We present a large-scale comparison of five multidisciplinary bibliographic data sources: Scopus, Web of Science, Dimensions, Crossref, and Microsoft Academic. The comparison considers scientific documents from the period 2008-2017 covered by these data sources. Scopus is compared in a pairwise manner with each of the other data sources. We first analyze differences between the data sources in the coverage of documents, focusing for instance on differences over time, differences per document type, and differences per discipline. We then study differences in the completeness and accuracy of citation links. Based on our analysis, we discuss strengths and weaknesses of the different data sources. We emphasize the importance of combining a comprehensive coverage of the scientific literature with a flexible set of filters for making selections of the literature.

This short form article was originally accepted to be published in a Special Open Access Collection in the journal, Development and Change, however, was withdrawn by the authors due to unacceptable licensing conditions proposed by the publisher. Diversity is an important characteristic of any healthy ecosystem. In the field of scholarly communications, diversity in services and platforms, funding mechanisms and evaluation measures will allow the ecosystem to accommodate the different workflows, languages, publication outputs and research topics that support the needs of different research communities. Diversity also reduces the risk of vendor lock-in, which leads to monopolization and high prices. Yet this 'bibliodiversity' is undermined by the fact that researchers around the world are evaluated according to journal-based citation measures, which have become the major currency of academic research. Journals seek to maximize their bibliometric measures by adopting editorial policies that increase citation counts, resulting in the predominance of Northern/Western research priorities and perspectives in the literature, and an increasing marginalization of research topics of more narrow or local nature. This contribution examines the distinctive, non-commercial approach to open access (OA) found in Latin America and reflects on how greater diversity in OA infrastructures helps to address inequalities in global knowledge production as well as knowledge access. The authors argue that bibliodiversity, rather than adoption of standardized models of OA, is central to the development of a more equitable system of knowledge production.

A better balance between teaching and research duties, greater recognition of team performances and the elimination of simplistic assessment criteria would improve the systems of recognition and rewards in academia.

Investments in research that produce scientific and scholarly data can be leveraged by enabling the resulting research data products and services to be used by broader communities and for new purposes.

The paper explores options to further open access in the Netherlands from 2021. Its premise is that there is a need to look at qualitative aspects of open access, alongside quantitative ones.

These “raincloud plots” can visualize raw data, probability density, and key summary statistics such as median, mean, and relevant confidence intervals in an appealing and flexible format with minimal redundancy.