Top tips for finding reputable Open Access journals – 2025 update

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Karen Rowlett

By publishing in a fully Open Access journal (one that is not funded by subscriptions, does not charge for readers to access the content and usually uses the Creative Commons licenses), you can get maximum exposure for your work as everyone will be able to access your research.

If you are a staff member or student at the University of Reading it is worth checking out the fully Open Access journals included in our Read and Publish deals with some of the major publishers. Check SciFree to find journals included in the deals. You can filter by publishing model to restrict your search to only fully gold Open Access journals.

There are several tools that can help you find a suitable Open Access journal for your research.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

Search DOAJ to find fully open access journals in your subject area. Journals awarded the DOAJ Seal of Approval have achieved a high level of openness, have committed to best practices and have adopted high publishing standards.

SCImago Journal Rankings

The SCImago Journal and Country Rank website is a freely available portal that helps you find journals by subject area and country. You can also opt to search for only Open Access journals using a filter on the search screen. The search is based on information from the Scopus database. In the search results you will see some metrics, such as the SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) and which SJR quartile the journal belongs to, and the country of publication.  By clicking on the name of the journal, you can find out more about the publisher, subject categories covered by the journal and some data on past citation history.

Screen shot of a sample search for an open access journal

Screen shot of a journal search on the SCImago Journal and Country Rank website

Scopus

The Scopus database (accessible to University of Reading staff and students via an institutional subscription) has a useful journal finding tool that also lets you search for just Open Access journals in your subject area.

A screenshot from the Scopus Journal finder tool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can also use the Scopus Journal Analyzer tool to make some direct comparisons between journals, for example, what percentage of articles published in the journal are uncited.

A graph from the Scopus Journal Analyzer showing the differences in citations to 3 different journals

Publisher and other helpful websites 

Many publishers also offer ways of finding just their Open Access journals, check out their webpages for more information. For example,

Endnote has a journal finding tool and a manuscript matching tool that can help you find the most appropriate Open Access journal for your paper. Filter the search by journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to find only Open Access titles.

The JANE Journal/Author Name Estimator can also be used to suggest journals and the results can be filtered to show Open Access journals only.

Screen shot from the Jane journal finder toolJANE works best for STEM content as it relies on content from PubMed. It may also mine content from possible low quality ‘predatory’ publishers and so each journal is given a quality rating in the search results. Do further research on any suggestions that you generate.

Don’t forget to Think, Check, Submit

Before you submit your precious research output to any journal, open access or a traditional one, always follow the guidance from the Think, Check, Submit campaign to make sure that you are dealing with a reputable publisher/journal. There’s a handy video on the Think Check Submit website to guide you to a reputable publisher: https://vimeo.com/151882443

This post is an updated version of an original article published in 2018 and includes updated information and additional links.

For further advice on choosing journals and to find details of University of Reading’s deals with publishers, visit the  Open Access Libguide.

 

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The CentAUR repository in 2024

Posted on February 3, 2025 by Karen Rowlett

This post can be viewed as a Microsoft Sway by members of University of Reading using the following link: https://sway.cloud.microsoft/bbwOHYiKG2zbZGFU?ref=Link

The CentAUR repository enables outputs from the University of Reading’s researchers to be showcased, shared and reused.

A pile of orange badges that say I support open access and I love CentAUR Access to CentAUR is free to anyone worldwide. CentAUR can be searched directly, through repository search tools, or via major search engines. It is indexed by Google Scholar, harvested by CORE and EThOS and is part of a worldwide Open Access landscape.

Staff are asked to add their publications to CentAUR as part of the University’s Open Access policy. The repository also includes the PhD theses of our doctoral research students.

CentAUR contains lots of different types of outputs including journal articles, books, book chapters, conference proceedings, performances, exhibitions, reports, videos and audio files.

Sometimes the files associated with research outputs, such as the author’s accepted versions of a manuscript, cannot be made open immediately. The publisher may impose an embargo, or delay, on the release of the deposited version. The embargo times can range from 6 months to several years. This means that some CentAUR records do not have accessible texts that can be downloaded at the point that the item is published.

What was added to CentAUR in 2024?

For 2024, a total of 2495 items were added to CentAUR. This was slightly down over 2023 when 2593 items were deposited (data from CentAUR statistics). Items added to CentAUR are not always the most recently accepted publications; staff who join the University are able to add their back catalogues of outputs to give a comprehensive view of their research activity. This also helps to populate staff profile pages on the University of Reading website. The oldest item added to CentAUR in 2024 was an article that dates back to 1990.

The repository also includes works from our students. In 2024, undergraduate, taught postgraduate and research postgraduates, were authors on 31, 27 and 323 articles, respectively.

A bar chart showing deposits per year to the CentAUR repositoryDeposits to CentAUR over the last 4 years

 

 

 

In 2024, 65% of new items added were journal articles. Books and book chapters accounted for 11.5% of new additions. PhD theses from our postgraduate research students made up 18% of the new items added to the repository.

A breakdown of the major item types added to CentAUR in 2024.Graphic showing that 18% of items uploaded to CentaUR in 2024 were Theses, 65 journal articles and 11% were books or book chapters

 

 

Looking at the researchers who deposited their outputs in CentAUR in 2024, 911 different researchers uploaded items. The outputs included almost 1200 University of Reading staff authors.

911 different authors uploaded items to CentAUR in 2024

How was CentAUR used by visitors?

The interactions that visitors have with CentAUR content can be tracked using the JISC IRUS-UK service. This tracks the views of records and their associated files and also counts the number of downloads of the files associated with outputs.

As the number of records in CentAUR grows over time, the number of total views also increases as there is more open content to discover. CentAUR records are well indexed by services such as CORE and Google Scholar so visitors are able to find the content easily.

For 2024, the numbers of total unique visits and total unique downloads were both over 1 million. This is the first time that yearly downloads have topped 1 million.

A graph showing views and downloads from CentAUR over the last 5 years.

Views and downloads from IRUS data (COUNTER-5 compliant).

 

 

 

 

Many of the items in CentAUR were downloaded a considerable number of times in 2024. Almost 7500 items were downloaded at least 25 times, over 2000 were downloaded over 100 times, 68 were downloaded 1000 times and 1 item was downloaded over 10,000 times.

Which items were downloaded most?

All time most downloaded

There are several items in CentAUR that are perennial favourites and record consistently high downloads. Some of these are ‘housekeeping’ items with information on how to Cite from CentAUR and the End user agreement. Other titles in the top 5 downloaded items in 2024 include:

  1. Kambouri-Danos, M.and Evans, A. (2019) Perceptions of gender roles: a case study. Early Years Educator (EYE), 20 (11). pp. 38-44. ISSN 1465-931X doi: https://doi.org/10.12968/eyed.2019.20.11.38 5860 downloads in 2024
  2. Adeyemo, F.(2022) The Banker-Customer Relationship. In: Austen-Baker, R., Akintola, K., Ahmed, M. and Adeyemo, F. (eds.) Principles of Commercial Law. Edward Elgar Publishing. ISBN 9781800883567 4437 downloads in 2024
  3. West, E.and Knight, R. J. (2017) Mothers’ milk: slavery, wet-nursing, and black and white women in the Antebellum South. Journal of Southern History, 83 (1). pp. 37-68. ISSN 0022-4642 doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/soh.2017.0001 4193 downloads in 2024
  4. Panchal, S.and Riddell, P. (2020) The GROWS model: extending the GROW coaching model to support behavioural change. The Coaching Psychologist, 16 (2). pp. 12-25. ISSN 1748-1104 3969 downloads in 2024
  5. Hughes, W.(2001) What makes a good research paper? ARCOM Newsletter, 16 (3). pp. 1-4. 3964 downloads in 2024
Image showing that there were 5860 downloads of the most popular item in CentAUR
Image showing that there were 1691 downloads of the most popular new item in CentAUR in 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Newcomers in 2024

Looking beyond these well-used items, it is possible to find the highly downloaded outputs that were newcomers to the CentAUR repository in 2024.

  1. Mercado, K. M. P.and Osbahr, H. (2023) Feeding the future: knowledge and perception of the Filipino youth toward agriculture. Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, 20 (2). pp. 31-50. ISSN 2599-3879 doi: https://doi.org/10.37801/ajad2023.20.2.3 1691 downloads
  2. Birchall, R.and Phoenix, J., (2024) Don’t get caught out: a summary of gender critical belief discrimination employment tribunal judgements.  University of Reading, Reading. doi: https://doi.org/10.48683/1926.00118472 1397 downloads
  3. Itzchakov, G.,Weinstein, N., Leary, M., Saluk, D. and Amar, M. (2024) Listening to understand: the role of high-quality listening on speakers’ attitude depolarization during disagreements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. ISSN 1939-1315 doi: https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000366 470 downloads
  4. Eleazar, P. J. M.,Cardey, S. P., Osbahr, H., Tirol, M. S. C. and Quimbo, M. A. T. (2024) Gendering sugarcane farming: understanding the plight of sugarcane block farmers in Batangas, Philippines. Cogent Social Sciences, 10 (1). 2318881. ISSN 2331-1886 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2024.2318881 312 downloads
  5. Cross, M.(2024) Unlocking imagination through maps: exploring the spatial imaginaries of food system transitions. PhD thesis, University of Reading. doi: https://doi.org/10.48683/1926.00117616 283 downloads

Where do CentAUR visitors come from?

Pie chart showing where visitors to CentAUR originate from The IRUS data gives an indication of the location of the person downloading content from CentAUR. For 2024, visitors from over 230 different countries and territories downloaded content from the repository. Most of the downloads were from European countries, with the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands accounting for almost 70% of the downloads from this region. In Africa, most downloads were made by visitors from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. In North America, most downloads were from the USA, but Canada and Mexico also accounted for significant numbers of downloads. Visitors from Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Chile represented almost 80% of the downloads from South America. For Asia, visitors from India and China represented a third of the total downloads. The majority of the downloads from Oceana were from Australia (81%) and New Zealand (17%).

Providing Open Access for those in need of information

One of the key purposes of the CentAUR repository is to provide free access to University of Reading’s research to anyone in the world with an internet connection. This open access is particularly important for researchers working in low income countries where libraries, Universities and research centres may not be able to afford to subscribe to expensive journals. The most valuable content for researchers without journal subscriptions is often the author’s accepted version of a manuscript. This can often be made available to download from CentAUR (sometimes after a publisher’s embargo) and is free to access.

In 2024, there were over 22,000 downloads of content from countries included in the World Bank’s list of low income economies. Visitors from Ethiopia recorded the highest number of downloads from CentAUR in this group of countries. It is interesting to note that one of the most downloaded items from visitors in Ethiopia was a review article published in 2018 on producing climate-resistant coffee in Ethiopia:

Hirons, M., Mehrabi, Z., Gonfa, T. A., Morel, A., Gole, T. W., McDermott, C., Boyd, E., Robinson, E., Sheleme, D., Malhi, Y., Mason, J. and Norris, K. (2018) Pursuing climate resilient coffee in Ethiopia – a critical review. Geoforum, 91. pp. 108-116. ISSN 0016-7185 doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.02.032

Screen shot of an entry in CentAURA bar chart of the downloads per month of the item on Ethiopian CoffeeThe published version of this article is still behind a publisher’s paywall if you try to access it via the Geoforum journal website without a journal subscription. However, the accepted version, without the publisher’s formatting, can be downloaded from CentAUR for free.

Similar locally focussed research articles feature in downloads from other low income countries. For example, visitors from Uganda downloaded several PhD theses, reports and journal articles with a Uganda focus:

Adding items to CentAUR is simple

The role of repositories such as CentAUR in democratising access to current research is an important one and is a fundamental aim of the Open Access movement.

University of Reading staff can add their peer-reviewed outputs to CentAUR simply and quickly. Items should be added as soon as they are accepted for publication.

For help in adding content to CentAUR, there are guides and step by step instructions available on the CentAUR website.

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Open Access Week 2023 – Publisher deals boost uptake of Open Access for Reading’s researchers

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Karen Rowlett

Open Access week logo with the message community over commercialization

The University of Reading has signed up for over 20 ‘read and publish’ deals with major publishers over the past few years. The idea of the deals is that they combine the subscription and publishing elements together so that staff and students can read journal content but also publish Open Access without having to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs). This can make it easier for authors to manage Open Access – there is usually no invoice to sort out –  and has also made it possible for more of Reading’s research outputs to be published as Open Access across a wide range of disciplines.

How many articles have been published via the publisher deals?

A limited number of publisher deals were available as early as 2019 but most large deals have been agreed since 2021/2022. The graph below shows the growth in the number of publications from University of Reading authors that achieved Open Access via a publisher deal. To date, over 1300 papers have been published Open Access through the deals across over 750 different journals.

A bar chart showing the growth in the number of papers published open access through publisher deals. The graph rises from 82 in 2019 to 448 in 2022. The tally for 2023 to date is 316

The figure for 2023 is for papers up to October 2023 and does not reflect the full year total.

The majority of these papers, 91%, have been published in Hybrid Gold Open Access journals. Hybrid journals charge readers a subscription fee and then also require authors to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to make their work Open Access. The idea of the read and publish transformative deals is that they should enable publishers to ‘flip’ more journals to a fully Open Access (Pure Gold) model over time.

Do the deals cover a range of journals across disciplines?

A pie chart showing the proportion of papers in the read and publish deals for each subject category

The subject categories, by journal in which they were published, for articles by University of Reading authors that were made Open Access via publisher deals between 2020 and 2023. Data from SciVal.

By analysing the articles by authors at University of Reading that have been published Open Access through publisher deals using SciVal, it is possible to show the range of subject areas covered by the outputs. The sector marked as ‘other’ contains multidisciplinary journals such as PLOS One, Nature etc. When compared with all papers published by University of Reading authors, there seems to be a good match up with the full range of research disciplines across the institution. This indicates that most researchers across the University should be able to find journals in their discipline that are included in the various publisher deals.

Pie chart showing the subject areas for papers published across all of University of Reading 2020-2023.

The subject categories, by journal in which they were published, for all outputs attributed to University of Reading researchers between 2020 and 2023. Data from SciVal.

Looking at the keywords included in the Open Access articles by University of Reading authors, it is clear that they include a wide subject mix, from entrepreneurship to ewes and from snake bites to self-determination theory.

A wordcloud of keywords from the articles published through publisher deals.

A word cloud based on the keywords mentioned in the articles that were published Open Access by University of Reading authors through publisher deals (Data from SciVal).

Finding journals included in the Read and Publish deals using SciFree

As there are over 10,000 different journals included in the publisher deals that University of Reading researchers can access, the SciFree tool has been tailored to help researchers search for relevant journals.  Searching for a journal name in SciFree will provide information on whether the title is included in a deal, what the publishing model for the journal is and how to find out more information on how to access the deal. In the example below, The Journal of Higher Education is shown as being part of the Taylor & Francis deal. Clicking on the red tick will take authors to the Open Access Libguide which explains the deal further and how to make sure that a paper will qualify for automatic Open Access. There is also advice on the correct Creative Commons licence to choose – for University of Reading and most research funders, the best option is CCBY.

Screenshot from the SciFree journal search tool showing a list of journals included in the publisher deals.

The SciFree tool helps to find journals included in the publisher deals and how to ensure you qualify for Open Access.

For all of the publisher deals, the corresponding author of the paper must be based at University of Reading and declare their affiliation as University of Reading at the submission stage. It also helps publishers to identify qualifying authors if they use their Reading email address at submission. Staff and students are eligible for the deals.

Help and support
Many of the publishers involved in Read and Publish deals have information on their websites to guide authors. Examples are Cambridge University Press, Taylor & Francis  and Elsevier.
Staff and students at University of Reading who have questions about the journals covered by the Read and Publish deals should contact oarequests@reading.ac.uk for more information. The Open Access Libguide and the SciFree tool tool are also useful sources of additional information.

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Open Access Week 2023 – Publishing to benefit the microbiology community

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Karen Rowlett
Open Access week logo with the message community over commercialization

 

The Microbiology Society is a membership charity and a not-for-profit publisher. Its members are scientists interested in microbes, their effects and their practical uses. They are based in universities, industry, hospitals, research institutes, schools, and other organisations. The Society’s principal goal is to strengthen its culture of being a community-driven Society by amplifying its members’ voices, wherever they are in the world, and empowering them to embed the benefits of microbiology within wider society.

The Society supports and invest in the microbiology community for the benefit of everyone and submissions to its titles ensures that it can continue to provide events, grants and professional development for microbiologists at all career stages, as well as connecting researchers working on pressing global challenges.

For Open Access Week, I asked two Microbiology Society Journal Editors, Seána Duggan Editor of Access Microbiology and Sarah Maddocks Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Microbiology about the Society’s Open Access journey and how publishing with the Microbiology Society supports the community of microbiologists.

Please can you tell us a bit about the Microbiology Society and what it does?

Sarah Maddocks: The Microbiology Society is for anyone interested in and working in any area related to micro-organisms. It was formally established in 1945, with the esteemed Sir Alexander Fleming assuming the role of its inaugural President.

The Microbiology Society serves its members through various avenues, including Annual Conference that highlights significant microbiology, among others. Leveraging the expertise of members, the Society amplifies their voices to drive meaningful change. Central to this success is a comprehensive publishing portfolio, which commenced in 1947 with the launch of the Journal of General Microbiology, currently publishing as Microbiology.

Last year celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Society’s founding journal, Microbiology, which has been at the forefront of disseminating breakthroughs in fundamental and applied research. In recognition of this, Microbiology made a pivotal transition as the first publication within the Society’s portfolio to evolve from a hybrid model to a fully Open Access (OA). Driven by a not-for-profit ethos, revenue generated by publishing in Society journals is used to support Microbiology Society members.

Are you supportive of authors using preprint sites for their papers ahead of formal journal submission?

Seána Duggan: Preprints allow for early and broad peer review. They promote transparency, collaboration, and advancement of science. Generally, the Society portfolio is very supportive of preprints as they can help refine a manuscript before submission for publication. The Society portfolio allows BioRxiv transfers to our journals, and Access Microbiology goes a step further to incorporate preprints within its publishing platform –we host all manuscripts undergoing peer review as preprints, including updated versions throughout the peer review process alongside reviewer and editorial comments. We believe this transparency elevates manuscripts to be the very best they can be.

How do the APCs that the author pay support the Society’s activities?

Sarah Maddocks: By submitting your work to Society journals, you contribute to the sustenance and growth of the microbiology community, benefiting individuals at every stage of their careers. For instance, publishing a single article generates the revenue that can fund grants for four early career members, enabling their attendance at Annual Conference. Publishing two articles generates the revenue that can support research visit grants and Harry Smith summer studentships, which offer invaluable opportunities for collaboration, and experience in research and supervision.

In essence, publishing with the Microbiology Society not only furthers the field of microbiology but also directly contributes to the development and enrichment of our community as a whole. Your involvement is an investment in the future of microbiology, one that we wholeheartedly champion and support.

Have you looked at open peer review models for your journals?

Seána Duggan: While previously we used the single-blind peer review model used by our other Society journals, Access Microbiology has operated transparent peer review since its relaunch as an Open Research Platform in 2022. Manuscripts are posted online as preprints under consideration, and Reviewer and Editor comments are posted alongside each version of the manuscript. We afford Reviewers the choice to post their comments anonymously, but we encourage signing names where possible. This fosters accountability within peer review and attributes credit to reviewers for their valuable work. We believe transparent peer review is a route to equitable publishing and hope to set an example of how successful this can be.

How can Reading authors benefit from the ‘Publish and Read’ deal that we have with Microbiology Society? Why should they use the Society’s journals?

Seána Duggan: A Publish and Read agreement allows individuals affiliated with a P&R institution seamless access to Microbiology Society publications dating back to 1947 as well as unlimited Open Access publishing in our entire portfolio if they are the corresponding author for the paper. This deal provides authors a straightforward route to Open Access publishing, without the associated charges and administrative burden of payment. Publishing in the Society’s journals helps us support the microbiology community through our work, such as holding events, awarding travel grants and studentships. Unlike commercial publishers, revenue generated from our journals returns to the community.

Sarah Maddocks: There are a multitude of author benefits such as making your research accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world; increased impact (on average, 2.6 times more citations and 4 times more usage compared to paywalled content); increased citations (Open Access articles published in our journals receive, on average, twice as many citations as those in hybrid journals and are accessed 3.7 times more frequently); and support of your microbiology community.

Your contribution not only advances the field of microbiology but also ensures that the community thrives and continues to make a meaningful impact.

Karen Rowlett: Some of Reading’s researchers have already taken advantage of the ‘Publish and Read’ deal with the Society. A paper by Alsultan et al. from the School of Biological Sciences and the Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences at University of Reading was published Open Access in Microbiology in March 2023 via the deal. The paper was made Open Access with a Creative Commons CC BY licence without the need for the authors to complete an Open Access request form beforehand or deal with an invoice from the publisher.  The full citation for the paper is:
Alsultan, Amjed, Walton, Gemma, Andrews, Simon C. and Clarke, Simon R. (2023) Staphylococcus aureus FadB is a dehydrogenase that mediates cholate resistance and survival under human colonic conditions. Microbiology, 169 (3). doi: https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.001314

Karen would like to thank the team at Microbiology Society, Seána Duggan Editor of Access Microbiology and Sarah Maddocks Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Microbiology for answering my questions about how the Microbiology Society’s publishing arm supports the microbiology community. For more information on the ‘Publish and Read’ agreement that University of Reading has with Microbiology Society, check the Open Access Libguide or SciFree.

 

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Open Access Week 2023 – Creating a community Open Access journal

Posted on October 23, 2023 by Karen Rowlett
Open Access week logo with the message community over commercialization

As part of Open Access week 2023, I interviewed Dr James Anderson about how he set up a Pure Gold Open Access journal, Transmathematica, to serve his community of mathematicians. James founded the journal in 2018 and the first article was published in June 2019.

Logo of the transmathematica journal.

The journal uses Open Journal Systems 3.2.1.2, which is open source journal management and publishing software developed, supported, and freely distributed by the Public Knowledge Project under the GNU General Public License.

Can you tell us a bit about you and your career?

Black and white image of Dr James Anderson

Dr James Anderson

I used to be a crane driver but my first academic post was as a Research Assistant at Sussex University, where I wrote computer programs on one of the UK’s first computers that had a visual display. I created test images and programs to collect the responses of human observers and to analyse them to discover how the physical properties of light relate to psychological phenomena — a subject known as psychophysics. After a while I wound up at the University of Reading, first as a Research Fellow and then as a Lecturer in Computer Science, where I researched computer vision.

Why did you decide to start a journal? Was there a particular need within your research community?
For millennia mathematicians have been working to totalise arithmetic so that every operation can be applied to any numbers such that the result is a number. This history is both convoluted and patchy, with different totalisation being known in different parts of the world at different times. Nowadays everyone knows that zero and negative numbers totalise addition and subtraction, that rational and irrational numbers totalise multiplication but, until 1957, it was impossible to divide by zero. Forty years later, in 1997, I discovered a very simple way of dividing by zero, based on the geometry of human and computer vision, that totalises arithmetic, algebra, set theory, calculus, and physics. It removes  guaranteed failure from all of our sciences when they need to divide by zero. Sadly there is huge resistance to division by zero from the ignorant. So much so that few journals can review papers discussing division by zero, leading some mathematicians to conceal their division by zero results in order to be published. I created the multi-disciplinary journal, Transmathematica, in 2018, to provide a safe space to publish research on division by zero and totalisation in all fields of enquiry.

How important was it that the journal was Open Access?
Totalising arithmetic is important in every walk of life. A passenger on the Clapham omnibus does not need to know how computers work to appreciate that having computers calculate numbers with decimal points to twice the accuracy is a good thing. This is just one of the benefits of being able to divide by zero. But if an omnibus passenger does want to know then reading an open access journal is a very good way to satisfy that curiosity.

How difficult was it to find a host for the journal? Did you consider approaching an established publisher before you set up your own publication?
Division by zero is such a well founded and important subject that I had no difficulty signing up a publisher. The plan was to launch the journal with long versions of the best conference papers selected from the first international conference on transreal arithmetic, sponsored by UNESCO, in the summer of 2017 in Rio de Janiero.  Regrettably the publisher withdrew the offer, after the conference, so I established Transmathematica, in 2018, as an online journal using the Open Journal System (OJS) that is used by tens of thousands of journals worldwide.

Was it technically difficult to set up the journal? Were there things that you hadn’t realised you’d need to do?

Setting up an OJS system isn’t for the faint hearted. Some problems can be solved by spending money. The Simon Fraser University in Canada created OJS and offers a journal hosting service. The company Crossref provides Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration that is integrated with OJS. The company iThenticate provides plagiarism detection reports that are also integrated with OJS. But, sometimes, it is not possible to buy one’s way out of trouble. Some problems can be solved only with fiendish ingenuity: how does one launch an online journal with an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) and a distributed online archive when every step seems to require that all of the others steps are already in place?

Setting up the online journal interface also requires a certain ingenuity to display all and only the information one wants readers, authors, reviewers, librarians, and system managers to have. Then there is the task of setting journal policy and procedures to satisfy the Committee on Publication Ethics and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The DOAJ assumes all journals have a wide authorship, which is certainly not the case for Transmathematica. Maybe a dozen people, world wide, currently publish on total arithmetical systems. All are known to me or to someone I know. It is a small world so we have not, yet, achieved DOAJ registration. Some things are easy. Every academic knows people who will be editors or referees. Finding volunteers is straight forward, managing them is not. But, at least, our readership is happy.

How did you decide how much to charge for Open Access in the journal?
Most of my authors come from developing countries or low income countries so they and their institutions cannot afford large APCs. In common with many Pure Gold Open Access journals, the APC can be waived for authors from the Royal Society’s Open Access Equity list of eligible countries. The running costs of the journal are about £3,000 per year so I set the APC at one tenth of this. If we publish ten papers a year I break even. Some years we get close but I have lost money in every year of running the journal. The authorship base is, slowly, expanding so I hope to break even in the future. Book publishing has much lower costs and negligible recurrent costs so the books might subsidise the journal. But I expect I will increase the APC soon.

What are your future ambitions for the journal?
I am now expanding publication to books. The first Transmathematica title, Built on Sand, is available for pre-order on Amazon with delivery on 1st December 2023: https://amzn.eu/d/7MKjdd9

For my own part, I have launched a journal and a book publisher, I have identified people who will run the Transmathematica publishing house when I am no longer able to. All that remains is to make the journal financially viable.

Karen Rowlett would like to thank James for contributing to this interview and for his insights into publishing for his community.

Many of Dr Anderson’s publications from his time at University of Reading are available through CentAUR and the Green Open Access route. Explore them in CentAUR.

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New booking system for Research Data consultations

Posted on January 19, 2023 by sophiedorman

We’ve recently launched a new booking system for consultations with the Research Data Team. Whether you’re new to archiving your data, or want a quick refresher, a member of the team will be happy to help.

You can access the new booking system via the UoR Research Data Archive webpage. Just choose between a 30 and 60 minute appointment, and whether you’d like it to be online via Microsoft Teams or in person. You can then select a time that works for you, and suggest a location if you’d prefer an in person appointment. Your appointment will be booked automatically, and we’ll get in touch if we need any further details.

A screenshot showing what the Research Data consultation booking system looks like

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Strengthening our community – University funding for small Open Research projects

Posted on November 28, 2022 by Robert Darby

The Committee for Open Research and Research Integrity (CORRI) is offering up to £5K to fund one or more small projects to promote the adoption of Open Research practices. The aim of the call is to facilitate collaboration around Open Research amongst our community.

Funding can cover costs for small equipment, access to data, research and travel, fieldwork and practical work, creation of training materials, and support for T&L projects about Open Research. Funds awarded must be spent by the end of July 2023, but it is expected that proposals will contain a vision of the impact and mechanisms for sustainability that will extend beyond the funding period.

Full details are provided in the call document.

Eligibility

Applications must be made by a member of staff (research, support or academic, any School or Function) whose employment with the University extends to at least July 2023. Projects can involve research students but the member of staff must oversee the project throughout the funding period, and ensure alignment with the University’s Strategy for Research and Innovation.

Assessment criteria

Applications will be assessed on the following criteria:

Timeline

  • Deadline for applications: 6th January 2023
  • Announcement of award: 16th January 2023
  • Funding to be spent by: 31st July 2023

How to apply

Applications can be submitted using the online application form.

Enquiries

If you wish to enquite about this call please contact Dr Etienne Roesch.

 

 

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Open Access Week 2022 – ibicus – a python open-source software package for the bias correction of climate models

Posted on November 4, 2022 by Karen Rowlett

This image is from the Open Access Week website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

The theme of the 2022 Open Access week was Open for Climate Justice. PhD researchers Fiona Spuler and Jakob Wessel are working on the biases in climate models that lead to difficulties in relating the findings of global climate models to locally changing conditions and extreme events. Although these biases in no way invalidate the overall findings of climate change research,  predictions of climate change, they may affect the impacts felt by local communities directly and hamper activities such as the implementation of flood defence measures.

In this blog post, Fiona and Jakob describe ibicus – a python open-source software package for the statistical bias correction of climate models. The package was developed in partnership with ECMWF and as part of the ECMWF Summer of Weather Code.

Although climate models are continuously improving in their representation of the atmosphere, land, and oceans — not least due to the contributions of various researchers here at the University of Reading — model biases persist. A model bias is defined as a systematic difference between the distribution of a simulated climate statistic compared to the observed climate statistic during the same time period. These biases, or unrealistic representations, in the climate model are, amongst other things, due to the fact that climate models have limited spatial resolution and there are some processes that occur at smaller spatial scales than the model can explicitly capture.

These biases don’t affect the broad findings of climate science regarding the large-scale impacts of anthropogenic climate change. However, they do become an issue when trying to relate the findings of global climate models to locally changing conditions and extreme events: even though slightly misrepresented maximum precipitation events might not matter too much for the overall picture of climate change, they will matter a lot to the community that lives in this region and is asking what type of flood defences to put in place.

An option to deal with these biases is statistical bias correction, which essentially means applying a correction function to the distribution of a meteorological variable such as precipitation or temperature. Although these empirical methods can reduce some biases, they cannot correct fundamental misspecifications of the climate model and are prone to misuse. Nevertheless, bias correction has become common practise and is applied prior to most climate impact studies. Bias correction, if applied, should therefore at least be evaluated with care. This is where ibicus comes in by enabling users compare and evaluate a range of different methodologies in a transparent and easy-to-access way. The package is published open-source and comes with extensive tutorials and documentation, therefore making it as easy as possible to use the best bias correction method for the location and problem at hand.

A representation of climate change via stripes representing different temperatures over time. The stripes change from blue to red and warmer colours as the years progress from 1850-2021

Each stripe represents the average temperature for a single year, relative to the average temperature over the period as a whole. Shades of blue indicate cooler-than-average years, while red shows years that were hotter than average. The stark band of deep red stripes on the right-hand side of the graphic show the rapid heating of our planet in recent decades. Climate warming stripes were created by Ed Hawkins and are used under a CCBY licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

There already exist a variety of channels through which climate research and models are made publicly available – such as the IPCC, or the Copernicus Climate Data Store. However, this does not mean that communities – especially those at the frontlines of the climate crisis – have access to and can easily contribute to research on how climate change is going to impact their lives and livelihoods or develop plans on how they can reduce the impacts. This is due to various reasons – one of them being the unavailability of open-source software to relate the large-scale processes modelled on supercomputers around the world to local realities and impacts. Although ibicus in no way addresses this larger issue, it is with this bigger picture in mind that we developed it and will continue to work on it during our PhDs.

For more information on the package, have a look at the documentation, download the package, or have a look at our presentation at ECMWF here.

Fiona Spuler is a PhD student at the University of Reading at the Meteorology department in collaboration with ECMWF, working on hybrid statistical-dynamical models to improve seasonal forecasts. Jakob Wessel is a PhD student at the University of Exeter in collaboration with the Met office, working on statistical post-processing of weather forecasts with a particular focus on compound extremes.

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Open Access Week – What is the Open Climate Campaign?

Posted on October 28, 2022 by Karen Rowlett

The Open Climate Campaign

The theme of Open Access week 2022 is Open for Climate Justice. In this interview, I talked to two members of the Open Climate Campaign about their efforts to make research relating to climate change open so that progress to solving the climate crisis and preserving global biodiversity can be accelerated.

Introductions

The logo of the Open Climate Campaign is a globe with an open padlock symbol at the top

The logo for the Open Climate Campaign from their website. This image is is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.

I talked to Monica Granados and Iryna Kuchma about the campaign. Monica is the open climate campaign manager at Creative Commons, working with SPARC and eifl on the open climate campaign. Her background is as a researcher and she has a PhD in ecology. Monica has worked on climate change problems and when she was doing her PhD and postdoctoral work, she began to realise that the way we were doing science was not the most transparent,  most accessible or most equitable. She began to get interested in the concept of open science and thinking about ways to make science more transparent more accessible and more equitable. She has previously worked as a senior policy advisor at the Government of Canada and is now pat of the open climate campaign; a role that fuses her interests and expertise. Iryna manages the Open Access program at eifl and works with National Library Consortia in Africa, Asia and Europe. eifl was among those organisations that originally coined the term Open Access when the Budapest Open Access initiative was introduced. As I work with libraries in the global South, I was invited to join this campaign by Sparc and Creative Commons. It is really important for us to make sure that researchers from the global South are an instrumental part of this campaign and have a voice.

What are the key aims of the campaign?

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Making the most of SciFree – an interview with the company’s founder

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Karen Rowlett

SciFree is a clever tool that helps researchers at University of Reading find out which journals are covered by our Transformative Agreements and deals with publishers. With 17 publisher deals covering over 11,000 different journals it can be difficult to keep track of where researchers can publish their work as Open Access easily and how each deal works. The SciFree tool aims to make it simple and quick to find out whether a journal is included in a deal.

To find out more about how to use the tool, check out our previous ORRB post: Launching SciFree, a new tool for researchers at University of Reading

Access the SciFree tool

A conversation with Abeni Wickham

I talked to Dr Abeni Wickham, the person behind SciFree, about how she worked out that the tool was needed and set about building something to meet the needs of researchers and Libraries.

Abeni has a PhD in Molecular Physics and has studied at UCL and Imperial College in the UK. As she has worked as a researcher she understands the importance of publishing research outputs as Open Access wherever possible. Working with both researchers and librarians, she put together a tool that simplifies the complex landscape of transformative agreements and publisher deals that an institution may have signed up to.

Video snippets will only be visible to University of Reading staff and students via Yuja. A full recording of the interview is available on YouTube.

Why create the SciFree journal search tool?

I asked Abeni about her motivation for creating the SciFree tool.

How does the tool work?

Abeni explains how the tool will help you find out whether a journal is included a  Transformative Agreement or publisher deal that is available to researchers at University of Reading. The tool also helps by pointing you to the right Creative Commons licence and further information about how to qualify for the deal. An added bonus of the tool is that all fully Gold (or Pure Gold) Open Access journals that are included in the search will be listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and so should be reputable publications. This takes away a checking step for the researcher.

Tips and tricks for getting the most out of the SciFree tool

If your chosen journal does not appear in the SciFree search, it does not necessarily mean that you won’t be able to publish Open Access in that title. Abeni describes how to work with the Research Engagement team in the University of Reading Library to make sure that you explore all your options for Open Access publishing.

Try the SciFree tool for yourself

Give the SciFree tool a try for yourself and find the perfect journal for your next Open Access publication. This companion blog post explains how to use the tool.

A screenshot of the journal search box in the SciFree journal finder tool

View the full interview via YouTube (for non-University of Reading readers)

Creative Commons License
This blog post and the version of the video interview hosted on YouTube are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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