Archive for Peer Community in

when open publishing is not fair [PCI webinar, 20 March, 4pm CET]

Posted in Books, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on March 15, 2025 by xi'an

9th seminar of the PCI webinar series

Mandatory registration using this link: https://univ-cotedazur.zoom.us/meeting/register/rz8ZKReZQeqs-3yR3S6q4g

When Open Publishing Is Not Fair

Sabina Leonelli (Technical University of Munich, TUM)

Summary: There are obvious ways in which Open Access has augmented inequity rather than mitigating it, for instance in relation to Author Publishing Costs and the differential access that researchers based in academic institutions around the world may have to publishing deals and packages. Less obvious but equally fundamental are inequities in the access to infrastructures, skills and information fostering an effective use of online resources ranging from Open Access journals to Open Data infrastructures. Most importantly, openness as a paradigm of “sharing” is predicated on a model of research practice that does not fit well with most domains and methods of research, and particularly with science done in low-resourced environments. I reflect on these issues and draw on examples and cases emerging from the PHIL_OS project (“A Philosophy of Open Science for Diverse Research Environments”; www.opensciencestudies.eu ), as well as my experiences as Open Science advocate and participant in Open Access debates over the last ten years.

Speaker’s bio: After high school in Italy, Sabina Leonelli studied History and Philosophy of Science at University College London (BSc Hons, 2000) and London School of Economics (MSc, 2001). She earned a PhD from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2007), while research assistant for Hasok Chang and attending the Dutch graduate schools for STS and philosophy. After coming back to LSE to work with Mary Morgan (2006-2008), she moved to the Centre for the Study of the Life Sciences at the University of Exeter, which she directed from 2013 to 2024. She was appointed TUM Professor on 09/24. Building on philosophical, historical and social science methods and collaborations with scientists and policy-makers, Sabina Leonelli studies: (1) the role of technology, data and organisms in knowledge production, and especially how computing and digitalisation efforts are transforming research and its social dynamics and roles; and (2) the institutionalisation of Open Science as a window on the methods, epistemology and political economy of contemporary scientific inquiry, particularly in the life, biomedical and environmental sciences.

What is the PCI webinar series?
-What is it? Seminars on research practices, publication practices, evaluation, scientific integrity, meta-research.
-How does it work? Remote conferences using zoom with registration.
-For whom is it? For anyone interested in scholarly publication, all PCI users, all PCI recommenders who do preprint evaluations for PCI, authors of articles, etc.
-When is it? Once a quarter
-Why is it for? To learn about scholarly publishing, to improve our knowledge about scholarly review, to become better reviewers, to create a sense of community among PCI users.

Find details about the PCI webinar series and past seminars at https://peercommunityin.org/pci-webinar-series/

the Peer Community journal [not the PCI journal!]

Posted in Books, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , on December 7, 2021 by xi'an

After a debate within the PCI (Peer Community in) communities as to whether or not create a Peer Community Journal, the decision was made to launch it and it is now ready. A really great initiative that I support (albeit from a fringe field when considering the range of the PCIs) and which can only succeed (to bypass traditional journals) if submissions happen. (There already exists a PCI Journal, specialising in research on precast, prestressed concrete. Not to be confused with!) To quote from the journal webpage,

Once an article has been recommended by a PCI, the authors can opt to leave it on a preprint server, to publish it in Peer Community Journal, to submit it to a PCI-friendly journal or to any other journal.

Peer Community Journal is run by researchers for researchers and is funded by public research institutions. It is:

  • Unique = it is a single journal for all PCIs, and a generalist journal (Ecology, Evolutionary biology, Genomics, Archaeology, Paleontology, Network Science, Zoology, Infection, etc. )
  • Free = it is a diamond open-access journal (free for both authors and readers), financed by public research institutions and Plan S compatible.
  • Exclusive = it publishes only articles recommended by PCI
  • Unconditional = it can publish any PCI-recommended article in its recommended version
  • Opt-in = it publishes articles only if the authors wish it
  • Immediate = after recommendation by a PCI, no delay between transfer to the journal and publication
  • Community-based, with more than 1500 recommenders playing the role of Editors

This journal, created and funded by the PCI organization, accepts PCI-recommended articles without further peer reviews.