Beyond Literature: A Scholarly Infrastructure for Text, Data and Software

A special issue of Publications (ISSN 2304-6775).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 January 2015) | Viewed by 59601

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Universität Regensburg Institute of Zoology – Neurogenetics Universitätsstrasse 31 93040 Regensburg, Germany

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleague,

In this special issue, we are collecting scholarly articles on how a digital scholarly institutional infrastructure ought to be implemented today: which functionalities do we have at our disposal and which still need to be developed? The issue will cover the areas text/literature, data, code and integrative aspects. Potential topics include but are not limited to content mining, per article publishing costs, quality assurance and peer review as an article-level (rather than a journal-based) service, academic software management, integrating text, data and code, forecasting future impact from current usage data, as well as articles outlining the technical and legal options for automatically filling institutional repositories with already published literature, interconnecting all existing repositories and any/all other options which would allow libraries to minimize the detrimental effects of subscription cancellations on article accessibility.

Professor Björn Brembs
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • open access
  • research data management
  • academic software management
  • digital academic workflow
  • financing publishing reform
  • content mining
  • peer review

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

386 KiB  
Article
Open Access Article Processing Charges: DOAJ Survey May 2014
by Heather Morrison, Jihane Salhab, Alexis Calvé-Genest and Tony Horava
Publications 2015, 3(1), 1-16; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications3010001 - 5 Feb 2015
Cited by 49 | Viewed by 40731
Abstract
As of May 2014, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed close to ten thousand fully open access, peer reviewed, scholarly journals. Most of these journals do not charge article processing charges (APCs). This article reports the results of a survey of [...] Read more.
As of May 2014, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) listed close to ten thousand fully open access, peer reviewed, scholarly journals. Most of these journals do not charge article processing charges (APCs). This article reports the results of a survey of the 2567 journals, or 26% of journals listed in DOAJ, that do have APCs based on a sample of 1432 of these journals. Results indicate a volatile sector that would make future APCs difficult to predict for budgeting purposes. DOAJ and publisher title lists often did not closely match. A number of journals were found on examination not to have APCs. A wide range of publication costs was found for every publisher type. The average (mean) APC of $964 contrasts with a mode of $0. At least 61% of publishers using APCs are commercial in nature, while many publishers are of unknown types. The vast majority of journals charging APCs (80%) were found to offer one or more variations on pricing, such as discounts for authors from mid to low income countries, differential pricing based on article type, institutional or society membership, and/or optional charges for extras such as English language editing services or fast track of articles. The complexity and volatility of this publishing landscape is discussed. Full article
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275 KiB  
Article
A Model for Institutional Infrastructure to Support Digital Scholarship
by Malcolm Wolski and Joanna Richardson
Publications 2014, 2(4), 83-99; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications2040083 - 26 Sep 2014
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 10369
Abstract
There is a driving imperative for new knowledge, approaches and technologies to empower scholarship, especially in emerging areas of inquiry. Sources of information now extend beyond the written word to include a wide range of born-digital objects. This paper examines the changing landscape [...] Read more.
There is a driving imperative for new knowledge, approaches and technologies to empower scholarship, especially in emerging areas of inquiry. Sources of information now extend beyond the written word to include a wide range of born-digital objects. This paper examines the changing landscape in which digital scholars find, collaborate, create and process information and, as a result, scholarship is being transformed. It discusses the key elements required to build an institutional infrastructure, which will not only support new practices but also integrate scholarly literature into emerging and evolving models that generate true digital scholarship. The paper outlines some of the major impediments in implementing such a model, as well as suggestions on how to overcome these barriers. Full article
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158 KiB  
Article
The Means of (Re-)Production: Expertise, Open Tools, Standards and Communication
by Martin Paul Eve
Publications 2014, 2(1), 38-43; https://doi.org/10.3390/publications2010038 - 13 Feb 2014
Viewed by 7608
Abstract
This article examines the current difficulties faced in penetrating the world of scholarly communication technology. While there have been large strides forward in the disintermediation of digital publishing expertise—most notably by the Public Knowledge Project—a substantial number of barriers remain. This paper examines [...] Read more.
This article examines the current difficulties faced in penetrating the world of scholarly communication technology. While there have been large strides forward in the disintermediation of digital publishing expertise—most notably by the Public Knowledge Project—a substantial number of barriers remain. This paper examines a case study in terms of scholarly typesetting and the Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) standard before moving to suggest three potential solutions: (1) The formation of open, non-commercial and inclusive (but structured) organizations dedicated to the group exploration and standardisation of scholarly publishing technology; (2) The collective authoring of as much technological and process documentation on scholarly publishing as is possible; (3) The modularisation of platforms and agreement on standards of interoperability. Only through such measures is it possible for researchers to reclaim the means of (re)production, for the remaining barriers are not difficult to understand, merely hard to discover. Full article
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