Scholarly Publishing Archives — Researcher Connect

Mega Journals 2: Promising or Predatory?

— by Fanny Liu Introduction In the previous post, we discussed major characteristics and the niche of mega journals, such as open access, wider scope, soundness only peer-review and higher acceptance rates. In this post, we will focus on some controversies. Concerns “Soundness-only” peer review: Yet to be defined? Senior executives and editors of mega…

Mega Journals 1: Inception and Ideal

— by Fanny Liu Introduction Since the establishment of PLOS ONE in 2006, a number of mega journals emerged, such as BMJ Open, IEEE Access, PeerJ, Scientific Reports, and more. While mega journals have secured a niche in scholarly publishing, there are also concerns and controversies. Characteristics Mega journals have some major characteristics (Björk, 2021;…

Access, Author Rights, and Agreements 2: HKU Author’s Choice of Creative Commons Licenses

— by Fanny Liu Introduction In the previous post (Access, Author Rights, and Agreements 1: Which Creative Commons License Works the Best for an Author?), we discussed the different Creative Commons licenses and publishers’ licensing agreements. In this post, we will focus on the choices made by HKU (the University of Hong Kong) researchers. Choice…

Access, Author Rights, and Agreements 1: Which Creative Commons License Works the Best for an Author?

— by Chloe Ng As illustrated in the previous blog post (Open Access in Progress: An Overview of Participation of HKU Authors in Open Access Publishing), more and more HKU authors are publishing their research outputs open access. When an author submits manuscripts to journal publishers, one of the important decisions to make is selecting…

Unmasking and Combating Publishing Malpractices 2: Citation Manipulation

— by Fanny Liu In the previous post (Unmasking and Combating Publishing Malpractices 1: Paper Mills), we discussed publishing malpractices focusing on the issue of paper mills. While traditional fraud and misconduct continue to exist, “post-production” manipulations, i.e., manipulations regarding the publication process and the impact, rather than the content of the publication, come into…

Unmasking and Combating Publishing Malpractices 1: Paper Mills

— by Fanny Liu Academics are faced with a pressure to consistently and frequently publish research to sustain or advance their careers, which incentivizes quantity over quality. This “publish-or-perish” mentality has brought potential negative impacts to scholarly research, for example unethical publishing behaviour compromising scientific integrity. Misconduct in science is “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in…

Research Data Academy Series: From Planning, Analysis to Sharing

— by Chloe Ng The Research Data Academy, organized by the HKU Libraries, is a series of training sessions designed to strengthen your data literacy skills. It provides researchers with essential practices and useful tools that help you to work with your research data efficiently. Registration is now open. All HKU students and staff who are…

Celebrate the Open Access Week 2023 with HKU Libraries

— by Florence Ng The International Open Access Week is organized by SPARC in partnership with the Open Access Week Advisory Committee every year, aiming to provide an opportunity for the academic and research community to learn what the potential benefits of Open Access (OA) are, to share what they have learned or their own…

Publish and Share Your Research: Suggestions from Editors and Librarians Seminar Series

— by Fanny Liu The Libraries is co-organizing a series of seminars with CITE (Centre for Information Technology in Education, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong) to provide researchers with useful advice on publishing your research. Eight seminars on various topics by journal editors and librarians will be held in this academic year.…

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…