News: Academic Publishing Weekly

D2O meets funding target, postdocs' motivations for leaving the academy, and the launch of the Web of Science Community Forum.

Posted on January 24, 2025 in News

D2O Meets 2025 Funding Goal and Lancaster University Library Unveils an OA Service

The MIT Press’s collective open access funding initiative, Direct to Open (D2O), has met its 2025 funding goal. As a result, 80 academic monographs and book collections will be made open access. MIT Press highlighted commitments from the Florida Virtual Campus and Big Ten Academic Alliance and spotlighted metrics from D2O’s fourth funding cycle. Next, Lancaster University Library is introducing a new OA service, Lancaster University Open Journals. Lancaster University faculty are now able to submit requests to host OA journals on the platform, which supports “peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and other publications.” Lancaster University Library explained that the platform utilizes the Public Knowledge Project’s Open Journal Systems (OJS) software that enables “journal editors to manage the entire publishing workflow from submission to online publication on a single platform.”

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OA Overseas: The European Diamond Capacity Hub Debuts and Elsevier Signs Deals in the Netherlands

Last week marked the launch of the European Diamond Capacity Hub (EDCH). The EDCH is sponsored by the European Research Infrastructure OPERAS, which describes the Hub as a “pioneering initiative to advance Diamond Open Access publishing across Europe.” The EDCH will include a forum, guidelines, and the Diamond Discovery Hub that features a list of Diamond OA journals. The Hub also aligns with the ALMASI Project, which collaborates on nonprofit OA initiatives in Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Sticking on the topic of OA, Elsevier entered several agreements with universities and research institutes in the Netherlands. The partnerships provide 66 Dutch organizations with two years of reading access to Elsevier’s journals. The agreements also enable researchers to publish open access in authorized journals.

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New British Academy Partnership, Longleaf Services’ Distribution Updates, and Ai2 Launches Project to Aid Literature Reviews

The British Academy has announced a publishing partnership with Liverpool University Press (LUP) effective this July. The agreement follows the British Academy’s longstanding collaboration with Oxford University Press, and the Academy underlined that “LUP’s robust response to the Academy’s new publishing strategy…led to its success in the tendering process.” Lindsay Farmer, Vice-President for Publishing at the British Academy, further commented that the deal will “include plans to harness our incredible backlist stretching back decades to make sure this scholarship can be easily accessed by a global market.” In other university press news, Longleaf Services will be handling distribution for three additional presses. Distribution for The Center for Basque Studies Press at the University of Nevada, Reno, began in November. Longleaf Services will commence distribution this year for the University of Tennessee Press and the University Press of Florida. Lastly, Ai2 and students at the University of Washington and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology developed a project aimed at simplifying literature reviews. Ai2 ScholarQA enables researchers to analyze papers simultaneously, and when fed a question, provides “table comparisons, expandable sections for subtopics, and citations with paper excerpts for verification.”

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Why Are Postdoctoral Researchers Quitting Academia?

A new study analyzing the careers of over 45,000 researchers reveals that 41 percent of postdocs depart from the academy. Bedoor AlShebli of New York University Abu Dhabi and her co-authors attributed the withdrawals to low publishing rates, finding that researchers who “publish a ‘hit paper’ during the postdoc period are more likely both to land academic positions and to produce highly cited work early in their time in a faculty position.” The study also looked at the impact of altering research topics and relocating during the postdoctoral period. As AlShebli underscored, “Our research highlights that the postdoctoral years are just as critical as the PhD years when evaluating a scientist’s likelihood of successfully entering academia and securing a faculty position.” Nonetheless, Gwilym Croucher, deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne, noted issues with the study’s scope and stressed that additional factors may impact hiring. [Nature]

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Clarivate Launches the Web of Science Community Forum and Submissions Open for SSP’s Mentorship Program

Librarians can provide more in-depth feedback on the Web of Science as part of the Web of Science Community Forum. Clarivate explained that the Forum “will serve as a hub where members can actively influence our product roadmap, connect with Web of Science product experts, learn from peers and collaborate on shared initiatives.” The Forum will incorporate virtual meetings, and membership is available to librarians at institutions with a Web of Science subscription. Clarivate shared that the Community Forum will also work in tandem with the Web of Science Product Working Group. Next, the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) is accepting submissions for mentors and mentees as part of its mentorship program. The program, run by SSP’s Career Development Committee, supports “professional development, information exchange, networking, personal growth, and career advancement.” Applications are open to SSP members and close January 31.

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