ALPSP Publications (Inc. guidelines, reports, statements, research & articles)
ALPSP Alert
The ALPSP monthly email newsletter containing a summary of news items. Available to ALPSP members only.
Author-perceived Quality Characteristics of STM Journals (2008)
Report from ALPSP. Download free for ALPSP members. Purchase available for non-members.
China and its Impact on Publishing Developments (2007)
White paper produced by the ALPSP Future Watch Committee. Free for ALPSP members to download.
How is scholarly communication changing as a result of the Web? (2006)
The white paper comprising analysis following presentations and materials discussed at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC on 7 June 2006. Free for ALPSP members to download.
Long-Term Preservation
2008 survey investigating preservation strategies amongst ALPSP Publisher Members. Commissioned from Sarah Durrant of Red Sage Consulting, with co-funding from Portico and ALPSP. Available as a free to download PDF.
Scholarly Book Publishing Practice: First Survey (2009)
This is the first ALPSP survey undertaken to establish current practices in scholarly book and e-book publishing, to provide detailed analysis and statistics in this rapidly changing market. Free for ALPSP members to download.
Scholarly Publishing Practice 3 (2008)
This is the third in a series of ALPSP surveys undertaken to establish current scholarly publishing practices, designed to track changes in policy and practice since 2000, as online publishing has matured. Download free for ALPSP members.
Survey of Librarians: Responding to the credit crunch - what now for librarians and libraries?
2009 paper presenting results of a survey undertaken during 2009. Free for ALPSP members to download.
Articles & Reports
Access to Research and Technical Information in Denmark (Houghton, 2011)
The Danish Ministry for Research & Innovation has published the report of a study carried out by John Houghton and Key Perspectives on access to scientific and technical information by innovative Small and Medium Enterprises in Denmark.
Access to UK research outputs: a UK success story
This 2010 presentation from the Publishers Association, STM and ALPSP describes the journal publishing industry growing in response to increased research and development activities. Although library funding is being outpaced by R&D outputs, UK universities currently enjoy access to more titles and pay less per title accessed than in 2004. The data have been derived from several industry reports.
Activities, costs and funding flows in scholarly communications (RIN report, 2008)
This report looks at the current costs of producing, publishing and reading research and examines the impacts of different publishing models including author-pays, and e-only. This report is the result of research from The Research Information Network in partnership with the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC), the Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL), and Research Libraries UK (RLUK).
Current Models of Digital Scholarly Communication (2008)
A report published by Ithaka on behalf of the Association of Research Libraries, investigates the types of online resources valued by scholars, especially those that push the boundaries of traditional formats and are considered innovative.
Economic Implications of Alternative Scholarly Publishing Models (Houghton, 2009)
Report from JISC on the costs and benefits of different research communication methods and the total cost of research communication within the UK. The report was authored by Houghton, who has produced similar reports in other regions – see below/above. ALPSP, The Publishers Association and the STM Association issued a joint statement on the report criticising some of its methodology and findings - see the ALPSP website: http://www.alpsp.org/ngen_public/article.asp?id=1&did=47&aid=66525&st=&oaid=-1
E-journals: their use, value and impact - final report (RIN report, 2011)
This two-part report from the Research Information Network looks at how UK researchers use electronic journals, the value they bring to universities and research institutions, and the contribution they make to research productivity, quality and outcomes.
Electronic journals and changes in scholarly article seeking and reading patterns (2008)
An article by Tenopir and King published in DLib, November 2008, confirms earlier reports that the number of articles being cited is reducing, although the articles that are being cited, are being cited more.
EU Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe (2006)
Report commissioned by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research to assess the evolution of the market for scientific publishing. It discusses the potential desirability of Europe-wide measures to help improve the conditions governing access to and the exchange, dissemination and archiving of scientific publications. To follow this debate and the issues raised, see the website. http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.topic&id=122
Global Research Reports from Thomson Reuters
Intermittent reports using citation data to report on research in selected countries or regions. The reports use data from Web of Knowledge to track research and publication trends in different regions, e.g. UK, far east, middle east, USA, BRIC countries.
Ithaka reports into libraries and college information habits
Various reports produced by this research group including surveys of academic practices and behaviours, strategies for managing digital resources, online learning practices, etc.
Research Communication Costs in Australia: Emerging Opportunities and Benefits (Houghton, 2006)
Economic analysis of scholarly communication produced by John Houghton, et al., arguing for the cost-effectiveness of open access.
RIN Report 2012: Gaps and barriers
The Research Information Network released Access to Scholarly Content: Gaps and Barriers. This reports on a research project undertaken by CIBER with funding from RIN, JISC and the Publishing Research Consortium. The report looked at access to information throughout the UK scholarly environment. The survey received responses from over 2500 individuals who were selected from UK authors (as identified in the Scopus database) and a selection of users from Elsevier.
RIN report: Heading for the open road (2011)
The Research Information Network (RIN), Research Libraries UK (RLUK), the Wellcome Trust, the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) jointly published this reports. It investigates the drivers, costs and benefits of potential ways to increase access to scholarly journals. The report considers Green and Gold open access, delayed OA and extending licences to Higher Education Institutions and the National Health Service (NHS). Of these routes, it concludes that Gold OA is the best methodology in the long run as it provides a sustainable model for providing access to research.
Royal Society report: Knowledge, networks and Nations (2011)
The report looks at global expenditure on R&D and the related publishing output, acknowledging the limitations of using indexes which do not include all journals - particularly many smaller national publications. It uses publishing information derived from Scopus and interviews with key individuals to plot the changes to scientific research and track global input into the scientific literature.
SCONUL Statistical Reporting Tool
Annually updated university library statistics going back 12 years - available to purchase, or free to contributors only.
The digital information seeker: Findings from selected OCLC, RIN and JISC user behaviour projects (2010)
JISC report that compares and summarises the findings from 12 separate reports on user behaviour produced in the last decade. They include reports produced by organisations such as OCLC, RIN, CIBER and themselves. From the various reports JISC concludes that although users are confident in their own ability to identify and evaluate information there is no great improvement in information literacy. Therefore, if users are to find high quality and relevant information there is a greater need for high quality metadata and other descriptors.
The STM Report: An overview of scientific and scholarly journal publishing (2009)
A follow up to the 2006 report, 'Scientific publishing in transition: an overview of current developments'. The report finds that there are about 2000 journal publishers around the world, and that 657 publishers produce about 11,550 journals - about 50% of the total journal output by title. Of these, 477 publishers (73%) and 2334 journals (20%) are not-for-profit. The report also states that there are 25,400 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals as of early 2009, of which between 3400-4300 open access titles.
UK Publishing Labour Market Intelligence Profile (2011)
Skillset, the UK the industry body that supports skills and training, has published this report that provides an overview of the size and shape of an industry that includes books, databases and directories, journals, magazines and business media, news agency and newspaper publishing - an industry that makes sales of over £22billion each year.
UK scholarly journals: 2006 baseline report
RIN report providing analysis of data in scholarly journal publishing, including the volume and value of the UK journal market, usage, citation and impact factors and the cost and impact of open access journals.
UK Share of World Research Output (2009)
The RIN report explains how the differences in the figures for the UK’s percentage share of the global production of scientific publications arise and the implications for policy-makers.
Wellcome Trust Reports: Costs and Business Models in Scientific Research Publishing (2004)
In response to discussions about the viability of open access publishing, the Trust commissioned this follow up report to assess the actual costs of publishing scientific, technical and medical research in peer-reviewed journals. It compares the costs between the 'subscriber-pays' model, where publishing services are free to authors and the article is published in a journal available via subscription, and an 'author-pays' model where the author (or their funder or institution) pays for the publishing services but where the final paper is published in an open access journal, available for free via the internet to all who wish to use it.
Wellcome Trust Reports: Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing (2003)
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of an industry that generates some £22 billion annually. The findings of this report contributed to the Wellcome Trust position statement in support of open access publishing.
Websites
Altmetrics
A website providing alternative usage metrics for publications using blogs and social media in addition to downloads.
Association of American Publishers: resources
Website of the US publishing association with links, information and statistics about the US publishing industry. See also the section for the Professional/Scholarly publishers.
Creative Skillset - the UK industry body supporting publishing skills and training
Skillset support training for the publishing industry and also provide statistics about the industry.
eigenFactor.org
A journal ranking system devised in 2006 by the Bergstrom lab. Using ISI data, it provides a ranking for journals based on reference citation, journal price and describes itself as "ranking journals in the same way as Google ranks websites".
Journal Cost-Effectiveness 2011
This search engine from Ted Bergstrom and Preston McAfee can be used to find internationally-published journals and rank them by price per article or citation.
Journal metrics: Scopus, SNIP and SJR
Based on the Scopus database this site provides two sets of new metrics which weigh citation counts against what is normally expected and the quality of the publication in which the citation is made.
Links and Trends in Publishing (Mary Waltham)
Links to content that is of interest to publishers, including library budgets, copyright e-publications, online education and search engines. It is updated regularly.
PA Global Publishing Information
Database of publishing market reports from the Publishers Association. The reports provide information about publishing markets and covers over 40 countries. (Free to ALPSP publisher members.)
PLoS One article-level metrics information
Started in March 2009 PLoS provide "article-level metrics" on every article, and from September 2009 extended this to also include usage data.
Research Information Network
RIN conducts research and provides guidance on information strategies and practices for the UK research community.
Science and Engineering Indicators 2012
Section 5 of the US biannual report uses data on S&E articles to indicate world S&E knowledge production by country - and although the report focuses on Science and Engineering, this chapter includes data from both the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). The report is published biannually - see also previous reports for comparison.
SCImago - journal ranking service
The SCImago Journal & Country Rank is a portal that derives citation information from the journals contained in the Scopus database (Elsevier). They then provide citation data, similar to that provided by the ISI and ISSI indexes. The site is free-access.