Scientific Periodicals in Iran: A Systems Approach

Scientific periodicals fulfill a significant role in the communication, exchange, and sharing of scientific findings. In recent years, the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT) has concentrated on non-medical, scientific periodicals. The present paper offers a short history of scientific periodicals and their role in Iran. The authors further examine the current status in the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology by using a systems approach. Scientific periodicals in Iran involve four external entities and six major subsystems, including resources, format, content, publication, refereeing, and structure. Investigation of the current failings of the periodicals in the MSRT reveals that the main orientation of the system does not facilitate scientific communication, ease of starting new periodicals, and promotion of natural development of these periodicals. The authors suggest ways to improve the status of scholarly periodicals in Iran.     

The Structure of Scholarly Communications Within Academic Libraries

Academic libraries often define their administrative structure according to services they offer, including research services, cataloging and metadata, and acquisitions. Scholarly communications is something of a moving target, though. How are scholarly communication positions defined, what duties do they often include, and how do they fit within the library's administrative structure? Some of the first positions devoted to scholarly communications required JD's and focused on author's rights, copyright, and fair use. Yet other positions recently advertised group scholarly communication librarians within digital scholarship units, which not only create and maintain institutional repositories, they may also publish electronic journals and/or offer services related to data curation. This article provides a brief review of the findings recently published in a SPEC Kit, which focuses on ARL Libraries. The main intention, though, is to provide a wider context of scholarly communication activities across a variety of academic libraries. To do that, a survey of non-ARL Libraries was administered to review relevant positions, library organizations, and the variety of scholarly communication services offered. Lastly, a set of scholarly communication core services is proposed.     

Barnwood

Abstract

Institutional repositories (IRs) have been developed and promoted primarily as a means to re-publish scholarly content previously published elsewhere—usually in journals, festschriften, or collections of articles. This essay discusses the use of IRs as the originating publisher of materials not previously published elsewhere and assesses their potential use as a viable “first resort” for scholarly publication and an already existing alternative to traditional commercial or university presses.     

Publishing Original Content in an Institutional Repository

Institutional repositories (IRs) have been developed and promoted primarily as a means to re-publish scholarly content previously published elsewhere—usually in journals, festschriften, or collections of articles. This essay discusses the use of IRs as the originating publisher of materials not previously published elsewhere and assesses their potential use as a viable “first resort” for scholarly publication and an already existing alternative to traditional commercial or university presses.     

Research Online: Digital Commons as a Publishing Platform at the University of Wollongong, Australia

Since 2006, Research Online, the University of Wollongong's open access institutional repository has utilised Bepress' Digital Commons software to make available published research outputs and digital theses. This article discusses the outcomes of recent academic demand for its use as a publishing tool of university journals and conference proceedings. The Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice is provided as an example. Digital Commons includes the editorial management software, EdiKit, which assists in managing submissions, editorial functions, and peer review. Also considered are changes to scholarly communication patterns arising out of the new open access, electronic only, publication regimes.     

Electronic journals and the paradigm shift: 1995 Spring forum of the Canadian Serials Industry Systems Advisory Committee

Abstract

Since 2006, Research Online, the University of Wollongong's open access institutional repository has utilised Bepress' Digital Commons software to make available published research outputs and digital theses. This article discusses the outcomes of recent academic demand for its use as a publishing tool of university journals and conference proceedings. The Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice is provided as an example. Digital Commons includes the editorial management software, EdiKit, which assists in managing submissions, editorial functions, and peer review. Also considered are changes to scholarly communication patterns arising out of the new open access, electronic only, publication regimes.     

Can the Growth of Mega-Journals Affect Authors' Choice of Journal?

The growth of mega-journals has also brought about changes in authorship. This study uses collected data to identify the transitions of mega-journal publishing and changes of authorship. For authors interested in publishing in mega-journals, the publication of South Korean authors in these mega-journals is specifically sampled and checked, revealing that mega-journals are increasingly the targets for publication. Some mega-journals have an impact factor even if they have only been publishing for 5–10 years. Ten out of 12 SCIE mega-journals collected in this study show a high impact factor, which is above average. Furthermore, the number of articles published by South Korean authors in major mega-journals is also on the rise. The result of this study will be useful for mega-journal editors, who are keen to know what factors influence author choice of journals, and for those who attempt to predict what impact mega-journals will have on scholarly journal publishing in the future.     

Bibliometrics: Understanding Author-, Article- and Journal-Level Metrics

ABSTRACT

Numerous types of metrics are available to assist in the evaluation of scholarship. The focus for this column of In Lay Terms is bibliometrics, the quantitative analysis of publication data using article-, author-, and journal-level data. Citation analysis is the most commonly used bibliometric method. It includes analyzing the number of articles published by an author, the number of citations from those articles, and the ranking of the journals in which those articles were published. This column compares bibliometrics found in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar and considers the relationship of these metrics to the field of library and information science.     

Bibliometrics Analysis of Typical SCI Journals in Natural Medicines by Use of WoS

On the basis of bibliometric analysis of eight typical Science Citation Index (SCI)-indexed journals in natural medicines by use of Web of Science (WoS), this study aims to find some strategies useful for improving the international impact of academic journals. We suggest that it is important to: attract foreign and internationally collaborated contributions; select reviewers and authors in citing journals of high IF; establish multidirectional collaboration with institutions that frequently publish/cite literatures and those with priority disciplines; dynamically and intensively track and analyze the terms of hot publications; and redesign the website and adopt advance digital publication.     

Open Access Mandates and Policies: The Basics

Abstract

Universities can afford to subscribe to only a small percentage of available scholarly journals. Consequently, researchers do not have access to all articles in journals pertinent to their fields of study. The Open Access (OA) movement began in response to wanting to find a solution to this “serials crisis” and the availability of the Internet to disseminate scholarly research in new and innovative ways to a larger, worldwide audience. OA mandates are policies adopted by research institutions, universities, or funders that require researchers to provide free, unrestricted access to their published research by publishing in OA journals, depositing their articles in an OA repository or both. This edition of “In Lay Terms” provides basic information about OA mandates and policies, gives an overview of university and funder OA mandates, discusses geographic differences in policies and compliance rates, and reviews United States federal funding agencies’ OA policies and Plan S.     

Journal Prices Revisited: A Regression Analysis of Prices in the Scholarly Journal Market

Increasing prices of scholarly journals have been subject to fierce discussion for several decades. In this paper the authors integrate influence factors of journal prices analyzed in different previous studies in a unified regression model based on current data. Three different models are calculated. In the first model (overall market) the largest influence was found for the size of the journal. Additionally, the authors calculate separate regression models for STM (Scientific, Technical, Medical) vs. HSS (Humanities and Social Sciences) journals and for for-profit vs. not-for-profit journals. The first comparison found that the influence of the number of published articles is much lower for HSS journals. The comparison between for-profit and not-for-profit journals showed that the influence of the circulation of a journal on its price is higher in the for-profit segment.     

Open Access and Promotion and Tenure Evaluation Plans at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire

Department and program evaluation plans at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire were examined to see if these documents provide evidence that could be used to justify supporting the publication of peer-reviewed open access articles toward tenure and promotion. In an earlier study, the authors reveal that faculty members at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire are more unaware of open access publishing than their counterparts at larger universities. These findings dovetail with other studies that show that faculty members are reluctant to publish in open access journals because of concerns about the quality of those journals. The existing body of scholarship suggests that tenure-line faculty fear publishing in open access journals because it could adversely impact their chances of promotion and tenure. The authors of this current study sought to determine if department and program evaluation plans could influence negative perceptions faculty have of open access journals. The implications of this study for librarians, scholarly communication professionals, tenure-line faculty, departments, and programs are addressed.     

Managing Perpetual Access

ABSTRACT

Libraries are committed to long-term access to the scholarly record in published journals. The transition from print to online format has presented numerous challenges for libraries. While many publishers provide some form of post-cancellation or perpetual access to subscribed journals, libraries sometimes find it difficult to ensure that access is available to users. Language regarding perpetual access can be vague in the license agreements libraries sign with publishers. Even when perpetual access is available, libraries may lack the staff, tools, or workflows needed to review and confirm access. Examples of how libraries have addressed these challenges are provided.     

Publishing with Open Journal Systems (OJS): A Librarian’s Perspective

Abstract

The genesis of this paper is a workshop presentation on publishing with Open Journal Systems (OJS) that was delivered during the Kenya Library and Information Services Consortium Pre-Annual General Meeting held on May 30, 2019, at the Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya. The article lays the context of online hosting of university sponsored journals in Kenya and gives a background of Online Journals Systems. The paper further describes potential roles that librarians can play in institutional journal publishing. The article concludes that librarians possess the requisite skills for participating in scholarly journal publishing and recommends that including publishing literacy skills in information literacy sessions provides an excellent opportunity to showcase librarians’ value in the scholarly journal publishing process.     

1985 ALA Midwinter Reports

Abstract

As scholars have become more reliant upon electronic scholarly journals, the long-term preservation of these resources has become a growing and increasingly urgent need. In 2002, JSTOR launched a project which has now become Portico, a new, not-for-profit electronic archiving service established to address the scholarly community's critical need for a reliable means to preserve scholarly e-journals. Portico is focused on preserving the intellectual content of e-journals through source file normalization and format migration. To date, seven publishers have agreed to deposit more than 3,000 journals in the archive, which will be sustained by contributions from publishers and libraries.     

What We Talk About When We Talk About Journal Club: Scholarly Communication Advocacy and Public Access to Federally Funded Research

The past decade has seen attempts by librarians and their allies to respond to inefficiencies in the market for scholarly journals and introduce infrastructure to support open solutions. Recently these efforts have contributed to success at the national level, first with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy's 2013 policy memorandum on Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research and in 2014 with the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which incorporates the substance of the memorandum into law. This column provides a review of efforts by librarians to advocate for open scholarship, describes the federal actions that will expand public access to research, and concludes with a discussion of next steps in this evolving effort.