OA Scoops

Help this open access journal plan their upcoming Open Source Strategy issue
The TIM Review is an open access journal with an upcoming Open Source Strategy issue they want you to contribute to. Mekki MacAulay is the guest editor for the issue, and in this interview find out more about the journal, this issue, and how you can share your expertise on the subject.

One of the pillars of the open source way is community, so I was quite pleased when Chris McPhee, the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Technology Innovation Management Review, reached out to me to thank me for including the TIM Review in my recent article about open access journals. The TIM Review has an open access policy that makes it a great place to share ideas with the broader open source community and aligns it with two pillars of the open source way: open exchange and participation.

Science Publishing: 'Tis the Season for Sharing Your Data

Attitudes and policies are shifting dramatically in favor of open data, as funders, publishers and researchers alike acknowledge that the benefits data sharing brings to science and biomedical discovery far outweigh the risks. I’ll provide a basic introduction to data sharing benefits and policies, and the resources available here at UCSF to support data sharing.
So, why share your data? Well, it’s good for science.
Data sharing supports data reuse, which can accelerate the pace of scientific discovery. From a funder’s perspective, data reuse increases the impact of their investment. Reanalysis of publicly available data helps confirm original results and helps researchers gain confidence in their novel discoveries. Publicly available datasets help train the next generation of researchers by enabling them to get their feet wet in an experimental or data analysis method that may be new to them. Public datasets are also key assets in the development of novel data analysis algorithms and software. Open data sharing also supports research reproducibility and discourages fraud.

Closed Minds and Open Access 

 Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity—particularly diversity of viewpoints—for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and socialpsychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: 1)Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years; 2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike; 3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking; and 4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology

Thomson Reuters powers world’s leading university rankings - 05 Dec 2014 The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters has announced its collaboration with Times Higher Education to power the latter's BRICS and Emerging Economies Rankings. Thomson Reuters InCites data, the world's leading research evaluation platform and home to Global Institutional Profiles, is the benchmarking engine behind this Times Higher Education ranking. Thomson Reuters also continues to power several other Times Higher Education rankings, as well as working with other ranking providers. For more than a decade, Thomson Reuters has supported Shanghai Jiao Tong University's esteemed Academic Ranking of World Universities. Earlier this year, Thomson Reuters announced its collaboration with U.S. News & World Report to power the organization's Best Global University Rankings. Thomson Reuters also works with Russia's Round University Research Group to provide content and first level analysis for its Round University Ranking (RUR); URAP for the Middle East Technical University in Turkey; CWTS for its Leiden Ranking; U-Multirank for its European Commission Funded Consortia; and with the National Taiwan University Rankings. Thomson Reuters also collaborates with many evaluation and policy groups around the globe, such as Japan's National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) to determine the impact of the nation's scientific and technological efforts. InCites, the evaluation and benchmarking engine from Thomson Reuters, uses the industry's most trusted content and proven citation metrics from the Web of Science as the foundation for objective analytics to evaluate research output, performance and trends, as well as understand the scope of an organization's scholarly contributions, by individual or team.

Improving Access to Libraries for All

Taking pride in their responsibility to ensure equal and open access to information for people regardless of age, race or ethnicity, ability, primary language or socioeconomic background, these librarians believe they are part of a necessary social revolution supporting some of the most underserved populations in the nation.

Harvard University says it can't afford journal publishers' prices

University wants scientists to make their research open access and resign from publications that keep articles behind paywalls