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174 news posts in Open access

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

20 Jul 2015

EC endorses Gold Open Access with new pilot project

The European Commission (EC) recently announced a new pilot project that supports publishing with Gold Open Access publishers like Frontiers.  The pilot, entitled OpenAIRE, will help fund Open Access publications for FP7 projects finished within the last two years which have been accepted and peer-reviewed. Only publications in recognized Open Access journals listed in the DOAJ, Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed  are eligible for post-publication funding with as much as €2,000 per article to help cover publishing costs for research and review article types and as much as €6,000 for monographs. “This announcement is very important to the industry as it not only shows that the EC recognizes Gold Open Access publishing as one of the key solutions to unlocking research knowledge, it is also important as they have expressed their appreciation for the costs involved in providing a high quality Open Access publishing service,” said Kamila Markram, CEO of Frontiers. Frontiers provides a premier Gold Open Access solution with a novel enhanced interactive peer-review process that helps authors and reviewers enhance the quality of published articles. In as little as 7 years, Frontiers has became one of the top 5 Gold Open Access publishers in the world with over 34,000 articles published in 54 journals covering 411 specialties across all academia.  Articles published with Frontiers qualify for funding through […]