ScienceGeist

University of California System is playing hardball with Elsevier in negotiations that could transform the way it pays to read and publish research. But does the UC system have the clout to pull it off?

The Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) reiterates its support for the goal of Plan S to achieve “immediate Open Access to all scholarly publications from research”.

In 2018, there has been a drop in the number of fully OA journals published by Elsevier, from 416 to 328 journals. The majority of Elsevier’s fully OA journals are still non-charging.

What are the underlying mechanisms that cause disciplines to vary in their OA publishing practices.

The University of California faces a Dec. 31 deadline to reach a renewal deal on subscriptions to 1,500 scientific journals. Here's why it might not regret letting its subscriptions lapse.

Officials pledge support for European-led 'Plan S' to tear down journal paywalls - but it's unclear whether China will adopt its policies.

The 14th Berlin Open Access Conference, hosted by the Max Planck Society and organized by the Max Planck Digital Library on behalf of the Open Access 2020 Initiative (oa2020.org), has just come to an end after two intense days with 170 participants from 37 countries around the world discussing where the research organizations and their library consortia stand in their negotiations with scholarly publishers in transitioning scholarly publishing to open access. The participants represented research performing and research funding organizations, libraries and government, associations of researchers and other umbrella organizations, many of them holding high-level positions at their organizations. In his welcoming address, Max Planck Society President Martin Stratmann captured the spirit of the meeting when he stated: "Open Access is the responsibility of all of us."

More than 1,400 researchers sign an online letter arguing that Plan S will not impinge on academic freedom, as some critics claim.

A perspective from an interdisciplinary group of early career researchers on the value of preprints, advocating the wide adoption of preprints to advance knowledge and facilitate career development.

Many of Sci-Hub's domains have been blocked in Russia following a complaint from academic publisher Springer Nature that three studies covering heart and brain health were offered without obtaining an appropriate license.

The undersigned researchers believe that the world's scholarly literature is a public resource that only achieves its full value when it is freely available to all. 

As open access (OA) to publications continues to gather momentum, we should continuously question whether it is moving in the right direction.

cOALition S asks for feedback on the Plan S implementation plan.

Over 1,200 researchers signed an open letter expressing concern about Plan S. Then Twitter came for them -- and, more particularly, for the woman who organized the letter.

Science journals are laughing all the way to the bank, locking the results of publicly funded research behind exorbitant paywalls. A campaign to make content free must succeed

The development of a brand-new version of Libero will be governed under a model that puts the community at the heart of the project.

The "Game of Open Access" is a board game developed by staff from Computing & Library Services at the University of Huddersfield. The aim is to to engage researchers with the key concepts and tools required to meet Open Access mandates. Through the use of playful learning, it aims to develop an understanding of the role of Open Access through the initial idea for an article to its acceptance for publication.

The solutions adopted by the high-energy physics community to foster reproducible research are examples of best practices that could be embraced more widely. This first experience suggests that reproducibility requires going beyond openness.

The Young Academy of Sweden agrees that results from publicly funded science should be open and accessible, but needs a predictable system for dissemination of scientific findings, a system which remains robust over time and which has acceptance within the science community.

Biochemist Lynn Kamerlin tells Nature why she has coordinated an open letter - signed by more than 950 scientists - objecting to Plan S.

Gerard Meijer closed the first open access (offsetting) deals with the major scientific publishers. As his fellow scientists now oppose the new 'Plan S' he looks on with surprise and disappointments.

Academic publisher Elsevier has repeatedly made the news for its battle with Sci-Hub, the "Pirate Bay" of science. However, while Elsevier is using copyrights to protect its business, academic-insiders accuse the publisher of "anti-competitive" actions.

The EUA Council adopted a statement expressing its concern about the lack of transparency and competition in the scholarly publishing business sector in Europe. 

In October, Elsevier and ACS filed a new US copyright infringement lawsuit against ResearchGate [complaint]. Like the German ResearchGate lawsuit I wrote about last year, the basic premise of the suit is the same. This is how Elsevier and ACS describe ResearchGate's activities in the American lawsuit: In egregious violation of copyright law, ResearchGate provides … Continue reading ACS v. ResearchGate - 3,143 articles and a few lessons about their authors   →

Back in the summer, we wrote about the paleontologist Jon Tennant, who had submitted a formal complaint to the European Commission regarding the relationship between the publishing giant Elsevier and the EU's Open Science Monitor. Now Tennant has...