Commercial Digest, a once a week digest of messages containing informational content from commercial bodies (i.e., publishers, vendors, agents, etc.) This week's digest contains 2 messages: 1) 8,000 authors favour Open Access and see direct evidence of the positive impact 2) RSC Publishing and University of Southampton drive the chemical semantic web --------------- Message #1: Subject: 8,000 authors favour Open Access and see direct evidence of the positive impact From: Jennie Johnson <jennie.johnson@tbicommunications.com> Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 17:46:02 +0100 Dear all, I thought you might be interested to learn that InTech, an Open Access publisher, last week published a White Paper entitled 'Author Attitudes towards Open Access Publishing' - making available results from a recent survey of over 8,000 authors to determine their attitudes towards Open Access. The benefits of the Open Access (OA) model continue to be debated by publishers and librarians, but relatively little research has been undertaken to understand the attitudes of researchers. It was with this in mind that InTech commissioned TBI to survey its 25,000-strong author-base to help better understand researcher awareness of and attitudes towards this evolving model. By sharing the results of this survey, InTech hopes to dispel some of the myths about what researchers truly value relating to OA and peer review. I've copied yesterday's press release below for your information, or to read the White Paper and see for yourself the full results of the survey, go to: http://www.intechweb.org/public_files/Intech_OA_Apr11.pdf I do hope this is of interest; please let me know if you would like any more information. All best wishes, Jennie Johnson, TBI Communications Tel: +44 1865 875896 //Press release// /8,000 authors favour Open Access and see direct evidence of the positive impact/ Today InTech, an Open Access publisher, has made available results from a recent survey of over 8,000 authors to determine their attitudes towards Open Access. The benefits of the Open Access (OA) model continue to be debated by publishers and librarians, but relatively little research has been undertaken to understand the attitudes of researchers. It was with this in mind that InTech, a commercial Open Access publisher with a focus on book publishing, commissioned TBI to survey its 25,000 author-base to help better understand researcher awareness of and attitudes towards this evolving model. The survey attracted a very high response rate – 32% (over 8,000) of InTech authors responded, showing a high level of interest and engagement. Responders were drawn from all over the world, and most defined their role as ‘researcher’ (78%) covering a broad range of specialties. “We are excited but not particularly surprised by these results” said Goran Candrlic, CEO, “At InTech we work very hard to continually improve all of our processes and provide the best service possible for authors and it is good to see that our authors recognise our achievements.” Key findings of the survey include: - There is overwhelming approval amongst researchers for free access to their work (75% rate as ‘important’ or ‘very important’), whatever their country of origin - Authors are generally accepting of the need to cover Article Processing Charges (APC), but are concerned that the charges remain affordable both for them or their institutions - Authors want to see direct evidence of the positive impact that OA has for them and their work if they are to be persuaded to pay publication charges - Peers and colleagues are the most important source of recommendations for authors when choosing a publisher, but librarians are also extremely influential - Researchers are concerned with the quality of OA publications as publishers have little incentive to reject work as they are paid based on volume of output rather than quality - Peer review remains a highly valued service, and one that authors still expect publishers to provide - There remains widespread misunderstanding and some mistrust of the OA model and OA publishers The full results of the survey can be downloaded at: http://www.intechweb.org/public_files/Intech_OA_Apr11.pdf By sharing the results of this survey, InTech hopes to dispel some of the myths about what researchers truly value relating to OA and peer review, so that the scholarly communications community can continue to innovate and evolve its business models to suit the needs of the authors that they serve. For more information, please contact: Ms Ana Nodilo nodilo@intechweb.org +385 51 686 165 --------------- Message #2: Subject: RSC Publishing and University of Southampton drive the chemical semantic web From: Louise Peck <peckl@rsc.org> Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 13:24:52 +0100 * * * Apologies for cross posting * * * The Royal Society of Chemistry's (RSC) free chemical database ChemSpider has added Resource Description Framework (RDF) functionality to its interface, in collaboration with the University of Southampton's School of Chemistry. The availability of RDF allows the database records to be found and understood by semantic web tools, another step in ChemSpider's mission to create a public chemical information infrastructure. = = = = = = = = = = = = Richard Kidd, Informatics Manager at the RSC says "we are delighted to work with top academic teams pushing forward what's possible with semantic chemistry, and we hope others will use the RDF representation of ChemSpider to support their own developments" = = = = = = = = = = = = ChemSpider as a Linked Data source for oreChem The machine-processable representation was specifically developed in order to leverage the core competencies of the ChemSpider database: resolvable identifiers; high-quality, curated metadata; and rich linking to the extensive RSC corpus. Furthermore, as part of the Microsoft Research-funded oreChem project, OAI-ORE technology is being used to facilitate the discovery and re-use of the chemical information in the correct context. = = = = = = = = = = = = Prof Jeremy Frey and Dr Simon Coles commented "it is a pleasure for Southampton to work with the RSC's ChemSpider as a culmination of our contribution to the Microsoft-funded oreChem project. As a member of the Southampton Chemistry eResearch team, this work forms the core of graduate student Mark Borkum's PhD thesis." = = = = = = = = = = = = "Enabling open, semantic chemistry in this way is a monumental step forward for the domain," notes Lee Dirks, director of Education & Scholarly Communication for Microsoft Research, "We're thrilled to have played a role in facilitating the creation of this resource and extremely pleased to see Southampton and the RSC innovating and leading the field." = = = = = = = = = = = = Another oreChem participant, Carl Lagoze, the Associate Professor, Cornell University Information Science, Co-Director Open Archives Initiative added "it's wonderful to see the results of our work on OAI-ORE in this exciting application. It fulfils our goal of making the results of research easier to disseminate and reuse" = = = = = = = = = = = = ChemSpider is a free chemical structure database providing fast access to over 25 million structures, properties and associated information. By integrating and linking compounds from more than 400 data sources, ChemSpider enables researchers to discover the most comprehensive view of freely available chemical data from a single online search. For more information GO TO <www.chemspider.com> The Southampton work builds on work from the RC-UK & EPSRC funded e-Science CombeChem and Platform projects (GR/67729, EP/C008863, EP/G026238, EP/F05811X) and JISC Data Management projects. To review this news item online GO TO <http://blogs.rsc.org/technical/2011/05/16/rsc-publishing-and-southampton-university-drive-the-chemical-semantic-web/> Kind regards Louise Louise Peck, Library Marketing Specialist Royal Society of Chemistry, Thomas Graham House, Science Park, Cambridge, CB4 0WF, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1223 432669, Fax: +44 (0) 1223 420247 www.rsc.org/publishing peckl@rsc.org DISCLAIMER: This communication (including any attachments) is intended for the use of the addressee only and may contain confidential, privileged or copyright material. It may not be relied upon or disclosed to any other person without the consent of the RSC. If you have received it in error, please contact us immediately. Any advice given by the RSC has been carefully formulated but is necessarily based on the information available, and the RSC cannot be held responsible for accuracy or completeness. 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