CRKN (Canadian Research Knowledge Network). VIU-affiliated authors can publish an unlimited number of their articles as open access in CUP hybrid and gold journals at no charge to the author for the duration of the agreement (2022-2024). See CRKN's Step by Step Guide to Publishing Open Access in Cambridge Journals. And don't hesitate to contact the Library for more information

CRKN reminds us that

Per the terms of our agreement, authors have until March 31 of the year following publication to convert their articles to OA. Please note that Cambridge continues to have a publishing backlog due to this summer’s cyberincident.

More on the cyberincident: 

https://library.viu.ca/blogs/datamanagement/RDMSCnews/cambridge-university-press-assessment-has-experienced-a-cybersecurity-incid

From the team at Borealis:

Please be aware the Borealis production system will be unavailable tonight for an urgent server upgrade to address maintenance and security updates identified by University of Toronto’s central IT last week. 

Time period for systems outage: [October 28, 7 - 9 pm Pacific](approximately 1.5 - 2 hours).

Thank you for your understanding and apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. 

Cambridge University Press & Assessment (CUPA) is contacting 20,000 authors to request their permission before licensing their content for the training and development of large language models (LLMs)…

…many authors "see the potential for AI to help disseminate their work", with only a small minority declining to license their content. Hill emphasised the importance of keeping authors informed and giving them agency, making licensing feel like a "positive decision for them to be involved in, rather than feel it’s something that’s been done to them".

More: 

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/cambridge-university-press--assessment-writes-to-20k-authors-for-ai-licensing-opt-in

Yang, P., Shoaib, A., West, R. et al. Open access improves the dissemination of science: insights from Wikipedia. Scientometrics (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05163-4

Abstract

Wikipedia is a well-known platform for disseminating knowledge, and scientific sources, such as journal articles, play a critical role in supporting its mission. The open access movement aims to make scientific knowledge openly available, and we might intuitively expect open access to help further Wikipedia’s mission. However, the extent of this relationship remains largely unknown. To fill this gap, we analyse a large dataset of citations from the English Wikipedia and model the role of open access in Wikipedia’s citation patterns. Our findings reveal that Wikipedia relies on open access articles at a higher overall rate (44.1%) compared to their availability in the Web of Science (23.6%) and OpenAlex (22.6%). Furthermore, both the accessibility (open access status) and academic impact (citation count) significantly increase the probability of an article being cited on Wikipedia. Specifically, open access articles are extensively and increasingly more cited in Wikipedia, as they show an approximately 64.7% higher likelihood of being cited in Wikipedia when compared to paywalled articles, after controlling for confounding factors. This open access citation effect is particularly strong for articles with high citation counts or published in recent years. Our findings highlight the pivotal role of open access in facilitating the dissemination of scientific knowledge, thereby increasing the likelihood of open access articles reaching a more diverse audience through platforms such as Wikipedia. Simultaneously, open access articles contribute to the reliability of Wikipedia as a source by affording editors timely access to novel results.

See the Federation Training Calendar for October workshops and training events on research computing and data management topics.

In recent months, several publishers have announced that they are licensing their scholarly content for use as training data for LLMs. These deals illuminate how major publishers are grappling with their strategy amid uncertainty. To understand the dynamics around this fast-developing market, Ithaka S+R has launched a tracker of these licensing deals. In it, we catalog (when the information is available), the publisher, the purchaser, the deal type and size, and the impact of and strategy behind the deal…

See:

https://sr.ithaka.org/our-work/generative-ai-licensing-agreement-tracker/

OpenAire Explore allows you to find open access publications and datasets across many contributing sources, and then select the UN Sustainable Development Goals as a filter for your search results.

For example, you might search for key words related to any topic, and then refine your search by using limiters (on the left side of the screen) for Open Access, Publications, and an SDG goal that corresponds to your area of interest. You can also browse by SDGs.

This feature is currently in beta.

Simon Fraser University Library is excited to announce our innovative Community Scholars Program is expanding beyond British Columbia, enabling nonprofit organizations to access, use, and share research to build capacity and strengthen their impact…

Since its inception, the program has grown to include partner institutions across the province, including Vancouver Island University Library, University of Northern British Columbia Library, University of British Columbia Library, Kwantlen Polytechnic University Library, and University of the Fraser Valley Library…

For the coming phase of expansion, the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) provided critical support, including working with SFU Library and our academic publishing partners to expand eligibility across the country….

Increasing support for Indigenous organizations

CRKN’s support also enabled the Community Scholars Program to expand eligibility in another crucial area: for employees of Indigenous communities, collectives, and organizations. 

Formerly, only registered nonprofits were eligible for the program; this increased eligibility recognizes that some Indigenous groups do not have, or may not want, nonprofit status, while offering opportunities for concrete support and access to scholarly resources.

More: 

https://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/overview/services-you/community-scholars/expanding-beyond-bc

Free and open to the public. Available online via Zoom. Registration required.

In Conversation with Open Mind, a No-fee Open Access Journal in Cognitive Science

Monday, October 21, 2024, 1:00pm - 2:00pm

Virtual (Zoom)

Register: In Conversation with Open Mind, a No-fee Open Access Journal in Cognitive Science

In celebration of International Open Access Week 2024, please join us for a conversation with Open Mind, MIT Press, MIT Libraries, and Harvard Library.

Although a young journal in the field, Open Mind has a history of leading the field in open access publishing. With funding from the MIT Libraries the MIT Press moved Open Mind to a diamond open access publishing model in 2022, eliminating all article processing fees for scholars and providing free access for readers and researchers alike…