Breaking Down Barriers: Transformative Agreements Bringing Open Access to Research

— by Fanny Liu Transformative agreement A transformative agreement is a type of open access publishing agreement that seeks to transform the traditional subscription-based model of scholarly publishing into a more sustainable and equitable system. This new model includes two main components: “Read” and “Publish”. “Read” refers to the subscription fees to access journal articles…

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Transforming Open Access: Report of the 16th Berlin Open Access Conference

— by Florence Ng The Conference From 6-7 June 2023, representatives of research communities from 38 nations and six continents gathered at the 16th Berlin Open Access Conference (B16) hosted by the Max Planck Society. The purpose of the conference was to gather global actors in discussion of viable strategies to transform scholarly publishing from…

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An Impactful Initiative: A Summary of HKU Libraries Open Access Author Fund in 2022/23

— by Fanny Liu The HKU Libraries Open Access Author Fund, a key initiative of the Libraries to support open access by HKU researchers, has been run for the first financial year.   Join us in celebrating success with a few outcome snapshots.  Applications In the financial year 2022/23, the Fund supported 84 journal articles authored…

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Unlocking the Path to Success: Tips for Becoming a Strong Researcher and Getting Published

— by Fanny Liu Becoming a good researcher and getting published are two goals that go hand in hand. To succeed as a researcher, it is essential to both conduct rigorous research and communicate your findings effectively. Conducting rigorous research To conduct research, you will go through stages including: Below are some tools and training…

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A Step Forward Towards Open Access: The RGC Publication Gateway

— by Florence Ng The concept of Open Access (OA) in scholarly research community seeks collaborative efforts from different stakeholders to grant free and open online access permanently to academic information, such as journal article publication and research data, etc. As a major academic research funder in Hong Kong, the Research Grants Council (RGC) revealed…

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Beyond citations ⁠— Demonstrate your research impact with alternative metrics 

— by Fanny Liu Introduction to Altmetrics  Alternative metrics (also known as altmetrics) indicate the attention of scientific outputs which are shared, mentioned, and discussed in online environments, which are derived from users’ actions on various social media platforms and other online sources (e.g., Wikipedia) [1].  Altmetric.com is a platform to find altmetrics for research…

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Avoid Falling Prey to Predatory Journals 

— by Fanny Liu Predatory journals  The emergence of predatory journals (fraudulent, deceptive, or pseudo-journals), journals with deceptive and dishonest practices, has been reported in recent years [1-4]. The journals falsely claim to be offering peer review and publish all articles, regardless of their research rigor, in exchange for a fee.   Predatory journals exploit the…

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Extensive updates of indexed journal list on Web of Science for research integrity assurance

— by Florence Ng Clarivate announced in March 2023 that over 50 journals have been delisted from the Web of Science Core Collection in their latest update. The delisted journals failed to meet their quality criteria during the selection review.  In the current selection practice, journals are evaluated by 28 criteria, including 24 quality criteria…

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HKU Libraries Supports Open Scholarship

— by Florence Ng HKU Libraries commits to promoting Open Scholarship, which includes enabling open access (OA) to research publications, research datasets, metadata, along with research workflows and other types of outputs. We believe Open Scholarship principles can strengthen research integrity, increase visibility, and enhance the impact of the University. Let’s have a look on…

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Towards a Framework to Measure Open Science Practices – PLOS Open Science Indicators

— by Fanny Liu Open Science is “transparent and accessible knowledge that is shared and developed through collaborative networks” (Vicente-Saez & Martinez-Fuentes, 2018, p. 434). It encompasses emerging trends such as open code, open data, open access, and more.   PLOS (Public Library of Science) is a non-profit, open access publisher in science and medicine, and…

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