Mastodawn

1/ Last year #UNESCO reprinted 46 essays by Nobel laureates.
https://doi.org/10.54677/QIQR6670

If you follow me for news and comment on #OpenAccess and #ScholComm, I strongly recommend the 1996 essay by #JoshuaLederberg, "Electronic scientific publications: options for the future" (in the UNESCO collection at pp. 149-155). Lederberg was the 1958 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and wrote this essay just as researchers began using the internet and web for sharing research.

I post a few excerpts in the thread below.

h/t @hannaSH

🧵

Hanna Shmagun Feb 26, 2025

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petersuber Feb 25, 2025

Update. From Julien Sobrier: "We need a common understanding of what an open model means [for #AI and #LLMs]. We want to watch out for any #OpenWashing, as we saw it with free vs #OpenSource software."
https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/endor-labs-ai-transparency-vs-open-washing/

Endor Labs: AI transparency vs ‘open-washing’

As the AI industry focuses on transparency and security, debates around the true meaning of “openness” are intensifying.

AI News

Hanna Shmagun Feb 16, 2025

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petersuber Feb 15, 2025

Update. "The Trump Administration Is Targeting Science. The Scientific Integrity Act Could Help Protect It."
https://blog.ucsusa.org/kellickson/the-trump-administration-is-targeting-science-the-scientific-integrity-act-could-help-protect-it/

"The Scientific Integrity Act (#SI Act) is a bipartisan bill re-introduced on February 6th in the US House of Representatives… [It] would include language prohibiting scientific or research misconduct; preventing intimidation or attempted coercion to alter or censor scientific or technical findings; and allowing public dissemination of scientific and technical findings…It would ensure that scientific conclusions are not made based on political considerations but based on the best available science."

#Censorship #DefendResearch #Legislation #Takedowns #Trump #USPol #USPolitics

The Trump Administration Is Targeting Science. The Scientific Integrity Act Could Help Protect It

The first few weeks of the Trump administration has seen a flurry of far-reaching executive orders and other actions that threaten, among other things, the ability of federal agencies to pursue science and share that science with the public. These dangerous and in some circumstances, potentially unc

The Equation

Hanna Shmagun Feb 16, 2025

petersuber Feb 11, 2025

I'm seeking expressions of interest from nonprofit organizations to take over the Open Access Tracking Project (#OATP, @oatp) and the open-source software on which it runs.

Details in this Google doc:
https://bit.ly/TransferOATP

Contact me <[email protected]> if you have any questions or any level of interest.

#Crowdsourced #OpenAccess #OpenSource #ScholComm #TagTeam

Taking over OATP and TT

Peter Suber Taking over the Open Access Tracking Project and TagTeam What I’d like Background What would this entail? If you take over OATP... If you take over TT... If you take over either project or both... How much time would this take? How much would this cost? My role What ...

Google Docs

Hanna Shmagun Jan 27, 2025

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petersuber Jan 26, 2025

Update. As recently as January 2, 2025, #NASA had five modules for teaching #OpenScience on its web site. The #Trump administration has taken them down.
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/tops/os101/

Here they are in the @internetarchive Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250102141453/https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/tops/os101/

EDIT 01/09/26: The course is now back up on the #NASA website. (h/t @csmarcum)
https://science.nasa.gov/open-science/training/

#Takedowns #TrumpAntiScience #USPol #USPolitics

Open Science Trainings

Click on a tab below to learn about available open science training courses.

NASA Science

Hanna Shmagun Jan 20, 2025

petersuber Jan 19, 2025

New study: "Findings reveal that #OpenAccess articles contribute to 72% to 95% of citations received by institutions in #MENA countries."
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440241288730

#Impact #ScholComm

Hanna Shmagun Jan 20, 2025

Ludo Waltman Jan 18, 2025

Earlier this week an opinion piece authored by me and a number of great colleagues was published on the @upstream blog. Our piece introduces criteria for innovation-friendly bibliographic databases https://doi.org/10.54900/d3ck1-skq19.

We express our deep concerns about the treatment of @eLife by the #WebOfScience and #Scopus databases. We see this as an example of databases hindering rather than supporting innovation in scholarly communication and research assessment.

@cwts

Criteria for Bibliographic Databases in a Well-Functioning Scholarly Communication and Research Assessment Ecosystem

Bibliographic databases should support innovation and experimentation. Here, we offer four criteria for innovation-friendly bibliographic databases. We urge the global research community to use databases that support and do not hinder innovation in scholarly communication and research assessment.

Upstream

Hanna Shmagun Jan 10, 2025

petersuber Jan 8, 2025

New study: "Undeclared [use of] #AI seems to appear in journals with higher citation metrics and higher article processing charges (#APCs), precisely those outlets that should theoretically have the resources and expertise to avoid such oversights."
https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.15218

#Misconduct #ScholComm

Academ-AI: documenting the undisclosed use of generative artificial intelligence in academic publishing

Since generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT became widely available, researchers have used them in the writing process. The consensus of the academic publishing community is that such usage must be declared in the published article. Academ-AI documents examples of suspected undeclared AI usage in the academic literature, discernible primarily due to the appearance in research papers of idiosyncratic verbiage characteristic of large language model (LLM)-based chatbots. This analysis of the first 768 examples collected reveals that the problem is widespread, penetrating the journals, conference proceedings, and textbooks of highly respected publishers. Undeclared AI seems to appear in journals with higher citation metrics and higher article processing charges (APCs), precisely those outlets that should theoretically have the resources and expertise to avoid such oversights. An extremely small minority of cases are corrected post publication, and the corrections are often insufficient to rectify the problem. The 768 examples analyzed here likely represent a small fraction of the undeclared AI present in the academic literature, much of which may be undetectable. Publishers must enforce their policies against undeclared AI usage in cases that are detectable; this is the best defense currently available to the academic publishing community against the proliferation of undisclosed AI. This is an updated version of a previous preprint.

arXiv.org

Hanna Shmagun Jan 10, 2025

petersuber Jan 9, 2025

Would you pay to have #AI summarize and promote your research? Would you pay to prevent that from happening?
https://futurism.com/springer-nature-ai-media-kit

"#SpringerNature…is approaching the authors of papers in its journals with AI-generated "Media Kits" to summarize and promote their research. In an email to journal authors…Springer told the scientists that its AI tool will "maximize the impact" of their research, saying the $49 package will return "high-quality" outputs for marketing and communication purposes…[But] the tool's "high-quality" outputs can't always be trusted. On an accompanying webpage linked in the email, Springer warns that "even the best AI tools make mistakes" and urges authors to painstakingly review the AI's outputs and issue corrections as needed for accuracy and clarity."

#ScholComm

The Publisher of the Journal "Nature" Is Emailing Authors of Scientific Papers, Offering to Sell Them AI Summaries of Their Own Work

Stalwart journal publisher Springer Nature is asking researchers to buy $49 AI-generated "Media Kits" to summarize and promote their work.

Futurism

Hanna Shmagun Jan 5, 2025

petersuber Jan 5, 2025

Watching with interest:

"While the #OpenAPC initiative has created an internationally recognized approach to the disclosure of funds in the area of publication fees [#APCs], there is still no such initiative for #subscription costs…Against this background, the #DFG project #Transform2Open [@Transform2Open] is striving for a national #transparency initiative [in #Germany] that addresses subscription as well as transformation and #OpenAccess contracts."
https://zenodo.org/records/14505423

Transparenz in der Wissenschaft: Strategien für offene Informationsversorgung

Abstract DE Sowohl die Open-Access-Strategie des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), als auch die Empfehlungen der Europäischen Kommission zu OA an die EU-Mitgliedsstaaten fordern wissenschaftliche Einrichtungen auf, die Transparenz rund um vertragliche Vereinbarungen mit Verlagen zu stärken. Auch die Allianz der deutschen Wissenschaftsorganisationen adressiert dieses Thema. In der Praxis wird diese Forderung jedoch bis auf wenige Ausnahmen (z. B. die Offenlegung der DEAL-Verträge) nicht umgesetzt. Während im Bereich der Publikationsgebühren mit der Initiative OpenAPC ein international beachteter Ansatz zur Offenlegung der Mittel geschaffen wurde, steht eine solche Initiative z. B. für Subskriptionskosten noch aus. Vor diesem Hintergrund strebt das DFG-Projekt Transform2Open eine nationale Transparenzinitiative an, die sowohl Subskriptions- als auch Transformations- und OA-Verträge adressiert. Von besonderem Interesse sind der Umgang mit Non-Disclosure-Agreements und aktuelle Hindernisse für Transparenzbestrebungen. Auch praktische Verfahren zur Offenlegung von Kosten sind ein wichtiges Thema. Mit den Bestrebungen zur Öffnung von Forschungsinformationen, z. B. im Rahmen der Initiative „Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information“, ergeben sich darüber hinaus neue Möglichkeiten der Zusammenführung von Daten über Publikationen und ihre Kosten. Unter dem Tagungsmotto „Gemeinsame Infrastrukturen für eine offene Wissenschaft“ der 25. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Initiative für Netzwerkinformation (DINI) am 19. September 2024 in Potsdam wurden im Rahmen eines World-Café-Workshops thematisiert, welche Aspekte und Einrichtungen für eine prototypische Implementierung einer Transparenzinitiative zunächst fokussiert werden sollten. Gemeinsam wurden Herausforderungen bei der Umsetzung identifiziert, um die Umsetzung in die Praxis vorzubereiten. Der Workshop wurde gemeinsam von den DFG-Projekten Transform2Open und OA Datenpraxis angeboten. OA Datenpraxis unterstützt die Strukturbildung für die Open-Access-Transformation auf nationaler Ebene. Eine enge Zusammenarbeit mit Akteur:innen aus dem Projekt DEAL, OpenAPC, openCost und dem OA-Monitor besteht bzw. wird weiter ausgebaut. EN Both the Open Access strategy of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the European Commission's recommendations on OA to the EU member states call on scientific institutions to increase the transparency of contractual agreements with publishers. The Alliance of German Science Organizations also addresses this issue. In practice, however, with a few exceptions (e.g., the disclosure of DEAL contracts), this demand has not been implemented. While the OpenAPC initiative has created an internationally recognized approach to the disclosure of funds in the area of publication fees, there is still no such initiative for subscription costs, for example. Against this background, the DFG project Transform2Open is striving for a national transparency initiative that addresses subscription as well as transformation and OA contracts. Of particular interest are the handling of non-disclosure agreements and current obstacles to transparency efforts. Practical procedures for the disclosure of costs are also an important topic. Efforts to open up research information, e.g. as part of the “Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information” initiative, also open up new possibilities for combining data on publications and their costs. Under the motto “Shared infrastructures for open science”, a World Café workshop was held at the 25. annual conference of the Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformation (DINI) on September 19, 2024 in Potsdam to discuss which aspects and institutions should initially be focused on for a prototype implementation of a transparency initiative. Implementation challenges were jointly identified in order to prepare for practical implementation. The workshop was offered jointly by the DFG projects Transform2Open and OA Datenpraxis. OA Datenpraxis supports the formation of structures for open access transformation at national level. Close cooperation with stakeholders from the DEAL project, OpenAPC, openCost and the OA Monitor exists or will be further expanded.

Zenodo