LiUB supports researcher OA book publication

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The library can as of december 18th 2020 no longer financially support OA-publication of books

Let’s take the most important thing first: LiU Library temporarily offers support for publication in open access journals. Now we are expanding our support to include books as well. If you have a book under publication and get the  opportunity to publish it open access, the library can help in paying the author fee.

Do you want to know more? Contact us at openaccess@bibl.liu.se

Open access is an important societal challenge. The latest government bill on research  ”Kunskap i samverkan” (2016/17: 50),  stresses the objective to make all scientific publications that result from publicly funded research immediately open access. This will benefit innovation, competitiveness and strengthen the public sector.

Whereas article open access are well on the way, this is not the case with books. Plan S mention books in its seventh principle: “The above principles should apply to all types of scholarly publications, but it is understood that the timeline to achieve Open Access for monographs and book chapters will be longer and requires a separate and due process.” Thus, other processes are required to increase the open access book publication.

It is a bit more complicated with open access for books than for scientific articles. Many books are actually already open access:
* Many books are freely available and downloadable online, often as  pdf documents. Some of these are available open access only. See, for example, books written by Jan Kjellgren and by (ed) Lotta Gröning & Elin Wihlborg. Do not forget the dissertations freely  available in full text in DiVA  –  3109 and counting!

*Some open access books are also sold as tanglibe books.  Open access is a real challenge for this market. When it is possible to publish such a book open access, it is often associated with high costs. An example of a book that is available in both physical and electronic open access format is “Glocal Pharma” by Ericka Johnson, Ebba Sjögren and Cecilia Åsberg.


Written by Johanna Nählinder, co-ordinator of research support, LiUB, as part of OA-Week2019

 

P.S. Do read the blogpost in Scholarly Kitchens regarding open access publishing of books!
P.S.S: Interested in open access publishing of books? Visit Kriterium?

UniSearch setting modified – “Available via LiU” now default

 

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In the library search service UniSearch, you can search all material types, e.g. journal articles, books, reports etc., in almost all available databases. Previously, the default has been set to search content regardless if LiU users have access to that content or not.

Search results have therefore included material not immediately accessible (but in many cases available through interlibrary loans).

The default setting has now been changed to only include material available via LiU’s print or electronic collections. If you want to expand your search to include material not available via LiU, you can remove the setting “Available via LiU” under Limit search.

The modified default setting will in many cases result in a more manageable search result. Since Linköping University Library’s collections include a wide selection of electronic journals, ebooks and print publications, you will still have plenty to choose from. The possibility to request interlibrary loans of material that is not included in LiU’s collections is unchanged.

A corresponding modification will also be implemented in the search box on the library web, under “Modify”.

Go to UniSearch

By Peter Igelström, librarian, Valla Library

Publish for free in Springer Nature OA-journals. New deal.

LiU-researcher publishing in Springer-Nature OA-journals? Congratulations! APCs are covered via a national deal for close to 600 journals. The deal runs until December 2021.

** denna blogpost finns även på svenska **

 

The deal covers publications in almost all pure (gold) OA-journals from Springer Nature, including journals such as Nature Communications and Scientific Reports. The deal also includes a number of journals from the imprints BioMed Central, SpringerOpen journals och Nature Research.

This particular deal do not include so-called hybrid publishing (when you pay extra to make an article OA in a subscription journal). That is included in another deal. Are you unsure whether or not your journal is included? Contact us at biblioteket@liu.se. 

In order to get your APCs paid for, it is crucial that you remember to:
* state your affiliation as Linköping University
* state that you are the corresponding author
* state that you use your @liu email adress

Nature Springer identifies you as a LiU-researcher and the LiU-library verifies it. In other words, you do not have to do anything extra except give the “correct” contact information. Half of the publication fee will be paid by LiU, half by the research funders VR, Formas, Forte and Vinnova.

Open access is growing increasingly important in the publication landscape. States and research funder are backing the principle that access to research is vital from a democracy perspective. The majority of research today is still behind paywalls and thus not accessible for taxpayers without university connections. OA is thus important, but it is hard to change the publication system since it consists of large corporations profitting from  library subscriptions. Deals such as Springer Nature Fully Open Access contributes to a publication system where research get to be read and researchers do not have to  pay APCs.

 

Written by Johanna Nählinder, co-ordinator of research support, LiUB.

 

P.S: have you submitted to a non-Springer Nature OA journal? We still have OA- support!
PP.S: OA= open access; APC= author publication charges: a type of publication fees

 

A ResearchGate guide for the slightly hesitant

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Many researchers are reluctant to spend time on RG. It is perceived as time-consuming and the return on investment is unclear.

RG certainly requires some time, but time invested in creating and maintaining a RG-profile can be seen as an investment in your professional identity, your research and your publications. RG has, according to a blogpost in the influential Scholarly Kitchen, a significantly higher traffic than Google Scholar. Being visible on RG is thus a good and effective measure to be read (and also, by extension) to be cited.

If you do not have the time to read this blogpost in its entirety – don’t worry. A short checklist is presented at the end.

What is RG?

RG can be described as a social network for researchers – sometimes referred to as an  ASNS (Academic social network site). It provides the (free) opportunity to create a research profile. According to RG more than 125 million members have done so. RG is a commercial enterprise with an unclear business model. It is thus not clear how they make money out of the information on their site. It is also interesting to note that RG is an enterprise focused on its ASNS  in an industry characterized by few actors who have interests throughout the entire research process.

2 reasons why you should spend time on RG

Spending time strategically on creating a research profile meets two important missions:

RG is a visible storefront for your research. Many of the fulltexts linked from Google Scholar comes from RG. This is positive – but also, as I will come back to, highly problematic.

A time-efficient way to network. If you state your research interests and present your research, you provide the opportunity for other researchers to find you and your research . The networking side of RG is thus a good complement to conferences.

3 ways in which RG may increase your visibility

RG contains many functionalities. This blogpost focuses on the functions which I believe are the most important for increasing the visibility of your publications and research.

1. A storefront for your professional identity. Fill in your RG -profile. The profile is found under “my profile” and then “info”. If you have a Twitter-account, make sure to fill in your Twitter name. Extra important is to fill in your ORCID and uploading an image of yourself. This will strengthen your professional identity.

2. A compelling list of publications. Many sites offer researchers to set up a research profile. Usually you enter data about your publications (eg by entering their references). At RG you are asked to upload the publications instead. RG states that you can upload the publications publicly or privately. Think carefully about the potential consequences of uploading your articles!

Researchers often lack copyright of their own articles and are thus often prohibited to upload their own articles. If you are a LiU-researcher you have access to Publication Visibility which helps you to distinguish exactly which of your own articles you are actually allowed to upload publicly on RG. They are rather rare! The flowchart below provides decision support.

 

 

3. How do you want to use RG as a networking tool?

Who do you wish would comment upon your research? You can ask peers to comment upon your research.This option can be used strategically, but it is nevertheless important not to spam your peers.

Creating “projects” showcase current research and provide a strategic opportunity to network with followers. Three examples of projects which might inspire are Effective and efficient emergency response at the incident site of tomorrow,GREENFLEET  and Seeing organ function.

If you are a research leader you have yet one opportunity to showcase your research: the lab. A lab consists of a research group and may be created by the research leader. You can only be part of one lab. Use the lab function to showcase the current work of the research group and how it evolves between publications.

How do I get started?

RG is fun. Follow its logic! A checklist may be useful in order to use time wisely and prevent unintentional copyright infringement. The library research support is there for you if you want extra input.

  1. Invest four minutes in the University of the Bahamas clip and ponder on your reason for being on RG.
  2. Fill out your profile. Don´t forget ORCID and an image of yourself.
  3. Take point of departure in your latest list of publications and see how you may showcase your publications. Think carefully before uploading a fulltext on RG! If you are a productive researcher you might want to limit yourselves to showcasing articles. PubVis helps you to decide which fulltexts to upload publicly on RG and it also helps you to create title pages if uploading the fulltext is not advisable. Kudos offers a similar service if you do not have access to PubVis.
  4. Who do you want to follow (and why?) RG, just as social medias in general, builds upon the identification of followers.
  5. Do you have research that you want to showcase in a project? Identify the project collaborators, add a description of the project and the publications it includes. Decide upon the type of content you want to add in the future and how often you want to update your project.

Most importantly…

Dusty storefronts are a cardinal sin. It is easy to make one selective measure and then leave the research profile to its own devices. Make sure to make a plan now outlining when you revise and update your RG-profile. Through doing so you make RG an integral part of your scholarly communication.

This blogpost has focused on one type of publications: articles. It has not even mentioned books, conference papers, chapters in edited books, nor preprints or research data. There is more, lots more, to discover at the commercial ASNS.

 

Written by  Johanna Nählinder, co-ordinator of research support LiUB

 

Research Support at Linköping University Library (LiUB)

Are you a researcher or a research student at LiU? The Library has a range of services to offer you. You’re welcome to book a meeting, and of course visit our libraries in real life. Mail us at biblioteket@liu.se and we’ll respond as quickly as possible. 

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PhD Student?

Register for the course Open Science for PhD Students! Next time the course will be given is in fall 2025. But check the calendar if there are open webinars from the course still available for participation.
Read more

Access to scholarly publications. The Library offers a wide selection of scholarly publications, most of them through online access. Material that we don’t have access to we can usually provide as an interlibrary loan.

Structuring your search. We can help you improve your database searches and advice you when you are doing a literature review. Book an appointment online! Read more at LiU:s intranet

Reference management – we have the expertise. Book an introduction to reference management programs EndNote and Zotero. Read more at LiU:s intranet

Digital methods is our experimental activity where we support researchers who want to try  to  search and strucuture data. Keep your eyes open for activities in our digimakers! .

Publishing ethics. Avoid plagiarizing, learn how to manage copyright issues, Creative Commons licenses, and ethical issues related to publishing. Through the Library you have access to Similarity Check for plagiarism checking of scholarly texts. Read more at LiU:s intranet

Publish strategically. The publishing landscape is changing. We also have many publication deals covering all or part of the publication fee to make your article automatically  Open Access . We can also advice you on which journal to publish in and how to avoid publishing in predatory journals.

LiU E-Press, LiU’s own publisher, e-publish academic journals, conference proceedings, series and databases. If you want to start a journal with us, we offer professional support. If you are organizing a conference, we can help you publish your proceedings.

Disseminate your research! There are a number of things you can do to increase the visibility of your publications. We can help you to parallel publish in DiVA and to get started with important channels for disseminating research, such as Twitter, ResearchGate and Wikipedia.

Bibliometrics. We deliver bibliometric analyses of LiU departments and divisions on an annual basis. We can help you to understand how bibliometrics can be used in your work, for example when writing a research funding application.

Data management. We can offer support when you are about to write a data management plan, help you get started with our tool DMP Create for data management plans  as well as guide you where to publish your research data. Read more at LiU:s intranet

Check out all our upcoming workshops in our calendar.

Some tips:

Your LiU-card is your library card. With your LiU-ID, you can place reservations and renew your loans online. Through our subscriptions, you have access to a large number of journals, books and databases, available via the web, either directly or through our Unisearch search service.

Our survival guide 2.0 can help you find material that is freely available online.

Follow our Social media accounts:
LinkedIn: Linköping University Library
X: @forskningsstod for researchers, Linköpings universitetsbibliotek
Facebook: Linköpings universitetsbibliotek

Self-service hours at the library! You are welcome to our libraries at self-service hours.

Written by  Johanna Nählinder, co-ordinator of research support LiUB