ISCB Public Policy Statement on Open Access to Scientific and Technical Research Literature.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lathrop RH
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3044765 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
ISCB Public Policy Statement on Open Access to Scientific and Technical Research Literature.
Lathrop Richard H RH Rost Burkhard B
PLoS computational biology 20110224 2
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Project description:IntroductionThrough funding agency and publisher policies, an increasing proportion of the health sciences literature is being made open access. Such an increase in access raises questions about the awareness and potential utilization of this literature by those working in health fields.MethodsA sample of physicians (N=336) and public health non-governmental organization (NGO) staff (N=92) were provided with relatively complete access to the research literature indexed in PubMed, as well as access to the point-of-care service UpToDate, for up to one year, with their usage monitored through the tracking of web-log data. The physicians also participated in a one-month trial of relatively complete or limited access.ResultsThe study found that participants' research interests were not satisfied by article abstracts alone nor, in the case of the physicians, by a clinical summary service such as UpToDate. On average, a third of the physicians viewed research a little more frequently than once a week, while two-thirds of the public health NGO staff viewed more than three articles a week. Those articles were published since the 2008 adoption of the NIH Public Access Policy, as well as prior to 2008 and during the maximum 12-month embargo period. A portion of the articles in each period was already open access, but complete access encouraged a viewing of more research articles.ConclusionThose working in health fields will utilize more research in the course of their work as a result of (a) increasing open access to research, (b) improving awareness of and preparation for this access, and (c) adjusting public and open access policies to maximize the extent of potential access, through reduction in embargo periods and access to pre-policy literature.
| S-EPMC4511689 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Public voices have largely been absent from the discussions about open access publishing in medical research. Yet the public have a strong interest in ensuring open access of medical research findings because of their roles as funders, advocates, research participants, and patients. By limiting access to research outputs, the current publishing system makes it more difficult for research to be held accountable to the public. Paywalls undermine the work of public advocacy, which requires open access in order to lobby for policy changes and research funding. Research participants generously give their time and energy to research studies with the assumption that the results will be broadly disseminated. Finally, members of the public have a stake in open access publishing as a resource for health information and decision-making. This commentary explores these crucial roles of the public in order to develop a public rationale for open access medical research. We outline a critique of the current academic publishing ecosystem, re-focus the open access debate from a public perspective, and respond to some of the arguments against public open access. Although open access to medical research is not a panacea, removing paywalls and other barriers to public access is essential. The public are critical stakeholders of medical research data.
| S-EPMC7048123 | biostudies-literature
Project description: Not available
| S-EPMC1808281 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In April 2008, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implemented the Public Access Policy (PAP), which mandated that the full text of NIH-supported articles be made freely available on PubMed Central - the NIH's repository of biomedical research. This paper uses 600,000 NIH articles and a matched comparison sample to examine how the PAP impacted researcher access to the biomedical literature and publishing patterns in biomedicine. Though some estimates allow for large citation increases after the PAP, the most credible estimates suggest that the PAP had a relatively modest effect on citations, which is consistent with most researchers having widespread access to the biomedical literature prior to the PAP, leaving little room to increase access. I also find that NIH articles are more likely to be published in traditional subscription-based journals (as opposed to 'open access' journals) after the PAP. This indicates that any discrimination the PAP induced, by subscription-based journals against NIH articles, was offset by other factors - possibly the decisions of editors and submission behaviour of authors.
| S-EPMC7802638 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesThe paper reviews recent studies that evaluate the impact of free access (open access) on the behavior of scientists as authors, readers, and citers in developed and developing nations. It also examines the extent to which the biomedical literature is used by the general public.MethodThe paper is a critical review of the literature, with systematic description of key studies.ResultsResearchers report that their access to the scientific literature is generally good and improving. For authors, the access status of a journal is not an important consideration when deciding where to publish. There is clear evidence that free access increases the number of article downloads, although its impact on article citations is not clear. Recent studies indicate that large citation advantages are simply artifacts of the failure to adequately control for confounding variables. The effect of free access on the general public's use of the primary medical literature has not been thoroughly evaluated.ConclusionsRecent studies provide little evidence to support the idea that there is a crisis in access to the scholarly literature. Further research is needed to investigate whether free access is making a difference in non-research contexts and to better understand the dissemination of scientific literature through peer-to-peer networks and other informal mechanisms.
| S-EPMC3133904 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Science journalists are uniquely positioned to increase the societal impact of open research outputs by contextualizing and communicating findings in ways that highlight their relevance and implications for non-specialist audiences. Yet, it is unclear to what degree journalists use open research outputs, such as open access publications or preprints, in their reporting; what factors motivate or constrain this use; and how the recent surge in openly available research seen during the COVID-19 pandemic has affected this. This article examines these questions through a review of relevant literature published from 2018 onwards-particularly literature relating to the COVID-19 pandemic-as well as seminal articles outside the search dates. We find that research that explicitly examines journalists' engagement with open access publications or preprints is scarce, with existing literature mostly addressing the topic tangentially or as a secondary concern, rather than a primary focus. Still, the limited body of evidence points to several factors that may hamper journalists' use of these outputs and thus warrant further exploration. These include an overreliance on traditional criteria for evaluating scientific quality; concerns about the trustworthiness of open research outputs; and challenges using and verifying the findings. We also find that, while the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged journalists to explore open research outputs such as preprints, the extent to which these explorations will become established journalistic practices remains unclear. Furthermore, we note that current research is overwhelmingly authored and focused on the Global North, and the United States specifically. We conclude with recommendations for future research that attend to issues of equity and diversity, and more explicitly examine the intersections of open access and science journalism.
| S-EPMC10618641 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionOpen access (OA) publishing rates have risen dramatically in the biomedical sciences in the past decade. However, few studies have focused on the publishing activities and attitudes of early career researchers. The aim of this study was to examine current publishing activities of clinical and research fellows and their perceptions of OA publishing and public access.MethodsThis study employed a mixed methods approach. Data on publications authored by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center fellows between 2013 and 2018 were collected via an in-house author profile system and citation indexes. Journals were categorized according to SHERPA/RoMEO classifications. In-person and telephone interviews were conducted with fifteen fellows to discern their perceptions of OA publishing.ResultsThe total percentage of fellows' publications that were freely available OA was 28.6%, with a relatively flat rate between 2013 and 2018. Publications with fellows as first authors were significantly more likely to be OA. Fellows cited high article processing charges (APCs) and perceived lack of journal quality or prestige as barriers to OA publishing. Fellows generally expressed support for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) public access policy.ConclusionsWhile the fellows in this study acknowledged the potential of OA to aid in research dissemination, they also expressed hesitation to publish OA related to confusion surrounding legitimate OA and predatory publications and frustration with APCs. Fellows supported the NIH public access policy and accepted it as part of their research process. Health sciences information professionals could potentially leverage this acceptance of public access to advocate for OA publishing.
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Project description:Getting to a net-zero emissions economy requires faster development and diffusion of novel clean energy technologies. We exploit a rare natural experiment to study the impact of an open-access mandate on the diffusion of scientific research into patented technologies. From 2014 onwards, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) required its 17 National Laboratories (NLs) to publish all peer-reviewed scientific articles without a paywall. Using data from more than 300,000 scientific publications between 2012 and 2018, we show that scientific articles subject to the mandate were used on average 42% more in patents, despite embargo periods of up to 12 months. We also show that articles subject to the mandate were not cited more frequently by other academic articles. Our findings suggest that the mandate primarily contributed to technological development but has not led to additional academic research. Lastly, we show that small firms were the primary beneficiaries of the increased diffusion of scientific knowledge.
| S-EPMC10504483 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Access to the scientific literature is perceived to be a challenge to the biodiversity conservation community, but actual level of literature access relative to needs has never been assessed globally. We examined this question by surveying the constituency of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a proxy for the conservation community, generating 2,285 responses. Of these respondents, ∼97% need to use the scientific literature in order to support their IUCN-related conservation work, with ∼50% needing to do so at least once per week. The crux of the survey revolved around the question, "How easy is it for you currently to obtain the scientific literature you need to carry out your IUCN-related work?" and revealed that roughly half (49%) of the respondents find it not easy or not at all easy to access scientific literature. We fitted a binary logistic regression model to explore factors predicting ease of literature access. Whether the respondent had institutional literature access (55% do) is the strongest predictor, with region (Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and sex (male) also significant predictors. Approximately 60% of respondents from Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have institutional access compared to ∼50% in Asia and Latin America, and ∼40% in Eastern Europe and in Africa. Nevertheless, accessing free online material is a popular means of accessing literature for both those with and without institutional access. The four journals most frequently mentioned when asked which journal access would deliver the greatest improvements to the respondent's IUCN-related work were Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Nature, and Science. The majority prefer to read journal articles on screen but books in hard copy. Overall, it is apparent that access to the literature is a challenge facing roughly half of the conservation community worldwide.
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Project description:Currently, there is a growing interest in ensuring the transparency and reproducibility of the published scientific literature. According to a previous evaluation of 441 biomedical journals articles published in 2000-2014, the biomedical literature largely lacked transparency in important dimensions. Here, we surveyed a random sample of 149 biomedical articles published between 2015 and 2017 and determined the proportion reporting sources of public and/or private funding and conflicts of interests, sharing protocols and raw data, and undergoing rigorous independent replication and reproducibility checks. We also investigated what can be learned about reproducibility and transparency indicators from open access data provided on PubMed. The majority of the 149 studies disclosed some information regarding funding (103, 69.1% [95% confidence interval, 61.0% to 76.3%]) or conflicts of interest (97, 65.1% [56.8% to 72.6%]). Among the 104 articles with empirical data in which protocols or data sharing would be pertinent, 19 (18.3% [11.6% to 27.3%]) discussed publicly available data; only one (1.0% [0.1% to 6.0%]) included a link to a full study protocol. Among the 97 articles in which replication in studies with different data would be pertinent, there were five replication efforts (5.2% [1.9% to 12.2%]). Although clinical trial identification numbers and funding details were often provided on PubMed, only two of the articles without a full text article in PubMed Central that discussed publicly available data at the full text level also contained information related to data sharing on PubMed; none had a conflicts of interest statement on PubMed. Our evaluation suggests that although there have been improvements over the last few years in certain key indicators of reproducibility and transparency, opportunities exist to improve reproducible research practices across the biomedical literature and to make features related to reproducibility more readily visible in PubMed.
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