UKSG 2014 - ROAD Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources

ROAD, the Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources UKSG 2014

A number for making sure that we talk about the same things…

ROAD, the Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources - UKSG 2014

Could you please renew my subscription to

Nature ?

My paper will be published in the next

issue of Nature !

The Impact Factor of Nature is

38.597

What indexing services cover

Nature ?


Nature = ISSN 1639-1241Nature = ISSN 0028-0836Nature = ISSN 1958-9646Nature = ISSN 1957-9098Nature = ISSN 1286-8469Nature = ISSN 1281-606XNature = ISSN 1281-606XNature = ISSN 1957-9098

•subscription agents•librarians•bodies in charge of the evaluation of the research•indexing and abstracting services•programs for digital preservation• researchers•….

… and which benefits to a wide range of users

The ISSN system

• An ISO identifier for continuing resources - ISO standard 3297 (2007)

• An international network comprised of one International Centre created by UNESCO and the French Government in the 70’s and 88 National Centres

• National Centres are hosted by National Libraries, Book Chambers, National Centres for scientific information

• An international database, the ISSN Register: 1,77 million of bibliographic records. Available on subscription.

• 60 000 to 65 000 new resources identified each year by the ISSN Network

ROAD, the Directory of Open Access scholarly ResourcesUKSG 2014

A few things about the ISSN as an identifier

• The ISSN identifies serials (journals, monographic series, conference proceedings….)

but other types of continuing resources fall under the scope of the ISSN as well: integrating resources such as databases, websites, loose-leafs

• When a resource is available on different media (print, online, CD-ROM etc)

each medium version is identified by a separate ISSN

• The ISSN is an identifier, not a « quality label » like the other ISO identifiers, the « purpose of the ISSN » is to identify resources in a unambiguous way, not to evaluate their quality or their validity


Context of the ROAD project: significant growth of (OA) scholarly resources

• Citizens and researchers ask for a free access to the research ouputs (Budapest OA initiative in 2002, Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in 2003…), in particular when publicly funded

• National and international policies/initiatives in favor of OA (European Commission, REF Post 2014…) as a tool for developping the economy

• Development of ready-to-use systems for producing journals or repositories (Dspace)

• Development of national « infrastructures » (HALE in France – Hyper Articles en Ligne)


Context of the ROAD project: significant growth of (OA) scholarly resources (2)

• Dramatic growth of the number of researchers past 15 years worldwide

• Over 3 600 academic repositories registered in ROAR (Registry of Open Access Repositories) to date

• 12 000 OA journals ? (probably more)

• 9700 listed in DOAJ but this number is currently decreasing because of a more selective policy


Context of the ROAD project: questions about the quality or prominence of OA journals

Recurring questions about the quality of OA journals within the scholarly community

ISSN viewed as a quality label, a certification, in particular by young researchers


OA journals are of lower quality ?

Could you please help me in selecting the journal in

which I can publish my articles ?

This journal has an ISSN: that means it is a high

quality journal ?

Context of the ROAD project : questions about the quality or prominence of OA journals


We are sorry: the evaluation of journals is made by peers or by devoted bodies or companies, not by the ISSN catalogers

That said, the ISSN is a convenient tool for aggregating information about journals….

Context of the ROAD project:confusion of roles and questionable initiatives

e.g: ISSN role (see previous slide)

e.g: confusion about indexing/abstracting services and library catalogues (« my journal is indexed by the British Library catalogue, it is thus a good quality journal»….)

e.g: questionable scholarly metrics are emerging (lack of transparency etc, cf Jeffrey Beal blog)


Context of the ROAD project: UNESCO need for a global view of OA production worlwide

• UNESCO promotes and supports the Open Access to knowledge via various programmes and actions

• GOAP: snapshot of the status of Open Access (OA) to scientific information around the world (policies, initiatives, per country and geographic area)

• Need for complementing GOAP by statistics about the OA production worlwide (journals, repositories etc)

• http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/portals-and-platforms/goap/


A short-term project

• Beta version of ROAD has been developped in 6 months

• End of April 2013: the project is validated by the Governing Board of ISSN International Centre

• June-July 2013: selection of the contractors (technical developments, data checking and update)

• September: beginning of the data checking, technical developments, partnerships with indexing/abstracting services, journals indicators…

• December 2013: launch of the beta version


Target audience of ROAD

• students and researchers,

• public bodies in charge of the funding and evaluation of the research,

• journalists,

• librarians and information scientists,

• well informed amateurs.


Use cases

•“ How many OA journals are indexed or ranked in my country ? »

•“ What law-related OA scholarly resources in Spanish are available whether they be journals, conference proceedings or monographic series “

•“ What institutions have established an academic repository in South-Africa ?”

•“What mathematical OA journals are currently published in Brazil ?”

•“ I have to give a paper during an international conference: are its proceedings indexed and where ?”


ROAD records

• ROAD is a subset of the ISSN Register

• ISSN records which describe OA resources are marked with a devoted code so that to be published in ROAD

• ISSN records are enriched by data taken from external sources (journal indicators, indexing-abstracting services, registries…)

• The matching ISSN records / coverage lists of external sources is processed thanks to the ISSN number


ROAD records


Additional data from external sources

Types of resources and criteria

• journals• conferences proceedings• monographic series• institutional repositories

• open access to the whole content of the resource (free registration is accepted)• no moving wall• the resource comprises mainly research papers• the audience is mostly researchers and scholars

> ROAD codes are added by the ISSN National Centres when creating the records, or retrospectively by the ISSN International Centre


External sources as of April 2014

• DOAJ• Econlit• Catalogo (Latindex)• Psych’INFO• Linguistic Abstracts• Scopus• SJR• SNIP• The Keepers

Agreement in principle

• Eigen factor (University of Washington)ROAD, the Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources - UKSG 2014

Main features


Main features


• Map search and faceted search

• Search by country, subject, indexing-abstracting service, registries, journal indicators

• Presentation of the external sources ( method/selection criteria)

• Records downloadable and reusable

Map search


Faceted search


Presentation of external sources


Records downloadable and reusable


Next steps (1)

•Technical improvements (map, responsive design)

•Retrospective identification of OA resources in the ISSN Register

•Identification of academic repositories (semi-automatic assignment method)

•Enrichment of ROAD records: APC (YES/NO), license, type and content of the repositories, type of peer reviewing…

•Development of the classification (access by subject) so as to make it more granular


Next steps (2)

•Additional partnerships

•Committee for validating the partnerships ?

•RDF outputs using the PRESSoo model developped by the ISSN IC and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (currently studied by IFLA groups for formal international approval)

http://www.issn.org/the-centre-and-the-network/our-partners-and-projects/pressoo/


Thank you !

franç[email protected] or [email protected]


Education

UKSG 2014 - ROAD Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources