Ulrich Herb

No agreement with Frontiers in Germany   As Bernhard Mittermaier, head of the central library of the Forschungszentrum Jülich, announced yesterday, there will be no agreement with Frontiers in Germany. The negotiations between the Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Open Access Publisher Frontiers on a nationwide framework contract did not succeed.

No agreement with Frontiers in Germany

At the beginning of June, Clarivate Analytics, vendor of the Impact database Web of Science, among others, informed about the launch of the Publisher Analytics Report. The press release mentions the following features prominently: “The ready-to-use reports provide a snapshot of journals’ performance and inform competitor analysis. They will help publishers to easily plan robust, evidence-based strategies, based on the publisher-independent”.

The next step in benchmarking in science: Clarivate Analytics launches Publisher Analytics Reports

According to a press release by Springer Nature there is a new contract of the group with Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC).  The deal is based on the principle of  “read and publish” and shall fulfill the requirements of Plan S. As noted by Springer Nature the “agreement limits the costs of publishing all UK articles open access (OA) while maintaining access to all of Springer’s subscription articles.

Springer Nature reaches £9.6&nbsp;million agreement in the UK – not included: Nature-branded titles

While Finland entered into a nationwide consortium with the publishing house Elsevier, the neighbouring country Sweden did not take this step. After twenty years of business relationships with Elsevier, the Bibsam Consortium decided not to renew the agreement with the scientific publisher.  Bibsam wants to support the Swedish government’s requirement to publish all scientific output of the country in Open Access by 2026 – without embargoes.

Sweden cancels agreement with Elsevier

APC-Verwaltung in Bibliotheken   Am 31.05. halte ich einen Vortrag beim diesjährigen Bibliothekskongress, und zwar in der öffentlichen Sitzung der dbv-Kommission Erwerbung und Bestandsentwicklung.

APC-Verwaltung in Bibliotheken

*When citing or referring please provide this DOI:10.6084/m9.figshare.6714038*nnRecently, I gathered data from the Bielefeld Search Engine BASE on the percentage of journal articles, books and doctoral theses published Open Access, licensed under Creative Commons Licenses and under Open License between 2013 to 2017.nnSince dissertations have been published electronically and Open Access for a long time, they have traditionally been a document

Stagnating Open Science compliance for doctoral theses?

Just like last summer I produced an Open Access Heatmap using data provided by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). I calculated the number of Open Access Journals per country as listed by the DOAJ (this quite trivial data can be downloaded as a CSV file here). Using this CSV file with the online service CartoDB I produced the following heatmap visualizing the number of Open Access Journals per country.


Open Access Heatmap 2015

Dear readers of my blog: Today I do not want to write about scientific publishing or share my thoughts on it with you. Rather, I need your help! nnI want to create a list of the services Elsevier created or acquired. So far I know of theses services:nn n     the publishing house  n     databases (eg. Scopus, Science Direct)  n     a repository


The Elsevier empire &#8211; which services belong to it?

Here is an update on a study we are conducting at scidecode science consulting.

Update on the scidecode study on Persistent Identifiers (PIDs)

Hier nur eine kurze Ergänzung zum Posting über APC-Verwaltung und Bibliotheken, die ich auslagere, um besagtes Posting nicht aufzublähen.

Open Journal Systems (OJS) Installationen in Deutschland

As the Open Access publication service F1000Research announced on January 10th it was acquired by one of the largest publishers of scientific content: Taylor &amp;

Taylor &amp; Francis acquires F1000Research

Anlässlich der Open-Access-Tage 2017 in Dresden referierte ich in der Session “Debatten” dazu, inwiefern sich Open Access zu einem kommerziellen und exklusiven Modell entwickelt. Die Folien zum Vortrag sind via slideshare verfügbar und auf dieser Seite eingebettet.nnEs existiert auch eine zitierfähige Version auf Zenodo:nHerb, Ulrich (2017). Open Access: Von Inklusion zu Exklusivität?

Open Access: Von Inklusion zu Exklusivität?

Der Wissenschaftsverlag Elsevier wird sich bereits seit längerer Zeit nicht mehr mit wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken über tragfähige finanzielle Konditionen zum Bezug von Elseviertiteln einig. Die Konflikte in zahlreichen Ländern, darunter neben anderen auch Deutschland und Finnland, schwelen.nnForscher in Finnland haben nun einen neuen Elsevierboykott gestartet.

No Deal, no review: Elsevierboykott in Finnland

Ende Februar ging mir eine Pressemitteilung zu wonach ResearchGate (RG), ein soziales Netzwerk für Wissenschaftler, eine Finanzierung in Höhe von 52,6 Millionen US-Dollar  durch Wellcome Trust, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners &amp; Four Rivers Group sowie  altbekannte ResearchGate-Investoren wie Bill Gates, Benchmark und Founders Fund erhält.


52,6 Millionen USD-Geldspritze für ResearchGate

Miguel Navas F. postete gestern auf Twitter einen Link zu einer Heatmap, die den Open-Access-Anteil unter allen Journalen eines Landes darstellt. Die Heatmap ist als interaktive Google Spreadsheet angelegt und unter https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RW5fmFfkcXBlt2E0Vz1P-zaQJXSEIJhCiVoiG8KYHcQ/pubchart?oid=1841277340 erreichbar – weswegen ich sie leider nicht direkt hier einbinden kann.


Heatmap: Anteil der Open-Access-Journale pro Land

Just as 2015 and 2014 I produced an Open Access Heatmap using data provided by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). I calculated the number of Open Access Journals per country as listed by the DOAJ (this quite trivial data can be downloaded as a CSV file here, it was retrieved from the DOAJ yesterday). Using this CSV file with the online service CartoDB I produced the following heatmap visualizing the number of Open Access Journals per


Open Access Heatmap 2016

Vor Jahren entschloss ich mich, eine Promotion in Informationswissenschaft anzugehen. Das Vorhaben dümpelte lange vor sich hin und nahm erst Fahrt auf, als ich meine Stelle an der Saarländischen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek vorübergehend auf 50 % reduzierte, um in Sachen Promotion voranzukommen.


&#8220;Das ist unkollegial!&#8221; &#8211; aber warum sollte man umsonst arbeiten?

While I was working on a longer text, I gathered – more or less as a by-product – information from studies and reports on the (first copy) costs of a scientific article. As a result, it can only be noted that the information available on these costs (and related costs as margins) are very different and really difficult to compare. The latter confirms my impression that there is a huge lack of transparency in the scientific publications market.


First copy costs of scientific articles &#8211; a short overview

Wissenschaftler tun sich oft noch schwer damit, ihren Lesern (oder Nutzern) Rechte einzuräumen, die über das reine Rezipieren (oder Konsumieren) ihrer Texte hinaus gehen – sogar wenn sie diese Open Access publizieren.


Creative Commons Lizenzen und Open Access Journals

Laut einer Pressemitteilung des Social Science Research Network (SSRN) wurde der Dienst von Elsevier aufgekauft: http://www.ssrn.com/en/index.cfm/ssrn-joins-mendeley-elsevier/. Während Springer anscheinend (s. die Fusion mit Nature) eher auf die Ausweitung des konventionellen Verlagsgeschäfts setzt, orientiert sich der Springer-Konkurrent Elsevier (neben der auch bei Springer anzutreffenden Beteiligung an Open-Access-Konsortien) eher an


Science goes Open Access: Honi soit qui mal y pense

In June 2014 I analysed the data of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to find out to what extent Open Access Journals in Sociology (as listed by the DOAJ) charge their authors with publication fees (or article processing charges APCs). A CSV-file offered for download by the DOAJ did not contain any information on APCs, in fact the whole APC-column was empty, so I gathered the information manually from the DOAJ’s search interface.


Numbers and shares of Open Access Journals in Sociology charging publication fees

Ende 2016 berichtete ich in Telepolis über die geplatzten Verhandlungen des Projekts DEAL mit dem Wissenschaftsverlag Elsevier, deren Ziel es war – unter für Bibliotheken akzeptablen finanziellen Bedingungen – ein nationales Konsortium zum Bezug von Closed-Access-Zeitschriften des Verlages inklusive Open-Access-Optionen zu verhandeln. Auch in Finnland stand eine landesweite Einigung mit Elsevier vor dem Scheitern.


Elsevier: Konflikte in Taiwan, Finnland, Peru und Deutschland

As The Verge reports Microsoft acquires GitHub.

As
<em>
 The Verge
</em>
reports Microsoft acquires GitHub. According to
<em>
 The Verge
</em>
GitHub was “last valued at $2 billion back in 2015, but it’s not clear exactly how much Microsoft has paid to acquire GitHub.”
<em>
 The Verge
</em>
also considers the purchase as a promotion of Microsoft’s open source strategy and suspects the acquisition could meet mistrust in the open source scene.

Microsoft acquires GitHub

Tendenziell sympathisiere ich mit den Altmetrics, den alternativen Metriken, ermöglichen sie es Wissenschaftlern doch Resonanz auf Werke zu dokumentieren, die sich nicht in Zitationen manifestiert. Zudem können Altmetrics auch Referenzen auf Daten und Software (oder allgemeiner Nicht-Text-Objekte) in Social Media oder anderen Datenspeichern erfassen und so Wissenschaftlern Credit für die Publikation dieser Objekte verschaffen. Theoretisch.


Impact-Lotterie mit Impactstory

And again a by-product of my dissertation thesis: I compared the numbers and shares of journals from all disciplines using
<em>
 Creative Commons (CC) licenses
</em>
with the numbers and shares of Open Access journals from Sociology using CC licenses. The date of data collection was June 8, 2014, the data source was the
<em>
 Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ
</em>
, it listed 9.834 journals at the date mentioned.


Editors of sociological Open Access journals seem hesitant to adopt Open Knowledge principles

A few weeks ago an interview that I did with Frank Müller was published in the online magazine telepolis. It has the title
<em>
 Wissenschaftliches Fehlverhalten – von der Randerscheinung zum Flächenbrand
</em>
(in English: S
<em>
 cientific misconduct – from marginal phenomenon to wildfire
</em>
). Frank Müller has been gathering questionable scientific publications from the natural and material sciences for years.

Scientific misconduct – from a marginal phenomenon to a wildfire

Photo by Internet Archive Book Images   nn&lt;span title=”Elseviers Einkaufbummel (man erwarb u.a. PLUM Analytics) kontert Clarivate Analytics durch den Kauf von publons.nn”&gt;Elsevier’s shopping spree (including the newest acquisition PLUM Analytics) is countered by Clarivate Analytics’ purchase of publons.nnBoth companies are already competing because they keep the two most important citation and impact databases in their portfolios with


Clarivate Analytics acquires publons

Photo by Clearly Ambiguous nnNun erschien das in diesem Blog bereits erwähnte, von Konstanze Söllner und Bernhard Mittermaier herausgegebene
<em>
 Praxishandbuch Open Access
</em>
:nnK. Söllner &amp; B. Mittermaier (Hrsg.),
<i>
 Praxishandbuch Open Access
</i>
. De Gruyter.


Darf man in einem Buch zu Open Access publizieren, das 119,95 € kostet?

<em>
 Originally published as: Ulrich Herb (2016). Wissenschaftsjournale: Boykott, Verhandlungen und Vorwurf des Missbrauchs der Marktmacht.
</em>


Academic journals: boycotts, negotiations and allegation of abuse of market power

Bereits im Sommer wurde bekannt, dass Thomson Reuters sich von seinem Angebot Web Of Science (WoS) trennt. Die Zitationsdatenbank sowie einige andere Produkte der Intellectual-Property-Sparte des Konzerns gehen in den Besitz der ONEX Group über, einer Private Equity Gesellschaft, zu deren Portfolio z.B. auch Angebote aus dem Gesundheits- und Food-Bereich und Versicherungen gehören.


Web Of Science wird ab 2017 von Clarivate Analytics vertrieben

Jeffrey Beall, dessen Pauschalisierungen zu Predatory Open Access ich nicht teile und dessen Injurien gegen integre Open-Access-Journale mich oft stören, liefert in seinem Blog Scholarly Open Access immer wieder Hinweise auf Auswüchse im wissenschaftlichen Publikationswesen.


Journal zahlt Autoren für Zitate ihrer Artikel

Am 23.09.2016 hielt ich im Rahmen der Tagung
<em>
 Forschungsmetriken als Dienstleistung: Herausforderungen und institutionelle Wirkungen
</em>
am Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung WZB einen Vortrag mit dem Titel
<em>
 Forschungsmetriken und Impact in den Sozialwissenschaften
</em>
. Im Mittelpunkt stand die Frage, ob Altmetrics besser als Zitationsdaten geeignet sind, den Impact (was immer man darunter verstehen mag)


Impact messen in den Sozialwissenschaften und der Soziologie &#8211; mit Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar oder Altmetrics?

Nachdem sich die niederländischen Universitäten Anfang November 2014 nicht mit dem Verlag Elsevier über die Lizenzierung dessen wissenschaftlicher Zeitschriften verständigen konnten, gelang ihnen wenig später eine Einigung mit einem anderen Branchenriesen: Springer Publishing. Mit dem Springer-Deal gehen die Niederländer zugleich einen neuen Weg, denn der Vertragsabschluss umfasst nicht nur die Subskription bzw.


Systemerhaltend: Der niederländische Open-Access-Deal mit Springer

Last week (at the 22nd of August) I downloaded data from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and calculated the number of Open Access Journals per country as listed by the DOAJ (this quite trivial data can be downloaded as a CSV file here). Using this CSV file with the online service CartoDB I produced this heatmap visualizing the number of Open Access Journals per country.


Open Access Heatmap 2014

Just another by-product of my dissertation thesis on Open Science in the Social Sciences: Last saturday (June 14, 2014) I had a look at the ten countries that publish the most Open Access journals and the share of journals charging their authors with article processing charges (APCs) per country.


The prevalence of Open Access publication fees

Dies wurde in Deutschland anscheinend kaum bekannt: Vor einigen Tagen entfernte das Wissenschaftlernetzwerk
<em>
 Academia.edu
</em>
auf Aufforderung des Wissenschaftsverlags
<em>
 Elsevier
</em>
Artikel von seinem Server, die Autoren als Acadamia-Nutzer dort im Open Access verfügbar gemacht hatten.


Elsevier lässt Artikel aus Wissenschaftsnetzwerk Academia.edu löschen

Nicht nur die Begutachtung wissenschaftlicher Anträge zur Forschungsförderung und die Einreichung von Artikeln zur Publikation in Journalen haben Gemeinsamkeiten. Forschungsförderung und Publikationen zeigen auch beide den sogenannten Matthäus-Effekt: “Denn wer da hat, dem wird gegeben, dass er die Fülle habe;


Matthäus-Effekt &#038; Forschungsförderung

Der Entwurf für ein neues Landeshochschulgesetz (LHG) in Baden-Württemberg hat es in sich. Dort findet sich unter dem zu reformierenden §44 Abs.


Naht das erste Open Access Mandat in Deutschland?

On August 17, it was announced that the collaborative writing tool Authorea had been acquired by Atypon that is in turn a part of Wiley Publishing.

Wiley acquires the Collaborative Writing Tool Authorea

Readers of my blog know that some weeks ago I last asked the community for information on services that are owned by Elsevier. I needed the information to prepare a talk on data collection on science and event logging in science. I will soon publish my talk, together with a resume. As suggested in my talk, Elsevier uses the technology of the


Elsevier launches new Repository BioRN

Clarivate Analytics, owner of the database Web of Science and services as publons, acquired Kopernio. Kopernio facilitates the search for Open Access documents. For pay-walled articles to which you have no access, Kopernio is looking for an alternative Open Access version. Unlike unpaywall, a similiar tool, using Kopernio requires registration.

Clarivate Analytics acquires Kopernio

nnThe American Psychological Association (APA) announced a pilot project “to monitor and seek removal of unauthorized online postings of APA journal articles”. According to SHERPA/RoMEO the APA is a green publisher that allows to post articles published in its journals under the following conditions:nn n     Authors’ pre-print on a web-site  n     Authors’ pre-print must be labeled with date and accompanied with statement that paper has not

APA starts monitoring unauthorized internet posting of published articles

A contract study on the qualitative perception of Open Access was completed at the end of last year.

Study on the qualitative perception of Open Access

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) has announced a Green Open Access Deal with Wolters Kluwer:  “The parties have agreed that academic articles from these 27 journals will be eligible for publishing in the public domain 6 to 12 months after the date of their publication on Navigator and Wolters Kluwer’s other platforms.” The agreement covers 27 law journals.

The Netherlands reach Green Open Access Deal with Wolters Kluwer

The Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and Cooperation E-Medien Österreich (KEMÖ) have signed a three-year contract with the publishing house John Wiley and Sons Inc.

Austria agrees with Wiley on a national Open Access consortium

nnThe Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) is considered to be an important registry for quality-checked Open Access books – even if not all peer reviewed books are listed there. Two days ago, on 23.01.2018, I took a quick look at the ratio of books per publisher.nnOn that day, DOAB listed 254 publishers who had registered 10,502 books.

Books per Publisher: Data from the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)

nnVor knapp einem Jahr klagten Wissenschaftler der Universität Konstanz gegen die Open-Access-Satzung ihrer Hochschule.

Bundesverfassungsgericht muss die Zulässigkeit der Konstanzer Open-Access-Satzung klären

nnElsevier’s shopping tour continues. Readers of my blog know that in April I published a provisional and incomplete list of services that are owned by Elsevier. Since then Elsevier launched the Preprint-Server BioRN, based on the infrastructure of the Social Science Research Network SSRN (purchased last year).  Yesterday the Dutch publishers announced the acquisition of bepress.

Elsevier acquires bepress

nnOn August 1, 2017, 9,621 journals were listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).Only 32 publishers published more than 20 of these journals and thus have a quantitatively significant influence on Open Access. PLOS can not be found among them, but still has influence – more qualitative than quantitative.nnThese 32 publishers publish 2,950 journals, which are 31% of all journals listed in the DOAJ.nnAt this date, the DOAJ

Commercial Open Access Publishers in the DOAJ

This week, I had some encounters with Diamond Open Access that got me thinking, especially about the connotations of “Diamond Open Access”. These include invoice-like payment requests from a Diamond Open Access platform, editors switching their journal from Hybrid to Diamond Open Access, purchase offers for Diamond Open Access journals and the intention of the German Research Foundation DFG to set up a service centre to further develop and

Diamond Open Access: Connotations and recent encounters

The Forschungszentrum Jülich and Frontiers signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a German Consortium with the Open Access publisher Frontiers.

A German Consortium with the Open Access publisher Frontiers is to be set up. In February, the Forschungszentrum (in charge of the negotiations) and the publisher signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a new agreement that will allow researchers to publish in Frontiers journals in a streamlined procedure.

German Consortium with the Open Access publisher Frontiers

Just as 2016, 2015 and 2014 I produced an Open Access Heatmap 2020. It shows how many Open Access journals are published per country using data provided by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).  The heatmap can be found here or embedded some lines below.

Open Access Heatmap 2020

The Library Journal two days ago informed about an interesting patent granted to the Social Network ResearchGate: “ResearchGate Granted U.S. Patent 10,282,424: ‘Linking Documents Using Citations’”. The abstract describes the patent as follows…“Aspects of the present disclosure relate to linking documents using citations. A server accesses a stored document in a data repository.

ReseachGate is granted a patent for (semantic) citation analysis

Publiziert als / zitieren als: Herb, U. (2018). Zwangsehen und Bastarde. Information – Wissenschaft &amp; Praxis, 69(2-3), S. 81-88. DOI:10.1515/iwp-2018-0021 Zusammenfassung Taucht das Wort „Wissenschaft“ im Zusammenhang mit Big Data auf, denkt man zumeist an…  Read more of Zwangsehen und Bastarde. Wohin steuert Big Data die Wissenschaft?

<strong>
 Publiziert als / zitieren als:
</strong>
<strong>
 Herb, U. (2018). Zwangsehen und Bastarde. Information – Wissenschaft &amp;
</strong>

Zwangsehen und Bastarde. Wohin steuert Big Data die Wissenschaft?

nnAfter Iversity’s insolvency in 2016 the Holtzbrinck Group invested in Iversity. Some days ago Springer Nature’s acquisition of the e-learning startup was reported.nnIversity’s news on the acquisition (in German language) provides some more information, here is a translated piece of it: “For the free of charge course offers (MOOCs) currently offered on the platform, iversity provides a guarantee of existence for the foreseeable future.

Springer Nature acquires E-Learning Platform Iversity

nnTwo days ago Clarivate Analytics announced a partnership with Impactstory to make Open access content easier for researchers to use. Clarivate operates the citation database Web of Science and plans to support the development of Impactstory’s oaDOI-service.nnThis service identifies 90 million Open Access articles, particularly important is its integration into unpaywall.org.

Partnership between Clarivate Analytics and Impactstory

Christian Gutknecht published an exciting posting on the Swiss EUR 57 million Elsevier deal in which he outlines the transformative Open Access agreement between Elsevier and swissuniversities. Since Germany has been trying for years to reach such a contract with Elsevier, it is worth comparing it with the two transformative contracts with Wiley and Springer Nature in Germany, which were reached and coordinated by Project DEAL.

Open Access Transformation in Switzerland &#038; Germany

In a study published two days ago, Miriam Redi, Dario Taraborelli and Jake Orlowitz examined the proportion of scientific references in Wikipedia articles that were published in Open Access. For the survey, the authors checked data for works referenced in Wikipedia against data from unpaywall.org. According to Redi, Taraborell &amp;

Open Access Sources in Wikipedia

nnThe Altmetrics service Altmetric.com announced yesterday that it tracks now discussions about books listed on Amazon in social media and other not primarily scientific publications.

Altmetric.com tracks discussions about books listed in Amazon

nnIn preparation for a presentation at the Open Access Days in Dresden, I collect information on the shares of commercial publishers in the APC-based Open Access business.nnWhen I deal with this topic, I always stumble upon the publisher Frontiers:nn Back in 2013 Nature reported “Nature Publishing Group buys into open-access publisher” and noted: “the company [Nature Publishing Group] said it was taking a majority investment”.  n Wikipedia tells

What is the relationship between Springer Nature &amp; Frontiers?

Unter dem Titel “Kalibrierung der Wissenschaft – wohin führt uns die Digitalisierung?” veranstaltet das Internationale Zentrum für Kultur- und Technikforschung (IZKT) in Stuttgart eine virtuelle Podiumsdiskussion zur datengetriebenen Wissenschaftssteuerung, an der auch ich teilnehme wegen meiner Publikationen zu Datenkapitalismus in der Wissenschaft. Die Veranstaltung startet morgen um 18:00 Uhr und endet um 20:00 Uhr.

Podiumsdiskussion zu datengetriebener Wissenschaftssteuerung

nnUnter Nutzung der Open-Access-Policy des Verlages De Gruyter publizierte ich eben die Verlagsversion zu einem vor einem Jahr erschienen Artikel auf Zenodo:nnHerb, U. (2017). Open Access zwischen Revolution und Goldesel. Eine Bilanz fünfzehn Jahre nach der Erklärung der Budapest Open Access Initiative.
<em>
 Information. Wissenschaft &amp; Praxis
</em>
,
<em>
 68
</em>
(1), 1–10.

Open Access zwischen Revolution und Goldesel – Verlagsversion online

Pablo de Castro (University of Strathclyde), Laura Rothfritz, research assistant and PhD candidate at the Berlin School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt University Berlin, Joachim Schöpfel (Université de Lille) and I will do a study on Risks and Trust in pursuit of a well functioning Persistent Identifier infrastructure for research commissioned by Knowledge Exchange (KE). The project aims to identify the best possible strategic

Study on Risks and Trust in pursuit of a well functioning Persistent Identifier infrastructure

As some people abroad were interested in my earlier posts on the German DEAL contracts, I have decided to summarise here some key points of the new contracts with Wiley, Springer Nature and Elsevier. The three contracts differ in some aspects, but at least there are two issue they have in common: They are
<strong>
 opt-in contracts
</strong>
, only those organisations that actively join the contract will benefit from the conditions.

The German DEAL contracts

As the year nears its end, it’s time for a look back at 2023 … My university job  Summa cum Fraude   In 2023, a project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) entitled Summa cum Fraude ended, which was dedicated to the question of how journals/publishers react to reports of obviously faked/erroneous publications – usually, soberingly, not at all.

A look back at 2023

Letzte Woche bin ich auf eine Analyse gestoßen, die ich im Winter 2019 durchgeführt habe und deren Ergebnisse ich hier gerne teilen möchte. Ziel meiner Studie war es, herauszufinden, welche Tätigkeitsbereiche oder Dienstleistungen in einer bibliothekswissenschaftlichen Fachpublikation aus dem deutschsprachigen Raum thematisiert werden.

Publikationskompetenz als Aufgabe von Bibliotheken

While preparing a workshop I was looking for journal ratings &amp; rankings in the Social Sciences &amp; Humanities and would like to share my information here. At the same time, I would like to encourage readers to make additions to the comments. Social Sciences: Journal ratings &amp; rankings
<strong>
 GESIS List
</strong>
(Mostly German):

Journal Ratings &amp; Rankings in the Social Sciences &amp; Humanities

Heute erschien mein Interview mit Leonid Schneider über Paper Mills, die gegen Geld scheinwissenschaftliche Publikationen inklusive gefälschter Forschungsdaten erstellen und so das Publikationssystem korrumpieren. Diese Publikationen schaffen es in schöner Regelmäßigkeit in Peer-Review-geprüfte Journale. Betroffen sind aber nicht vorrangig die bekannten Predatory Publishers, sondern anerkannte Journale arrivierter Verlage.

Paper Mills korrumpieren das Publikationssystem

Elsevier acquires the profiling service Parity. It is thus further expanding its existing portfolio of science management services. Elsevier acquires the profiling service Parity   According to Elsevier’s press release Parity provides “high-accuracy entity resolution, profiling and recommendations for STM content and applications in the world of research.

Elsevier acquires the profiling service Parity

The Norwegian consortium for higher education and research and the publishing house Elsevier agreed two days ago to a national license. This provides Norwegian researchers not only access to articles published in Elsevier’s journals (including the society journals as The Lancet or CELL Press) but also the opportunity to publish their results Open Access. Seven universities and 39 research institutions will benefit from the two-year agreement.

Norway and Elsevier meet a eighteen million Euro agreement including a Gold Open Access clause

Yesterday, the National Contact Point Open Access (Germany) sent a mail to several mailing lists in which it pointed to a list of highly cited Open Access journals. According to the mail, this list could be helpful in motivating scientists to publish in Open Access journals [translated by the author of this posting]: “From now on, an overview is available under the resources category with approx.

What is Open Access about? Debates at the heart of the Open Access movement

A few hours ago, Elsevier issued a press release on the agreement with the Finnish consortium FinElib that put an end to the #nodealnoreview boycott. Below you will find some information about it:  nn There is no comprehensive Open Access clause. Elsevier promises to provide “Finnish researches with incentives to publish open access if they so choose.

News about the Elsevier agreement in Finland

While in Germany the boycott of the publisher Elsevier which was initiated by the DEAL project continues, an agreement was reached in Finland between Elsevier and the FinElib consortium, but the details are still unclear. The Website NoDealNoReview.org states: “For the time being, the only thing we can say for sure is that Elsevier subscriptions will not be cancelled in the beginning of 2018.

Finnish consortium FinELib reaches agreement with Elsevier

nnStockholm University Library** ** has monitored gold and hybrid publication charges (or Article Processing Charges APCs) for Open Access publishing at Stockholm University. The results are published on OpenAccess.se in a short posting  by Lisa Lovén andnLiisa Hänninen.nnThe University of Stockholm has spent 2.967.093 Swedish Krona (SEK) between January and August 2017 for APCs.

Concentration in Commercial Open Access: Data from the University of Stockholm

nnHere is a short publication notice: One year after publication in German, an anthology edited by Peter Weingart and Niels Taubert has now also been published in English – “The Future of Scholarly Publishing: Open Access and the Economics of Digitisation”.nn nnThe bibliographic data of the book which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence are:nn  Weingart, P., &amp; Taubert.

“The Future of Scholarly Publishing: Open Access and the Economics of Digitisation”

nnNot only the The Jussieu Call for Open Science and Bibliodiversity but also the European Union as a research funder seems to be paying attention to the problem of the commercialisation of Gold Open Access.nnAs OpenAire has posted the EU published a Call for proposals for Alternative Funding Mechanism for non-author fee based Open Access Publishing.

Funding for Alternative Funding Mechanisms for non-author fee based Open Access Publishing

Yesterday Elsevier announced the launch of Chemistry Research Network, ChemRN. After the launch of BioRN ChemRN is another spin-off of SSRN, the Social Science Research Network, acquired by Elsevier in 2016.  ChemRN will host not only Research Paper Series but also subscription journals.

Elsevier launches new Chemistry Research Network ChemRN

Today Elsevier published its vision of Open Access, written by Gemma Hersh, and suggests a route that is neither green nor gold, but a mixture of it, one could say blue Open Access: Articles published by European institutions should be available Gold Open Access within Europe and – if deposited on a repository – Green Open Access outside of Europe.

Elsevier &amp; Open Access: “the primary reason to transition to gold open access should not be to save money”

Sci:Debug

As some people abroad were interested in my earlier posts on the [German
DEAL
contracts](https://scidebug.com/2020/08/19/open-access-transformation-in-switzerland-germany/){data-type="post"
data-id="4581" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"}, I have
decided to summarise here some key points of the new contracts with
Wiley, Springer Nature and Elsevier.

::: {.wp-block-image}
<figure class="alignright size-full">
<div class="cc-attribution-box-container">
<img
src="https://scidebug.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/b38a71aa-aaec-4057-aa8f-247e63244977-e1703323695155.jpg"
class="wp-image-7187" loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="341"
height="228" alt="The German DEAL contracts" />
<div class="cc-attribution-box">

</div>
</div>
<figcaption>“<a
href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/132053576@N03/17244582586"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Deals</a>” by <a
href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/132053576@N03" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">moore.owen38</a> is licensed under <a
href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer">CC BY 2.0</a></figcaption>
</figure>
:::

The three contracts differ in some aspects, but at least there are two
issue they have in common:

- They are **opt-in contracts**, only those organisations that actively
  join the contract will benefit from the conditions. This has not been
  the case with earlier agreements with Wiley and Springer Nature. The
  participation of one's own institution is therefore a mandatory
  prerequisite for the publications of the scientists of one's own
  institution to be published Open Access under the new contract
  conditions.
- The **term** ranges from 01.01.2024 to 31.12.2028, an exit is only
  possible in the event of financial hardship. No rule without
  exception: For the Elsevier contract, it was possible to join from 1
  September 2023 onwards.

## DEAL agreement with Wiley {#deal-agreement-with-wiley .wp-block-heading}

The first contract ran from 2019 to 2022 (actually until 2021 but it was
automatically extended), followed by a one-year contract, the terms of
which differed from the first contract and the one in force from 2024.

The basic conditions of the 2024-2028 contract are:

- There is a **defined participation rate** of 85% of the publication
  volume of 2022 in Hybrid and Gold OpenAccess journals, if this rate is
  not reached by the end of February 2024, Wiley can terminate the
  contract on 31 December 2024. If the participation rate falls below
  85% in subsequent years, Wiley may terminate the contract at any time.
- Not all hybrid articles are priced the same. There are **TIERs for
  Publish and Read (PAR) fees** for publications in the **hybrid
  journals**:  
  Tier 1: €3,150 net, journals that are produced by Wiley or Societies
  at great expense (e.g. with a salaried editor-in-chief),  
  Tier 2: €2,700 net, other Society journals  
  Tier 3: €2,200 net, other Wiley journals
- Specific price adjustments are not contractually fixed, but Wiley can
  demand negotiations on this aspect before contract years 3 and 5. If
  no agreement is reached, both parties may terminate the contract at
  the end of the contract year 2 or 4 -- this seems a bit artificial as
  in this case probably only the publisher would be interested in a
  termination.
- In the contract year 2024, participating organisations will generally
  pay PAR fees (or fees according to the so-called paper charge model),
  but at least 60% and no more than 150% of the **PAR reference
  amount**. In the contract year 2025, the lower value will fall to 50%,
  while the upper value will rise to 200%. From the contract year 2026,
  all participating institutions will pay fees according to the paper
  charge model. The PAR reference amount corresponds to the
  institution's payments due for 2023 for hybrid publications.
- For article processing charges for publications in **Gold Open
  Access** journals, there will be discounts of 20 % based on the
  respective list prices.
- A service fee of €100 net is payable for publications in Hybrid and
  fully Open Access journals.
- According to the
  [contract](https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-F55B-9){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} (p. 3), the following article types are
  covered by the terms and conditions: "primary research and review
  articles, including but not limited to articles considered and
  organized by Wiley as Case Study, Commentary, Data Article, Education,
  Lecture, Method and Protocol, Perspective, Practice and Policy, Rapid
  Publication, Research Article, Review Article, Short Communication,
  and Technical Note (Wiley is permitted to update this list from time
  to time").

For further information, please have a look at the information [provided
by the project
DEAL](https://deal-konsortium.de/vertraege/wiley){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}, the summary above is mainly taken from that
website.

## DEAL agreement with Springer Nature {#deal-agreement-with-springer-nature .wp-block-heading}

The first contract ran from 2020 to 2023 (actually until 2022 but it was
automatically extended), the terms of it differed from the one in force
from 2024.

The basic conditions of the 2024-2028 contract are:

- A **defined** **participation rate** of 70 % has been set. If, by 15
  February 2024, not a sufficient number of institutions have joined to
  account for at least 70% of the publication volume in Springer Nature
  hybrid journals in 2022, the parties will discuss how to proceed.
- The agreement covers all Springer Nature journals except
  **Nature-branded journals**, for which the [Nature framework agreement
  of the Max Planck Digital
  Library](https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/press/press-archive/617-mps-nature-transformative-agreement.html){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} is still running until the end of 2024. It
  has been agreed with the publisher that negotiations on the
  integration of the Nature journals into the DEAL contract will be
  conducted in 2024.
- A **Publish and Read (PAR) fee** for publications in the hybrid
  journals is fixed. The PAR fee is €2,600 net. Unlike within the first
  contract, there will be no PAR fee to be paid for non-research
  articles (which nevertheless still will be published Open Access).
- **Price adjustments**: the PAR fee price for the contract years 2027
  and 2028 will increase by 1% in each case, provided that the inflation
  rate in each of these three years is above 3% in the contract years
  2024-2026. If this were the case, the PAR fee would be €2,626 in 2027
  and €2,652 in 2028.
- In the contract year 2024, participating institutions will generally
  pay the paper charge (or PAR fee), but at least 75% and no more than
  150% of the reference amount. In contract year 2025, the lower value
  falls to 50%, while the upper value rises to 200%, and in contract
  year 2026, the lower value is 25% and the upper value is 250%. From
  the contract year 2027, all participating institutions will pay
  according to the paper charge model (the aforementioned PAR fees). The
  reference amount corresponds to the PAR invoice total in 2023 for
  hybrid publications.
- For article processing charges for publications in **Gold Open
  Access** journals, the conditions of the first contract phase were
  continued: The annual price increases will continue to be capped at
  3.5%, with the APC prices of the previous contract being carried
  forward. In addition, discounts of 20 % -- based on the respective
  DEAL APC list prices -- will continue to be agreed upon for a large
  number of journals (e.g. BMC).
- A service fee of €100 net is payable for publications in hybrid and
  fully Open Access journals.
- According to the
  [contract](https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-FDAC-5){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} (p. 9), the following article types are
  covered by the terms and conditions: Original Paper, Review, Brief
  Communication.

For further information, please have a look at the information [provided
by the project
DEAL](https://deal-konsortium.de/vertraege/springer-nature){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}, the summary above is mainly taken from that
website.

## DEAL agreement with Elsevier {#deal-agreement-with-elsevier .wp-block-heading}

As the [DEAL project was unable to agree on a contract with
Elsevier](https://www.hrk.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/pressemitteilung/meldung/verhandlungen-von-deal-und-elsevier-elsevier-forderungen-sind-fuer-die-wissenschaft-inakzeptabel-440/){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"} so far, most scientific institutions have not
had a contract with Elsevier since 2018 at the latest. The new contract
is the first with the nationwide DEAL consortium.

The basic conditions of the 2024-2028 contract are:

- **Defined participation rate:** The agreement comes into force when a
  participation rate of authorised institutions institutions that
  together account for 70% of the German publication volume in 2022 in
  Elsevier's core hybrid portfolio and 90% of the volume in Cell Press
  and The Lancet journals.
- **Title portfolio**: Some society journals that do not participate in
  Elsevier's Core Hybrid programme at the request of the respective
  societies are therefore excluded from both Open Access publishing and
  reading rights, including, for example, the journal Blood of the
  American Society of Hematology.
- The costs for Open Access publishing in Elsevier's core hybrid
  journals and for reading access to core hybrid journals including the
  Cell Press/The Lancet (CPTL) journals are covered by a **PAR fee**.
  The amount of the PAR fee is determined based on the participation
  rate (see above) to the coverage of publications in Elsevier's core
  hybrid portfolio as of 15 January 2024 to the following amounts for
  the duration of the contract:

<figure class="wp-block-table">
<table>
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 33%" />
<col style="width: 33%" />
<col style="width: 33%" />
</colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td></td>
<td>Elsevier Core journals<br />
(net prices)</td>
<td></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td></td>
<td>Participation rate &lt; 90%</td>
<td>Participation rate &gt; 90%</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>2024</td>
<td>€2,550</td>
<td>€2,500</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>2025</td>
<td>€2,627</td>
<td>€2,575</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>2026</td>
<td>€2,705</td>
<td>€2,652</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>2027</td>
<td>€2,786</td>
<td>€2,732</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>2028</td>
<td>€2,870</td>
<td>€2,814</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</figure>

It is not mentioned what happens if the quota is exactly 90%.

<figure class="wp-block-table">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td></td>
<td>CPTL journals (net prices)</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>2024</td>
<td>€6,450</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>2025</td>
<td>€6.708</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>2026</td>
<td>€6,976</td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td>2027</td>
<td>€7,255</td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td>2028</td>
<td>€7,546</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</figure>

- Publications in **Elsevier Fully Gold Open Access** journals are
  charged at list price less 20% discount. Publications in Elsevier
  **Fully Gold Cell Press and The Lancet journals** are charged at the
  list price less 15% discount.
- A service fee of €100 net is payable for publications in hybrid and
  fully Open Access journals.
- According to the
  [contract](https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-AAF6-E){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"} (p. 31), the following article types are
  covered by the terms and conditions: Full Length Articles, Review
  Articles, Case Reports, Data in Brief, Microarticle, Original Software
  Publication, Protocol, Replication Study, Short Communication, Short
  Survey, Video Article.

For further information, please have a look at the information [provided
by the project
DEAL](https://deal-konsortium.de/vertraege/elsevier){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}, the summary above is mainly taken from that
website.

## The German DEAL contracts -- a comment {#the-german-deal-contracts-a-comment .wp-block-heading}

The overview primarily serves to summarize the core elements of the
three DEAL contracts with Wiley, Springer Nature and Elsevier. Apart
from the opt-in model and the term, there are some differences, e.g. in
the types of eligible items, the amount of PAR fees, the timing of the
transition to real PAR fee funding (Elsevier from 2024, Wiley from 2026,
Springer Nature from 2027), the exclusion of some society journals in
the case of Elsevier, the use of TIERs at Wiley, fixed price increases.
These differences affect the workload for the institutions, mostly
libraries, that implement the contracts -- and, in my experience, make
communication with decision-makers regarding funding and expected
funding requirements more cumbersome. Should organisations decide to
involve authors in the costs of Hybrid and/or Gold Open Access articles,
it is foreseeable that the different regulations will make understanding
on the side of the researchers difficult.

Also, one should consider that with the funds saved since 2018 for
contracts with Elsevier in Germany, Gold and Diamond Open Access have
been massively expanded. This was achieved through the establishment of
Open Access Publication Funds (mostly [supported by the German Research
Foundation,
DFG](http://Establishing%20Consortial%20Open%20Access%20Solutions){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}) or consortial Open Access financing, for
example, through the initiative Establishing Consortial Open Access
Solutions ([KOALA](https://projects.tib.eu/koala/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}).

It cannot be said with certainty that such investments in Open Access
funds, which serve all publications and do not favor publications from
DEAL agreements, will be curtailed in the future. However, there is at
least a risk of reducing competition between Open Access services by
prioritizing the financing of DEAL deals over Gold Open Access
publishers relying on the mentioned Open Access funds. Since DEAL
agreements also include read access in addition to Open Access
publication, they have a double benefit, unlike Gold Open Access, which
is officially endorsed (unlike hybrid DEAL Open Access), but only
finances the publication.

On the other hand, these DEAL agreements force the overdue allocation of
Open Access costs in institutional budgets. In the long run, Gold Open
Access benefits here, as the costs in the previous DEAL contracts were
calculated based on past subscription fees. However, procedures must now
be developed to manage publication fees in specific publication budgets,
as all payments to these three publishers will be calculated by
publication volume no later than 2027.

It also seems somewhat surprising that Germany seems unwavering in its
pursuit of transformative Open Access agreements, [while elsewhere there
is a tendency to move away from these and towards Diamond Open
Access](https://www.coalition-s.org/blog/diamond-is-for-everyone/){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}.

It remains to be seen how the new DEAL agreement (especially the
additional agreement with Elsevier) will affect the publication
shares/figures in Hybrid Open Access. Since 2020, there has been a
strong increase in Hybrid Open Access, with Wiley and Springer Nature's
shares temporarily exceeding 70%, but then levelling off somewhat:

|                   | 2018   | 2019   | 2020   | 2021   | 2022   | 2023   |
|-------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
| Diamond           | 1,584  | 1,690  | 1,917  | 2,053  | 1,997  | 1,488  |
| Gold              | 16,140 | 19,049 | 25,258 | 31,698 | 31,450 | 23,720 |
| Hybrid            | 4,525  | 8,382  | 21,826 | 26,837 | 25,389 | 22,699 |
| Green (published) | 4,232  | 3,778  | 3,941  | 4,241  | 3,010  | 969    |
| Green (accepted)  | 1,915  | 1,781  | 1,346  | 1,159  | 686    | 206    |
| Green (submitted) | 4,929  | 5,019  | 4,171  | 3,992  | 3,155  | 2,363  |
| Bronze            | 5,555  | 4,879  | 3,705  | 3,020  | 2,159  | 1,786  |
| Closed            | 37,003 | 34,496 | 25,758 | 24,244 | 21,614 | 18,638 |
|                   |        |        |        |        |        |        |
| Hybrid SN Wiley   | 1,622  | 4,095  | 15,870 | 18,714 | 16,670 | 14,630 |
|                   | 36%    | 49%    | 73%    | 70%    | 66%    | 64%    |

The data comes from the [Open Access Monitor
(OAM)](https://open-access-monitor.de/){data-type="link"
data-id="https://open-access-monitor.de/" target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}, operated by the [Forschungszentrum
Jülich](https://www.fz-juelich.de/de/zb/open-science/open-access/open-access-monitor){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"} and initially funded by the Federal Ministry
of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung,
BMBF). I used the following parameters:

- Source: Scopus database
- Country: Germany
- Corresponding Authors only
- Open Access colours: Diamond, Gold, Hybrid, Green Published, Green
  Accepted, Green Submitted, Bronze, Closed. For further information
  please [visit the OAM
  Wiki](https://jugit.fz-juelich.de/synoa/oam-dokumentation/-/wikis/English%20Version/Open%20Access%20Monitor/OA%20Categories){target="_blank"
  rel="noreferrer noopener"}.
- Years 2018 to 2023, last update of the data according to Open Access
  Monitor 29/11/2023

The date of the analysis was December 22, 2023; I mention this because
the values have changed to date (December 28, 2023), in some cases (in a
few places) in the per mille range.

Please cite as:  
Ulrich Herb: The German DEAL contracts, Sci:Debug. December 28, 2023*.
[https://doi.org/10.59350/vfqbq-13430](https://doi.org/10.59350/vfqbq-13430){target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener"}*

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