misleading title -- actually a review of literature on whether OA articles are cited more than TA ones

A follow up to the 2006 report, 'Scientific publishing in transition: an overview of current developments,' 'The STM Report' collected the available evidence and provides a comprehensive picture of the trends and currents in scholarly communication.

Mark Ware Consulting has been commissioned by Knowledge Exchange (www.knowledge-exchange.info), a partnership of JISC (UK), SURF (Netherlands), DEFF (Denmark) and DfG (Germany), to conduct a study into the feasibility of submission fees in open access journals (i.e. as distinct from publication fees).

This third report in the GISWatch series is entitled “Access to online information and knowledge – advancing human rights and democracy” and reveals how vulnerable the internet as we know it is. The report unpacks the key issues impacting on access to online information and knowledge, including discussions on intellectual property rights, knowledge rights, open standards and access to educational materials and libraries. The report also offers an institutional overview and a reflection on indicators that track access to information and knowledge. 48 country reports –-ten more than last year— analyse the status of access to online information and knowledge in countries as diverse as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Mexico, Switzerland and Kazakhstan, while regional overviews offer a bird’s eye perspective on trends in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe. For the first time there is an innovate section that visually maps global rights as seen through the lens of Google searches, as well as a visual analysis of Twitter messages sent out during the recent Iranian political crisis.

growth in web technologies and increased transparency in the literature - and data - may be contributing to a shift in our perceptions of what constitutes a prior publication. Innovative online journals with virtually unlimited space provide researchers with opportunities to produce novel (original) contributions to the literature that are clearly and transparently linked to previously published articles. These include significantly extended/re-analysed reports of previously published summary findings in journals such as Trials and legitimate or incremental updates to previous studies in BMC Research Notes.

This report has attempted to draw together and synthesise evidence and opinion associated with data-intensive open science from a wide range of sources. The potential impact of data-intensive open science on research practice and research outcomes, is both substantive and far-reaching. There are implications for funding organisations, for research and information communities and for higher education institutions.

This report by the British Library and the Research Information Network (RIN) provides a unique insight into how information is used by researchers across life sciences. Undertaken by the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for the Study of Science, Technology and Innovation, and the UK Digital Curation Centre and the University of Edinburgh’s Information Services, the report concludes that ‘one-size-fits-all’ information and data sharing policies are not achieving scientifically productive and cost-efficient information use in life sciences. The report was developed using an innovative approach to capture the day-to-day patterns of information use in seven research teams from a wide range of disciplines, from botany to clinical neuroscience. The study undertaken over 11 months and involving 56 participants found that there is a significant gap between how researchers behave and the policies and strategies of funders and service providers. This suggests that the attempts to implement such strategies have had only a limited impact. Key findings from the report include: * Researchers use informal and trusted sources of advice from colleagues, rather than institutional service teams, to help identify information sources and resources * The use of social networking tools for scientific research purposes is far more limited than expected * Data and information sharing activities are mainly driven by needs and benefits perceived as most important by life scientists rather than ‘top-down’ policies and strategies * There are marked differences in the patterns of information use and exchange between research groups active in different areas of the life sciences, reinforcing the need to avoid standardised policy approaches