Public Affairs
Press Releases and Announcements
Monday, July 12th 2010
STM responds to Open Access in Denmark
On 7 July 2010, STM responded to the 'Recommendations for implementation of Open Access in Denmark.' Here is STM's submission giving general comments and specific replies to the suggested recommendations.
Thursday, May 6th 2010
Open letter supports US legislation to ensure free access to publicly funded research
The Alliance for Taxpayer Access (ATA) announced that the provosts and presidents of 27 research institutions in the US have voiced their support for the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) via the 'Open Letter to the Higher Education Community' released last week by the Harvard University Provost.
It is seen to signal expanded support for public access to publcly funded research among the largest research institutions in the US. The letter states that scholarly publishers, academic libraries, university leaders and scholars must engage in an ongoing dialogue about the means of scholarly production and distribution. The dialogue must acknowledge both their competing interests and common goals, it points out, adding that the passage of FRPAA will catalyse that dialogue.
Friday, April 16th 2010
STM challenges JISC over validity of latest open access advocacy
STM, the Publishers Association (PA) and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) have continued to be concerned about the validity of claims made by recent advocacy deriving from the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). We believe this seriously understates the contribution of the publishing industry to UK research and makes misleading and incorrect claims about the potential cost benefits of open access.
The report in question, based on controversial work commissioned by JISC from Australian economist John Houghton, compelled STM, the PA and ALPSP jointly to write this letter to JISC Executive Secretary Dr Malcolm Read restating our concerns about Houghton's work and its derivatives, and the way in which this is being used as the basis for misleading claims to UK higher education institutions. Our letter proposed a meeting beteen JISC and representatives of the publishing industry. The response from JISC ignored our concerns, but nonethless agreed to a meeting.
In preparation for the meeting, the associations sent JISC a further letter and a presentation to explain the disparity between JISC perceptions and the reality of scholarly journal publishing as an energetic, innovative industry that is greatly valued by researchers and which has contributed significantly to efficiency and productivity gains for academic research in the UK and around the world.
Unfortunately, JISC continue to contest this reality and any positives deriving from our meeting were few and far between, as explained in our follow-up letter to Dr. Read.
STM, the PA and ALPSP will continue to work together to correct misleading information about our industry, disseminated to the very research community that we seek to serve. We welcome any comments from our members or other interested stakeholders.
Michael Mabe (STM), Graham Taylor (PA), Ian Russell (ALPSP)
Resources
Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models: Exploring the costs and benefits John Houghton, et al
Modelling Scholarly Communications Options: Costs and Benefits for Universities Alma Swan
Letter to Malcolm Read of JISC, 15 March 2010
Response from Malcolm Read, 22 March 2010
Letter to Malcolm Read of JISC, 8 April 2010
STM journal publishing in 2010 presentation
Letter to Malcolm Read of JISC, 14 April 2010
Monday, March 1st 2010
Four European funders mandate submission to UK PubMed Central
1 March 2010. Four European research funders (the Health Research Board Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, Telethon Italy, Austrian Science Fund) have agreed that life sciences research outputs made possible with their funding are made freely available through UK PubMed Central (UKPMC)
Tuesday, February 2nd 2010
PEER - Behavioural Research: Baseline report on authors and users vis-a-vis journals and repositories
Now available at http://www.peerproject.eu/reports/
The report is based on an electronic survey of authors (and authors as users) with more than 3000 European researchers and a series of focus groups undertaken by the PEER Behavioural Research Team from Loughborough University (Department of Information Science & LISU).
The full announcement is available for download in PDF format
Wednesday, January 20th 2010
STM response to U. S. Office of Science & Technology on Public Access Policies
20 January 2010. STM responds to the U. S. Office of Science and Technology Policy Request for Information on Public Access Policies for Science and Technology Funding Agencies Across the Federal Government. Here is STM's submission to the debate giving general comments and specific replies to the raised questions.
Friday, January 15th 2010
STM responds to US Scholarly Publishing Roundtable Report and Recommendations
15 January 2010. STM supports the general principles that the Roundtable has generated, but takes issue with some recommendations and goals expressed in the Report. Press Release
Wednesday, January 13th 2010
Scholarly Publishing Roundtable issues Report & Recommendations
13 January 2010. In June 2009, the Committee on Science and Technology of the U. S. House of Representatives, coordinating with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), convened a Scholarly Publishing Roundtable to examine the current state of scholarly publishing and develop consensus recommendations for expanding public access to the journal articles arising from research funded by agencies of the U. S. government.
The Roundtable's core recommendation in its Report (12 Jan 2010) called on federal agencies funding research to develop and implement policies ensuring free public access to results of the research they fund, 'as soon as possible after those results have been published in a peer-reviewed journal.' Press Release
Twelve of the fourteen members fully endorsed the recommendations with partial support by Youngsuk 'YS' Chi of Elsevier and Mark Patterson (PloS), Public Library of Science.
Wednesday, January 6th 2010
Consultation and Submission documents from STM - New
- STM Submission on European Commission Reflection document
- Defamation and the internet document
Saturday, December 12th 2009
OSTP launches public forum for improving public access to results of federally funded research
On Thursday, Dec. 10, The Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President and the White House Open Government Initiative launched a 'Public Access Policy Forum' to invite public participation in thinking through what the Federal government's policy should be with regard to public access to publishing federally-funded research results.
Friday, November 27th 2009
Members Only - STM comments on Open Access Pilot e-infrastructure
STM comments to iSGTW News about Open AIRE, the FP7 Open Access Pilot e-infrastructure. Members Only document.
Thursday, November 19th 2009
Nobel laureates express support for open access to publicly funded research
A group of 41 Nobel Prize-winning scientists, including 16 chemists, are urging the U. S. Congress to require the results of federally funded research to be made freely available online. Read here.
Wednesday, November 18th 2009
JISC launches investment plan for 2009/2010
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), UK has launched its investment plan for the academic year 2009/2010. JISC will invest over 7 million GBP to advance the innovative use of digital technologies in UK colleges and universities.
Tuesday, November 3rd 2009
PEER – Final report on the provision of usage data and manuscript deposit procedures for publishers and repository managers
Now available at http://www.peerproject.eu/reports/
This final report builds on the earlier draft version produced by the project and reflects a collaborative effort between publishers and the library and repository stakeholder communities to achieve a feasible workflow for depositing stage-2 (accepted) manuscripts in participating PEER repositories. It also outlines the requirements for the provision of log files from repositories to enable the research envisaged in PEER.
The full announcement is available for download in pdf format.
Saturday, October 31st 2009
Scholarly Publishing Roundtable: A Status Report
In early summer 2009, The U. S. House of Representatives' Committee on Science and Technology convened a Scholarly Publishing Roundtable which includes representatives from university, library, publisher and research communities. They are charged with seeking consensus on feasible and effective ways to expand access to and preservation for federally funded research information. The list of Roundtable members, member bios, and the Committee's charge to the group are here.
Tuesday, October 20th 2009
Communication from The European Commission
The European Commission has published a communication regarding its Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy.
The document can be downloaded here.
Tuesday, October 13th 2009
STM publishes ‘The STM Report: An overview of scientific and scholarly journal publishing.”
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.
Tuesday, October 6th 2009
STM issues position and advice document for STM members about EURATOM Publishing Agreements
STM's Public Affairs and Copyright & Legal Affairs committees provide background and practical information when negotiating and concluding agreements with EURATOM and EU's Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
Monday, October 5th 2009
FEP & STM Joint Statement on VAT on publications and educational training institutions
At the 23 September 2009 Brussels conference on Tax incentives for Education and Training conference, FEP and STM issued a joint statement on 'VAT on Publications and educational and training institutions.'
Wednesday, September 30th 2009
PEER - Year 1 report now available
The first annual report from PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) is now available. It reports on the project's activities and outcomes from Sept 2008 - Aug 2009.
Thursday, September 10th 2009
PEER announces Invitation to Tender for Economic Research
PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) invites tenders in the area of Economic Research.
The deadline for tenders is Thursday 29 October 2009
The announcement is available for download in pdf format.
PEER is investigating the effects of the large-scale, systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access) on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. The Economic Research is the third branch of research to be offered for tenders by PEER, following the recent appointment of teams for Usage and Behavioural Research.
For further information about PEER, visit the project website: www.peerproject.eu
Tuesday, August 25th 2009
PEER announces the appointment of teams from Loughborough University and University College London (UCL) for Behavioural and Usage Research.
The teams undertaking the first two areas of research for PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) are announced:
Behavioural Research: Authors and Readers vis-à-vis Journals and Repositories, will be undertaken by the Department of Information Science and LISU at Loughborough University
Usage Research: Journals and Repositories, will be undertaken by the UCL based CIBER group
The full announcement is available for download in pdf format.
For further information about PEER, visit the project website: www.peerproject.eu
Thursday, August 13th 2009
PEER: Deadline of 30 September 2009 set for Publisher participation
Announcement for publishers interested in joining PEER (www.peerproject.eu):
Due to PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) being a three year project, for practical reasons, the following deadline dates apply:
- Confirmation of participation must be submitted to the PEER Project by 30 September 2009.
- Initial content must be submitted to the PEER Depot by the end of December 2009 at which time only journals with a maximum embargo period of 6 months can be included.
If you are a publisher interested in participating in PEER, please contact the PEER Project Manager at peer@stm-assoc.org.
Tuesday, July 21st 2009
STM, PA & ALPSP respond to Houghton JISC Report - now in German
STM, along with the UK Publishers Association and ALPSP, issued a detailed response in April 2009 to the Houghton JISC Report on Economic Implications of Alternative Publishing Models. STM has translated this detailed response into German and encourages members to share the analysis with their staff and other contacts.
Sunday, June 21st 2009
STM submits views to the German Federal Ministry of Justice
On 15 June 2009, STM submitted its views to the German Federal Ministry of Justice, responding to a consultation on further changes to the German copyright act (so-called '3rd basket')
STM used this opportunity again to article our views on copyright and Open Access. The submission dealt with questions on compulsory licensing; on an initiative legally to compel authors to use themselves or offer secondary exploitation rights in favour of repositories; on additional exceptions for on the spot consultation; on document delivery; as well as on orphan works. Earlier STM position papers formed the foundation of this latest submission in Germany made in June, including the STM submission to the EU Green Paper on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy and documents relating for instance to STM Orphan Works Safe Harbor. The next steps of the Federal Ministry of Justice are unknown at this time, but the debate over a sound German Copyright Act will no doubt continue.
Thursday, June 4th 2009
PEER – Guidelines for publishers and repository managers on deposit, assisted deposit and self-archiving
Now available at http://www.peerproject.eu/reports/
The guidelines outline the procedures for publisher deposit and for subsequent transfer to participating PEER repositories, following extensive consultation within PEER. The report also sets out a major advance in repository practice in the use of the SWORD protocol which allows application-level deposit of material into repositories.
The full announcement is available for download in pdf format.
Tuesday, May 5th 2009
‘Overview of STM Publishing Value to Research’ now in Japanese
With the support and effort of STM members we are pleased to announce the STM Position paper, 'An Overview of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishing and the Value it adds to Research Output' has been translated into Japanese. Originally published in April 2008, the paper describes the core services STM publishers provide to scholarly communication; the scale of STM publishing; the costs involved; and includes a section on Open Access. The paper is an essential source of information for managers who need to respond to questions about our industry from librarians, faculty, administrators, civil servants, legislators, and the general public.
Monday, April 20th 2009
STM and other intellectual property stakeholder associations respond to President Barack Obama
On April 20th, 2009 Barack Obama wrote urging that future appointments to intellectual property positions in his administration 'reflect the diversity of stakeholders affected by IP policy.' STM and 40 other organisations responded to Obama's letter.
Wednesday, April 15th 2009
PEER - Draft report on the provision of usage data and manuscript deposit procedures for publishers and repository managers
Now available at http://www.peerproject.eu/reports/
This draft report on the provision of usage data and manuscript deposit procedures for publishers and repository managers sets out workflows to establish a workflow for depo-siting stage-2 outputs in and the harvesting of logfiles from designated repositories to facilitate the research required for PEER. An updated version of the report will be available later in 2009.
The full announcement is available for download in pdf format.
Monday, February 23rd 2009
PEER – website now live!
The new PEER website is now live at:
The website will serve the three key stakeholder groups of publishers, repository/ library community and researchers (both as authors and readers), and will also provide information accessible to the general public.
A presentation providing an introduction to PEER is available on the website:
http://www.peerproject.eu/presentations/
PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research), of which STM is a partner, is a pioneering collaboration between publishers, repositories and the research community, which aims to investigate the effects of the large-scale deposit (so called Green Open Access) on user access, author visibility, journal viability and the broader European research environment. PEER is supported by the EC eContentplus programme.
Monday, December 22nd 2008
PEER - Invitations to tender for research now available
Invitations to Tender for the Behavioural Research and Usage Research aspects of the PEER project are now available.
1. Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-à-vis Journals and Repositories
2. Usage Research: Journals and Repositories
Download the 'PEER Research Tenders Budget Template'
Tenders for both areas of research must be received by the Max Planck Digital Library by 17.00 on Tuesday 17 February 2009
PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research), of which STM is a partner, will investigate the effects of the large-scale systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access or stage-two research output) on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. PEER is supported by the EC eContentplus programme.
Wednesday, December 10th 2008
Pre-announcement of Research Tenders for PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research)
PEER announces the timetable for three forthcoming calls for Research Tenders. This EU supported project, of which STM is a partner, will investigate the effects of the large-scale systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access or stage-two research output) on reader access, author visibility, and journal viability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. The three areas of research which will be tendered are:
- Behavioural Research (Call mid-December 2008, Deadline mid-February 2009)
- Usage Research (Call mid-December 2008, Deadline mid-February 2009)
- Economic Research (Summer 2009)
PEER is a collaboration between publishers, repositories and the research
communities.
Press Release
Tuesday, October 14th 2008
STM partners in the just launched pioneering collaboration between publishers, repositories and the research community
14 October 2008. PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research), supported by the European Union, will investigate the effects of the large-scale systematic depositing of authors' final peer-reviewed manuscripts (so called Green Open Access or stage-two research output) on reader access, author visibility, and journal vability, as well as on the broader ecology of European research. The project is a collaboration between publishers, repositories and researchers and will last from 2008 to 2011.
Press Release
Saturday, January 26th 2008
Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) issues new study 'Peer Review in Scholarly Journals'
A new international study, by Mark Ware Consulting, of over 3,000 senior authors, reviewers and editors shows that researchers want to improve, not change, the system of peer review for journal articles. They believe that it helps to improve scientific communications and increases the overall quality of published papers. The full report, ‘Peer Review in Scholarly Journals: perspective of the scholarly community, An international study’, can be accessed on the PRC site at http://www.publishingresearch.net. A summary report, “Peer Review: Benefits, Perceptions and Alternatives”, is also available.
