We look forward to hearing from publishers, researchers and other stakeholders involved and interested in open scholarly communication and practices about issues related (but not limited to):
Dear all,
Open Access publishing and discovery platforms, repositories, and infrastructures in general are constantly being upgraded with additional features making it possible to automate processes, ensure metadata enrichment, coordinate dissemination, but how much of it is actually used? Are the users aware of the possibilities they are offered and the value of the infrastructure and services?
There seems to be a gap between infrastructures and users: not infrequently, infrastructures are ahead of user needs. Contrary to what is generally assumed, infrastructures offer some features that are not widely adopted even when they are easy to use, training and guidelines are provided, time savings are significant, and no additional costs are involved. For example, publishing platforms usually support online journal management from submission to publication and offer whole sets of additional tools facilitating e-publishing, but still some journals handle the whole process manually, via e-mail, using procedures inherited from print publishing.
The poor uptake of e-publishing and innovation may not necessarily undermine the sustainability of publishing platforms but it certainly discourages innovative initiatives and development.
This problem is quite apparent in Serbia (where scholar-led Diamond OA relying on public funding is dominant) and it may also be observed in other similar environments. It would be interesting to see whether this gap is generally present, or it is related to the prevalence of a particular business model, funding sources, professionalization level in publishing, and perhaps limited to particular disciplines.
Do you encounter this problem in your communities?
Best wishes,
Milica
Dear Milica,
as an e-journal manager I can say that the system of infrastructures in Hellas is difficult to follow because of time consuming processes and not only these. I face this situation.
Also, as an author, submitting articles in other e-journals outside my country, I have experienced the same problem. I do not see it as a problem but as a bureaucratic difficulty, that has to be solved ecouraging innovative initiatives to make it simpler and friendlier to the user, at least in my country considering the platforms that we already use
funding doesnot exist for the open access e-journals.
that is the situation in my country according to my experience and opinion
best wishes,
Lamprini
Dear Milica,
Thank you for your contribution. Your comment regarding journal editors/managers opting for procedures inherited from print publishing instead of using online management workflow and tools offered by publishing platforms is not unique to Serbia as we have also seen similar patterns in Greece.
Yet is this related to lack of appropriate training of journal managers/editors that could be tackled by more targeted training for example from publishing platforms? Or it is because academic-led publishers turn to e-publishing platforms more out of necessity (a way to stay alive by avoiding/minimizing costs associated with printing) rather than from the adoption of open access practices from their side. I think that the use of publishing platforms does not always signify the cultural shift we have so often talked about, hence the low uptake of epublishing and other innovative practices.
Best wishes,
Marina
Report arising from the Study of OA Diamond Journals. The full report can be accessed here https://zenodo.org/record/4558704#.YEsh2WgzaUk and the Recommendations here https://zenodo.org/record/4562790#.YEsu82gzaUk