Open access opportunities @ EPL
The European Physical Society [EPS], together with the Institute of Physics [IOP], Société
Française de Physique [SFP] and Società Italiana di Fisica [SIF], is one of the founding societies of the well known Europhysics Letters journal, now rebranded as EPL. EPL has celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2011 and has now acquired a maturity to allow for new publication policies. In order to keep abreast with the rapidly changing landscape of copyright and licencing regulations EPL has made amendments to…
News on the Open Access front
In June this year the American Physical Society [APS] has decided not to participate as a publishing partner in the SCOAP3 initiative launched by CERN as an Open Access possible model for the very international particle-physics community.Of course, this does not mean that the APS will abandon its long-standing commitment to Open Access. However this decision signals, once more, how steep the road is to achieve sustainable Open Access for scientific publishers. Despite the universally recognised merits of the Open Access principle to grant unrestricted access to the results of…
Open Access: a general concern
As reported in our previous e-EPS issue, the European Physical Society [EPS] has started a discussion and survey among the European scientific learned societies concerning Open Access.
Today the transition from the current subscription-based system for scientific journals (or from the frequently adopted hybrid author pays/subscription-based system) to full open access is a serious concern. Very recently a statement precisely on the transition to open access was published by Science Europe…
Open Access: a challenge on the boil for scientists and publishers
A Round Table session on Open Access, introduced and moderated by Professor Sir John Enderby, President of the Institute of Physics [IoP] from 2004 to 2006, was hosted during the 2013 EPS Council meeting. Participants with various interests and backgrounds confronted their views on the evolving landscape of scientific publications. Professor Enderby opened the discussions by a presentation of the different, counteracting interests in scientific publications of researchers, funders, librarians and information managers, publishers, small and medium enterprises, and the general public. The recent statements by governments on the implementation of open access [OA]…
Papercore: Scholar Database based on the wiki Principle
The Papercore project is an open and free database for all scientists. Based on the wiki principle, Papercore allows scientists to write, store and edit summaries of scientific articles. Through this collective community process should make it possible to summarize large areas of knowledge efficiently.
Papercore was created by the research group “Computational Theoretical Physics” in collaboration with the Institute for Science Networking, both located at the University of Oldenburg, Germany…
New portal for EPJ
In November, the European Physical Journal [EPJ] opened its new online portal that allows to easily access to the articles published in EPJ journals and to archives of predecessor publications.
With more than one century of physics-related publications, the EPJ series is comprised of 13 peer-reviewed journals covering a wide spectrum of physics. The EPJ portal has enhanced search facilities to find articles by journal or among the global EPJ database, including archives. The total of articles available on the EJP portal…
The Finch Report: impact on researchers
Steven Hall, Managing Director of IOP Publishing has recently published an article entitled “What does Finch mean for researchers, librarians and publishers?”.
June 2012 saw publication of the Finch report into expanding access to published research findings, the UK Government’s response to the report and the issuing of a revised policy on open access publication of research papers by the UK Research Councils. All appear to be driving the UK towards the world’s most rigorous adoption…
CERN has launched SCOAP3
The Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics [SCOAP3] was officially at CERN on 1 October 2012.
This new publishing model, which grants free access to peer-reviewed articles in particle physics, redirects the funding traditionally spent by libraries for subscriptions to an internationally coordinated common fund.
Twelve publishers have been retained in the first call for tender…
Open Access for UK and Horizon2020 publications
In June 2012 a UK working group of scientists, funding agencies and publishers made available a report on “Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications”.
This work, known as the Finch report after the chairwoman of the group, Janet Finch, made the recommendation for a larger implementation of open access models in the UK publishing scene. The Finch report has very rapidly triggered a decision of Research Councils UK (RCUK), the umbrella body for Britain’s seven research councils,…
European Commission measures improve access to research
New measures to improve access to European scientific knowledge were outlined by the European Commission last month. It is hoped that this greater access will make it easier for businesses and researchers to build on the results of publically funded research, boosting Europe’s innovation potential.
The communication, entitled “Communication Towards better access to scientific information: Boosting the benefits of public investments in research”, establishes open access objectives for research…
Morning on Open Access Gold model
A half-day session on the Open Access Gold model was organised on 19 January this year, at the Institut Henri Poincaré, Paris. The meeting, an initiative of the French Physical Society [SFP], was the first step in launching a discussion on the changing business models of French physics publications.
The event opened with an introduction to an innovative business model, SCOAP3, by CERN’s Jens Vigen; this was followed by a presentation on the current situation at the European Commission [EC], by the EC Open Access Policy…
Results of EC consultation on scientific publishing
The European Commission has published the results of its ‘Consultation on scientific information in the digital age’. The survey generated much interest, with 1,140 responses received from 42 different countries. The European Physical Society provided input into the consultation in September last year.
The survey noted a general desire for better access to scientific publications; the vast majority of respondents believing that publications and data resulting from publically funded research should be made open access. In addition…
