There is a ton of information to keep up with in academia as news surrounding academic publishing, higher education, and technological innovations continues to surface and develop. In an effort to capture a snapshot of some of the top stories this month, we thought it would be helpful to compile a July overview.
Below are some of the top stories that caught the Scholastica team’s attention. Do you have any articles or blog posts to suggest adding? Let us know!
Open Access Publishing
Open and Shut?: The Subversive Proposal at 20
Richard Poynder interviews cognitive scientist Stevan Harnad about the future of the open access movement, in recognition of the 20th anniversary of Harnad’s Subversive Proposal.
The Scholarly Kitchen: Open Access Publication Gains Acceptance with Authors, Licenses Still Problematic
Phil Davis, independent researcher and publishing consultant, reviews the 2014 Taylor & Francis Open Access Survey, which reveals a growing acceptance of the benefits of OA publishing. Yet, some concerns remain among authors about commercial re-use of their work.
Wired: Incentivizing Peer Review: The Last Obstacle for Open Access Science
Jeffrey Marlow speaks with Academia.edu founder Richard Price about the crippling effects high-priced journal subscriptions are having on research foundations around the world.
TechnoLlama: Academic Publishers Draft and Release Their Own Open Access Licenses
Andrés Guadamuz, senior intellectual property lecturer at University of Sussex, covers the new set of open access publishing licenses released by The International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) this month.
July also brought some significant updates to the Open Access Directory, which Peter Suber shared via Google+. Additionally, the World Health Organization (WHO), announced a new policy on open access: from July 1 on all WHO staff articles must be published OA.
For more stories related to open access publishing check out The Open Access Button blog’s Week in Links
Data Sharing
LSE, The Impact Blog: Maximizing the value of research data: developing incentives and changing cultures
Dave Carr and Natalie Banner of the Wellcome Trust highlight key findings and recommendations from the Expert Advisory Group on Data Access’ (EAGDA) work towards encouraging greater support of data sharing and rewards for significant data contributions.
EDUCAUSE Review: Issues in Open Access to Research
Mark Hahnel, founder of Figshare, explores the landscape of academic research sharing and outlines benefits, concerns, and current roadblocks for researchers.
University World News: EuroScience 2014 – Building bridges, opening access
Jan Petter Myklebust reports on the 2014 EuroScience Open Forum, which was themed “Science Building Bridges” and aimed at opening access to scientific research.
Following the EuroScience Open Forum the European Commission released a press release calling the public to express ideas and opinions about “Science 2.0,” a term they are using to describe the globalization of science and digital data. “Science 2.0” embraces changes in publishing practice and digital data sharing.
Publication Metrics
The Scholarly Kitchen: NISO Vets Research on Altmetrics
Judy Luther, President of Informed Strategies, details the results and implications of the National Information Standards Organization’s (NISO) study of altmetrics, concerning developing scholarly practices and standards to support the growing adoption of alternative metrics.
LSE, The Impact Blog: Altmetrics may be able to help in evaluating societal reach, but research significance must be peer reviewed
Kim Holmberg, postdoctoral research associate at VU University Amsterdam, explores the potential of alternative metrics in measuring the impact of research in the public sphere. At the same time Holmberg questions where and how authors can draw the line between promoting their work and gaming the altmetrics.
LSE, The Impact Blog: Across all fields, Open Access articles in Swedish repository have a higher citation rate that non-OA articles
Lars Kullman, of Chalmers University of Technology, discusses his findings on whether there is a possible citation advantage for open access articles across disciplines.
For more citations related stories check out Impact Story’s Open Science & Altmetrics Monthly Roundup.
Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education: 11 University and Library Groups Release Net-Neutrality Principles
Avi Wolfman-Arent reports on colleges and university libraries across the country calling for the Federal Communications Commission to stop proposed changes to net-neutrality.
ACRL, College and Research Libraries News: Top Trends in Academic Libraries
The Association of College and Research Libraries breaks down the top trends and concerns affecting academic libraries.
JISC Blog: Let’s get serious about Wikipedia
JISC’s Martin Poulter covers current and untapped benefits of Wikipedia for students and university libraries.
**Inside Higher Ed:**And of course July brought us the soccer World Cup! Inside Higher Ed’s Joshua Kim shares 5 Higher Ed Lessons from the World Cup.
Also in open access news, the following open access articles were published on Scholastica!:
Recent Advances in Biology and Medicine : Physiological and Morphological responses of Phaseolus vulgaris causes by mercury stress under lab conditions by, Jot Sharma and Shilpa Shrivastava
Strategic Leadership Review: Explaining Rapidly Growing Companies – the “Berlin Innovation and Growth (BIG) Model” by, Matthias Tomenendal
