Nordic Perspectives on Open Science

Using Open Journal Systems (OJS) for a podcast series

Per Pippin Aspaas — 2024-06-06

The podcast series Open Science Talk published its first issue in September 2018. Since the beginning, it has been published on the audio platform SoundCloud. Since January 2020, however, the Open Journal Systems (OJS) installation of UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Septentrio Academic Publishing, has been used to publish the same content. In this case study article, the current host of the Open Science Talk series discusses what benefits it gives to publish on a platform tailor-made for academic content in addition to the podcast ecosystem represented by SoundCloud and its API.

Citizen engagement as a crisis response at higher education institutions in the Baltic states and Ukraine

Inese Abolina — 2024-09-06

This publication presents social actions organised in Baltic universities in collaboration with policy, industry, and society, aiming to support Ukrainian populations in humanitarian crises. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many Ukrainians had to leave the war zone and emigrate to other countries in order to find a safe place to live. This humanitarian crisis imposed new challenges for Ukrainian people who became refugees in the Baltic states, as well as to the host societies. There was a lack of resilience mechanisms to cope with this new reality and provide support for Ukrainian refugees. To address these challenges, six partners (four Baltic universities, a Ukranian university and an organization in Greece) collaborated in the project ''Supporting Ukraine through citizen engagement at Baltic Universities'' (Baltics4UA) under the Erasmus+ Programme. The main goal of Baltics4UA project is to enhance Baltic universities’ social responsibility through civic engagement actions to address the Ukrainian humanitarian crisis in the Baltic states. A methodological approach that focuses on citizen engagement and emphasises social innovation and participation has been developed in the framework of this project prior to organising 23 university-driven social actions in every partner institution. Overall, 488 participants took part in social actions. Participants were asked to fill in a post-event evaluation form; this feedback was used to identify whether the social actions met the aims and objectives of the project. Moreover, the organisers of the social actions described the impact of each action by evaluating the aim and goal of the social action, as well as the level of citizen engagement. While planning, organising and implementing these social actions, project partners encountered a variety of challenges and learned lessons, which can serve as useful guidelines for those seeking to foster effective business, academia and society collaboration while providing support and engaging societies in the Ukrainian humanitarian crisis.

Beware of predatory publishing – but also of low-quality blacklists

Jan Erik Frantsvåg — 2023-04-04

We should be wary of low-quality journals and predatory OA publishing. But we should also know which sources’ judgement to trust. Is the new website Predatory Reports a trustworthy source of information?

An offer the journal couldn’t refuse

Claus Rosenkrantz Hansen — 2023-06-12

The article describes a two-year project (running from 2021 to 2022) that worked on getting Danish Open Access journals indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The project was run in partnership by Copenhagen Business School (CBS Library), Royal Danish Library and Aalborg University Library, in close collaboration with DOAJ. All of the journals that participated are hosted on the libraries’ Open Journal Systems (OJS). In this article the authors demonstrate some of the challenges the journals and the project group faced in the inclusion process and in the assistance the project provided, as well as learning outcomes and perspectives.

Alchemists needed, to transform bronze to gold!

Jan Erik Frantsvåg — 2022-09-13

Much Bronze OA is of little interest from an OA point of view, but there is a subset of Bronze that has potential to be converted to Diamond OA. This is the kind of Bronze where the lack of a formal OA status is not due to economic considerations, but lack of resources and/or competence.

Two novices' impressions from the PKP Sprint in Helsinki, 15th–16th of June 2022

John David Didriksen — 2022-09-09

The present paper is a brief overview of our impressions of the PKP Sprint in Helsinki, 15^th–16^th of June 2022. Main focus will be on the groups where we were present. We hope the paper can be of use for those who have not yet attended a PKP sprint, and maybe an encouragement to sign up when there is a chance.

Some pitfalls of OA discussions – an opinion piece

Jan Erik Frantsvåg — 2021-12-21

This is an attempt to vent some frustrations accumulated over 25 years of following – and participating in – OA debates.

Introducing level X in the Norwegian Publication Indicator

Vidar Røeggen — 2021-12-21

An Open Science Roadmap for Swedish Higher Education Institutions

Sabina Anderberg — 2022-05-06

In the spring of 2021, a National Open Science Roadmap for Swedish Higher Education Institutions (HEI) was adopted by The Association of Swedish HEIs. The roadmap’s eight principles aim to guide the HEIs’ development of local structures and processes, speed up their concrete actions and encourage their collaboration in the shift to Open Science. The recommendations are concentrated on specific measures for open access to research data and research publications at HEIs. The primary target group for the roadmap is university management at Swedish HEIs. In the spring of 2022 the roadmap is to be supplemented by an action plan for Open Science.

The Research Data Alliance in Norway

Philipp Conzett — 2021-04-20

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is a neutral international network aiming at promoting data sharing and data-driven research. The efforts of RDA are organized in a number of groups, including national nodes, where contributors work together to develop and adopt approaches that foster the uptake of standards and good practice of research data management through all stages of the data lifecycle. Since 2019, Norway has had its national RDA group.

This article gives a short introduction to the Norwegian RDA group. In section 1 we provide some background information about RDA. Section 2 describes the Norwegian RDA group, including its background and organisational structure, as well as past and future activities.

A brief saga about open access books

Niels Stern — 2021-03-18

Monographs and academic books are increasingly becoming a focus point in the open access debate and policy developments. This article gives a personal account of the rationale behind open access book publishing and open infrastructures for books. It elaborates on the need for collaboration between the actors in the community in order to sustain open access book publishing to the benefit of the scholarly community and the public at large.

Unholy goals and flawed methods

Charlotte Wien — 2020-11-13

A problematic practice has evolved, which is threatening to undermine research in the social sciences and humanities. Bibliometrics is often claimed to be able to measure researchers’ efficiency. We find this quite problematic and, in this article, we illustrate this point by discussing two different bibliometric practices. One is the so-called h-index, the other the so-called BFI-points (Den bibliometriske Forskningsindikator, The Bibliometric Research Indicator). The BFI was never intended to be used for evaluating individual researchers and their productivity. Yet since its introduction in 2008 especially the social sciences and the humanities experience a pressure to deliver “BFI points” and academic job advertisements within the social sciences and the humanities increasingly mention expectations for people’s past and/or future production of BFI points.
The h-index is even more problematic because no one academic database covers all the research publications in the world. The whole thing is completely disorganized, and as many as five different h-indexes exist for each researcher. What makes the h-index even more useless is that it will not let you make comparisons across disciplines. Furthermore, like other simple measurements, it is liable to be manipulated and misinterpreted. On that background, it is remarkable that numbers extracted from incomplete databases are used for describing the quality of researchers and their institutions.

Some highlights from the PKP 2019 International Scholarly Publishing Conference

Trude Eikebrokk — 2019-12-30

This an overview of the PKP 2019 International Scholarly Publishing Conference that took place at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain) on November 20–22, 2019.

Impressions from the 14th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing 2019

Anna Mette Morthorst — 2019-12-27

The 14th Munin Conference on Scholarly Publishing 2019 took place at UiT The Arctic University of Norway on November 27–28, 2019. This short article reports some impressions from the conference. The full materials of the conference, including presentation slides and video recordings are available at https://doi.org/10.7557/scs.2019.1.

Norwegian Read & Publish agreements – an overview

Lene Ottesen — 2019-12-19

During the course of 2019, Unit (the Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education & Research), who acts as the Norwegian coordinator of Open Access and licence negotiations, landed Open Access agreements with the four major academic publishers. This article gives an overview of the key elements in the agreements with Wiley, Elsevier, Springer Nature and Taylor & Francis.

Implementation of Open Science in Lithuania

Rasa Dovidonytė — 2019-08-21

The number of open science policies being adopted in Europe by universities and research institutions is constantly increasing, however many European countries face difficulties while implementing open science practically. This publication reveals the Lithuanian landscape of open science policies and institutional involvement in open science practices. Prerequisites for sustainable and consistent open science implementation such as open science infrastructure, incentives for researchers, research assessment, and repositories' compliance with EC requirements on a national level are discussed.

Need for a change in scientific publishing

Steinar Risnes — 2018-12-04

Outsourcing of scientific publishing to scientific journals is problematic, both economically and academically. It is expensive, slow, non-transparent, unbalanced and excluding. Academic library subscriptions contribute substantially to the publishing companies’ 30-40% profit. There is general consensus that scientific reports should be openly accessible on the Internet. This is generally not the case with articles published in the traditional scientific journals. Open access journals are multiplying fast, but many are of questionable quality. Although open access publishing is less expensive than journal subscription, the article processing charges (APC) of open access journals are still high (up to 5,000 USD) and should be reduced. Science is expensive, scientific publishing should not be expensive.

The impression the present system, with its editors and anonymous reviewers, conveys of quality and objectivity, is partly an illusion. The basis for decision on manuscripts is too thin and the balance of power is too uneven.

Instead of a complicated fallible system, a simple fallible system is suggested: web-based, indexed and searchable repositories funded and organized by accountable and non-profit institutions/organizations where researchers may upload reports that have been thoroughly reviewed by and are supported by one or more competent, impartial, unbiased and named expert peers chosen by the authors themselves. After publication, reports may be further openly evaluated and commented online by named researchers in the field. Article processing charges should be moderate. Such a system would be simple, reasonable, fast, transparent, balanced, including, efficient, and adequately quality secured.

Offsetting: no big deal?

Jörgen Eriksson — 2018-05-30

In this paper I will discuss offsetting deals from their impact on accessibility, affordability to research results and on the possible development of scientific communication towards new modes and methods. I will look at the Swedish National Consortia’s offsetting deals as a specific case study.

Moving towards open science? Conference report: the 9th Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing, Lisbon, September 20–21, 2017

Jörgen Eriksson — 2018-01-02

The Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing, COASP, is held annually with the aim of reaching professional publishing organizations, independent publishers and university presses, as well as librarians, university administrators and other stakeholders. Here, we outline some themes and highlights from this year’s conference.

Benefits of open access articles for industry

Tita Alissa Bach — 2017-12-01

In this short article, benefits of open access articles for industry are discussed from the point of view of the industry as both the authors and readers of open access articles. Open access articles unlock the barrier to share knowledge and experiences and building collaboration – all of which are crucial for an industry that wishes to make a global impact for a sustainable future.

Summary and thoughts from a conference – attending the 7th Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing

Jörgen Eriksson — 2015-12-10

Welcome to Nordic Perspectives on Open Science

Jan Erik Frantsvåg — 2015-10-23

A new funding model and improved infrastructure for the Finnish Open Access journals

Jyrki Ilva — 2015-10-23

A new project launched by the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies and the National Library of Finland will be looking for ways to make Open Access publishing more viable for the Finnish scholarly journals. Most of the journals are published by small learned societies with modest resources. The project will investigate potential new funding models for the OA journals and develop improved technological infrastructure for them.

Crystals of Knowledge Production. An Intercontinental Conversation about Open Science and the Humanities

Niels Stern — 2015-10-23

In this article two scholars engage in a conversation about open access and open science in research communication with a specific focus on the Humanities.

The two scholars have very different points of departure. Whereas Jean-Claude Guedón has been a professor of Literature in North-America for many years and part of the open access movements since its beginning, Thomas Wiben Jensen is in the early part of his carreer and fairly new to the concept of open access.

The conversation begins with a focus on the Danish national strategy for open access and this strategy's consquenses for the journal NyS where Thomas Wiben is part of the editorial board. However, the conversation brings the reader on an unexpected journey through the history of science communication and through alternative ways of understanding knowledge production as frozen moments or crystals in the Great Conversation of science.

It is the hope of the editor and the contributors that the conversation can lead to a debate about innovative ways of communicating and distributing scientific results.

Open, transparent and honest – the way we practice research

Bertil Fabricius Dorch — 2015-10-23

This paper makes the case for Open Science as a means to support and practice Responsible Conduct of Research. Responsible and ethical research practices imply research integrity in terms of transparency, honesty and accountability in all parts of research, being it when attaining funding for research, collecting and analyzing research data, collaborating on research, performing scholarly communication, e.g. authoring and disseminating research etc. Likewise, the topics normally associated with Open Science directly support responsible conduct and in fact, one can argue that Open Science is a ubiquitous prerequisite for good research practice.