Featuring the latest domino to fall in the row over open access publishing for universities, concerns about higher Article Processing Charges (APCs) for high-impact journals, and why medical publication professionals should engage with Open Science.
Elsevier agreement with Swedish universities becomes the latest domino to fall in open access row via mynewsdesk
Following the lead of higher education institutions in France, Germany, Finland and California, Swedish universities are the latest to call publishers’ bluff on open access. As part of their mission to achieve immediate open access for all publicly funded research in Sweden by 2026, the Bibsam Consortium have cancelled their agreement with Elsevier, which made the publisher €12 million in licensing fees in 2017. As of 30 June 2018, Swedish Universities will lose their access to any newly published content from Elsevier.
The price hike of Article Processing Charges (APCs) for high-impact journals via Times Higher Education
Ahead of the planned floating of Springer Nature on the stock market, earlier this year the company released a prospectus of what they perceived their business strengths to be for prospective investors. Although the company ultimately decided against the stock market listing, the document provides important information that came as shocking reading for open access advocates. The prospectus outlined the goal to “increas[e] APCs by increasing the value we offer to authors through improving the impact factor”. This article details the contents of the prospectus, and argues that this approach from Springer undermines their signatory status of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which stresses the need to devalue impact factor as a “promotional tool”.
To correct or not to correct – that is the question via Retraction Watch
This article follows the story of an academic who found a minor error in his published work but didn’t know if it was worth correcting. To find answers, he asked the readers of his blog for advice. In total, 62% of respondents were in favour of making the correction; a far more resounding ‘yes’ than the author had expected.
The importance of engaging with Open Science for medical publication professionals via Current Medical Research and Opinion
Authored by Open Pharma’s very own Chris Winchester, this piece was inspired by the recent Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals, and argues for the importance of engagement with Open Science by those who work with medical publications. Its aim is to ensure that the benefits of openness can be maximized and that a different perspective can be given in conversations that are usually the preserve of academics. The article provides a survey of three key areas that medical publication professionals should be engaging with: open access, peer review and data sharing.
