The FireOak team keeps an eye out for and shares the most interesting articles, reports, and case studies related to managing, sharing, and securing information, data, and knowledge. Here are some snippets from what we’re reading right now. This week, our read examines neuroscience publishing trends and how journal choice reveals active non-compliance with funder open access policies, specifically related to neuroscience publishing trends.
Funders’ open access policies often require research articles to be published in journals that are open access or self-archived within a specific timeframe. This study looked at the journal publications of neuroscientists based in Australia and Canada from 2010 to 2017.
Four journal types assessed neuroscience publishing trends:
- Non-compliant Elsevier journals with embargoes of >12 months
- Compliant subscription journals published by Elsevier with embargoes of ≤12 months
- Discipline-specific immediate open access journals
- Open Access Mega-Journals (OAMJ)
General results by article type:
- Non-compliant journal publishing: Neither the introduction of Australia’s open access policies, nor the tri-agency open access policy in Canada in 2015 had any effect on reducing neuroscientists’ rate of publication in non-compliant Elsevier journals.
- Compliant Subscription Journals: Little to no effect of funder open access policy on the rate at which authors publish in compliant subscription journals.
- Immediate Open Access Journals: Immediate open access outputs were increasing for both Australia and Canada. However, the existence of an Australian funder policy or Canadian funder policy had little effect.
- Open Access Mega-Journals (OAMJ): OAMJ’s are “large interdisciplinary journals that use peer review to screen predominantly for scientific or technical soundness.” Neuroscience outputs in OAMJs were increasing in every jurisdiction.
According to the article, “The present study has found no evidence that funder open access policies reduce the rate at which neuroscientists published in Elsevier journals with non-compliant embargo periods of more than 12 months.” While findings seem to indicate that there is a burgeoning cultural shift toward open access neuroscience publishing trends, it cannot be directly attributed to funder policies.
Citation: Khoo, S.Y.-S. and Lay, B.P.P., 2018. A Very Long Embargo: Journal Choice Reveals Active Non-Compliance with Funder Open Access Policies by Australian and Canadian Neuroscientists. LIBER Quarterly, 28(1), pp.1–19. DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10252
