OPEN SCIENCE
Three lessons COVID-19 has taught us about Open Access publishing. Robert Kiley argues that preprints are here to stay and that subscription journals making COVID research publicly available is a tacit acknowledgement that paywalls create access barriers.
Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Scopus, Dimensions, Web of Science, and OpenCitations’ COCI: a multidisciplinary comparison of coverage via citations. This paper in Scientometrics looks at the citation coverage by providers, with Google Scholar leading the pack. With citations being such an integral part of the scholarly research system, the patchy citation coverage is problematic. That’s why initiatives such as I4OC are so important.
arXiv adds links to machine learning code. The links will be visible in a separate tab on the preprint page. They are facilitated through a partnership with Papers with Code.
The state of altmetrics: a tenth anniversary celebration. Altmetric’s overview of the past decade of alternative paper metrics. (see also the figure below)
PUBLISHING
Article processing charges are stalling the progress of African researchers: a call for urgent reforms. In their editorial for BMJ Global Health, three African researchers highlights the problems for researchers in countries not covered by the Hinari waivers. In some of these countries the gross national product per capita can be as little as $1,500.
RESEARCH
Diversity Work, Interrupted. In response to federal threats of research funding being pulled, some universities have cancelled diversity, equity and inclusion programs, according to Inside Higher Ed.
Amid pandemic, U.S. faculty job openings plummet. Compared to the 2019/2020 academic cycle, faculty openings at the Science Careers job board are down by 70%. The Chronicle of Higher Education has similar data.
How we formed a ‘journal club’ for equity in science. The researchers call their model part discussion group, part support group.
PLOS
Community Action Publishing at PLOS. Implemented for PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology, this institutional member model goes beyond article charges and makes open access more equitable and distributes costs across representative institutions.
EVENTS
Next week is open access week. The Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG) is organizing the event Indigenous voices, indigenous research and open access on 19 October, 2020. “The panel will discuss the extent to which the system of reward in academia goes against the values of indigenous cultures and in what ways it (further) marginalises indigenous voices, indigenous ideas and knowledge.”
PIDapalooza, the festival of persistent identifiers, is taking place online on 27 January, 2021. The sessions and party will take place over a period of 24 hours.
OTHER
Prachee Avasthi is the new President of ASAPbio. Congratulations to her and the other new officers!
Survey data on the use of altmetrics.
Credit (CC-BY): Engineering, Altmetric; Konkiel, Stacy; Priem, Jason; Adie, Euan; Derrick, Gemma; Didegah, Fereshteh; et al. (2020): The state of altmetrics: a tenth anniversary celebration. Altmetric. Online resource. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13010000.v2