A collaborative vision for Global Health research

Dramatic events such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014 tend to turn the public eye on issues of global health. But the really dramatic numbers lie in unspectacular topics beneath the radar such as maternal health, access to health care or effects of poverty. At the beginning of 2015, ScienceOpen and the Global Health Next Generation Network (GHNGN) started a bilateral partnership to promote the Open Science movement and to advocate for young global health professionals and early career researchers working on a variety of topics vital to global health. When it comes to global health research, a broad spectrum of diverse scientific topics including the modern aspects of demographics, economic perspectives, cultural challenges, medical and patients’ education, and ethical questions should be considered. Although better and more innovative diagnostic and therapeutic tools still need to be discovered, science is not the key obstacle to improving global health. Adequately accessible (and freely available) scientific knowledge for everyone is an essential barrier to change in many parts of the world. This is what Open Access movement aims for. In response to the Ebola crisis, the U.S. National Library of Medicine and participating publishers came together to provide access to articles from more than 650 biomedical serial titles and 4,000 reference works. Why? Because as a society we believed that open access to this information could save lives. But this is true for a vast array of topics relevant to global health. Therefore GHNGN and ScienceOpen have decided to create a collection of top Open Access research articles to provide a shared vision for global health. In our Global Health Collection, we engage two exemplary aspects of global health: female genital mutilation and primary health care in Caribbean islands. The research on the above topics was recently conducted by young and talented students/professionals from Germany and The Netherlands. Together with their international colleagues the authors explore and extend our knowledge on these particular issues. To open up a forum for discussion, editors of the collection have each chosen 5-7 of the most relevant recent publications highlighting the presented aspects of global health published by various open access publishers. Who are the millennials of global health? The GHNGN is the most authentic, agile and passionate network for the next generation of the global health community. It connects around 700 students and young professionals (SYPs) worldwide. They belong to “Generation Open”, and it requires courage to demand new ways of communicating about science. Why is it so essential to be an open scientist and physician? The GHNGN initiative emphasizes that the information they access and use is more valuable if it is transparently available to the larger and broader community. Research data shared by a npetwork can return even more value over time than at the moment of its publication "Open and transparent access to knowledge will enable greater innovation, more efficient use of therapeutic and diagnostic tools, and can support broadly distributed health communities". As a next generation Open Access communication platform, ScienceOpen offers alongside its ublishing services a unique aggregation of over 1.5 million research articles– this is a solid foundation for openly shared knowledge! Every ScienceOpen user can search for recent published articles in their field and be sure that the information they seek is freely available to the entire global community. With ScienceOpen Collections, experts select the best research in the field from their perspective and start a conversation around it to both raise awareness and develop new ways of collaborating and communicating. “Open and transparent access to knowledge will enable greater innovation, more efficient use of therapeutic and diagnostic tools, and can support broadly distributed health communities”, said our authors. Are you as enthusiastic about Global Health as we are? Then follow the ScienceOpen Collection to learn, comment and share your research knowledge! Nana Bit-Avragim and Joceline Kranenburg

Publishing wars

NIHR Open Access Policy Review Stakeholder Survey Report

The Lancet journals welcome a new open access policy

Traditionally, there have been two important media of academic publishing: scholarly journals and scholarly books. The first scholarly journal, the Journal des Sçavans, was founded by Denis de Sallo, appeared already in January 1665 in Paris, reappeared after the French Revolution as the Journal des Savants, and still exists as a leading journal in the humanities. Only a few weeks later, Henry Oldenbourg, the first secretary of the Royal Society of London, established a second scholarly journal, the Philosophical Transactions, with a focus on science. The purpose of these journals was to formalize the extensive correspondence between philosophers and scientists.1 In the 18th and the 19th century, more specialized journals gained in importance, most of which were published by learned societies. At the end of the 19th century, university presses too began to publish scholarly journals. Another traditional means of academic publishing are the various types of scholarly books, in particular monographs, edited volumes, reference works (specialist dictionaries, encyclopedias, and specialty reference manuals), and technical handbooks.2 A narrow definition of academic works would exclude textbooks and books for the broader public. Shavell (2010, 337–39) employs four criteria to determine whether a journal or book is academic in nature: (1) the authors and/or the publisher are usually academics; (2) the readers are mainly academics; (3) the content is academic in character; (4) only low royalties are paid, if any. As of today, scholarly journals are the preferred mode of academic publishing in particular in the sciences and some social sciences (e.g., economics), whereas scholarly books still play an important role in the arts, the humanities, and part of the social sciences. Whereas scholarly books are published by a large number of small national publishers in a multitude of languages, the most important scholarly journals are typically in English language and published by a few large commercial publishers. Until the mid-20th century, the most important journals were published by learned societies, before commercial publishers began to enter the academic publishing market in the 1960s and 1970s by launching new titles or acquiring existing ones. This development has led to a significant concentration of (commercial) publishers in the academic journal market.3 It is difficult to say for sure how many scholarly journals are available around the world. Some sources speak of more than 100,000, others of 87,000 or 73,000.4 In August 2018, Ulrich's Web Directory listed 33,119 active scholarly peer-reviewed English-language journals with about 3 million articles a year, complemented by an additional 9,372 journals in other languages. As an important subset, 11,655 journals with 2.2 million articles were included in the Clarivate Analytics' Journal Citation Reports (STM, 2018, 25–26). The Web of Science (WoS) database counted almost 12,500 journals in 2019 (see below, Section 2.2.1). With the mass expansion of academic education and the increasing size of faculty after World War II, publications in peer-reviewed, highly ranked journals have become an important precondition for academic careers in many disciplines, in particular in the sciences, economics, and partly in the other social sciences. In 1964, Eugene Garfield launched the Science Citation Index to calculate the impact factors of journals in science, medicine, and technology. This index was later followed by the Social Sciences Citation Index in 1973, the Arts & Humanities Citation Index in 1978 (Regazzi, 2015, 86–88), and the Emerging Sources Citation Index in 2015. These indices led to the development of the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), a metric that serves to rank a scholarly journal based on the number of citations to articles in that journal by articles in other indexed journals within a certain time period. During the same time, commercial publishers have increased their market shares to the detriment of non-for-profit publishers, such as learned societies and universities, becoming the dominant players in the market for scholarly journals. Today, the "big five" commercial academic publishers—Elsevier, Springer, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Sage—cover more than half of the market for scholarly journals. Since the 1980s, we have seen a sharp increase not just in the number of journals but in particular also in journal subscription prices, forcing many academic libraries to cancel serials subscriptions and to cut back on new monographs (the so-called serials crisis, cf. Eger & Scheufen, 2018, 23–29). These developments induced an increasing number of scholars, initially in the United States, to promote open access (OA) to scholarly articles as a replacement of or an addendum to the subscription model. After some individual initiatives in the late 1980s, the early 2000s saw the emergence of a global movement by scholars, librarians, and research sponsors, resulting in the "Budapest Open Access Initiative" (February 2002), the "Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing" (June 2003) and the "Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities" (October 2003).7 Two roads to OA can be distinguished8: First, gold OA refers to electronic journals with OA for all readers, often based on creative commons licenses. The publishers' costs are covered not by subscription fees but from other sources, such as article-processing charges (APCs)9 paid by authors, libraries, learned societies, or research sponsors, or subsidies from learned societies and other sources. Hybrid OA journals, whose numbers are rising fast, allow the authors to choose between paying an APC, thereby granting the reader OA, or not paying an APC and requiring the reader to pay for access to the article.10 A special branch of gold OA is mega-journals, the first one of which, PLOS One, was first published in 2006. In these journals, the peer review is restricted to examining only the soundness of the submitted articles but not their broader interest or impact. Also, mega-journals are not oriented towards a specific subject matter. The second road, green OA, refers to authors self-archiving pre-prints or post-prints of their papers on so-called OA repositories, potentially in addition to publication in traditional subscription-based journals. OpenDOAR listed 5,713 repositories in July 2021, of which 5,073 were classified as institutional repositories managed by universities, faculties, or other academic institutions, 364 as disciplinary (subject) repositories which aggregate research papers in specific disciplines (e.g., PubMed Central, arXiv, SSRN, and RepEc), 138 as aggregating repositories (including Academia and Scielo), and 139 as governmental repositories.11 Whereas institutional and disciplinary repositories generally respect the authors' or publishers' copyright, so-called Robin Hood or Pirate OA repositories do not. The most prominent example is Sci-Hub, founded in 2011 by Alexandra Elbakyan, a young scholar from Kazakhstan, which made over 60 million journal articles publicly available. Due to complaints by academic publishers, Sci-Hub had to switch domains several times.12 Recent years have seen the emergence of academic social networks such as Research Gate and Mendeley, as well as a stream of new forms of disseminating scientific content, including blogs, podcasts, and Facebook posts by prominent scholars. Regarding OA books, the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) in June 2021 listed 43,036 academic peer-reviewed books from 621 publishers.13 The number of academic journals, as listed in the WoS database, has been growing steadily over the past two decades, from around 5,000 in 2000 to almost 12,500 in 2019 (Figure 1).14 Source: Author's calculations based on data from Web of Science (2021) The academic journal market is dominated by a few large commercial publishers, with the "big five" accounting for more than half of the academic journals listed by the WoS in 2019: Elsevier (1,754 journals), Springer (1,406), Wiley Blackwell (1,242), Taylor & Francis (1,199), and Sage (642).15 However, due to a downturn by Elsevier that began around 2006, this dominance has declined from around 60% in 2000 to around 51.7% in 2019 (Figure 2). Source: Author's calculations based on data from Web of Science (2021) Coupled with the advent of the internet and the concurrent increasing digitization of academic works, which through the bundling of different journals and/or formats ("big deals") facilitated second-degree price discrimination, this dominance has led to a drastic increase in subscription prices since the early 1990s (Bergstrom, 2013; Eger & Scheufen, 2018; Ramello, 2010). The resulting serials crisis—with academic libraries having to cut their journal portfolio—gave rise to a new publishing regime that offers OA to journal content. The share of pure (i.e., non-hybrid) OA journals as listed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (2021) has been increasing steadily, from around 3% of all WoS-listed journals in 2000 to more than 10% in 2019 (Figure 3). Source: Author's calculations based on data from Web of Science (2021) and DOAJ (2021) Interestingly, pure OA journals also gained ground in terms of quality. Figure 4 shows boxplots of the impact factors16 of closed access (CA) versus OA journals over time. While CA journals enjoyed an impact factor advantage over OA journals for a long time—all location scales of the impact factor for CA journals being above the ones for OA journals—OA journals are nowadays of the same quality, notwithstanding considerable differences between disciplines (see the contribution by Eger et al. to this issue). In 2019, impact factor distributions of both OA and CA journals are at the same level. Thus, advancing both in quantity and in quality, OA journals are becoming ever more relevant. The literature has identified the following advantages of an OA regime for academic works: (1) OA publications are likely read and therefore (2) cited more widely,17 which in turn (3) raises the incentives for academic authors to publish their research results as citations increase their reputation. These observations led to a broad discussion in academia as to whether the copyright regime may impede the evolution towards a universal OA regime, with very different conclusions being drawn regarding the impact of OA from a social welfare perspective (Scheufen, 2015; Shavell, 2010). Source: Author's calculations based on data from Web of Science (2021) and DOAJ (2021) The growing relevance of academic OA publishing warrants a closer look at the development of pure OA journals as the gold road towards OA. Figure 5 shows the number of newly launched OA journals from 2002 to 2020. Following relatively slow growth from 2002 to 2014, with fewer than 500 new OA journals per year (except 2013), the number has exceeded 1,000 in every year since, peaking in 2017, when more than 2,000 new OA journals were added to the DOAJ database. Today, the DOAJ database counts more than 16,000 OA journals in many different fields of research, published in 80 languages by publishers from 126 countries.18 Source: Author's calculations based on data from DOAJ (2021) Notwithstanding this impressive development, the relevance of OA journals varies substantially across academic disciplines (Figure 6).19 The research field with the largest attributed number of OA journals is Social Sciences (3,817), followed by Health Sciences (2,785), Technology and Engineering (1,416), and Language and Literature (1,153). By contrast, the natural science fields of Mathematics & Statistics (341), Physics & Astronomy (274), and Chemistry (181) feature only few OA journals.20 Source: Author's calculations based on data from DOAJ (2021) Remarkable differences also exist regarding a variety of OA journal characteristics (Table 1).21 Most (52%) OA journals leave the copyright of published works with the author, whereas the traditional CA regime demands that the exploitation rights are transferred to the publisher. Moreover, only around 28% of all OA journals charge APCs—a remarkable finding, as the OA regime implies the transition from a "reader pays" to an "author pays" model. Other fees (e.g., a submission fee to cover the review process) are charged by only around 2% of all OA journals. Nevertheless, author fees may constitute a significant obstacle for authors to publish in an OA venue, especially for non-tenured researchers seeking to publish in highly ranked journals, which are most likely to charge APCs (Budzinski et al., 2020). This obstacle also applies in particular to many researchers from developing countries, whose institutions rarely cover such costs. Yet 18% of OA journals provide for the possibility to waive such author fees. OA publishing may indeed be considered a form of development aid, for two reasons: First, few institutions in the developing world have so far been able to subscribe to academic journals. The OA regime can thus promote scientific participation and thereby foster the global evolution of science as a "trial and error" process. Free or cheaper access to literature for researchers in the developing world tends to increase both their output (number of publications) and input (number of references) (Mueller-Langer et al., 2020). Second, an OA regime grants access to the latest results in science for groups who were previously excluded because they are not "club" members of a university library. This includes, e.g., corporate researchers, physicians, or farmers. Notwithstanding all the changes discussed above, scholarly journals remain the most important medium of communication in many disciplines. For more than 300 years, they have been fulfilling the four key functions of registration (attribution), certification of articles (peer review), dissemination (distribution, access), and preservation (scholarly memory and permanent archiving). In recent decades, a fifth function must be added: the evaluation of researchers and their institutions.22 The increasing importance of OA articles in scholarly journals has triggered some controversial discussions, in particular regarding the questions as to whether OA negatively affects the quality of journal articles, whether OA improves the dissemination of research results, and how OA affects the competition between academic publishers as well as the distribution between academics and non-academics, between poor and rich universities, and between poor and rich countries. We shall discuss each of these questions and some related points in more detail below. In times when "alternative facts" tend to trump sound research results, academia must provide the public with reliable information. The users of this information should be sufficiently certain that the results are based on proper methods, reflect the state of science in the specific field, and were obtained independently, e.g., of any political or commercial interests.23 For that reason, strict and continuous quality control of research results is a "conditio sine qua non" for academic publishing. Facilitating the communication of content from authors to readers, the academic journal market may be characterized as a two-sided market (Rochet & Tirole, 2003). While readers look for the most important research results in their fields by top authors, the latter are interested in the journal's reputation, in wide readership, and in citations. Thus, journals with high impact factors hold the greatest attraction to both sides. With this in mind, the crucial question arises what effect, if any, OA is likely to have on the quality of academic articles. Jeffrey Beall, a librarian at the University of Colorado in Denver, is very skeptical regarding the quality of OA articles, especially those that are financed by APCs: "By adding a financial component to the front end of the scholarly publishing process, the open-access movement will ultimately corrupt scholarly publishing and hurt the communication and sharing of novel knowledge" (Beall, 2013, 590). A weak form of "corruption" would to OA publishers' incentives to peer review and to more submitted papers in to increase from However, the commercial publishers' incentives to increase the number of articles to the detriment of the journal's quality at the the quality the APCs that the journal is able to as well as A form of "corruption" refers to the of some OA journal publishers have been to in particular young and who on publications for their or to allow authors to publish articles in OA journals, by articles with or peer academics on their the or of journals, and so In established a of publishers, which was in January in to not only from the publishers but also from OA who that the to to OA. this quality to be a one which exists only in some disciplines (e.g., economics), whereas in other disciplines, such as some OA journals are the ranked journals and there is of a quality researchers their and if academic institutions and research to the APCs for articles by journals, this is to A by is that OA may new and will new and of their will remain (Beall, 2013, 590). 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IntroductionImproving the dissemination and impact of medical research is important, if maximal benefits are to be achieved for patients. To help achieve this goal, researchers are increasingly being asked to...

This article investigates the discourses of academic legitimacy that surround the production, consumption, and accreditation of online scholarship. Using the web-based media and cultural studies journal (http://journal.media-culture.org.au) as a case study, it examines how online scholarly journals often position themselves as occupying a space between the academic and the popular and as having a functional advantage over print-based media in promoting a spirit of public intellectualism. The current research agenda of both government and academe prioritises academic research that is efficient, self-promoting, and relevant to the public. Yet, although the cost-effectiveness and public-intellectual focus of online scholarship speak to these research priorities, online journals such as M/C Journal have occupied, and continue to occupy, an unstable position in relation to the perceived academic legitimacy of their content. Although some online scholarly journals have achieved a limited form of recognition within a system of accreditation that still privileges print-based scholarship, I argue that this, nevertheless, points to the fact that traditional textual notions of legitimate academic work continue to pervade the research agenda of an academe that increasingly promotes flexible delivery of teaching and online research initiatives.

The last two decades have witnessed a growing acknowledgment of the importance of research on mental health in the global health context. The 1995 edited volume, World Mental Health [1], the 1996 publication of the Global Burden of Disease Study [2], and the 2001 World Health Report [3] powerfully utilized mental health data or underscored the role of research in achieving gains in mental health around the world. By 2007, the World Health Organization and the Global Forum for Health Research released their report on research capacity for mental health, demonstrating the dearth of mental health research from low- and middle-income countries, in particular, as well as the need to bridge the gap between research, practice, and policy [4]. That same year, the Lancet special issue on global mental health galvanized the global mental health community, outlining concrete actions to advance the field [5]. The series Call to Action underscored the importance of research as a means to expand the global evidence base and to make the case for mental health care delivery reform, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) [5]. At the time, however, medical students and residents from high-, middle-, and low-income countries, alike, would have noted a dearth of funding to support research training focused on global mental health themes. Despite this, by 2009, new global health programs at universities were rapidly appearing in the USA and providing more opportunities for training in global health [6], but few had well-developed mental health components—either research or clinically focused. At the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a reevaluation of the institute’s role in global health research was also underway. By mid-2009, NIMH began reorganizing the Office for Special Populations and the Office of Global Mental Health to create the Office for Research on Disparities and Global Mental Health (ORDGMH) in 2010. Consistent with the NIMH mission, the new office underscored (1) the critical need to mount an inclusive global effort to expand research—and the capacity to conduct research—on preventing and treating mental illness, (2) the centrality of eliminating disparities as part and parcel of this effort, and (3) the value of recognizing that local contexts around the globe share commonalities that can provide insights into equitably reducing the suffering associated with mental illness. An explicit goal of ORDGMH was to create a research career path in global mental health for US investigators, while also supporting research capacity building in low- and middle-income countries as a route to building high-quality collaborative research. To achieve this goal, ORDGMH expanded collaborations with the Fogarty International Center (FIC)—the NIH center tasked with supporting and facilitating global health research and research training—and, where indicated, developed new targeted initiatives for research capacity development in mental health. In this article, we briefly describe NIMH activities in support of global mental health research training and future directions for research training in global mental health.

A Review of: Hadad, S., & Aharony, N. (2024). Librarians and academic libraries’ role in promoting open access: What needs to change? College & Research Libraries, 85(4), 464–478. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.85.4.464 Objective – The study aims to explore and examine how Israeli librarians perceive their role and the academic library's role in promoting open access (OA) publishing; identify the barriers, challenges, and difficulties in implementing OA; and determine the factors and needs that are required to promote OA. By examining these aspects, the research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current state of OA promotion in Israeli academic libraries, the challenges faced by librarians, and the necessary changes and support required to enhance OA adoption in the country's academic institutions. Design – Qualitative design using semi-structured interviews. Setting – University libraries in Israel. Subjects – One representative from each of the ten existing universities in Israel. The ten participants held positions as administrators of the library system at their institution (50%), directors of disciplinary libraries (30%), or directors of information systems in academic libraries of Israeli universities. Among the subjects, 90% were female. In terms of seniority, 60% of respondents had been employed by their institution for over 10 years, while 40% had been less than 10 years in their current positions. Methods – Semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom between April and June of 2020. The interviews were based on items from existing surveys on librarians' attitudes towards open access and changes in academic library practices. The authors used thematic analysis to categorize and code the interview responses. This "bottom-up" approach allowed researchers to identify common expressions and recurring themes. The analysis yielded 1,264 statements classified into three main categories with several sub-categories. To ensure reliability, 25% of the statements were analyzed by a second coder, resulting in a Cohen's Kappa of .86 (.8 and above is rated as “almost perfect”). The researchers ensured trustworthiness of data by adhering to four principles: truth-value, applicability, consistency, and neutrality of data. Main Results – The interview data revealed that, in general, librarians see their role as crucial in advising researchers about OA publishing. They view themselves as responsible for implementing changes related to OA after institutional policies are set. The authors identify a myriad of barriers to overcome if OA is going to grow and become a more accepted practice of publishing for Israeli researchers. These barriers include, but are not limited to, lack of budget for OA agreements, lack of cooperation from university management, researchers' unfamiliarity with OA and fears about predatory journals, the influence of journal impact factors, and lack of personnel and training for librarians. In order to overcome these barriers, librarians believe they need clear national and institutional OA policies, as well as cooperation and collaboration between academic institutions on OA initiatives. Librarians also believe that systematic training for library staff in OA publishing is imperative, along with guidance and incentives for researchers to publish in OA journals. The results also yielded qualitative data about librarians’ current involvement in OA, which include participating in OA agreements through library consortia, operating current research information systems (CRIS), promoting institutional policies, and interfacing with university administration on OA issues. The study also revealed that there is a desire among librarians to establish the library as the central body for OA matters within their institutions. Conclusion – Librarians see their role as crucial in promoting open access (OA) publishing, particularly in advising researchers and implementing changes after institutional policies are set. Overall, the study concludes that while librarians see themselves as playing important roles in promoting OA, they face numerous challenges and require additional support and resources to fulfill this role effectively. The research highlights the need for systemic changes at both institutional and national levels to advance OA adoption in Israeli academic institutions.

A Review of:
 Peekhaus, W., & Proferes, N. (2015). How library and information science faculty perceive and engage with open access. Journal of Information Science, 41(5), 640-661. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0165551515587855
 
 Objective – To examine the awareness of, attitudes toward, and engagement with open access (OA) publishing, based on rank and tenure status among library and information science (LIS) faculty in North America.
 
 Design – Web-based survey distributed via email.
 
 Setting – Accredited library and information science (LIS) programs in North America.
 
 Subjects – 276 professors and professors emeriti.
 
 Methods – Researchers collected email addresses for 1,017 tenure-track, tenured, and emeriti professors from the public websites of the LIS programs. Researchers sent an email invitation to participate in the survey by accessing a URL, with the survey itself delivered using Qualtrics software. The survey included 51 total questions, some with additional sub-questions, and most items used Likert-type rating scale. The researchers analysed the data using SPSS software, and indicated using chi-square tests to measure significance, with a stated intent to get beyond the descriptive statistics commonly seen in other publications. 
 
 Main Results – This study’s results draw on 276 completed responses, for a response rate of 27%. Researchers reported that 53% of respondents had some experience with publishing in a peer-reviewed OA format. When asked whether they agreed that scholarly articles should be free to access for everyone, pre-tenure assistant professors were most likely to agree (74%), followed by tenured associate professors (62%), full professors (59%) and then emeriti professors (8%). However, they found less likelihood that associate professors would have actually published in an OA format, highlighting a “disconnect between beliefs about accessibility of research and actual practice with open access” (p. 646). Researchers also discovered a connection between faculty awareness of institutional and disciplinary repositories and faculty publishing in OA journals, though a relatively low number (35%) had deposited their output in a repository within the previous year. That increases to 50% of respondents when timeframe is ignored.
 
 Faculty who had never published in OA journals ranked several barriers to doing so, barriers common across disciplinary boundaries. These include objections to paying OA fees; perceptions of slow time to publish, low research impact, and venue prestige when compared to traditional subscription journals; an inability to identify an appropriate OA journal; and an inability to pay OA fees. However, the researchers note that a majority of these respondents who had never published in an OA format would do so if these barriers were removed. Those participants who had some previous experience with OA were more likely to have positive perceptions of OA journal quality and impact, as well as the overall publishing experience, as compared to publishing in traditional journals. 
 
 As in other disciplines, LIS faculty are conscious of the connection between OA and tenure and promotion processes. For example, this study reveals that non-tenured faculty are more likely to agree that publishing in OA venues may affect their career progress. Researchers report uncertainty about OA even among tenured LIS faculty. Of all respondents, only 34% agreed that a tenure or promotion committee might consider an OA publication on par with a traditional publication, while 44% of respondents were of the opinion that an OA publication would be treated less favourably than a traditional journal. A mere 1% of respondents believed that an OA publication would be treated more favourably within the tenure and promotion process. Despite this unfavourable perception of OA, the researchers report that 38% of respondents planned to publish in an OA journal regardless of whether their tenure and promotion committees might treat that OA publication unfavourably.
 
 Conclusion – The researchers report a connection between publishing in an OA journal and academic rank, with full professors more likely to publish OA or to have previous experience in publishing in an OA journal as compared to assistant professor colleagues, who perceive publishing in OA as a potential impediment to career progress. The researchers note that there is significant opportunity for LIS faculty involved in tenure and promotion committees to consider and clarify how OA publications are treated, and the impact of OA publishing with regard to career progress. Moreover, given the levels of uncertainty and equivocacy among faculty respondents as a whole regarding certain aspects of OA, the perceptions around quality and rigour, there is room for further research into LIS professors’ perceptions and attitudes toward open access, and how these change over time.

Purpose This study aims to analyze the adoption of open access (OA) publishing in social sciences within central universities in India, focusing on various aspects such as the growth of OA literature, the use of different OA routes and collaboration patterns in OA publications. Design/methodology/approach Ten central universities were selected based on their rankings in the National Institute Ranking Framework 2022. Data on OA publishing in social sciences were collected from the Social Science Citation Index of the Web of Science (WoS) database using the advanced search query “(CU=India OR AD=India) AND PY=(2003–2022) NOT PY=(2023).” Data analysis was conducted using MS Excel (v16.0), BibExcel (version 2017), Biblioshiny (version 4.1.2) and Google Open Refine (version 3.7). Findings The study found that 30.40% of total publications were OA, with BHU as leading institute in OA publishing. OA publishing in social sciences saw a consistent increase, peaking in 2022 with 209 publications. “Sustainability” and “Plos One” were among the top ten journals, with 103 and 34 OA papers, respectively. OA publications had a higher mean citation rate than closed access publications. Collaboration with seven and nine authors had higher mean citation rates, while six-author collaborations were lower. Indian researchers received the most citations collaborating with the USA, UK and Australia. The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia received the fewer citations, when collaborating with Indian authors. Research limitations/implications The study’s main limitation is its reliance on WoS data, excluding many OA publications from smaller or specialized journals. Additionally, the focus on high-ranked central universities may not represent the entire academic landscape, as OA publishing patterns vary across other institutions and disciplines. Practical implications The study’s findings suggest that advancing OA publishing in social sciences at Indian universities requires raising awareness of OA concepts, enhancing institutional support and policies and informing researchers about funding opportunities. Emphasizing Gold OA and funding publication fees can broaden access to research. Universities with low OA ratios should adopt similar policies, mandate public research deposits and develop technical infrastructure. Encouraging multi-author collaborations can boost research impact and citation rates. Insights from the study can help institutions and policymakers shape effective OA strategies, enhancing the visibility and impact of social science research. Originality/value This is the first study analyzing the adoption of OA in the field of social sciences in high-ranked central universities in India. It has implications for promoting OA and increasing accessibility to research outputs. Universities with higher OA ratios can lead in this regard and encourage others to adopt similar practices for overall OA growth.

BackgroundIn 1982, the Annals of Virology published a paper showing how Liberia has a highly endemic potential of Ebola warning health authorities of the risk for potential outbreaks; this journal is only available by subscription. Limiting the accessibility of such knowledge may have reduced information propagation toward public health actors who were indeed surprised by and unprepared for the 2014 epidemic. Open access (OA) publication can allow for increased access to global health research (GHR). Our study aims to assess the use, cost and impact of OA diffusion in the context of GHR.MethodA total of 3366 research articles indexed under the Medical Heading Subject Heading “Global Health” published between 2010 and 2014 were retrieved using PubMed to (1) quantify the uptake of various types of OA, (2) estimate the article processing charges (APCs) of OA, and (3) analyse the relationship between different types of OA, their scholarly impact and gross national income per capita of citing countries.ResultsMost GHR publications are not available directly on the journal’s website (69%). Further, 60.8% of researchers do not self-archive their work even when it is free and in keeping with journal policy. The total amount paid for APCs was estimated at US$1.7 million for 627 papers, with authors paying on average US$2732 per publication; 94% of APCs were paid to journals owned by the ten most prominent publication houses from high-income countries. Researchers from low- and middle-income countries are generally citing less expensive types of OA, while researchers in high-income countries are citing the most expensive OA.ConclusionsAlthough OA may help in building global research capacity in GHR, the majority of publications remain subscription only. It is logical and cost-efficient for institutions and researchers to promote OA by self-archiving publications of restricted access, as it not only allows research to be cited by a broader audience, it also augments citation rates. Although OA does not ensure full knowledge transfer from research to practice, limiting public access can negatively impact implementation and outcomes of health policy and reduce public understanding of health issues.

This reflection introduces a new term to the debate on open access publishing: diamond open access (DOA) publishing. The debate on open access is a debate about the future of academia. We discuss the problems of for-profit academic publishing, such as monopoly prices and access inequalities and point at the limits of contemporary perspectives on open access as they are frequently advanced by the publishing industry, policy makers and labour unions. The article introduces a public service and commons perspective that stresses the importance of fostering and publicly supporting what we term the model of diamond open access. It is a non-profit academic publishing model that makes academic knowledge a common good, reclaims the common character of the academic system and entails the possibility for fostering job security by creating public service publishing jobs. Existing concepts such as “gold open access” have serious conceptual limits that can be overcome by introducing the new term of diamond open access. The debate on open access lacks visions and requires social innovations. This article is a policy intervention and reflection on current issues related to open access (OA) publishing. It reflects on the following questions: * What should the role of open access be in the future of academic publishing and academia? * How should the future of academic publishing and academia look like? * Which reforms of academic policy making are needed in relation to open access publishing? We want to trigger a new level of the open access debate. We invite further reflections on these questions by academics, policy makers, publishers, publishing workers, labour unions, open access publishing associations, editors and librarians.Twitter: #DiamondOA

This reflection introduces a new term to the debate on open access publishing: diamond open access (DOA) publishing. The debate on open access is a debate about the future of academia. We discuss the problems of for-profit academic publishing, such as monopoly prices and access inequalities and point at the limits of contemporary perspectives on open access as they are frequently advanced by the publishing industry, policy makers and labour unions. The article introduces a public service and commons perspective that stresses the importance of fostering and publicly supporting what we term the model of diamond open access. It is a non-profit academic publishing model that makes academic knowledge a common good, reclaims the common character of the academic system and entails the possibility for fostering job security by creating public service publishing jobs. Existing concepts such as “gold open access” have serious conceptual limits that can be overcome by introducing the new term of diamond open access. The debate on open access lacks visions and requires social innovations. This article is a policy intervention and reflection on current issues related to open access (OA) publishing. It reflects on the following questions: * What should the role of open access be in the future of academic publishing and academia? * How should the future of academic publishing and academia look like? * Which reforms of academic policy making are needed in relation to open access publishing? We want to trigger a new level of the open access debate. We invite further reflections on these questions by academics, policy makers, publishers, publishing workers, labour unions, open access publishing associations, editors and librarians.Twitter: #DiamondOA

Open Science for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry