OPEN SCIENCE
Redesign open science for Asia, Africa and Latin America. This Comment in Nature addresses the challenges of implementing open science principles when facing a number of structural barriers, such as a lack of resources or insufficient education.
Elsevier are retiring a number of features of Mendeley. The retired features appears to be social networking components, such as profiles, public groups or feeds. Mendeley will concentrate on its core activity of reference and research data management for its users.
Clarivate are revamping Web of Science. The updates include not only a redesign, but also a new preprint index. The latter seems notable, as it brings journal articles and preprints even further together by indexing them on the same platform.
OASPA has created an independent foundation for the OA Switchboard. Yvonne Campfens is its Executive Director. The OA Switchboard aims to be an intermediary between institutions, funders, publishers and others for publication-level information, such as publishing fees.
PUBLISHING
Scientists, Publishers Debate Paychecks for Peer Reviewers. Should reviewers be compensate for their work? How would that look like, and who would pick up the tab in the end? This article in The Scientist revisits the topic.
Wiley’s International Journal of Quantum Chemistry has introduced an interactive figure display technology, featuring interactive 3D images. The technology has been developed by their subsidiary Atypon.
DOAJ to lead a collaboration to improve the preservation of open access journals. Concerns had been raised about some online open access journals disappearing without a trace, and this initiative aims to address some of that.
RESEARCH
The Impact of COVID-19 on the research enterprise. Springer Nature have commissioned research into the impacts of the pandemic. There is a lot to unpack here, and covering various aspects of academia. With respect to open science, one of the reports states: “Open science is expected to move up the agenda in the coming months.” Quite. Preprints, open access, data sharing and more are all increasingly on the agenda. Though some have struggled with this. Simon Bains, Head of Library Services, University of Aberdeen, UK, mentions: “The pandemic might provide a possibility for more stimulus for Open Research, but developments have been slowed down because we have not got the time to think about it.”
EVENTS
Clarivate are organizing a webinar to share their Web of Science vision for 2021. November 18, 10 am EST.
The registration is now open for the Open Science Festival. The event will take place online on February 11, 2021, from 1 – 5.30 pm CET.