Perspectives on Crossref

Perspectives: Madhura Amdekar on meeting the community and pursuing passion for research integrity

Madhura Amdekar — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The second half of 2023 brought with itself a couple of big life changes for me: not only did I move to the Netherlands from India, I also started a new and exciting job at Crossref as the newest Community Engagement Manager. In this role, I am a part of the Community Engagement and Communications team, and my key responsibility is to engage with the global community of scholarly editors, publishers, and editorial organisations to develop sustained programs that help editors to leverage rich metadata.

This represents an exciting phase in my professional journey, as I now have the chance to learn and develop new skills, broaden my understanding of the publishing landscape, and at the same time be able to leverage the experience I gained so far. I originally trained as an ecologist, obtaining a PhD studying colour change in a tropical agamid lizard in India at the Indian Institute of Science (Bengaluru, India). Having immensely enjoyed the process of writing manuscripts based on the data that resulted from my PhD thesis, I was drawn to working in the scholarly publishing industry. I worked for 3.5 years as a Senior Associate at Wiley, overseeing an editor support service by devising strategic scale-up planning and process improvement initiatives.

I then moved countries as well as jobs and joined Crossref. The world of scholarly communications is a rapidly changing ecosystem, that is ably supported by scholarly infrastructure - the sets of tools and services that support this industry. Being a part of Crossref, a global organisation that provides open scholarly infrastructure, allows me to work with and make an impact on the broad scholarly community that ranges from publishers of all shapes and sizes, funders, to academic institutions, and researchers.

So far, the integrity of the scholarly record (ISR) has been the focus of my work. Now more than ever, the community is cognizant of the need to uphold the integrity of the scholarly output. Metadata and relationships between research outputs can support this endeavour in a substantial manner because information such as who contributed to a research output, who funded it, who cites it, whether it was updated after publication, aids provenance and provides signals about whether the output is trustworthy.

Most of Crossref’s tools and services play a key role here: be it reference linking to allow researchers to increase discoverability of their work, tracking post-publication updates to research outputs via Crossmark, or detecting text plagiarism via Similarity Check. We noticed that not all editors and editorial teams associate metadata as signals of integrity, and might be unaware of the benefits of rich metadata. Therefore, my priority is to utilise opportunities to engage with editors about how metadata can provide trust indicators about a research output. I aim to empower editors to collect and leverage rich metadata.

While I am no stranger to the world of scholarly communications, engaging with the broader Crossref community has been a new experience for me. In my day to day work, I employ a range of different skills such as program design and management, content planning and outreach, networking, and meeting facilitation. I have also been participating in trainings to enhance my skill set – I recently completed a training course on Community Engagement Fundamentals, which has equipped me with a better understanding of the concepts and strategies that I will need as a community manager. Additionally, I also underwent the Group Facilitation Methods training course led by the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) where I learnt a couple of effective methods for group facilitation and leading workshops.

Equipped with these skills, I have moderated a few community events already – most prominently the community call about Crossref and Retraction Watch to discuss Crossref’s acquisition and opening up of the Retraction Watch database. It was a valuable experience to contribute to the planning of an online event and host a panel of distinguished guests.

I was also fortunate to be able to meet our community members in-person: I supported the organisation of the Frankfurt roundtable event that was held as part of Crossref’s Integrity of the Scholarly Record (ISR) program, where we engaged with community members to get their perspectives on how to work together towards preserving the integrity of the scholarly record (keep watching this space for a forthcoming blog summarising the outcomes from this event!). Additionally, I attended the Frankfurt Book Fair – the experience of getting to meet our members and to hear from them first-hand about all things Crossref, was unparalleled! I used this opportunity to meet several of our publisher members and discuss their view points about engaging with editors on ISR. The idea was received positively: we heard specific suggestions of metadata that would be of interest to readers of scientific manuscripts, and our members also expressed interest in finding out more about how metadata can act as markers of trust for a research output. I plan to use the insights from these meetings for the development of the ISR editor engagement program.

As I reflect on the past three months, there are a few things that have stood out to me. In terms of work, no two days are the same. My work plan for the day can range from making presentations for outreach activities, creating content such as this blogpost, working on an engagement strategy, to planning events, attending online or offline community meetings, facilitating or moderating some of those events, and networking with community members. This variety in work keeps me motivated to give my best each day. I am also grateful that I have the ability to make an impact with my work in an area that I am passionate about. In my previous job, I had developed a good understanding of research integrity and publication ethics. As a community manager now, I’m looking to work with editorial teams on the integrity of the scholarly record. This role gives me an opportunity to further nurture this interest of mine.

At times, working from home remotely has been a challenge. However, I have enjoyed attending in-person events as they are not just a chance to meet our community members, but also a chance to meet my colleagues and connect with them.

I feel privileged to be able to connect with research communities all over the world and make a meaningful contribution towards supporting the discoverability and impact of their work. I am particularly excited to work at the forefront of shaping the future of preserving the integrity of the scholarly record, in tandem with our community. If this is a topic that excites you as well, I am keen to hear from you. It has been a wonderful three months at Crossref so far and I look forward to future collaborations with our community to develop effective ways of supporting and empowering editors to make the most of metadata for their publications.

Perspectives: Luis Montilla on making science fiction concepts a reality in the scholarly ecosystem

Luis Montilla — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hello, readers! My name is Luis, and I’ve recently started a new role as the Technical Community Manager at Crossref, where I aim to bridge the gap between some of our services and our community awareness to enhance the Research Nexus. I’m excited to share my thoughts with you.

My journey from research to science communications infrastructure has been a gradual transition. As a Masters student in Biological Sciences, I often felt curious about the behind-the-scenes after a paper is submitted and published. For example, the fate of data being stored in the drawer or copied and forgotten in the hard drive after the paper is online. I come from a university that shares its name with at least three completely different universities in Latin America, and that also is pretty similar to another one with multiple offices across the region, which made me wonder if there was a standard way of identifying our affiliations. And then we have the topic of our names in hispanoamerica. We use two family names, and more often than not, we have a middle name (and then I could tell you stories about multiple-word middle names), which inevitably leads to authors having many combinations of full names and hyphenations.

This curiosity led me to volunteer in the Journal of the Venezuelan Society of Ecology. This role has been a transformative experience because my goal was to learn more about the publishing aspect of science. Still, today I realize that this is a fraction of what the scholarly ecosystem represents. The experience allowed me to grasp the importance of having a community with a sense of belonging, the relevance of multilingualism, and the importance of having access to an open infrastructure that allows smaller communities to be participants in the global dynamics. Moreover, it seemed to me that a research paper is more than the capstone of a building that we place and then move on to the next project or the next experiment; instead, it is a node in the vast network of human knowledge, connected to other papers through references, but also to all the other elements that are produced as part of the research, namely datasets, protocols, code, presentations, posters, preprints, peer-review reports and more. In short, the research metadata extends the life of the research output and makes it visible to the rest of the community.

This brings us to my onboarding to the Crossref team. At Crossref, I became part of a team and a driving force whose idea of the Research Nexus ¹ aligns perfectly with my aspirations. And to explain myself better, I’ll draw an analogy using one of my favorite authors. In Isaac Asimov’s Second Foundation, a character shows to another a wall covered to the last millimeter with equations and writings. He describes his contribution to “The Plan” as follows: “…Every red mark you see on the wall is the contribution of a man among us who lived since Seldon”.² This idea sounded fascinating to me and only possible in a sci-fi book; a massive integrated research ecosystem where scientists focused more on how their contributions fit in the big picture. Today I have come to think that metadata helps materialize this idea by interconnecting all knowledge, and more importantly, in stark contrast to Asimov’s plan developed and guarded by a secret society, Crossref’s research nexus is a “reusable open network,” “a scholarly record that the global community can build on forever.” In a world with undeniably unequal access to resources, providing open access and fostering community efforts to contribute to this growing collective effort is a fundamental condition to empower and visualize underrepresented voices.

We make available a series of tools to access and probe this data, including our REST API, but we know its potential is far from being realized. As Technical Community Manager at Crossref, my primary responsibility is to understand the needs of our community members who interact with our REST API. I aim to build and maintain relationships with new and existing metadata users to promote the effective usage of our API. I will also be working closely with organisations such as hosting platforms, manuscript submission systems, and general publisher services. In essence, I want to ensure that our community across the globe is aware of the vast possibilities that imply using and contributing to the Research Nexus.

I am committed to fostering an engaged and collaborative technical community. As we move forward, I look forward to sharing insights, experiences, and knowledge with all of you. Stay tuned for more updates, and let’s explore the world of APIs, metadata, and scholarly communities together!

Crossref (2021) The research nexus. Accessed on 20 October 2023. ↩︎
Asimov, I. (1953) Second Foundation. Gnome Press. ↩︎

Perspectives: Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu on scholarly communications in Cameroon

Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Our Perspectives blog series highlights different members of our diverse, global community at Crossref. We learn more about their lives and how they came to know and work with us, and we hear insights about the scholarly research landscape in their country, the challenges they face, and their plans for the future.

Notre série de blogs Perspectives met en lumière différents membres de la communauté internationale de Crossref. Nous en apprenons davantage sur leur vie et sur la manière dont ils ont appris à nous connaître et à travailler avec nous, et nous entendons parler du paysage de la recherche universitaire dans leur pays, des défis auxquels ils sont confrontés et de leurs projets pour l’avenir.

Today, we meet Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu, Crossref Ambassador in Cameroon and Assistant Editor of the Pan-African Medical Journal (PAMJ). Audrey is excited about engaging Crossref’s community in French West Africa. Please take a moment to read and listen to Audrey’s perspective.

Aujourd’hui, nous rencontrons Audrey Kenni-Nemaleu, ambassadrice Crossref au Cameroun et rédactrice adjointe du Pan-African Medical Journal (PAMJ). Audrey est enthousiaste à l’idée d’impliquer la communauté Crossref en Afrique occidentale française. Veuillez prendre un moment pour lire et écouter le point de vue d’Audrey.

English

Français

Tell us a bit about your organisation, your objectives, and your role
Pouvez-vous nous parler de votre organisation, vos objectifs et votre rôle ?

My name is Audrey Kenni Nganmeni-Nemaleu, assistant editor for the Pan-African Medical Journal. I am specifically responsible for editing the articles in terms of form, ensuring that they meet the journal’s standards. Furthermore, I am the focal point of my journal for Crossref, that is to say I am responsible for managing all the problems that all publishers may encounter with DOIs and the various Crossref services to which our journal has subscribed. My role is also to manage all the conflicts that we may encounter with the DOIs submitted to Crossref. I train our journal staff in using Crossref services. I am also the focal point of my journal for COPE (Committee of Publications Ethics) which is an organisation that helps to regulate ethical publishing practices. It is in this capacity that I participate COPE’s webinars on behalf of our journal.

Je m’appelle Audrey Kenni Nganmeni Nemaleu, éditrice assistante pour le Pan African Medical Journal. Je m’occupe précisément de traiter les articles sur le plan de la forme en m’assurant qu’ils respectent les normes du journal. Par ailleurs je suis point focal de mon journal pour Crossref c’est-à-dire je suis chargée de gérer tous les problèmes que l’ensemble des éditeurs peuvent rencontrer avec les DOIs et les différents services de Crossref auxquels notre journal a souscrit. Mon rôle également c’est de gérer tous les conflits qu’on peut rencontrer avec les DOIs soumis à Crossref. Je forme également le personnel de notre journal à l’utilisation des services de Crossref. Je suis aussi point focal de mon journal pour COPE (Committee of Publications ethics) qui est un organisme qui aide dans la régulation des pratiques éthiques en matière de publication. C’est dans ce cadre que je participe à tous les webinaires de cette organisation afin qu’il y ait toujours au moins une personne qui participe à ces webinaires pour le compte de notre journal.

What is one thing that others should know about your country and its research activity?
Que doivent savoir les autres sur les activités de recherche dans votre pays ?

In my country, Cameroon, the research activity is still young. There are few scientific journals and we are actually the most influential journal in our country and subregion. There are also few schools or institutions that focus especially on research. For the time being, research activities in my country mainly revolve around congresses and conferences where researchers can exhibit their works. There is very little support for scientific research in my country.

Dans mon pays, le Cameroun, la recherche scientifique est encore jeune. Il existe peu de revues scientifiques et nous sommes en fait le journal le plus influent de notre pays et de notre sous-région. Il existe également peu d’écoles ou d’nstitutions qui spécialisées sur la recherche. Pour l’instant, les activités de recherche dans mon pays s’articulent principalement autour de congrès et de conférences où les chercheurs peuvent exposer leurs travaux. Il y a très peu de soutien à la recherche scientifique dans mon pays.

Are there trends in scholarly communications that are unique to your part of the world?
Existe-t-il des tendances particulières en matière de recherche scientifique dans votre région ?

In this part of the world, we do our best to follow the code of ethics of the various organisations in which we are a member: Committee of publication ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA). What we have seen emerging recently is the organisation, by professional scientific societies, of small conferences, workshops and meetings to exchange information. These small events are less costly to organize, hence their gain in popularity. We support these activities through sponsorship, and use them as opportunities to strengthen young researchers’ capacities in areas such as scientific writing, publication ethics. We also use those opportunities to introduce to young researchers concepts such as Open Access, Open Science, DOIs and other modern publishing services.

Dans notre pays, nous nous efforçons de suivre le code de déontologie des différentes organisations dont nous sommes membre : Committee of publication ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA). Ce que l’on a vu émerger récemment, c’est l’organisation, par des sociétés scientifiques professionnelles, de petits colloques, ateliers et réunions d’échange d’informations. Ces petits événements sont moins coûteux à organiser, d’où leur gain en popularité. Nous soutenons ces activités par le sponsoring et les utilisons comme des opportunités pour renforcer les capacités des jeunes chercheurs dans des domaines tels que l’écriture scientifique, l’éthique de la publication. Nous utilisons également ces opportunités pour leur présenter des concepts tels que le libre accès, la science ouverte, les DOIs et d’autres services d’édition modernes.

What about any political policies, challenges, or mandates that you have to consider in your work?
Quels sont les politiques, défis ou mandats auxquels vous faites face dans votre travail ?

Operating a journal in our context is challenging. The critical challenges are as basic as constant availability of electricity or stable and fast internet connectivity. How to maintain a stable stream revenue to support the journal is also a critical challenge. Most of our authors are young, self-funded and with limited resources. Most cannot afford the amount we charge for article publishing fees, which in comparison, is very limited. So we have to be extremely creative to operate.

Faire fonctionner une revue dans notre contexte est difficile. Les défis critiques sont aussi fondamentaux que la disponibilité constante de l’électricité ou une connexion Internet stable et rapide. Comment maintenir un flux stable des revenus pour soutenir la revue constitue également un défi crucial. La plupart de nos auteurs sont jeunes, autofinancés, avec des ressources limitées et par conséquent n’arrivent pas à payer les frais de publication d’articles pourtant très bas. Nous devons donc être extrêmement créatifs pour gérer nos charges.

How would you describe the value of being part of the Crossref community; what impact has your participation had on your goals?
Comment décririez-vous la valeur de faire partie de la communauté Crossref ? Quel est l’impact de votre participation sur vos objectifs ?

As a Crossref ambassador, I talk about Crossref around me, among my colleagues whether they are in Kenya or Cameroon. I shared the links to participate in Crossref webinars with my colleagues. I invited them to become ambassadors by sharing with them the links to join the community. I participated in several ambassador training webinars on different themes including: how to submit DOI to Crossref, ORCID. I participated in a Crossref event in Nairobi, Kenya. It was a memorable moment where I was able to meet other ambassadors. We were able to have a small meeting on the difficulties we encountered in growing the Crossref community in Africa. We produced a document to this effect which we submitted to Crossref in 2022. For the moment, I have not yet been able to organize an event as an ambassador, but I would like to with the help of Crossref. But being an ambassador is not the easiest thing because sometimes in our context people do not understand the use of Crossref’s services because we are in an environment where the DOI is not yet very well known, and where even publishers know nothing about this. A question I am often asked is whether this work is paid and are discouraged when they learn that it is voluntary work.

Comme ambassadrice de Crossref, je parle autour de moi de Crossref, parmi mes collègues qu’ils soient au Kenya ou au Cameroun. J’ai partagé les liens pour participer à des webinaires de Crossref à mes collègues. Je les ai invités à devenir des ambassadeurs en partageant avec eux les liens pour rejoindre la communauté. J’ai participé à plusieurs webinaires de formation des ambassadeurs sur différents thèmes notamment ORCID. J’ai également participe à un évènement de Crossref à Nairobi au Kenya. C’était un moment mémorable ou j’ai pu rencontrer d’autres ambassadeurs. Nous avons pu faire une petite réunion sur les difficultés que nous rencontrons pour faire grandir la communauté Crossref en Afrique. Nous avons d’ailleurs produit un document à cet effet que nous avons soumis à Crossref en 2022. Pour l’instant, je n’ai pas encore pu organiser d’évènement dans le cadre d’ambassadeur, mais j’aimerais avec l’aide de Crossref voir comment le faire. Etre ambassadrice n’est pas la chose la plus facile car parfois dans notre contexte les gens ne comprennent pas le bien-fondé des services de Crossref car on est dans un environnement ou le DOI n’est pas encore très connu, et où beaucoup de journaux et même d’editeurs ne savent rien de cela. Une question qu’on me pose souvent est celle savoir si ce travail est remunere et se découragent quand ils apprennent que c’est du bénévolat.

For you, what would be the most important thing Crossref could change (do more of/do better in)?
Pour vous, quelle serait la chose la plus importante que Crossref pourrait changer (faire plus/faire mieux) ?

Crossref could invest in more capacity building, events, and communications in this part of the world. Why not localize Crossref in the francophone part of Africa? Crossref could offer continuing educational activities to professionals in order to improve their skills or acquire new knowledge in metadata and correlative disciplines. Crossref could also sponsor/support journal publishing and scholarship in Africa.

Crossref pourrait investir dans davantage de renforcement des capacités, d’événements et de communications dans cette partie du monde. Pourquoi ne pas localiser Crossref dans la partie francophone de l’Afrique ? Crossref pourrait proposer des activités de formation continue aux professionnels afin d’améliorer leurs compétences ou d’acquérir de nouvelles connaissances dans les métadonnées et les disciplines corrélatives. Crossref pourrait également sponsoriser/soutenir la publication de revues et les bourses d’études en Afrique.

Which other organisations do you collaborate with or are pivotal to your work in open science?
Avec quelles autres organisations collaborez-vous ou alors quelles sont les organismes pivot au cœur de votre travail en science ouverte ?

I collaborate with various institutions such as COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), AJOL African Journals Online, and OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association). I attend webinars of these organisations on behalf of my journal.

Je collabore avec diverses institutions telles que COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), AJOL African Journals Online, et OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association). J’assiste à des webinaires de ceux-ci organisations au nom de ma revue.

What are your plans for the future?
Quels sont vos plans pour l’avenir ?

My plan for the future is to continue working in science communication with different other organisations, and more within my community.

Mon plan pour l’avenir est de continuer à travailler dans le domaine de la communication scientifique avec différentes autres organisations, et davantage au sein de ma communauté.

Thank you, Audrey!

Merci, Audrey !

Perspectives: My thoughts on starting my new role at Crossref

Johanssen Obanda — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My name is Johanssen Obanda. I joined Crossref in February 2023 as a Community Engagement Manager to look after the Ambassadors program and help with other outreach activities. I work remotely from Kenya, where there is an increasing interest in improving the exposure of scholarship by Kenyan researchers and ultimately by the wider community of African researchers. In this blog, I’m sharing the experience and insights of my first 4 months in this role.

Right before joining Crossref, I was working as Stakeholder Manager with AfricArXiv, a community-led digital archive for African research communication. I transitioned to working with Crossref to take up a more challenging role, so I can apply the community-building and social innovation skills I gained over the last five years in my profession.

What surprised me the most here is realising that such a robust infrastructure is being administered by a relatively small team. I wondered how the team keeps the services running and builds new solutions for the community. However, I am impressed by the collaborative culture, positive and healthy work environment, and great systems.

I work within the Community Engagement and Communications team, where we collaboratively address members’ questions and challenges, plan events, create helpful content for our community and keep in touch with them. We help grow our community and create a better experience using our products and services.

My main focus has been the Ambassador programme, which started in 2018 and currently comprises 48 Ambassadors globally. The Ambassadors are our trusted contacts who support and engage our communities locally to make scholarly communications better. Through one-on-one virtual interaction with most of them, I noted that there was little interaction among the Ambassadors. Most of our Ambassadors want to connect more, both face-to-face and online. In the coming months, we aim to design our meetings together with the Ambassadors to encourage better exchange and relationships.

I value Crossref’s insistence on diversity, equity and inclusion, and I enjoy contributing to those activities. Working with my colleagues in the outreach team to organise webinars and activities for the Global Equitable Membership (GEM) programme has been an exciting experience. I particularly enjoyed engaging with our Ambassadors Shaharima Parvin and Jahangir Alam from Bangladesh, and Binayak Pandey from Nepal, in organising the initial webinars for the GEM program in their countries. I feel it is one of the ways of creating more in-depth connections between our communities and our Ambassadors while making it possible for more institutions to be part of Crossref and contribute to scholarly communication.

I have made a few webinar presentations online and recently did one in-person poster presentation in South Africa at the Sustainability, Research and Innovation conference. I gained more confidence interacting with the wider Crossref community and a deeper understanding of Crossref’s services. I look forward to more opportunities to discuss Crossref’s mission with the community and to collaborate with like-minded organisations, contributing to joint initiatives, such as the upcoming Better Together webinar series with ORCID and DataCite, and the Forum for Open Research in MENA events.

I experienced the challenges of working remotely in many ways. A couple of days, there was no power, other days the internet connection was painfully slow, and hopping from one restaurant to another was something I had to deal with from time to time, with the hopes of finding quiet most times to have a good meeting with my colleagues, until I had more dependable work station. On the positive side, coordinating meeting times with colleagues, taking on tasks asynchronously and collaborating in real-time across different tools are making me more agile, patient and empathetic with myself and my colleagues.

I am driven by the impact I want to contribute in my career working with Crossref, which is to build an inclusive research ecosystem where researchers across the globe can easily access scientific knowledge and make meaningful connections. And I feel confident about my colleagues, our systems and infrastructure and my capabilities to be part of a thriving community and organisation.

Perspectives: Mohamad Mostafa on scholarly communications in UAE

Mohamad Mostafa — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

تسلط سلسلة مدونة توقعات - وجهات نظر الخاصة بنا الضوء على أعضاء مختلفين من مجتمعنا العالمي المتنوع في كروس رف .نتعلم المزيد عن حياتهم وكيف تعرفوا وعملوا معنا، ونسمع رؤى حول مشهد البحث العلمي في بلدهم، والتحديات التي يواجهونها، وخططهم للمستقبل.

As we continue with our Perspectives blog series, today, we meet Mohamad Mostafa, Crossref Ambassador in the UAE and Production Manager at Knowledge E. Mohamad is passionate about helping improve the discoverability of research through rich metadata. We invite you to read and listen to what Mohamad has to say!

بينما نواصل سلسلة مدونة توقعات - وجهات نظر الخاصة بنا، نلتقي اليوم مع محمد مصطفى، سفير كروس رف في الإمارات العربية المتحدة ومدير الإنتاج في نوليدج اي . محمد متحمس للمساعدة في تحسين إمكانية اكتشاف البحث من خلال البيانات الوصفية الغنية. ندعوكم لقراءة ما يقوله محمد والاستماع إليه!

English عربي

Tell us a bit about your organisation, your objectives, and your role

أخبرنا قليلاً عن مؤسستك وأهدافك ودورك

My name is Mohamad Mostafa, and I am the Production Manager at Knowledge E. Within our publishing program, we publish around 2000 articles across 13 titles that are fully Open Access, which is something that I really value.

اسمي محمد مصطفى، وأنا مدير الإنتاج في نولدج إي. ضمن برنامج النشر الخاص بنا، ننشر حوالي 2000 مقالة عبر 13 عنوانًا مفتوح الوصول بالكامل، وهو أمر أقدره حقًا.

In a world that’s moving faster than ever, the availability, quality, and pursuit of knowledge are fundamental for advancement. Knowledge E, in line with its vision of developing a more knowledgeable world, helps institutions advance the quality of their research; move towards teaching excellence; upgrade library technology, services, and practices; and advance scholarship through journal publication, management, and training. In other words, it works with higher education institutions, research centres, ministries, publishers, and scholars to solve our society’s most significant challenges.

في عالم يتحرك بشكل أسرع من أي وقت مضى، يعد توافر المعرفة وجودتها والسعي وراءها أمورًا أساسية للتقدم. إن نوليدج إي، تماشياً مع رؤيتها لتطوير عالم أكثر معرفة ودراية، تساعد المؤسسات على تحسين جودة أبحاثها؛ التحرك نحو التميز في التدريس؛ ترقية مكتباتها الرقمية والخدمات والممارسات المتعلقة بها؛ ودعم المنح الدراسية المتقدمة من خلال نشر المجلات وإدارتها والتدريب. بمعنى آخر، تعمل شركة نولدج إي مع مؤسسات التعليم العالي ومراكز البحث والوزارات والناشرين والعلماء لحل أهم التحديات التي تواجه مجتمعنا.

I am also a Crossref Ambassador. As part of the ambassador program, we aim to raise awareness about Crossref services among librarians, publishers, editors, and authors in the Middle East and North Africa region. As part of this, we run workshops in English and Arabic, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive metadata and persistent identifiers. We also help research communities improve their understanding of how to use Crossref services. The importance of making regional research objects easy to find, cite and reuse encouraged me to join the ambassador program.

أنا أيضًا سفير كروس رف. كجزء من برنامج السفراء، نهدف إلى زيادة الوعي حول خدمات Crossref بين أمناء المكتبات والناشرين والمحررين والمؤلفين في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا. وكجزء من هذا، فإننا ندير ورش عمل باللغتين الإنجليزية والعربية، للتأكيد على أهمية البيانات الوصفية الشاملة والمعرفات المستمرة. نحن أيضًا نساعد مجتمعات البحث على تحسين فهمهم لكيفية استخدام خدمات .Crossref شجعتني أهمية تسهيل العثور على عناصر البحث الإقليمية والاستشهاد بها وإعادة استخدامها على الانضمام إلى برنامج سفراء كروس رف.

What is one thing that others should know about your country and its research activity?

ما هو الشيء الذي يجب أن يعرفه الآخرون عن بلدك ونشاطه البحثي؟

A lot of regional research is being produced (in Arabic) and even without proper infrastructure (the lack of language support within the international publishing ecosystems such as peer review systems, indexes, citations databases, submissions systems, etc.) and the inadequate awareness about the various services (such as Crossref solutions) that can help with the discoverability and visibility of this research, the Arab region is increasingly recognised as a global leader in research outputs. Generally, these are some of the challenges and frustrations associated with the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) region.

يتم إنتاج الكثير من الأبحاث الإقليمية (باللغة العربية) وحتى بدون بنية تحتية مناسبة (نقص الدعم اللغوي داخل أنظمة النشر الدولية مثل أنظمة مراجعة الأقران، والفهارس، وقواعد بيانات الاستشهادات، وأنظمة التقديم، وما إلى ذلك) وعدم كفاية الوعي حول الخدمات المختلفة (مثل حلول(Crossref التي يمكن أن تساعد في اكتشاف هذه البحوث وإبرازها، يتم الاعتراف بالمنطقة العربية بشكل متزايد كرائد عالمي في مخرجات البحث. بشكل عام، هذه بعض التحديات والإحباطات المرتبطة بمنطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا.

Are there trends in scholarly communications that are unique to your part of the world?

هل توجد اتجاهات في الاتصالات العلمية فريدة من نوعها في الجزء الذي تعيش فيه من العالم؟

In general, Open Access and Open Research are getting more and more attention in our region currently. We have recently launched the Forum for Open Research in MENA to raise awareness about all the new scholarly communications trends and support the Middle East and North Africa movement towards Open Science.

بشكل عام، يحظى الوصول الحر والبحث المفتوح باهتمام متزايد في منطقتنا حاليًا. لقد أطلقنا مؤخرًا منتدى الأبحاث المفتوحة في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا لزيادة الوعي حول الاتصالات العلمية الجديدة ودعم حركة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا نحو العلوم المفتوحة.

The Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM) is a non-profit membership organisation supporting the advancement of open science policies and practices in research communities and institutions across the Arab world.

منتدى البحوث المفتوحة في الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا (FORM) هو منظمة غير ربحية ذات عضوية تدعم النهوض بسياسات وممارسات العلوم المفتوحة في المجتمعات والمؤسسات البحثية في جميع أنحاء العالم العربي.

We believe the Arab world has the resources and capability to play a pivotal role in the global transition towards more accessible, sustainable, and inclusive research and education models. And we want to support all our research communities and stakeholder groups in the journey towards a more ‘open’ world. Our vision is to help unlock research for and in the Arab world. Our mission is to support the advancement of open science practices in research libraries and universities across the Arab world by facilitating the exchange of actionable insights and developing practical policies.

نعتقد أن العالم العربي لديه الموارد والقدرة على لعب دور محوري في التحول العالمي نحو نماذج بحث وتعليم أكثر سهولة واستدامة وشمولية. ونريد دعم جميع مجتمعاتنا البحثية ومجموعات أصحاب المصلحة في رحلتنا نحو عالم أكثر "انفتاحًا". رؤيتنا هي دعم الوصول الحر والبحوث المفتوحة في العالم العربي. ومهمتنا هي دعم تقدم ممارسات العلوم المفتوحة في مكتبات البحث والجامعات في جميع أنحاء العالم العربي من خلال تسهيل تبادل الأفكار القابلة للتنفيذ وتطوير السياسات العملية.

Our first Annual Forum was held in Cairo in October 2022 (as part of the global Open Access Week initiative). The event was a huge success, with over 1,100 delegates from over 48 countries across the globe. The next Annual Forum will be hosted in the UAE in October 2023, and details will be available shortly on our website.

عقد المنتدى السنوي الأول في القاهرة في أكتوبر 2022 (كجزء من مبادرة أسبوع الوصول الحر العالمي). حقق الحدث نجاحًا كبيرًا، حيث حضره أكثر من 1100 مندوب من أكثر من 48 دولة حول العالم. سيتم استضافة المنتدى السنوي القادم في دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة في أكتوبر 2023، وستتوفر التفاصيل قريبًا على موقعنا.

How would you describe the value of being part of the Crossref community; what impact has your participation had on your goals?

كيف تصف قيمة أن تكون جزءًا من مجتمعCrossref ؟ ما هو تأثير مشاركتك على أهدافك؟

I have been a Crossref ambassador for more than 5 years now, and I can really say that it has been a great experience being part of such an amazing and collaborative community. We got the chance to interact with different publishers and service providers and participate in different Crossref annual events. It’s also perfectly aligned with our vision of supporting Open Research.

لقد كنت سفيرًا لـ Crossref لأكثر من 5 سنوات حتى الآن، ويمكنني حقًا أن أقول إنها كانت تجربة رائعة أن أكون جزءًا من هذا المجتمع المذهل والتعاوني. لقد أتيحت لنا الفرصة للتفاعل مع مختلف الناشرين ومقدمي الخدمات والمشاركة في الأحداث السنوية المختلفة لـ .Crossref كما أنه يتماشى تمامًا مع رؤيتنا لدعم البحث المفتوح.

Recently, we have delivered a series of three Arabic webinars that offered basic metadata information and advanced insights about the role of metadata and how Crossref services can help an institution. These webinars have been well received by the community of regional publishers, university presses, and librarians. Dozens of questions have been answered, and technical enquires have been resolved. It was a great experience, and it was good to see that kind of interest in our community. Also, more educational webinars are yet to come!

قدمنا مؤخرًا سلسلة من ثلاث ندوات عربية عبر الإنترنت تمحورت حول معلومات البيانات الوصفية الأساسية ورؤى متقدمة حول دور البيانات الوصفية وكيف يمكن لخدمات Crossref أن تساعد المؤسسات البحثية. لقيت هذه الندوات عبر الإنترنت استحسان مجتمع الناشرين الإقليميين دور النشر الجامعية وأمناء المكتبات. تمت الإجابة على عشرات الأسئلة، وتم الرد على الاستفسارات الفنية. لقد كانت تجربة رائعة، وكان من المفرح أن نرى هذا النوع من الاهتمام في مجتمعنا. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، سيتم تقديم المزيد من الندوات التعليمية على الإنترنت في المستقبل.

For you, what would be the most important thing Crossref could change (do more of/do better in)?

بالنسبة لك، ما هو الشيء الأكثر أهمية الذي يمكن لـ Crossref تغييره (القيام بالمزيد / القيام بعمل أفضل في)؟

Language is still a barrier in some parts of the Arab region, so producing more educational content in different formats (webinars, flyers, videos with subtitles, etc.) would be highly appreciated here. 

لا تزال اللغة تشكل حاجزًا في بعض المناطق العربية، لذا سيكون إنتاج المزيد من المحتوى التعليمي بتنسيقات مختلفة (ندوات عبر الإنترنت، ونشرات، ومقاطع فيديو مع ترجمة، وما إلى ذلك) موضع تقدير كبير هنا.

Which other organisations do you collaborate with or are pivotal to your work in open scholarship?

ما هي المنظمات الأخرى التي تتعاون معها أو التي تلعب دورًا محوريًا في عملك في مجال الابحاث المفتوحة؟

We work closely with ORCiD and invite them to our events, support DOAJ via our charitable Foundation, and rely heavily on PKP products mainly the Open Journal Systems (OJS) with plans to expand and start using Open Monograph Press (OMP).

إننا نعمل عن كثب مع ORCiD ونقدر دعمهم لفاعلياتنا، كما ندعم DOAJ عبر موقعنا ومؤسستنا الخيرية، ونعتمد بشكل كبير على منتجات مشروع المعرفة العامة وخاصة المجلة المفتوحة أنظمة (OJS) كما أننا نود التوسع والبدء في استخدام Open Monograph Press (OMP).

What are the post-pandemic challenges/hopes you are facing and how are you adapting to them/what you’re looking forward to?

ما هي التحديات / الآمال التي تواجهها في فترة ما بعد الجائحة وكيف تتكيف معها / ما الذي تتطلع إليه؟

We aim for more face-to-face meetings and onsite workshops/conferences as the world opens up again. In addition, we have launched the Forum for Open Research in MENA (FORM) (a non-profit membership organisation supporting the advancement of Open Science policies and practices in research communities and institutions across the Arab region.)

نحن نهدف إلى المزيد من الاجتماعات وجهًا لوجه وورش العمل / المؤتمرات. بالإضافة إلى ذلك، أطلقنا منتدى البحث المفتوحMENA (FORM) ، وهي منظمة غير ربحية ذات عضوية تدعم النهوض بسياسات وممارسات العلوم المفتوحة في مجتمعات ومؤسسات البحث في جميع أنحاء المنطقة العربية.

A catalyst for positive action, we work with key stakeholders to develop and implement a pragmatic programme to facilitate the transition toward more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable research and education models in the Arab region. Our driving focus is on building the resources, the membership, the organisational structures, and the broader community to support the advancement of Open Science in research communities and research institutions across the Arab world.

كمحفز للعمل الإيجابي، نحن نعمل مع أصحاب المصلحة الرئيسيين للتطوير وتنفيذ برنامج عملي لتسهيل الانتقال نحو المزيد من نماذج البحث والتعليم الشاملة والمستدامة والتي يسهل الوصول إليها في المنطقة العربية. ينصب تركيزنا الدافع على بناء الموارد، والعضوية، والهياكل التنظيمية، والمجتمع الأوسع لدعم تقدم العلوم المفتوحة في المجتمعات البحثية والمؤسسات البحثية عبر العالم العربي.

Following the huge success of our 2022 Annual Forum (held in Cairo with the support and endorsement of UNESCO and the Egyptian Knowledge Bank), which attracted over 1100 delegates from 48 countries, our 2023 Annual Forum will be held in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. For more details about the event and the call for papers, see our website: https://forumforopenresearch.com

بعد النجاح الكبير لمنتدى 2022 السنوي (الذي عقد في القاهرة مع دعم وتأييد اليونسكو وبنك المعرفة المصري)، التي اجتذبت أكثر من 1100 مندوب من 48 دولة، المنتدى السنوي لعام 2023 سيعقد في أبو ظبي في دولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة. لمزيد من التفاصيل حول الحدث والدعوة للمشاركة، راجع موقعنا على الإنترنت:https://forumforopenresearch.com

What are your plans for the future?

ما هي خططك المستقبلية؟

Keep working with different global and regional stakeholders to help the transition of our region towards Open Science.

استمر في العمل مع مختلف الشركاء العالميين والإقليميين للمساعدة في انتقال منطقتنا العربية نحو العلوم المفتوحة.

Thank you, Mohamad!

شكرا لك يا محمد!

Perspectives: Bruna Erlandsson on scholarly communications in Brazil

Bruna Erlandsson — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Join us for the first in our Perspectives blog series. In this series of blogs, we will be meeting different members of our diverse, global community at Crossref. We learn more about their lives, how they came to know and work with us, and we hear insights about the scholarly research landscape in their country, challenges they face, and plans for the future.

In our first blog, we meet Bruna Erlandsson, Crossref Ambassador in Brazil, co-owner of Linceu Editorial, and client services manager at ABEC Brasil. Bruna has dedicated her career to scholarly publishing and has worked with Crossref for many years. We invite you to have a read and a listen below to meet Bruna!

<a type="button" style="cursor:pointer;" class="video-language-button" data-videoid="1030565718" data-playerid="video-player-perspectives-bruna-english">Portuguese</a>

<a type="button" style="cursor:pointer;" class="video-language-button" data-videoid="1030565745" data-playerid="video-player-perspectives-bruna-portuguese">English</a>

Tell us a bit about your organisation, your objectives, and your role
Conte-nos um pouco sobre sua organização, seus objetivos e sua função

I am a co-founder of the company Linceu Editorial, dedicated to publishing scientific and technological research in ethical, creative, and innovative ways. We strive to provide quality editorial services that meet standard industry requirements and best practices, increase visibility, attract readers and potential authors, and ensure their work is properly cited. My personal goal is to be recognized by the scientific community for providing excellent service to our clients.

Sou sócia proprietária da empresa Linceu Editorial, que se dedica à editoração de artigos científicos de inúmeras revistas, de forma ética, criativa e inovadora. Buscamos atribuir aos periódicos de nosso portfólio os requisitos de qualidade editorial alinhados às melhores práticas editoriais, de forma que aumentem sua visibilidade e atraiam leitores, potenciais autores e, não menos importante, que recebam citações em seus artigos. Meu objetivo pessoal é obter reconhecimento da comunidade científica por meio de uma prestação de serviço em nível de excelência.

What is one thing that others should know about your country and its research activity?
O que os outros deveriam saber sobre seu país e sua atividade de pesquisa?

Brazil is the South American leader in publishing scientific articles in Open Access journals. However, it faces challenges due to the absence of a more comprehensive public policy to support scientific editors. As a result, most journals are produced by teaching and/or research institutions or scientific associations with volunteer editorial teams that, although lacking professional journal production skills, produce high-quality journals. Only a tiny percentage of Brazilian journals are published through commercial publishers.

O Brasil é o líder sul-americano na publicação de artigos científicos, com destaque para as revistas em acesso aberto. No entanto, enfrenta desafios em função da ausência de uma política pública mais abrangente para apoio aos editores científicos. A maior parte dos periódicos é produzida por instituições de ensino/pesquisa ou Sociedades Científicas, tendo uma equipe editorial voluntária e carecendo de profissionalização em sua produção, embora, em muitos casos, apresentem boa qualidade. Apenas uma pequena porcentagem de periódicos brasileiros é publicada por meio de um publisher comercial.

Are there trends in scholarly communications that are unique to your part of the world?
Existem tendências nas comunicações acadêmicas que são únicas em sua parte do mundo?

I wouldn’t say unique. However, adherence to Open Science practices, such as preprints and making research data available, is already part of the editorial culture. On the other hand, open peer review is not yet well accepted by everyone in the scientific community, and only a few journals adopt it. In addition, in some areas of research, such as Education and Social Science, researchers are very active - on forums, in discussions lists and attending the same conferences - so there’s this feeling that ‘everyone knows everyone’ which can then lead to potential conflicts of interest and apprehensiveness around open peer review, particularly when it comes to publishing a negative review.

Eu não diria única, mas penso que, no Brasil, a adesão às práticas da ciência aberta, como publicação em preprint e disponibilização de dados de pesquisa, já fazem parte da cultura editorial. Por outro lado, a revisão aberta ainda não é bem aceita por toda comunidade científica, sendo poucos os periódicos que o adotam. Além disso, em algumas áreas de conhecimento com grande produção local, como por exemplo a Ciências Sociais e Educação, a interação entre membros da comunidade é muito grande, visto que são pesquisadores muito ativos em fóruns, listas de discussões e conferências da área, causando a sensação de que “todo mundo conhece todo mundo”, resultando em um possível conflito de interesse, visto que existe um grande receio em publicar um parecer aberto, especialmente se o caso for um parecer negativo.

What about any political policies, challenges, or mandates that you have to consider in your work?
E as políticas, desafios ou mandatos políticos que você deve considerar em seu trabalho?

In Latin America we have a large indexing database, Redalyc, and a digital library of Open Access journals, which has recently excluded a number of journals for charging APCs (Article Processing Charges), upon the understanding that this would go against their Diamond Open Access requirement.

However, in Brazil - in general - the understanding of Open Access is not so limited. Charging APCs are in fact encouraged by many as a form of self-sustainability of the journal while still being Open Access.

As for challenges, one of the biggest is whether or not to publish in English. Although the number of Brazilian journals that publish exclusively in English or both languages (Portuguese and English) is remarkably high. There is still however a belief that local science is only of interest to the local public, and so some question whether there is a value in publishing in English (or other languages). For example, if an author writes a research paper about a small riverside community in the countryside of Acre state in Brazil, they might ask why someone outside the country would be interested in reading that.

Aqui na América Latina, temos uma grande base indexadora, Redalyc, e biblioteca digital de periódicos de Acesso Aberto que, recentemente, excluíu da base um número considerável de periódicos que cobrassem qualquer tipo de taxa de publicação, por entender que isso iria contra os requisitos de seu modelo de Acesso Aberto Diamante (periódicos em acesso aberto livre de taxa de publicação).

No entanto, no Brasil, em geral, o entendimento é outro, a cobrança de taxas de processamento não descaracteriza o acesso aberto, sendo, na verdade, encorajado por muitos como uma forma de auto-sustentabilidade do periódico.

Já em relação a desafios, acredito que um dos maiores é a questão de publicar ou não em inglês. Embora seja notável o número de periódicos brasileiros que publicam exclusivamente em inglês ou ainda nos dois idiomas (português e inglês), existe ainda a crença de que a ciência local só teria interesse do público local, criando assim o questionamento se há ou não o valor em publicar em outro idioma. Por exemplo, se uma pesquisa estuda algo sobre uma comunidade ribeirinha no interior do estado do Acre, aqui no Brasil, é comum existir a dúvida se algo tão específico seria do interesse de alguém de fora do nosso país.

How would you describe the value of being part of the Crossref community; what impact has your participation had on your goals?
Como você descreveria o valor de fazer parte da comunidade Crossref; que impacto teve sua participação em seus objetivos?

I get immense value from being part of the Crossref community. Being a Crossref Ambassador brings greater recognition and legitimacy to my role working with editors and adds value to my company’s services as well. The title of Ambassador enhances trust in my opinions, presentations, and when providing support and clarification to those asking questions. However it also comes with a great responsibility to do this well, which motivates me to always keep up to date with developments at Crossref. Through the Ambassador Program I have given several webinars for Crossref and the Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos (ABEC Brasil), which provide much needed information and support to Portuguese speaking Crossref members as well as enhancing the visibility of my professional activities at Linceu Editorial.

É um valor enorme fazer parte da comunidade Crossref! Ser Embaixadora do Crossref traz um reconhecimento entre os editores e agrega valor aos serviços de minha empresa. Esse título assegura confiabilidade em minhas opiniões, apresentações, e esclarecimentos de dúvidas, o que traz junto uma grande responsabilidade que me motiva a me manter sempre atualizada com tudo em relação ao Crossref. Através do Programa de Embaixadores eu ministrei diversos webinários para a Crossref e também para a Associação Brasileira de Editores Científicos (ABEC Brasil), fornecendo muitas informações necessárias para os membros da Crossref que falam português, e também isso tudo acaba por retornar em visibilidade para as minhas atividades profissionais na Linceu Editorial.

For you, what would be the most important thing Crossref could change (do more of/do better in)?
Para você, qual seria a coisa mais importante que o Crossref poderia mudar (fazer mais/fazer melhor)?

I think there is still a need for more multilingual training both online and face-to-face, which has been particularly lacking during the pandemic, to provide more information on Crossref services beyond Content Registration. For example Similarity Check is a service that people still have a lot of questions about (such as ‘what is the magic similarity percentage score to identify plagiarism?’ Answer - there isn’t one!). Crossmark is another service where I believe people could benefit from more training on it’s importance in the publication process, not only in cases of retraction but also in guaranteeing that the article is up-to-date and trustworthy. In Brazil many people use Open Journal Systems (OJS) and so the development of Crossref service specific plugins and training on how to use them is really useful!

Acho que ainda há necessidade de mais treinamentos multilíngues, tanto online quanto presencial – o que tem sido particularmente escasso durante a pandemia – para fornecer mais informações sobre os serviços do Crossref além do Registro de Conteúdo. Por exemplo, o Similarity Check é um serviço sobre o qual as pessoas ainda têm muitas dúvidas (como ‘qual é a porcentagem de similaridade aceitável para identificar plágio?’ Resposta - não existe!). O Crossmark é outro serviço onde acredito que as pessoas poderiam se beneficiar de mais treinamento sobre sua importância no processo de publicação, não apenas em casos de retratação, mas também para garantir que o artigo esteja sempre atualizado e confiável. No Brasil muitas pessoas usam o Open Journal Systems (OJS) e por isso o desenvolvimento de plugins específicos do serviço Crossref e treinamento sobre como usá-los seriam muito úteis!

Which other organisations do you collaborate with or are pivotal to your work in open science?
Com quais outras organizações você colabora ou é fundamental para o seu trabalho em ciência aberta?

I contribute to ABEC Brasil in a variety of ways including speaking on short courses about Crossref, designing content for lectures as part of an online program called ABEC Educação (which will be launched soon), and as a volunteer consultant to answer a variety of questions from editors regarding content registration at Crossref.

Contribuo com a ABEC Brasil, participando tanto como ministrante de minicursos sobre ferramentas Crossref quanto como conteudista de um curso no Programa EaD ABEC Educação (que será lançado em breve), além de como consultora voluntária para atender a diversas dúvidas de editores em relação a depósito de conteúdo.

What are the post-pandemic challenges you are facing and how are you adapting to them?
Quais são os desafios pós-pandemia que você está enfrentando e como você está se adaptando a eles?

Considering the current situation in Brazil, I don’t think I would consider us having reached ‘post-pandemic’ just yet. Although vaccination is taking place successfully, there are still many uncertainties and fears. A good example of this is Crossref LIVE Brazil which was canceled at the start of the pandemic and at the moment we still don’t know when we will be able to reschedule this. It still feels too risky to bring a number of speakers from abroad to Brazil and too soon to hold such a large in-person event.

However, if I had to highlight one challenge I’ve been facing, it would be something more personal rather than work-related. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it would be the lack of human contact! It has been really hard to get use to not gathering together with family and friends and not being able to travel, meet new people, and experience new cultures. To deal with it, I spend my free time planning the places I will go to and people I will visit as soon as this whole situation is over!

Para ser honesta, considerando a realidade atual no Brasil, eu ainda não considero o momento atual “pós-pandemia”. Embora a vacinação esteja ocorrendo com sucesso, ainda existem muitas incertezas e medos. Um exemplo bem claro é o Crossref Live in Brazil, que foi cancelado assim que a pandemia foi “anunciada” e, até hoje, não sabemos quando ocorrerá, pois ainda soa muito arriscado trazer palestrantes de fora para o Brasil e também se encontrar com diversas pessoas em um evento presencial.

No entanto, se eu tivesse que destacar um desafio que tenho enfrentado, seria algo mais pessoal e não relacionado ao trabalho. E, sem sombras de dúvidas, seria a falta de contato humano! Está sendo realmente complicado se acostumar em não encontrar amigos e familiares, e também não poder viajar e conhecer novos lugares, pessoas e culturas – o jeito que encontrei para lidar com isso é gastar meu tempo livre planejando todos os lugares que irei e todas as pessoas que visitarei assim que essa situação toda passar.

What are your plans for the future?
Quais são seus planos para o futuro?

My plans for the future include continuously learning more and more about scholarly publishing including the various services that Crossref provides. I want to be able to help publishers implement valuable tools into their workflows such as Similarity Check and Crossmark, and contribute to greater scientific dissemination of Brazilian research so that Brazilian journals can get the global recognition, visibility and value they deserve.

Meus planos para o futuro incluem aprender cada vez mais e mais sobre publicação científica, incluindo os vários serviços que o Crossref oferece. Quero poder ajudar os editores a implementar ferramentas valiosas em seus fluxos de trabalho, como Similarity Check e Crossmark, e contribuir para uma maior divulgação científica das pesquisas brasileiras para que os periódicos brasileiros possam obter o reconhecimento global, visibilidade e valor que merecem.

Thank you, Bruna!
Obrigado, Bruna!

Crossref Conversations: audio blog about helping open science

Rosa Morais Clark — Fri, 20 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Crossref Conversations is an audio blog we’re trying out that will cover various topics important to our community. This conversation is between colleagues Anna Tolwinska and Rosa Morais Clark, discussing how we can make research happen faster, with fewer hurdles, and how Crossref can help. Our members have been asking us how Crossref can support open science, and we have a few insights to share. So we invite you to have a listen.

[UPDATE: Since this recording ROR IDs are now part of the Crossref schema.]

Helpful links

Here are links to all the sources mentioned in the recording.

Thanks for listening!

Service Provider perspectives: A few minutes with our publisher hosting platforms

Jennifer Kemp — Mon, 24 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Service Providers work on behalf of our members by creating, registering, querying and/or displaying metadata. We rely on this group to support our schema as it evolves, to roll out new and updated services to members and to work closely with us on a variety of matters of mutual interest. Many of our Service Providers have been with us since the early days of Crossref. Others have joined as scholarly communications has grown and services have evolved. Though fewer than 20 in number, their impact far outweighs the size of the group.

They, like us, work with a great variety of members and have a broad view into publishing trends. In this post, we focus on views from some of the publishing hosting platform Service Providers, who’ve taken the time to share their thoughts on a few questions:

What is the biggest change you’ve experienced working with publisher metadata over the last few years and how have you adapted to it?

It has become more and more important that not only the DOIs are registered with the minimum of necessary metadata to get the DOIs registered, but that a most complete set of metadata is being sent along – including author identifiers, funding information, abstracts, licenses, to support other Crossref services and improve discoverability.

– de Gruyter

Our clients are increasingly aware of the key role metadata plays in the effective dissemination of research. With an increasing number of published articles and a clear domination of “search engines” and aggregation of content, metadata is the primary means of making sure that publications reach the right audience. Publishers’ value-add includes not just copy editing, formatting, and packaging, but also now creating journal articles for the digital age that are discoverable and well linked to the research corpus. Furthermore, we sense a clear move toward standardization, which goes beyond the structure to introduce standardized semantics: adopting common taxonomies for classifying content in different dimensions. Our response is to introduce effective, automated and consistent services that capture, and surface metadata throughout the value chain from authoring to publication and search.

– Atypon

Highwire’s publishers are always looking to use the latest DTD (Document Type Definition) for the content to stay up to current standards. Currently this would be JATS 1.2. They are choosing to remain current so that they can stay on top of all or new metadata that can enrich their deposits. We have handled this well and offer support for the latest version of DTD when they are released, but some publishers are not always familiar with what can/should be deposited with their content and this can be a learning process for them.

– MPS Limited

How do you explain to clients (and others!) why correct, quality metadata is important?

In the digital age, metadata is the key to enabling effective content consumption. Publications that cannot be effectively discovered are of little value. We can only increase the impact of research with “discoverable” and “machine readable” publications. So ensuring correct and quality metadata is the key to optimizing not only the processing (finding the right journal, editor, reviewers) but also to positioning each publication properly. As the volume of published scientific research increases, article metadata is the way forward — it brings “order” and enables our community to manage this volume.

– Atypon

Highwire always positions itself as “good content in” means “good content out”. This is true for our own content stores. Strong and valid metadata will result in valid and strong deposits. We explain this to all new clients on-boarded with Highwire and the use of current standards and for current client projects where content should/can be enriched through re-load.

– MPS Limited

Getting our journals to care about metadata is a two step process: First, make sure they understand how metadata will help their journal succeed (i.e. why it matters to them). Second, make it easy for them to produce metadata while minimizing the cost, time, or complexity of their workflow. The first step – making a case for why metadata matters – is often easier than you’d think. At the very least, most journal editors understand that metadata, e.g., JATS or DOI registration, is an important signifier of professionalism / prestige. In other words, they see that top journals publish metadata and want the same for their journal. From a more technical standpoint, metadata is important because that’s the format computers understand and, like it or not, the publishing ecosystem relies on computers to deliver all sorts of critical services – such as indexing, archiving, and discoverability. So, if you’re not publishing metadata, you’re likely missing the benefit of these services. The second step – making it easy to produce metadata – is more difficult. Journal editors generally understand metadata matters but often lack the technical skills or resources necessary to create metadata. This is where a platform, such as Scholastica, can be very helpful. Because platforms work with many journals, they can invest in tools to automate the creation of metadata, reducing costs for all their clients. For example, most platforms offer integrations to support automatic DOI registration. At Scholastica, we’re pushing this idea even further with automatic integration to more complicated services such as PubMed Central. By reducing cost and complexity, we can help new or small-budget journals have the same quality metadata normally reserved for large, established journals.

– Scholastica

We are sending other publishers’ metadata to academic libraries and distribution channels. Erroneous metadata will have a direct impact on how discoverable a title may be. The more uniform and correct the metadata, the better it will be indexed in other places.

– de Gruyter

What is the one industry development or trend you’re most excited about for the near future and why?

Open Science and the ability to deliver research with the tools for reproducing it is the most exciting and game changing trend. Technology has enabled the output of science to transition from two-dimensional printed text delivery into globally accessible and responsive web-based delivery. We are now taking the next steps to further leverage web technology to enhance research output with rich assets ranging from audio and video, datasets, executable code, high-resolution imagery, interactive applications and more. As more assets accompany research publications, viewing these assets as modular, individually citable, and reusable becomes a requirement. We are reviewing the whole research output flow from authoring to publishing, and most importantly to its dissemination through the myriad of discovery tools now available.

– Atypon

The move of everything to the cloud – this is changing and improving our infrastructure, our possibility to scale and to stay on top of technological development.

– de Gruyter

Thanks very much to the interviewees for their time and thoughts. We look forward to working with our entire Service Provider group on questions like these and many more. If you’d like more details, you can read about our Service Provider program or contact me for more information.

PRC Report and “iPub” revisited

Geoffrey Bilder — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

OK, so this has nothing to do with any Crossref projects- but there is an interesting new PRC report out by Mark Ware in which he explores how SMEs (small/medium-sized enterprises) make use of scholarly articles and whether the scholarly publishing industry is doing anything to make their lives easier. This is a topic that is close to my heart. For the past few years I’ve been saying (most recently at SSP09) that I think scholarly publishers are much too quick to dismiss the possibility of creating an iTunes-like service for scholarly publications (aka “iPub”). The report certainly seems to indicate that there is an important audience that would benefit from such a service (SMEs) and even goes so far as to cite my occasional rants on the subject. The summary of my iPub argument has been that:

A very large percentage of the web visits that hit publishers web sites come from sources that are unrecognised. That is, they don’t come from a subscribing institution and they don’t seem to come from a registered user or anybody who has visited the site previously. For many publishers the level of such unrecognised visitors can amount to over 90% of all the traffic that hits their sites. Most industries would look at this percentage and work hard to figure out how to monetize some of it. Our industry seems to treat it like “noise”, reasoning that only people in recognised academic and professional institutions are going to desire or understand the content on scholarly journal sites.
Evidence from the NSF shows that significantly more than 50% of US students who graduate with an S&E degree end up employed outside of directly S&E related fields. This represents a large percentage of potential consumers of scholarly and professional publications who are not part of a recognised academic or professional institution. SMEs anybody?
These potential consumers are faced with a bewildering variety of sources for their content. They have to deal with multiple publisher sites with different interfaces and different PPV checkout procedures. And they have to navigate all this without the aid of library finding tools or the professional researcher’s understanding the scholarly journal environment. It is no wonder that they give up hope once they land on our abstract pages and face the gauntlet of another PPV checkout system.

It seems to me that the industry could provide a single interface and PPV shopping cart interface targeted at allowing people who work outside of traditional subscribing institutions to easily purchase individual article downloads from scholarly publishers. The system would be modelled at least in part by Apple’s iTunes, a system that has been lauded (and denounced) for revolutionising the way in which consumers buy music online. The chief virtues of the iTunes system are often cited as being:

It contains a critical mass of content
It provides a simple and consistent user interface
It has a simple and inexpensive pricing model
It disaggregated content (per song purchases)
It interfaced transparently with the iPod.

A scholarly publishing “iPub” system could seek to emulate many of these strengths but not all. Clearly such a system could not impose uniform pricing or dictate pricing, as that would be anti-competitive. The PRC report makes this same point.

Some, including the PRC report, also claim that the publishing industry has no equivalent of the “iPod” and that this would be a weakness of the system. I don’t agree with this- I think that the “iPod” in this case is currently called “paper.” In the future we will almost certainly migrate to some iPod/Kindle-like device, but as far as fulfilling most of the iPod’s functionality (portable rendering of the content) right now, I suspect paper fits the bill.

Finally, there is a another oft-expressed concern that such a system might confuse channels for existing audiences and that librarians in particular would be very hostile to such a system. The truth is, I don’t know how librarians would react to such a system. The few I’ve mentioned it to certainly seemed amenable to the idea. Maybe this is where the PRC should do some follow-up research?

In any case, it seems to me that there is potentially much to be gained by simply providing an easy PPV experience where users don’t have to register with multiple sites and cope with multiple shopping cart applications. Publishers can’t seriously think that they gain competitive advantage through their shopping carts? If not, then why not standardise on a uniform interface that is easily purchased from? Perhaps it doesn’t have to look like iTunes but can instead look like PayPal (PayPub?). Providing a simple mechanism like this might enable the industry to meet the needs of important and often overlooked audiences. I keep wondering if CCC could help publishers do something here?