Featuring debriefs from the June 2020 Open Pharma roundtable meeting and the virtual 16th Annual Meeting of ISMPP, questions and answers on patient authorship, a joint letter urging publishers to reduce fee agreements with UK universities, a landmark deal from the University of California and the results of the COAR open access repository platform survey.
June 2020 Open Pharma roundtable meeting via Open Pharma
On Monday 15 June, publication professionals and open science advocates met for Open Pharma’s first virtual roundtable meeting. The meeting, moderated by Richard Smith (former editor of the BMJ), focused on transparency, accountability, discoverability and accessibility. Keep an eye out for a full blog post on the roundtable coming soon!
Virtual 16th Annual Meeting of ISMPP via ISMPP
The theme of the virtual 16th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) was ‘the evolving role of the scientific communications professional in an open world’. Read more about Oxford PharmaGenesis’ overnight insights on the various poster and keynote presentations here.
Patient authorship: Part A and Part B via The Publication Plan
These two posts from Emma Prest (Senior Medical Writer, Aspire Scientific) explore the answers to some of the questions raised in a series on patient authorship (Part A and Part B) published in ISMPP’s The MAP Newsletter. In The MAP Newsletter series, Professor Karen L Woolley (Global Lead, Patient Partnerships, Envision Pharma Group), Professor Beverley Anne Yamamoto (Professor of Education, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Osaka University; Member of the Board of Directors, Hereditary Angioedema International), Richard Stephens (Consumer Forum Lead, National Cancer Research Institute), Dawn Lobban (Scientific Division Head and Patient Partnership Strategy Director, Envision Pharma Group), Hiroko Ebina (Principal Writer, Envision Pharma Group) and Lauri Arnstein (Patient Partnership Scientific Liaison, Envision Pharma Group) ask the following questions.
- What are the potential benefits for industry sponsors that encourage patient authorship and the potential risks for those that do not?
- How can patient authors meet the first ICMJE [International Committee of Medical Journal Editors] criterion?
- What challenges might patients face when becoming authors, and how could medical communication professionals help address these challenges?
Calls for publishers to reduce fees via Jisc
The Universities UK/Jisc content negotiation strategy group, chaired by Professor Stephen Decent (Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Manchester Metropolitan University), has called on publishers to reduce their fee agreements with UK universities and academic institutions by 25%. The letter from the strategy group comes as many universities and academic institutions prepare to continue delivering educational content online in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Springer Nature’s deal with the UC system via Wired
In other university news, the University of California (UC) system has agreed a landmark deal with Springer Nature. Starting in 2021, all research from UC system institutions published in Springer Nature journals will be made open access by default. It is estimated that UC system institutions generate approximately 9% of all research published in the USA.
Results from the COAR survey via COAR
From April to May 2020, the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) conducted a survey of open access repository platforms to assess current adherence and intention to adhere to Plan S requirements. The results of the survey, reported here, suggest that most repositories already comply with Plan S criteria, and that those that do not already have plans to do so.
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