Science advisors call for open access to COVID-19 research - March 13, 2020

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of Science and Technology Policy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 13, 2020

President Trump’s Science Advisor and Government Science Leaders from Around the World call on Publishers to make all COVID-19-Related Research Publically Available 

Publically Available Research and Data is More Important than Ever as we Combat the COVID-19 Outbreak

Today, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Member of President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force, Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, and government science leaders including science ministers and chief science advisors from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom are asking publishers to make all COVID-19-related research and data immediately available to the public. 

“We, as national leaders on science policy, applaud the efforts of researchers to understand and prevent the infection and spread of COVID-19. We also greatly appreciate the funders and publishers who play the important role of supporting, reviewing, and communicating research outcomes and making publications and data available to the global community for scientific research and public awareness.

“To assist efforts to contain and mitigate the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic, basic science research and innovation will be vital to addressing this global crisis. Given the urgency of the situation, it is particularly important that scientists and the public can access research outcomes as soon as possible.  The countries listed below urge publishers to voluntarily agree to make their COVID-19 and coronavirus-related publications, and the available data supporting them, immediately accessible in PubMed Central and other appropriate public repositories, such as the World Health Organization’s COVID database, to support the ongoing public health emergency response efforts,” the government science leaders wrote in the call-to-action.

Science leaders requested that existing and new articles be made available in machine-readable format to allow full text and data mining with rights accorded for research re-use and secondary analysis. This will allow researchers to apply artificial intelligence to answer critical questions and identify trends and relevant information in their efforts to characterize this novel virus and address the global health crisis.

Please find the full transcript to the scholarly publishing community attached.

For more information about the Coronavirus, please visit:https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html.

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University of California Libraries Adopt Ex Libris Higher-Ed Cloud Platform to Facilitate Access to Collections and Systemwide Collaboration - March 3, 2020

The Ex Libris Alma platform and Primo solution will help UC campus libraries, regional storage facilities, and the California Digital library collaborate more efficiently, while also enhancing their end-user experience

Chicago, Illinois—March 3, 2020. Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is pleased to announce that the University of California (UC) Libraries have selected the Ex Libris Alma^® library services platform and Ex Libris Primo^® discovery and delivery solution to deploy a systemwide integrated library system (SILS).

Currently, the maintenance of many independent but interconnected library and resource sharing systems at UC provides diminishing returns, resulting in higher system resource investments and lost opportunities to innovate and enhance the libraries’ services. The Ex Libris higher-ed cloud platform will help the UC Libraries scale efficiently, providing the technological infrastructure to support more than 2,000 library staff members who serve 330,000 students and academic employees across 100 libraries.

The Alma cloud-based platform will help the libraries improve the faculty and student end-user experience in discovering and accessing items in UC’s vast physical and electronic collections. The libraries will also be able to take advantage of business intelligence that feeds a data-driven approach to library management and development, and will benefit from the operational efficiencies and transformative opportunities enjoyed when a systemwide approach is taken.

In addition, the Ex Libris Primo solution will provide the UC Libraries with a discovery interface and central index of metadata that directs users to both local and systemwide resources.

“Even in its formative stage, the SILS project has brought about close collaboration among the UC Libraries. This contract enables us to build on that foundation and reimagine how we serve our communities and how we go about our work,” said Chris Shaffer and Günter Waibel, co-chairs of the UC SILS project.

Reflecting on the positive impact on library staff, UC’s Council of University Librarians Chair M. Elizabeth Cowell added, “To date and moving forward, the SILS project provides professional development opportunities for library staff as we all learn what this collaboration means to the UC Libraries and the variety of expertise needed to ensure its success.”

“We are happy that the Alma platform and Primo solution will assist the University of California Libraries in advancing innovation and enhancing access to their vast collections,” said Eric Hines, president of Ex Libris North America. “Collaborating to develop shared services will eliminate the duplication of effort and help the librarians throughout the university tap into their collective expertise.”

About the University of California Libraries  

Individually and collectively, the University of California Libraries provide access to the world’s knowledge for the UC campuses and the communities they serve, directly supporting UC’s missions of teaching, research and public service. The University of California Libraries, which include some of the world’s most distinctive collections and innovative services, constitute the largest university research library in the world.

About Ex Libris

Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, is a leading global provider of cloud-based SaaS solutions that enable institutions and their individual users to create, manage, and share knowledge. In close collaboration with its customers and the broader community, Ex Libris develops creative solutions that increase library productivity, maximize the impact of research activities, enhance teaching and learning, and drive student mobile engagement. Ex Libris serves over 7,500 customers in 90 countries. For more information, see our website and join us on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Elsevier - Testing a new approach to open access fees - March 3, 2020

New OA payment models are needed make open access implementation practical, journal editor says
By Ian Evans - March 3, 2020

A strategy for a large commercial journal to deal with heavy rejection rates.

A model adopted by the European Economic Review (EER) Plus. The EPC model his journal is piloting offers an affordable option for researchers with limited access to funds. The charge is set low – at €527, where some article processing charges will be upwards of €4,000 – and unlike a submission fee, the author only pays if their paper is selected for peer review. However, that fee is non-refundable if the article is rejected at the peer review stage.

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