RDM & Scholarly Communication News @ VIU Library

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.

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… 

For the information of scholarly authors and reviewers:

On September 12, 2024, Lieff Cabraser and co-counsel at Justice Catalyst Law filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against six commercial publishers of academic journals, including Elsevier B.V., John Wiley & Sons, Wolters Kluwer NV, and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), on behalf of a putative class or scientists and scholars who allege that these six world’s-largest for-profit publishers of peer-reviewed scholarly journals conspired to unlawfully appropriate billions of dollars that would otherwise have funded scientific research…

An invitation is extended to learn more and/or join the plaintiffs:

If you are a member of the academic community and want more information about the lawsuit, or seek to join the plaintiffs, please use the form on this page to send us a confidential message today. There is no charge or obligation for our review of your information, which will help us hold the publisher defendants accountable for their pervasive illegal actions.

More info: 

https://www.lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/academic-journals/

Implementing for Impact: Measuring Open Science for the SDGs 

Panel highlights include a range of practice and policy examples from different settings, together with 

• reflections on the effectiveness of incentives to work more openly, 
• implications of assessment for what we value, and 
• the wisdom of evaluating perhaps less, but more critically and carefully.

Watch the RECORDING 

Open science and open scholarship are the enabling environment through which all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) may be accomplished. However, there are a variety of approaches to the adoption and evaluation of open science and open scholarship; approaches that reflect a global imbalance in research and development and, in some cases, further grow and concretize such divides. UNESCO’s Open Science Outlook 1 warns that the “cultural shift to open science will only be possible with adequate monitoring of its impacts, including its possible unintended consequences for science and/or society.” 

It is within this context that the United Nations’ Dag Hammarskjöld Library convenes an official side event to the High-Level Political Forum. The UN Open Science Conference, convened biennially by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and its partners, has repeatedly heard calls for academic institutions to move their focus away from metrics and instead return to their role as agents of social change, with research agendas driven by “global relevance rather than journal visibility.” How do policies, established to globally advance open science and the SDGs, impact local evaluation frameworks for research institutions? How do they impact individual researchers and their work? Do they help or hinder achievement of the SDGs? 

Speakers include:

Dr. Suchiradipta Bhattacharjee, International Water Management Institute

Dr. Yensi Flores-Bueso, Global Young Academy

Dr. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Gadd, Loughborough University, Coalition on Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA)

Dr. Geeta Swamy, Duke University, Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS)

Dr. Giannis Tsakonas, University of Patras, LIBER Europe

Moderator: Mx. Meg Wacha, Dag Hammarskjöld Library

Review of Canada’s Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2015)

by Britt Amell | 14 June 2024

On July 4, 2023, the presidents of Canada’s three national research funding agencies—the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) announced their plan to review the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2015). A revised version of the policy is anticipated to be released in 2025…

The Tri-Agency Policy change will mark a significant step forward for open access, but a suite of other advances is necessary to ensure Canadian researchers and their institutions have the capacity and readiness to comply; new commitments must be implementable and sustainable to affect real change. This requires good faith from all corners of the Canadian research ecosystem – the funders, publishers, research administrators, libraries, and researchers – but it also requires shared responsibility and shared investment. Furthermore, for true viability, policy changes need to be accompanied by a cultural shift and a rethink of the research assessment process that has only just begun.

More info:

https://ospolicyobservatory.uvic.ca/tri-agency-review-open-access-2015-policy/

From Érudit's blog post:

While more than eighty journals are still in restricted access (their articles are only freely accessible 12 months after publication), it should be stressed that their transition to open access may take several years. Indeed, these journals need to carry out a detailed analysis of their situation in order to put in place a transition plan. Ultimately, greater accessibility will inevitably mean greater visibility for researchers’ work.

The growing number of journals that have opted for open access is undeniable proof of the importance of this model for the dissemination and circulation of knowledge. Granting agencies such as the federal Tri-agency and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec (FRQ) also encourage this practice.

Discover the journals that flipped to open access [… more]

About Érudit