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347 news posts in Open science

Open science and peer review

24 Dec 2015

Article Processing Charges: Open Access could save global research

The total number of peer-reviewed research articles published each year increases by approximately 4% [Scopus]. In 2014, nearly 400,000 published research articles were Gold open-access papers. This results in approximately 20% of all research articles — and the number is growing at an astonishing rate of 20% per year (Lewis, 2013).  If the rate continues, open-access papers will exceed subscription papers in just a few years from now. This, and similar observations, have led some commentators to predict that traditional subscription journals will soon be a thing of the past (Lewis, 2012). But is this a credible prediction? Is open access capable of disrupting the entire scholarly publishing industry? Can it replace traditional publishing or force it to adopt new business models? The answers depend on whether open access satisfies two fundamental criteria for disruption: an increase in efficiency and a decrease in costs. The new generation of open-access publishers are “born digital” which is undoubtedly far more efficient, but how much will universities, institutes and scientists save by switching to open access ? Brief history of the evolution of open access From the 1950s to the 1990s, nearly all scientific papers were published in subscription journals that were paid for by individual readers or […]

Open science and peer review

22 Dec 2015

Born Digital: building the ultimate open-access publisher

By Pascal Rocha da Silva, Frontiers The digital disruption for analog film started in 1975 with the invention of the digital camera by Steven Sasson and ended with the bankruptcy of Kodak in 2012 (40 years later). The digital disruption in publishing started in the late 1990s with the first online archiving of articles, but it is still far from complete (~30 years into the transition). However, as over 30% of peer-reviewed papers are now published in some form of open-access1, the industry has technically crossed the tipping point for disruption. This is the point where more than just the innovators and early adopters begin using a product or service. Figure 1: Projection of open access versus subscription articles: 2000-2021. Disruptions are driven by economic models that lower costs, and process models that increase efficiency. In 2014, the revenue per subscription article was around $7,000 (calculated from $14 billion revenue for about 2 million articles2 – see article on the cost of publishing), while the average Article Processing Charge (APC) for an open-access article was estimated in our sample at $2,700. This means that, as open-access articles grow to dominate the market, the cost of publishing will eventually drop 2-3 fold, saving libraries and research departments $5 to 10 […]

Open science and peer review

21 Dec 2015

Selecting for impact: new data debunks old beliefs

One of the strongest beliefs in scholarly publishing is that journals seeking a high impact factor (IF) should be highly selective, accepting only papers predicted to become highly significant and novel, and hence likely to attract a large number of citations. The result is that so-called top journals reject as many of 90-95% of the manuscripts they receive, forcing the authors of these papers to resubmit in more “specialized”, lower impact factor journals where they may find a more receptive home. Unfortunately, most of the 20,000 or so journals in the scholarly publishing world follow their example. All of which raises the question: does the strategy work? There is evidence that proves it doesn’t. In Figure 1, we plotted the impact factors of 570 randomly selected journals indexed in the 2014 Journal Citation Reports (Thomson Reuters, 2015), against their publicly stated rejection rates.    Figure 1: 570 journals with publicly stated rejection rates (for sources, see below and to see complete data, click here). Impact factors from Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports (2014). (Y-axis is on a Log scale). As you can see, Figure 1 shows there is absolutely no correlation between rejection rates and impact factor (r2 = 0.0023; we assume the sample of 570 journals is sufficiently random to represent the […]

Open science and peer review

03 Nov 2015

FLOWCHART: Should I take on this review assignment?

By Chloe Schmidt and Katherine Lawson You’ve just received an invitation to review a manuscript. Coincidentally, your expertise matches perfectly with its content! But before you go ahead and accept the invitation, there are a few other things to consider: for one, is there something that could interfere with your objectivity as a reviewer? For that matter, what’s considered a conflict of interest at Frontiers? Here’s a fun flowchart to help clarify whether you, as a reviewer, have any potential conflicts of interest with the authors (or editor) of a manuscript. If you find yourself in a situation where you answer yes to any of the questions below, do us a favor and drop the Editorial Office an email. Otherwise, happy reviewing!

Young Minds

15 Oct 2015

Frontiers for Young Minds live at the Bay Area Science Festival

Frontiers for Young Minds is excited to bring its team together for a live event as part of the Bay Area Science Festival. Three scientists will not only be writing about their research for younger audiences, but will also face the challenge of presenting their work directly to a live public audience. Those scientists will then face a panel of some of our most experienced Young Reviewers, ages 9-17. Our Young Reviewers will push these researchers to better explain how and why their research is important to the public, and provide feedback on how to make their work more interesting and understandable for their young peers. This event will not only provide a live glimpse into the mechanisms behind every Young Minds article – involving young people directly in the scientific process – but will also provide a chance to get to know some of our Chief Editors, learn about cutting-edge science, and share in a final highlight about music and the brain. We look forward to seeing you there. Event Details: At Chabot Space & Science Center November 6th, 6:30-8:30 pm Due to a generous donation in the names of Judah Carillo and Golden Freedman, all tickets to this […]

Open science and peer review

07 Oct 2015

Open Access, a fortune to less developed countries

Not all people have equal access to science. In places where funds are particularly scarce, open access to science could bring fortune. Defining fortune The development of a country is officially measured with statistical indexes such as income per capita, gross domestic product, life expectancy and literacy. Science literacy is more subjective and is not normally considered a basic need; it is nonetheless, of great value for development of a country. From my tiny perspective, science literacy can enrich a population not only locally, by knowledge or application in specific fields, but also very profoundly in the form of wide-spread learning in proximity with the scientific reasoning. Exercising the scientific method builds critical thinking, favoring informed political choices, the adoption of healthier lives and sustainable interactions with the natural environment.  Less developed countries tend to invest less in scientific training; often, this is due to their primary need to invest on basic education, health, and infrastructures for their population at large; sometimes it is due to a certain kind of political interest in keeping the population uninformed and conformed. In parallel, it remains a reality that publishing quality scientific articles and data has inherent costs. These are covered by the majority of […]

Open science and peer review

23 Sep 2015

Chinese science: an open book?

By Anthony King, science journalist. Chinese scientists are increasingly attracted to open access journals, particularly those with international reach and recognized kudos. With submissions from China on a steady rise, international publishers are eyeing up the market and beginning to tap into its vast potential. Of course, the open access model is gaining ground throughout the world, with nearly 10,000 journals now giving readers free access to research papers. China is no exception as its drive to internationalize and promote its scientific achievements draws researchers to submit to quality open access publications. Open access gets a boost At the end of 2013, open access journals represented about 16% [1,370 journals] of all academic journals in China. Although this proportion is not remarkable in itself, uptake has been extremely rapid since 2009. Chinese researchers and officials have traditionally been conservative about who they choose to work with and how they publish. Prestige and reputation count a lot and, until recently, open access publications did not carry the requisite authority or reach. But in just a few years this attitude has changed dramatically. Perhaps one of the biggest drivers for the upsurge in open access submissions is coming from the top–namely from […]

Open science and peer review

11 Sep 2015

Frontiers tops open-access journal ranking in several JCR categories

Click here for the 2017 analysis of the 2016 Journal Citation Reports by Clarivate Analytics (f.k.a. Thomson Reuters). July 16, 2016: An analysis of open-access journal performance in the 2015 Journal Citation Reports (JCR) revealed that Frontiers journals generated the #1 highest number of citations in the categories of Psychology, Neurosciences, Plant Sciences, Immunology, Neurology and Physiology and the #2 highest number of citations in the categories of Pharmacology & Pharmacy and Microbiology. Successful open-access journals grow quickly and are sometimes faced with the notion that publishing a large number of papers somehow decreases the overall quality. However, when looking at an analysis for the 19 Frontiers journals currently with impact factors, rankings soar as high as in the 94th percentile and on average were in the 85th percentile out of the 11,365 journals listed in the in the 2015 Journal Citations Reports published by Thomson Reuters in 2016 (See Figure 1). 2015 journal ranking by impact factor (11,365 journals) Figure 1: The 19 Frontiers journals with impact factors (in red) compared to the other 11,365 journals (subscription and open access) listed in the 2015 Journal Citation Reports. Frontiers ranks in the top 15% of Impact Factors for all journals, with our journals ranking between […]