Life scientists’ information use – one size does not fit all, posted by Sarah Gentleman on Nature Network, November 2, 2009. Excerpt:

Key findings from the report include

• Researchers use informal and trusted sources of advice from colleagues, rather than institutional service teams, to help identify information sources and resources
• The use of social networking tools for scientific research purposes is far more limited than expected
• Data and information sharing activities are mainly driven by needs and benefits perceived as most important by life scientists rather than ‘top-down’ policies and strategies
• There are marked differences in the patterns of information use and exchange between research groups active in different areas of the life sciences, reinforcing the need to avoid standardised policy approaches

See also: Patterns of information use and exchange: case studies of researchers in the life sciences, Research Information Network, November 2, 2009. Excerpt:

The report was developed using an innovative approach to capture the day-to-day patterns of information use in seven research teams from a wide range of disciplines, from botany to clinical neuroscience. The study undertaken over 11 months and involving 56 participants found that there is a significant gap between how researchers behave and the policies and strategies of funders and service providers. This suggests that the attempts to implement such strategies have had only a limited impact.

…..

If you’d like to contribute to the discussion, join our forum on Nature Networks and follow our hashtag on Twitter #casestudieslife

Found via: Patterns of information use and exchange: case studies of researchers in the life sciences | Research Information Network, posted by Bill Hooker to FriendFeed, November 8, 2009.

Comment: Found from an informal and trusted source of advice (with the help of a social networking tool, FriendFeed ).

Tom Wilson, in a message sent to the BOAI Forum on October 31, 2009, suggested that “… any strategy [for the OA movement] evolved today on the assumption that the future is likely to be the same as the past is probably going to fail“. Other excerpts:

No one knows exactly how the ‘open access’ movement will pan out ….. Strong advocacy of repositories is strong advocacy of the status quo in scholarly communication. ….. scholars are increasingly taking matters into their own hands and producing free OA journals on some kind of subsidy basis and any economist will tell you that social benefit is maximised by this form of OA.

Stevan Harnad, in a response to the same Forum, has reiterated some of his well-known perspectives:

The purpose of the Open Access movement is not to knock down the publishing industry. The purpose is to provide Open Access to refereed research articles. ….. The way to take matters in their [scholars'] own hands is to deposit the refereed final drafts of all their journal articles in their university’s OA Repository.

Comment: My own opinion is that both perspectives are tenable. I agree with Stevan Harnad that the most important short-term goal of the OA movement is to “provide Open Access to refereed research articles“. I also agree with Tom Wilson that ”No one knows exactly how the ‘open access’ movement will pan out” over the longer term, and that “the status quo in scholarly communication” seems likely to be unstable.

However, if the “status quo” is identified as a somewhat bewildering variety of options for scholarly communication that are changing quickly as technologies evolve, and are varying from field to field (and even across sub-disciplines in the same field), then this “status quo” may persist for quite a few years, before a smaller number of “best practices” become firmly established.

Updates related to OA, sent to Twitter during October 2009:

RT @pedromts: Should you be tweeting? Cell explains microblogging to scientists [October 29]: http://bit.ly/4ezTS

First phase of PMC Canada has been launched [October 21]: http://bit.ly/4GywWh http://bit.ly/S507j

RT @BoraZ: #PLoS Medicine: Five Years of Access and Activism [October 21]: http://tinyurl.com/yj9kabz

Who Owns Medical News? [October 21]: http://www.medpagetoday.com/Columns/16515

More about compliance with Wellcome Trust’s OA policy [October 15]: (via http://ff.im/9UfBJ)

Fwd: Open Access 101, from SPARC [October 15]: http://vimeo.com/6973160 (via http://ff.im/9Pbpd)

Translational medicine gets a new journal [Author is skeptical. Not OA. Bench to bucks?] [October 10]:  http://bit.ly/2WAnHp

As noted in a previous post (dated June 9, 2009), Robert Kiley of the Wellcome Trust (WT) has reported data indicating that (for Trust-funded research papers published between October of 2007 and August of 2008) potential compliance was about 95%, but actual compliance hovered around 35%.

He recently discussed compliance with the OA policy of the WT in one of the presentations that are available via OASPA 2009 (presentations recorded at the 1st Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing, Lund, Sweden, September 14–16, 2009). His presentation is Open Access and the Wellcome Trust (video, 34 min, including a Q & A session).

At about 11.35 min, there’s a slide entitled: Issues – still to be resolved. Four issues are listed: Improving compliance with the OA mandate; Improving methods for researchers to meet author-side payments; Clarifying publishers’ OA policy; and, Working out how to flip the model from “subscriber pays” to “author pays”.

The next slide, at about 11.45 min, shows a plot of compliance (% of papers available in PubMed Central or UKPMC within 6 months of publication) for various dates between November 2006 and January 2009. The plot indicates an upward trend (an increase in compliance) from about 15% compliance on November 2006 to about 36% compliance by January 2009.

The next slide, at about 14.30 min, is entitled: What is being deposited? Data for Wellcome-supported papers in UKPMC are shown, for the period January 2007 to January 2009. During this period, only 16% of 3684 Wellcome papers in UKPMC were author depositions. The remaining 84% were publisher depositions.

The next slide, at about 15.15 min, is entitled: Improving compliance with mandate. Three problems affecting compliance are addressed: Problem in part – authors not self-archiving; …in part, publishers not having workflows to support “author pays” model; ..but, in part, we (funders) have not yet demonstrated the benefits of OA, something we are addressing through UKPMC.

At about 17.00 min, he remarks (not on a slide) that WT hasn’t used the “nuclear option” yet (has not told grantees that WT will stop funding those who don’t comply with the OA mandate).

At about 18.30 min, he begins to address the third problem, that: in part, we (funders) have not yet demonstrated the benefits of OA, something we are addressing through UKPMC. The purpose is to “give something back” to researchers, via new services at UKPMC.

From about 20.25 min to 25.15 min, he addresses the other three issues (other than Improving compliance with the OA mandate) mentioned on an earlier slide: Improving methods for researchers to meet author-side payments; Clarifying publishers’ OA policy; and, Working out how to flip the model from “subscriber pays” to “author pays”.

His final slide, which appears at about 25.15 min, is entitled: Take home messages (one of which is the need to take action on improving compliance). The Q & A session with members of the audience begins at about 26.45 min.

Comment: The OA policy of the Wellcome Trust is of special interest because the WT is involved in a pioneering effort to implement a strong mandate. So far, the WT has avoided use of the “nuclear option” to enforce compliance (the option that grantees who don’t comply lose support from the WT). Instead of focusing attention only on author self-archiving, other ways of improving compliance are also being explored, such as finding ways to enhance publisher depositions (currently, the major source of depositions). As of October 15, 2009, there have been 180 views of the video about Open Access and the Wellcome Trust. Close attention should be paid, by members of those agencies planning to implement strong OA mandates, to relevant information provided by the WT.

Updates related to OA, sent to Twitter during September 2009:

Policy change before peer review: OA needed? [September 29]: http://bit.ly/2PYSyB

RT @oatp: OASPA announces new board [September 22]: http://bit.ly/kedWH

Public health and social justice (and open access as a human rights issue) [September 20]: http://bit.ly/RyrUD

First phase of PMC Canada to be launched during Open Access Week Oct 19-23 [September 17]: http://www.ktecop.ca/archives/447

OA repository launched by ResearchGATE [September 15]: http://tillje.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/1860/

Information-rich and attention-poor – The Globe and Mail [September 13]:  http://is.gd/3eisR http://ff.im/83s2J

What’s next for PLoS Currents? [September 4]: http://bit.ly/cW4ea

A noteworthy situation has been reported in several recent articles. Public health policy (in this case, about flu shots) is being influenced by a research study that is currently undergoing peer review at an unidentified medical journal.This situation provides an attention-grabbing example of the dilemma in research ethics that must be faced about  preliminary research results of great public interest. Should such results be available for public scrutiny as soon as possible? Or, should concerns about impact on public perceptions (or, misperceptions) justify delays while experts in the field evaluate the results?

One solution to this dilemma has been the recent launch of PLoS Currents: Influenza: “PLoS Currents: Influenza aims to enable this exchange [of scientific results and ideas] by providing an open-access online resource for immediate, open communication and discussion of new scientific data, analyses, and ideas in the field of influenza. All content is moderated by an expert group of influenza researchers, but in the interest of timeliness, does not undergo in-depth peer review“.

Comment: My own preference? The tradeoff between possible risks and possible benefits is a challenging one, but I favor the use of PLoS Currents: Influenza as the less paternalistic route. [See Wikipedia entries about paternalism and soft paternalism]. [See also a previous post in this blog about PLoS Currents].

Examples of relevant articles about this situation:

1) MOH cautious on flu shot fears by Helen Branswell in thestar.com, September 23, 2009 [Twitter entry][FriendFeed entry]. Excerpt:

Unpublished Canadian data are raising concerns about whether it’s a good idea to get a seasonal flu shot this season.

2) Like several other provinces, BC, PEI, to delay seasonal flu shots for under 65s by Helen Branswell, Canadian Press, September 28, 2009 [Twitter entry][FriendFeed entry]. Excerpt:

British Columbia and Prince Edward Island have joined a growing list of provinces that have announced they will delay part of their seasonal flu shot programs this year, decisions which are partially fuelled by concerns raised by controversial and unpublished Canadian research.

3) More flu programs suspended by Caroline Alphonso, The Globe and Mail, September 29, 2009. Excerpts:

Lead authors, Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Gaston De Serres of Laval University, have submitted their findings to an unnamed scientific journal and may not comment until it is published.

…..

The findings have yet to be published, but word of it has prompted provinces and territories to revamp their vaccination programs.

4) B.C. announces seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccine strategy by Shane Bigham, News1130, September 28, 2009. Excerpt:

The postponement of the seasonal flu shot is also in response to an unpublished Canadian medical study which seems to indicate that people who have received the seasonal flu shot are more likely to catch the H1N1. The findings of that study are still up for peer review and have not been reported in other parts of the world.

News release received via email on September 15, 2009 (Subject: Open Access on ResearchGATE):

ResearchGATE launches Self-Archiving Repository

Scientific Online Network ResearchGATE blazes a new route into the world of Open Access

Boston, September 15th 2009. The last few weeks have been big here at ResearchGATE (www.researchgate.net), the world’s largest online scientific platform. We have only been online since May last year, but already have 140,000 members. Recently, we introduced our international Job Board for Science and Higher Education. But today is set to be even bigger, as we are launching our Self-Archiving Repository. This will make full-text articles available to the public, for free – the first application of its kind worldwide!

Currently, there is no way for researchers to access millions of publications in their full version online. ResearchGATE is now changing this by enabling users to upload their published research directly to their profile pages (a system called the “green route” to Open Access). Our publication index, containing metadata for 35 million publications, will be automatically matched with the SHERPA RoMEO (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo) data set of journal and publisher’s self-archiving agreements. As a result, authors will know which versions of their articles they can legally upload. Since nine out of ten journals allow self-archiving, this project could give thousands of researchers immediate access to articles that are not yet freely available.

Our Self-Archiving Repository does not infringe on copyrights because each profile page within ResearchGATE is legally considered the personal website of the user (and the majority of journal publishers allow articles to be openly accessible on personal homepages). Therefore, each user can upload his or her published articles in compliance with self-archiving regulations. Our publication index makes every publication identifiable and is searchable. Since each profile is networked to the larger platform, the uploaded resources will form an enormous pool of research for our members. Of course, it’s free of charge, like the all the other resources at ResearchGATE.

To learn more about ResearchGATE and its many features, visit www.researchgate.net and sign up for a free profile. Also, feel free to contact me directly or our team at press@researchgate.net.

To learn more about Self-Archiving, visit www.self-archiving.me

Sincerely,
Hannah Elmer

Marketing & PR
ResearchGATE

Excerpt from the Self Archiving webpage:

Self-archive with ResearchGATE

Self-archiving over a ResearchGATE profile page offers many advantages. The ResearchGATE search engines will display your publications among their results and the ResearchGATE semantic matching tool will recommended your articles to other users. These unique resources promote your work to the thousands of researchers who use the site daily. Additionally, publications archived on ResearchGATE are easily found by Google and other external search engines, so they are still retrievable through more traditional means. Since the publications are linked to your personal profile, all traffic they attract will be directed over your site, which further improves the visibility both of you as a researcher and of your other projects.

Comment: No confidentiality statement was attached to the email message, which was sent to members of ResearchGATE. However, so far, this news release doesn’t seem to have been cached by Google. ResearchGATE’s approach to self-archiving differs from that of Scholas. The latter site is intended for “Social File-Sharing for Academics“. For a brief commentary about Scholas, see: SCHOLAS: OnLine Academic Sharing Service, DE Tools of the Trade, August 31st, 2009.

The launch of PLoS Currents: Influenza begins a novel and interesting experiment in OA publishing. See: A new website for the rapid sharing of influenza research, Harold Varmus, PLoS Blog (August 20, 2009) and the PLoS Currents FAQs. An excerpt from the answer to one of the FAQs:

There are currently no publication charges for PLoS Currents. However, it is possible that we will introduce a small publication charge in future to cover the running costs.

The launch of the first PLos Currents has generated a number of commentaries, including:

Introducing PLoS Currents: Influenza, Coturnix (Bora Zivkovic), A Blog Around the Clock (August 21, 2009);  Finally a Good Use for Google Knol: Sharing Information About Flu Research, Frederic Lardinois, ReadWriteWeb (August 20, 2009);  Varmus Gets His Preprint Server, Jocelyn Kaiser, ScienceInsider (August 21, 2009);  E-Biomed 2.0? Richard Poynder, Open and Shut? (August 22, 2009);  Science publishing on the fast lane, plus optionally in journals, Daniel Mietchen, Fund Science blog (August 30, 2009) [FriendFeed entry][Twitter entry];  PLoS Currents Uses Google Knol Collections Feature for Swine Flu Reports, Barbara Quint, Information Today (August 31, 2009).

An excerpt from the post by Harold Varmus (in PLoS Blog and in The Official Google Blog): “PLoS Currents: Influenza is an experiment and a prototype for further PLoS Currents sites“.

Comment:

If the first experiment with PLoS Currents: Influenza is a successful one, there will be further PLoS Currents sites. I’ve seen no speculation about the probable research theme for the next site. What might be some appropriate criteria for the selection of an appropriate research theme? Criteria that appear to be met by the first research theme (influenza) are:  #1) The research field is a very active one; #2) The research field is recognized to have important practical applications; #3) A substantial amount of translational research is already under way; #4) A credible board of expert moderators can be assembled; #5) Some outstanding researchers in the field will agree to submit contributions for inclusion in the launch site. [See also this FriendFeed entry (WebCite cache)].

Another five criteria could be added to this list: #6) There is much public interest in the research field; #7) The research field is neither so large that it yields an unmanageable numbers of contributions, nor so small that it yields very few; #8) The problems addressed by the research field have implications for large numbers of people;  #9) These problems are (or potentially are) global in their reach; and, #10) Most of the methods used  in the research field are well-established ones that experienced moderators are able to evaluate.

It will be of interest, when the next PLoS Currents is launched, to see how many of these proposed criteria are met. One biomedical field that merits consideration is “Regenerative Medicine”. See, for example, these two Gratis OA editorials in the journal Regenerative Medicine, 2009(May);4(3):329-331 and 2007(Jan);2(1):11-18.

Updates related to OA, sent to Twitter during August 2009:

RT @petersuber: For news about open access, follow @oatp (OA Tracking Project) [August 28].

RT @petersuber: The Twitter version of the OATP feed is now available at the OATP Twitter account [August 27]: http://twitter.com/oatp

RT @petersuber: For a short time, the OATP feed was available here. No more.  [August 27] Details: http://ur1.ca/akti

OA tracking project (OATP) via Twitter [August 27]: http://bit.ly/KBfj1

Peter Suber is sending updates about #openaccess to Twitter [August 26]: http://twitter.com/petersuber

Business Week Runs Sloppy Science Policy Analysis (critique re errors and omissions about OA) [August 25]: http://bit.ly/31e2y4

Peter Scott’s Library Blog: Scholas – social file-sharing for academics [August 24]: http://bit.ly/rfKBM

Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research adopts an OA mandate [August 21]: http://bit.ly/2O0f

What You Might Not Know About (Biomedical) Journals [August 18]: http://is.gd/2mI6Z

“The Strength of Weak Ties: Why Twitter Matters in Scholarly Communication” [August 17]: http://tr.im/wkZs

Elsevier is going the wrong way [August 16]: http://bit.ly/D16Am

A taxonomy of articles in PubMed Central [August 12]: http://bit.ly/1Zs0e

Protocol for implementing #openaccess #data http://bit.ly/pE2Yl for #research #databases [August 2]

Journal publishers that have formally indicated cooperation with Harvard’s open access policies [August 1]: http://bit.ly/G4msN

On July 6, 2009, the Board of Directors of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR),  adopted an Open Access to Research Outputs Policy [see 2-page PDF]. The MSFHR is the provincial support agency for health research in British Columbia (BC, Canada) and is funded by the Government of BC. A pivotal paragraph of the policy statement is also available at Managing Your Award [from the MSFHR]:

All MSFHR Award Recipients who receive an award or an award renewal after July 7, 2009 must ensure that all final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from research supported by that award (in whole or in part) are made freely accessible through either the Publisher’s website or an online repository within six months of publication.

Other excerpts from the policy statement:

Additionally, Award Recipients are now required to deposit bioinformatics, atomic, and molecular coordinate data, as already required by most journals, into the appropriate public database immediately upon publication of research results.

Authors are encouraged, but are not required, to submit final peer-reviewed manuscripts accepted before July 7, 2009, if they have appropriate copyright permission. MSFHR Award Recipients are responsible for ensuring that any publishing agreements concerning submitted manuscripts fully comply with this Policy.

…..

Compliance with this Policy is a requirement and a term of the Condition of Awards that the Award Recipient agrees to upon acceptance of MSFHR funds. This policy applies to MSFHR Award Recipients who have received award notification or renewal letters after July 7, 2009. Compliance will be monitored through annual reporting requirements. Non-compliance to this policy may result in the termination of the award.

…..

Costs related to the publication of research outputs are considered eligible expenses as defined in the Eligible Expenses section under each Program area on the MSFHR website. ….. In the event that Award Recipients encounter additional publications costs than the amount budgeted in the original application, they may approach MSFHR for supplemental funding to cover publication costs. …..

Comment: This policy is a strong OA mandate.