Publications by OACS researchers

Some publications predate the OACS project.

2009

Björk, B-C., Roos, A. & Lauri, M. (2009). "Scientific journal publishing: yearly volume and open access availability" Information Research, 14(1) paper 391. [Available from 12 January, 2009 at http://InformationR.net/ir/14-1/paper391.html]

Introduction. We estimate the total yearly volume of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published world-wide as well as the share of these articles available openly on the Web either directly or as copies in e-print repositories.
Method. We rely on data from two commercial databases (ISI and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory) supplemented by sampling and Google searches.
Analysis. A central issue is the finding that ISI-indexed journals publish far more articles per year (111) than non ISI-indexed journals (26), which means that the total figure we obtain is much lower than many earlier estimates. Our method of analysing the number of repository copies (green open access) differs from several earlier studies which have studied the number of copies in identified repositories, since we start from a random sample of articles and then test if copies can be found by a Web search engine.
Results. We estimate that in 2006 the total number of articles published was approximately 1,350,000. Of this number 4.6% became immediately openly available and an additional 3.5% after an embargo period of, typically, one year. Furthermore, usable copies of 11.3% could be found in subject-specific or institutional repositories or on the home pages of the authors.
Conclusions. We believe our results are the most reliable so far published and, therefore, should be useful in the on-going debate about Open Access among both academics and science policy makers. The method is replicable and also lends itself to longitudinal studies in the future.

Björk, Bo-Christer and Anssi Öörni (2009), A Method for Comparing Scholarly Journals as Service Providers to Authors. Serials Review. Volume 35, Issue 2, June 2009, Pages 62-69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.serrev.2009.03.001
[ Final submitted and accepted version]

When authors of scholarly articles decide where to submit their manuscripts for peer review and eventual publication, they often base their choice of journals on very incomplete information about how well the journals serve the authors’ purposes of informing about their research and advancing their academic careers. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a new method for benchmarking scientific journals, thereby providing more information to prospective authors. The method estimates a number of journal parameters, including readership, scientific prestige, time from submission to publication, acceptance rate and service provided by the journal during the review and publication process. Data directly obtainable from the Web, data that can be calculated from such data, data obtained from publishers and editors, and data obtained using surveys with authors are used in the method, which has been tested on three different sets of journals, each from a different discipline.
We found a number of problems with the different data acquisition methods, which limit the extent to which the method can be used. Publishers and editors are reluctant to disclose important information they have at hand (i.e., journal circulation, Web downloads, acceptance rate). The calculation of some important parameters (for instance, average time from submission to publication, regional spread of authorship) can be done but requires quite a lot of work. It can be difficult to get reasonable response rates to surveys with authors. All in all, we believe that the method we propose, taking a “service to authors” perspective as a basis for benchmarking scientific journals, is useful and can provide information that is valuable to prospective authors in selected scientific disciplines.

2008

Björk, Bo-Christer, Annikki Roos, and Mari Lauri. Global annual volume of peer reviewed scholarly articles and the share available via different Open Access options. To be presented at The International Conference on Electronic Publishing (ELPUB 2008) - Open Scholarship: Authority, Community and Sustainability in the Age of Web 2.0, June 25-27 2008. http://www.elpub.net/
[ Preprint ]

A key parameter in any discussions about the academic peer reviewed journal system is the number of articles annually published. Several diverging estimates of this parameter have been proposed in the past, and have also influenced calculations of the average production price per article, the total costs of the journal system and the prevalence of Open Access publishing. With journals and articles
increasingly being present on the web and indexed in a number of databases it has now become possible to quite accurately estimate the number of articles. We used the databases of ISI and Ulrich’s as our primary sources and estimate that the total number of articles published in 2006 by 23 750 journals was approximately 1 350 000.

Using this number as denominator it was also possible to estimate the number of articles which are openly available on the web in primary OA journals (gold OA). This share turned out to be 4.6 % for the year 2006. In addition at least a further 3.5 % was available after an embargo period of usually one year, bringing the total share of gold OA to 8.1%

Using a random sample of articles, we also tried to estimate the proportion of the articles published which are available as copies deposited in e-print repositories or homepages (green OA). Based on the article title a web search engine was used to search for a freely downloadable full-text version. For 11.3 % a usable copy was found. Combining these two figures we estimate that 19.4 % of the total yearly output can be accessed freely.

2007

Bo-Christer Björk, Mikko Välimäki, Joonas Lyytinen, Timo Jyrinki, Tere Vadén, Kari A. Hintikka, Juha Honkala, Teemu Mikkonen. Wikipedia – monta näkökulmaa avoimeen tietosanakirjaan. Tieteessä tapahtuu, vol 24, No 7 (2007). [Available at http://ojs.tsv.fi/index.php/tt/article/view/319/282 ]

Kuusi näkökulmaa Wikipediaan: Wikipedia monitieteisenä tutkimuskohteena (Bo-Christer Björk ja Mikko Välimäki); Lyhyt katsaus suomenkieliseen Wikipediaan (Joonas Lyytinen ja Timo Jyrinki); Wikipedia ja filosofit: huomioita wikipedioiden epistemologisesta potentiaalista (Tere Vadén); Wikipedia joukkoälyn muotona (Kari A. Hintikka); Wikipedia kaupallisen tietosanakirjan haastajana (Juha Honkala); Wikipedia, vapaus ja sensuuri (Teemu Mikkonen); Wikipedia ja yhteisön luoman sisällön tekijänoikeudelliset haasteet (Mikko Välimäki).

Björk, Bo-Christer, Bröchner, Jan, 2007. The Value of Construction Management Journals to Submitting Authors. Construction Management and Economics 25th Anniversary Conference, University of Reading, Reading, UK, 16-18.7.2007, 8 p.
[ Postprint ]

Publishers of academic journals can be seen as service providers to authors, in addition to their traditional role of providers of research results to readers. When
submitting their manuscripts to journals authors make choices that may have career consequences for them as academics, and they would benefit from better information about the service characteristics of the journals they choose between. The purpose of this study was to analyse author perceptions of leading journals in construction management. Seven journals were identified and for each 2006 article, one author email address was extracted. A web-based questionnaire was sent to 397 authors and 35% responded. It was found that there was a core of three journals, regularly followed by at least half the respondents. These are journals that fulfil the criterion of ‘relevant readership’, which respondents ranked very high among service characteristics. Most of the other four journals have scopes broader than construction management and receive lower scores for characteristics such as impact on researchers. No open access journals were included, and authors in the field of construction management rarely post openly accessible copies of their manuscripts or publications on the web.

Björkman, I. and Björk, B-C. (2007). Estimating the Research Impact of Finnish Business Studies Professors. The Finnish Journal of Business Economics (LTA), Vol. 56, No. 1, 2007, pp. 77-83
[ Postprint ]

Vesa Puttonen (2007) has conducted an interesting attempt at measuring the impact (‘vaikuttavuus’) of Finnish professors in business studies (‘liiketoimintaosaaminen’). In his paper, also published in this volume, Puttonen reports the results of three different analyses: first, the number of citations in the Web of Science database to articles that Finnish professors have written in journals included in the same database; second, the number of citations in the google.scholar search engine to the five research publication of each professor that have received the highest number of citations; and third, the number of times a professor appeared in a search on google’s general search engine when ‘professor’ and the name of the person were entered as search terms. While the two first analyses aim at examining the professors’ impact on the research community in business studies, the third purports to provide a proxy for their general societal impact.

Björk, B-C. (2007). A model of scientific communication as a global distributed information system. Information Research, 12(2) paper 307. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/12-2/paper307.html]

Introduction. A formal graphical model of the scientific communication process is presented in this paper.

Purpose. The purpose of the model is to act as a road map for policy discussions and research concerning the process. In comparison to earlier models found in the literature this model is more detailed, hierarchical and includes more modelling constructs (activities, inputs, outputs, controls, mechanisms).

Methodology. The modelling methodology used is IDEF0, a process modelling method, which previously has mainly been used for business process reengineering in the manufacturing industry. The current version of the model consists of thirty-three diagrams, with 113 different activities and over 200 different inputs, outputs, controls and mechanisms.

Scope. The scope of the model is the whole communication value chain, from initial research to the assimilation of research results to improve every-day life. The model treats both informal and formal communication, as well as the publishing of data, but the major focus is on modelling the publishing and indexing of traditional peer reviewed journal articles, as well as the activities of readers to find out about them and access them. The new business models and parallel functions enabled by the Internet, such as open access journals and e-print repositories, are also in focus.

Junni, P. (2007). Students seeking information for their Masters' theses: the effect of the Internet. Information Research, 12(2) paper 305. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/12-2/paper305.html]

Introduction. The Internet has radically changed the global availability of scholarly publications. Today, a substantial part of the resources accessible for researchers and university students are offered through electronic site licenses, making the supply of easily obtainable information larger than ever. This brings forth an important question: what are the qualitative and quantitative effects of this development on the use of reference material in research and studies?

Method. To address the research question, reference lists of Masters' theses from 1985, 1993 and 2003 were studied in three disciplines: economics, psychology and mathematics, followed by semi-structured interviews of students who had finished their thesis in 2003.

Analysis. The quantitative data were analysed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the statistical program SPSS, where the significance of the results was measured with Dunnet's t-test.
Results. The findings showed a substantial increase in the use of scholarly articles as references throughout the studied time periods, although the amount of other information sources had remained largely unchanged. There were also significant differences between the three disciplines in the contents of their reference lists, the amount of Internet resources that students used, how they sought and obtained publications, and how they selected their sources.

Conclusions. The Internet appears to have had a profound effect on the type and quantity of information that students use as references in Master's theses. One of the main problems that students reported was a lack of training in information seeking, and the abundance of irrelevant information on the Internet. Many respondents would have needed additional training on using library databases.

2006

Björk, B-C. and Turk, Z. (2006). The Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon): an open access journal using an un-paid, volunteer-based organization.  Information Research, 11(3) paper 255.
[ Fulltext ]

Introduction This case study is based on the experiences with the Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon), founded in 1995. Development This journal is an example of a particular category of open access journals, which use neither author charges nor subscriptions to finance their operations, but rely largely on unpaid voluntary work in the spirit of the open source movement. The journal has, after some initial struggle, survived its first decade and is now established as one of half-a-dozen peer reviewed journals in its field. Operations The journal publishes articles as they become ready, but creates virtual issues through alerting messages to “subscribers”. It has also started to publish special issues, since this helps in attracting submissions, and also helps in sharing the work-load of review management. From the start the journal adopted a rather traditional layout of the articles. After the first few years the HTML version was dropped and papers are only published in PDF format. Performance The journal has recently been benchmarked against the competing journals in its field. Its acceptance rate of 53% is slightly higher and its average turnaround time of seven months almost a year faster compared to those journals in the sample for which data could be obtained. The server log files for the past three years have also been studied. Conclusions Our overall experience demonstrates that it is possible to publish this type of OA journal, with a yearly publishing volume equal to a quarterly journal and involving the processing of some fifty submissions a year, using a networked volunteer-based organization.

Hedlund, Turid and Roos, Annikki. Open Access Publishing In Finland: Discipline-Specific Publishing Patterns In Biomedicine And Economics. ELPUB 2006 Proceedings.
[ Abstract ] [ Fulltext ] [ Preprint ]

Abstract. Open access publishing strategies have traditionally been directed towards what has been regarded as a homogenous scientific community of universities, researchers and libraries. However, discipline specific practices in communication and publishing strategies are prevailing in different scientific areas. In this study we, argue that discipline specific publishing patterns may affect the ways that open access strategies can be adopted in different scientific areas. We characterise and identify incentives for publishing open access into factors depending mostly on the social environment and factors mostly depending on personal factors of the researcher. In the case study comparing the field of biomedicine and economics and business administration we were able to find out figures on the proportion, type and channel of open access publishing of scientific articles by Finnish researchers in economics and medicine.

Björk, Bo-Christer and Jonas Holmström. Benchmarking scientific journals from the submitting author’s viewpoint. Learned Publishing. Vol 19 No. 2, pp. 147–155. 2006.
[ Fulltext ] [ Postprint ]

Abstract. Authors of scholarly papers to a large extent base the decision on where to submit their manuscripts on the prestige of journals, taking little account of other possible factors. Information concerning such factors is in fact often not available. This paper argues for the establishment of methods for benchmarking scientific journals, taking into account a wider range of journal performance parameters than is currently available. Amodel for how prospective authors determine the value of submitting to a particular journal is presented. The model includes eight factors that influence an author’s decision and 21 other underlying factors. The model is a qualitative one. Themethod proposes to benchmark groups of journals by application of the factors. Initial testing of the method has been undertaken in one discipline.

2005

Björk, Bo-Christer, Žiga Turk, and Jonas Holmström. The Scholarly Journal Re-engineered: A Case Study of an Open Access Journal in Construction IT. ITcon Vol. 10, pg. 349-371, http://www.itcon.org/2005/23
[ Fulltext ]

Abstract. Open access is a new model for the publishing of scientific journals enabled by the Internet, in lished articles are freely available for anyone to read. During the 1990’s hundreds of individual open access journals were founded by groups of academics, supported by grants and unpaid voluntary work. During the last five years other types of open access journals, funded by author charges have started to emerge and also established publishers have started to experiment with different variations of open access. This article reports on the experiences of one open access journal (The Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction, ITcon) over its ten year history. In addition to a straightforward account of the lessons learned the journal is also benchmarked against a number of competitors in the same research area and its development is put into the larger perspective of changes in scholarly publishing. The main findings are: That a journal publishing around 20-30 articles per year, equivalent to a typical quarterly journal, can sustainable be produced using an open source like production model. The journal outperforms its competitors in some respects, such as the speed of publication, availability of the results and balanced global distribution of authorship, and is on a par with them in most other respects. The key statistics for ITcon are: Acceptance rate 55 %. Average speed of publication 6-7 months. 801 subscribers to email alerts. Average number of downloads by human readers per paper per month 21.

Björk, Bo-Christer. A lifecycle model of the scientific communication process. Learned Publishing. Vol 18 No. 3 pp. 165-176. 2005.
[ Postprint ]

Abstract. A formal graphical model of the scientific communication process is presented in this report. The modelling methodology used is IDEF0, a process modelling method which previously has mainly been used for business process reengineering in the manufacturing industries. The purpose of the scientific communication life-cycle model model is to act as a roadmap for policy discussions and research concerning the process. In comparison to earlier models found in the literature this model is more detailed, hierarchical and includes more modelling constructs (activities, inputs, outputs, controls, mechanisms).

The scope of the model is the whole communication value chain, from initial research to the assimilation of research results in every-day practice. The model treats both informal and formal communication, as well as the publishing of data, but the major focus is on modelling the publishing and indexing of traditional peer reviewed journal articles, as well as the activities of readers to find out about them and access them. The new business models and parallel functions enabled by the Internet, such as open access journals and e-print repositories, are also in focus. The model consists of 26 diagrams, with 80 different activities and over 200 different inputs, outputs, controls and mechanisms.

Björk, Bo-Christer. Scientific communication life-cycle model, version 3.0, 2005-02-10
[ Fulltext ]

Abstract. A formal graphical model of the scientific communication process is presented in this report. The modelling methodology used is IDEF0, a process modelling method which previously has mainly been used for business process reengineering in the manufacturing industries. The purpose of the scientific communication life-cycle model model is to act as a roadmap for policy discussions and research concerning the process. In comparison to earlier models found in the literature this model is more detailed, hierarchical and includes more modelling constructs (activities, inputs, outputs, controls, mechanisms).

The scope of the model is the whole communication value chain, from initial research to the assimilation of research results in every-day practice. The model treats both informal and formal communication, as well as the publishing of data, but the major focus is on modelling the publishing and indexing of traditional peer reviewed journal articles, as well as the activities of readers to find out about them and access them. The new business models and parallel functions enabled by the Internet, such as open access journals and e-print repositories, are also in focus. The model consists of 26 diagrams, with 80 different activities and over 200 different inputs, outputs, controls and mechanisms.

Junni, Paulina. Students seeking information for their master’s thesis - the effect of the Internet. Submitted to Information Research.
[ Preprint ]

Abstract. The Internet has radically changed the global availability of scholarly publications. Today, a substantial part of the resources accessible for researchers and university students are offered through electronic site licenses, making the supply of easily obtainable information larger than ever. This brings forth an important question: what are the qualitative and quantitative effects of this development on the use of reference material in research and studies?  To address this issue, masters’ theses’ reference lists from 1985, 1993 and 2003 were studied in three disciplines: economics, psychology and mathematics, followed by interviews of students who had finished their thesis in 2003. The findings showed a significant increase in the use of scholarly articles as references throughout the years, as well as significant differences between the reference lists of masters’ theses in the different studied disciplines. Differencesincluded the amount of Internet resources that students used, how they sought and obtained publications, how they chose their sources, as well as how many articles they read for their masters thesis. The study also showed that respondents seemed relatively unsatisfied with the amount of training they had received in information seeking. Many respondents felt that additional training on using library databases would have been beneficial.

Vilanka, Olli. Open Access –julkaiseminen, linkittäminen ja tekijänoikeus - selvitys verkkojulkaisusopimuksissa huomioitavista seikoista. No. 510. Working Papers, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration Helsinki.
[ Working paper ]

Abstract. Kirjastoissa ja yliopistoissa tapahtuvaa tieteellisten töiden verkkokäyttöä koskevat tekijänoikeudelliset kysymykset ovat viimeaikoina aiheuttaneet päänvaivaa. Tietoverkot ja digitaalinen ympäristö muodostavatkin tekijänoikeuden kannalta erityisen soveltamisympäristön johon perehtyminen edellyttää tarkempaa tietämystä tiedon siirtämisestä, tietokannoista sekä ylipäätään tietoverkkoihin liittyvistä teknisistä toiminnoista. Koska sovelletut tekniset ratkaisut poikkeavat eri yhteyksissä toisistaan, pyrin kirjoituksessa yleisellä tasolla selvittämään niitä käyttäjien ja oikeudenhaltijoiden välisiä tekijän- ja sopimusoikeudellisia kysymyksiä, joita teosten käyttö tietoverkoissa aiheuttaa. Pyrkimyksenä on tuoda esiin ne tekijänoikeudellisesti merkitykselliset seikat, jotka verkkojulkaisuja arkistoitaessa, välitettäessä sekä linkkejä käytettäessä tulisi alkuperäisten tekijöiden, kustantajien ja verkkojulkaisijoiden (esimerkiksi kirjasto tai yliopisto) välisissä sopimuksissa ottaa huomioon. Kysymyksiä tarkastellaan erityisesti julkaisijan näkökulmasta. Esitys sisältää myös kustantajien lupakäytäntöä käsittelevän empiirisen tutkimuksen. Tutkimuksessa on tarkasteltu kuinka usein kustantajat ovat vuosien 2000 – 2003 välisenä aikana myöntäneet luvan julkaista väitöskirjan artikkeli osana väitöskirjaa Teknillisen korkeakoulun avoimella ei kaupallisella www-palvelimella. Koska linkeillä on verkkojulkaisutoiminnassa usein merkittävä rooli, mutta niiden tekijänoikeudellinen asema on epäselvä, kirjoituksen jälkimmäisessä osiossa perehdytään linkkien tekijänoikeudelliseen asemaan.

2004

Airio, Eija, Heikki Keskustalo, Turid Hedlund, and Ari Pirkola. The Impact of Word Normalization Methods and Merging Strategies on Multilingual IR. In Comparative Evaluation of Multilingual Information Access Systems: 4th Workshop of the Cross-Language Evaluation Forum, CLEF 2003, Trondheim, Norway, August 21-22, 2003, Revised Selected Papers, LNCS 3237, pp. 74-84, 2004. © Springer-Verlag.
[ Full text ]

Abstract. This article deals with both multilingual and bilingual IR. The source language is English, and the target languages are English, German, Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, French, Italian and Spanish. The approach of separate indexes is followed, and four different merging strategies are tested. Two of the merging methods are classical basic methods: the Raw Score method and the Round Robin method. Two simple new merging methods were created: the Dataset Size Based method and the Score Difference Based method. Two kinds of indexing methods are tested: morphological analysis and stemming. Morphologically analyzed indexes perform a slightly better than stemmed indexes. The merging method based on the dataset size performs best.

Björk, Bo-Christer, Turid Hedlund. A formalised model of the scientific publication process. Online Information Review. Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 8-21. 2004.
[ Full text ] [ Post-print ]

Abstract. The scientific publishing process has during the past few years undergone considerable changes. The socio-economic structures have, however, not changed much, and many academics and librarians view the current situation as highly unsatisfactory. This has triggered a number of initiatives to set up e-print repositories and electronic peer reviewed journals, which usually offer the full text for free on the Web. Serious in-depth research studying the way the scholarly communication system is affected by the Internet is needed. In this article a formal process model of the scientific publishing process is presented (the Scientific Publication Life-Cycle Model). The model has been developed in particular to provide a basis for studying the cost implications of different business models. It describes the life-cycle of the single publication, in particular the refereed journal article, from the research leading to it and writing it, to being read by other researchers years later or used as a catalyst for practical implementation. Conclusions are drawn about the usefulness of the modelling methodology for this particular purpose as well as of future uses of the model itself. In addition to providing a basis for cost studies the model could function as a roadmap for different types of open access initiatives.

Björk, Bo-Christer. Forskarsamfundet och Internet. Ekonomiska Samfundets Tidskrift. No. 1-2, pp. 55-62. 2004
[ Post-print ]

Abstract. This article is written in Swedish. It tells about the development and evolution of the scientific communication process from the "old greeks" up until today's electronic environment.

Björk, Bo-Christer. Open access to scientific publications - an analysis of the barriers to change? Information Research, Vol. 9 No. 2, January, 2004.
[ Full text ]

Abstract. One of the effects of the Internet is that the dissemination of scientific publications in a few years has migrated to electronic formats. The basic business practices between libraries and publishers for selling and buying the content, however, have not changed much. In protest against the high subscription prices of mainstream publishers, scientists have started Open Access (OA) journals and e-print repositories, which distribute scientific information freely. Despite widespread agreement among academics that OA would be the optimal distribution mode for publicly financed research results, such channels still constitute only a marginal phenomenon in the global scholarly communication system. This paper discusses, in view of the experiences of the last ten years, the many barriers hindering a rapid proliferation of Open Access. The discussion is structured according to the main OA channels; peer-reviewed journals for primary publishing, subject-specific and institutional repositories for secondary parallel publishing. It also discusses the types of barriers, which can be classified as consisting of the legal framework, the information technology infrastructure, business models, indexing services and standards, the academic reward system, marketing, and critical mass.

Hedlund, Turid, Tomas Gustafsson, Bo-Christer Björk. The open access scientific journal: An empirical study. Learned Publishing. Vol 17 No. 3 pp. 199-209. 2004.
[ Full text ] [ Post-print ]

Abstract. The open access (OA) model for journals is compared to the open source principle for computer software. Since the early 1990s nearly 1,000 OA scientific journals have emerged - mostly as voluntary community efforts, although recently some professionally operating publishers have used author charges or institutional membership. This study of OA journals without author charges shows that their impact is still relatively small, but awareness of it is increasing. The average number of research articles per year is lower than for major scientific journals but the publication times are shorter.

Hedlund, Turid, Eija Airio, Heikki Keskustalo, Raija Lehtokangas, Ari Pirkola, Kalervo Järvelin. Dictionary-Based Cross-Language Information Retrieval: Learning Experiences from CLEF 2000-2002. Information Retrieval, 7, 99-119, 2004.
[ Full text ] [ Pre-print ]

Abstract. In this study the basic framework and performance analysis results are presented for the three year long development process of the dictionary-based UTACLIR system. The tests expand from bilingual CLIR for three language pairs Swedish, Finnish and German to English, to six language pairs, from English to French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Finnish, and from bilingual to multilingual. In addition, transitive translation tests are reported. The development process of the UTACLIR query translation system will be regarded from the point of view of a learning process. The contribution of the individual components, the effectiveness of compound handling, proper name matching and structuring of queries are analyzed. The results and the fault analysis have been valuable in the development process. Overall the results indicate that the process is robust and can be extended to other languages. The individual effects of the different components are in general positive. However, performance also depends on the topic set and the number of compounds and proper names in the topic, and to some extent on the source and target language. The dictionaries used affect the performance significantly.

Holmström, Jonas. Managing a Paradigm Shift – Aligning Management, Privacy Policy, Technology and Standards. In Heery, R. and Lyon, L. (eds.): Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries. 8th European Conference, ECDL 2004, Bath, UK, LCNS 3232, pp. 442-451, 2004. © Springer-Verlag.
[ Full text ] [ Post-print ]

Abstract. It is argued that we are experiencing a paradigm shift from a user perspective to a client perspective in library and information science. The paradigm shift is brought about by recent changes in scholarly publishing, which have enabled end-users to search for and retrieve information by themselves. Libraries are increasingly providing services that are more and more personalized. The implications of the paradigm shift for management, privacy policy, integration of services, and standards are discussed. It is suggested that libraries are increasingly considering customer relationship management and that privacy policy should be split up in to personal and professional privacy. Current systems should be developed to support successive searching behaviour. Finally the need for an Open Services Initiative to solve the appropriate service problem is discussed.

Holmström, Jonas. The Return on Investment of Electronic Journals - It Is a Matter of Time. D-Lib Magazine April 2004.
[ Full text ]

Abstract. Libraries and publishers are increasingly using download statistics to measure cost-effectiveness. Proponents of open access have also used download statistics to prove that open access journals are more cost-effective than subscription based journals. In this article, I argue that these calculations are misleading since they do not consider the age of the articles downloaded. Some implications and recommendations for standards of measurement are discussed.

Holmström, Jonas. Cost per Article Reading of Open Access Articles. D-Lib Magazine January 2004.
[ Full text ]

Abstract. The measure for calculating cost per reading (CPR) of journal articles is reviewed, and a way to adapt this measure to articles in open access journals is proposed. The traditional subscription based publishing model is compared with the open access model, and similarities are identified and used when calculating CPR for the two different types of publishing. Challenges with interpreting statistics are discussed as well as the difficulty of estimating the number of readings from the number of downloaded articles. Finally, the potential use and implications of the CPR measure for open access publishers and institutions are discussed.

Vilanka, Olli. Individuaalia kollektivismia? Yksilöllinen tekijänoikeus ja kollektiivilisenssit – osa II (Copyright as an Individual Author’s Right and Collective Licenses – part II). IPRinfo Magazine 2/2004.
[ Full text ] [ Updated version in English ]

Abstract. This article continues the arguments presented in the article Yksilöllinen tekijänoikeus ja kollektiivilisenssit (Copyright as an Individual Author’s Right and Collective Licenses), published in IPRinfo Magazine 1/2004.

Vilanka, Olli. Yksilöllinen tekijänoikeus ja kollektiivilisenssit (Copyright as an Individual Author’s Right and Collective Licenses) . IPRinfo Magazine 1/2004.
[ Full text ] [ Updated version in English ]

Abstract. The continental ideological basis for copyright as author’s right was formed during the 18th century. That theoretical background of the concept defines an individual author as the master of his works: the author has an exclusive right to decide who, when and where is allowed to use his works. However, in the information society copyrighted works can easily be transformed into digital form and distributed all over the world. This means that an individual author loses practical possibilities to govern the use of the work. These practical difficulties have lead to use of collective licences: a blanket licence that covers works of all the authors from a certain field of art or science. In this article the writer examines how the theoretical background embracing individuality is taken in to consideration on the field of collective licences.The paper describes the collective licensing system in Scandinavia and especially the amendments suggested in Finland.

2003

Björk, Bo-Christer. Open Access – vapaa pääsy tieteellisiin julkaisuihin. Kansalliskirjasto, 2/2003, National Library of Finland, Helsinki, p. 3-7. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
[ Full text ]

Abstract. Internet on muutamassa vuodessa mullistanut tieteellisen julkaisutoiminnan. Tänä päivänä jo merkittävä osa tieteellisistä julkaisuista on saatavissa elektronisessa muodossa, mikä huomattavasti nopeuttaa ja helpottaa yksittäisen tutkijan tiedonhakua.

Björk, Bo-Christer, Hedlund, Turid. Scientific Publication Life Cycle Model (SPLC). From Information to Knowledge, Elpub2003, International conference on electronic publishing, 25-28.6.2003, Guimaraes, Portugal. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
[ Full text ]

Abstract. The scientific publishing process has during the past few years undergone considerable changes, due to the possibilitiesoffered by the Internet for fast delivery and inter-linking of publications which refer to each other. The socio-economic structures have, however, not changed much, and many academics and librarians view the current situation as sub-optimaland highly unsatisfactory. This has triggered a number of initiatives to set up e-print repositories and electronic peer reviewed journals, which usually offer the full text for free on the web. The label Open Access is gaining popularity for describing suchefforts, in line with the Open Source term used in the software development community. Despite the obvious advantages it offers, Open Access hasn’t become as widespread as expected, and there is a need for both successful demonstrator projectsand serious research studying the way the scholarly communication system is affected by the Internet. As a part of the EU funded SciX project the cost implications of different publishing models are being studied. A basis for the cost studies is theformal process model of the scientific publishing process, which is presented in this paper. The model has been developed using the IDEF0 modelling method, a method which allows the breaking up of a process into its parts connected by outputand input arrows. The Scientific Publication Life-Cycle Model models the life cycle of the single publication, in particular the refereed journal article, from the research leading to it and writing it into it being read by other researchers years later or usedas an impulse for practical implementation. The paper presents the 22 hierarchical diagrams of the model including 64 separate activities. Conclusions are drawn about the usefulness of the modelling methodology for this particular purpose aswell as of future use of the model itself. In addition to providing a basis for cost studies the model could function as a road map for different types of Open Access initiatives.

Hedlund Turid. Dictionary-Based Cross-Language Information Retrieval: Principles, System Design and Evaluation. Doctoral Thesis University of Tampere, Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis; 288.
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Abstract. The research problems of the thesis relate to the Scandinavian language Swedish. When the research work on this thesis started, there was very limited knowledge on information retrieval or cross-language information retrieval research in Swedish. The linguistic features of this and other compound rich languages indicate that research focusing on languages of other types than English is of great importance. One problem was also the lack of automated dictionary-based systems for query translation of Scandinavian languages and other compound rich languages. Firstly, cross-language information retrieval problems for non-English languages, particularly Swedish are discussed. In the article the need to extend research on information retrieval techniques to undertreated languages is demonstrated. Secondly, one of the main problems identified for Swedish, the frequent presence of compounds is discussed in detail and solutions are proposed. Retrieval efficiency may be improved by splitting not directly translatable compounds into constituents using morphological analysis programs and by normalising the constituents into base form before translation using machine-readable dictionaries. This solution is tested for 80 cross-language information retrieval queries. Thirdly, this thesis deals with bilingual natural language information retrieval techniques where English is the target or document language and Swedish, Finnish and German are source or query languages. The system design of the UTACLIR, an extendable bilingual dictionary-based query translation system, is presented. The approach is to apply linguistic tools in an automated dictionary-based system able to handle several languages. Fourthly, the performance of the system is evaluated in international evaluation campaigns and shown effective. The automated CLIR process is also tested for the performance of its components. The tests with structuring of the queries indicate that structuring is a good way to reduce the effect of ambiguity caused by several dictionary translation equivalents for a source language word. This is true for all the source languages, but is particularly notable for Finnish and German where the translation dictionaries used in the study were comprehensive. Compound handling for the compound rich source languages Swedish, German and Finnish is found beneficial to the system performance. An n-gram based algorithm was implemented in the process in order to solve the problem of untranslatable words, such as proper names. The process was particularly successful for the Finnish language where proper names usually appear in inflected forms and where matching to the target language document index therefore is difficult.

Junni, Paulina. Prograduskribenters sökning efter vetenskapliga källor – effekten av Internet. Pro Gradu avhandling, Informationsbehandling, Svenska Handelshögskolan, Helsingfors. 2003. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
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Abstract. In a relatively short time the Internet has radically changed the global availability of scholarly publications. Today a substantial part of the resources available for researchers and university students are available through electronic site licenses rather than as paper copies in the shelves of their libraries. The supply of easily available information is bigger than ever. An interesting question is what qualitative and quantitative effects this has had on the use of reference material as input to research and studies. In order to shed some light on this the effect on master's theses work was studied. Masters theses' reference lists, from the years 1985, 1993 and 2003, were studied in three disciplines, where after some respondents who had written their master's thesis in 2003 were interviewed. The findings showed a significant increase in the use of scholarly articles as references. There were also differences between the disciplines studied regarding how many Internet resources students used, how they looked for and retrieved publications, how they chose their sources and how many articles they read. The respondents seemed relatively unsatisfied with the amount of training they had received in information seeking, and many commented that they would have needed additional help on using the library's databases.

Martens, Bob, Björk, Bo-Christer, Turk, Ziga, Cooper, Grahame. Re-engineering the scientific knowledge management process: The SciX Project. Automation in Construction Vol 12 (2003) pp. 677-687.
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Abstract. In the past, paper-based publications were both the medium for the information exchange among the scientists as well as the measure of their scientific quality. Recently electronic publication is increasingly important for the dissemination of scientific work, while evaluation of scientists and institutions remains largely based on the printed publications. In the "material world", associations, such as eCAADe have been providing a stage for getting the right people together and through annual conferences and seminars made sure that research results were heard and read. The Internet and the Web are allowing the scientists to pursue those activities on their own or through flexibly organized "virtual" associations. Electronic publications also provide a basis for efficient management of scientific knowledge––discovering related work, reduction of the duplicate efforts, establishment of virtual research teams etc. In this paper, we present the goals and initial results of an EU-project called SciX: "Open, Self Organising Repository for Scientific Information Exchange". The goal of SciX is to analyze the business processes of scientific publishing, to invent new publication models and through a series of pilots to demonstrate how this will work. In the envisioned scenarios, professional associations such as eCAADe play an important role. Their members are the potential users of SciX's platforms, authors and readers of the papers. Associations could also become the publishers and archivists of the knowledge created within their respective community. The objectives of this contribution focus on involving the eCAADe-community in the developments in SciX, on fine-shaping the goals, as well as on defining the requirements and monitoring the usability of the pilots.

2002

Bjork, B.-C., Turk, Z., Martens, B. Re-engineering the scientific publishing process for the Internetworked global academic community. Elpub2002, International conference on electronic publishing, 6-8.11.2002, Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
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Abstract. The SciX (Open, self organising repository for scientific information exchange) project is funded by the European Commission in order to demonstrate the feasibility of new alternative models of scientific publishing made possible by the Internet. The project builds upon the previous experience of some of the partners in running an electronic peer reviewed journal and in setting up an e-prints archive. The project includes both theoretical work in making a formal model of the scientific publishing process, to be used as a basis for studying the life-cycle costs of alternative business models, and a demonstrator of a functioning e-prints archive.

Björk, Bo-Christer, Hedlund, Turid. Scientific Publication Life-Cycle Model (SPLC). Working paper, Version 2.0. October 31, 2002. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
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Abstract. The scientific publishing process has during the past few years undergone considerable changes, due to the possibilities offered by the Internet for fast delivery and interlinking of publications which refer to each other. The socio-economic structures have, however, not changed much, and many academics and librarians view the current situation as suboptimal and highly unsatisfactory. This has triggered a number of initiatives to set up e-print repositories and electronic peer reviewed journals, which usually offer the full text for free on the web. The label Open Access is gaining popularity for describing such efforts, in line with the Open Source term used in the software development community. Despite the obvious advantages it offers, Open Access hasn’t become as widespread as expected, and there is a need for both successful demonstrator projects and serious research studying the way the scholarly communication system is affected by the Internet. As a part of the EU funded SciX project the cost implications of different publishing models are being studied. A basis for the cost studies is the formal process model of the scientific publishing process, which is presented in this paper. The model has been developed using the IDEF0 modelling method, a method which allows the breaking up of a process into its parts connected by output and input arrows. The Scientific Publication Life-Cycle Model models the life cycle of the single publication, in particular the refereed journal article, from the research leading to it and writing it into it being read by other researchers years later or used as an impulse for practical implementation. The paper presents the 22 hierarchical diagrams of the model including 64 separate activities.  Conclusions are drawn about the usefulness of the modelling methodology for this particular purpose as well as of future uses of the model itself. In addition to providing a basis for cost studies the model could function as a road map for different types of Open Access initiatives.

Gustafsson, Thomas. Open Access - En empirisk undersökning om fritt tillgängliga vetenskapliga journaler på Internet . Pro Gradu avhandling, Informationsbehandling, Svenska Handelshögskolan, Helsingfors. 2002. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
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Abstract. Förändringar inom universitets forskning och undervisning har i samband med Internets snabba utveckling lett till nya former av rapportering av forskningsresultat. I dagens läge behöver inte längre forskningsresultaten vara tillgängliga endast de läsare som har förutsättning att prenumerera på oftast rätt så dyrbara vetenskapliga journaler. Tvärtom kan resultaten publiceras i fritt tillgängliga, open access, publikationer på Internet. I denna avhandling beskrivs de vetenskapliga journalernas utveckling ifrån de första utgåvorna i mitten av 1600-talet till open access publicering som idag förespråkas av ett stort antal forskare. Orsaker bakom utvecklingen, såsom tidskriftskrisen, och de alternativ som uppkommit till traditionella vetenskapliga journaler i pappersformat presenteras. Med hjälp av empirisk undersökning kartläggs bland annat open access journalers utbredning och inom vilka ämnesområden konceptet om fri tillgänglighet till vetenskapliga journaler vunnit terräng. Resultaten av undersökningen visar att av världens vetenskapliga journaler är cirka 1,5 % open access. Denna andel är dock högre ifall undersökningen begränsas till nygrundade journaler under 1990-talet. Vidare resultat påvisar att 3⁄4 av open access journalerna har sitt ursprung i anglosaxiska länder och att medicin och matematik är de ämnesområden inom vilka det existerar det största antalet fritt tillgängliga journaler. En av open access journalerna i undersökningens urval, visade sig vara den mest citerade tidskriften inom sitt  ämnesområde.Alla nygrundade journaler överlever ändå inte i längden utan tvärtom visar  resultaten att mellan 40 och 50 % av de open access journaler som existerade år 1999 hade  nedlagts år 2002.

2001

Björk, Bo-Christer. Open Source, Open Science, Open Course Ware. In: Penttilä, H. (edt), Architectural Information Management, eCAADe 19th Conference, Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Architecture, Espoo 2001, pp. 13-17. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
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Abstract. The Internet has in just a few years radically changed the technical foundation for how the supply chain of scientific publications and teaching materials functions. As researchers we can with just a few clicks find a significant part of all the information we need for free on the World Wide Web. As teachers we can find huge amounts of digital material which can be downloaded or linked from the web and included in presentation overheads, or hyperlinked as reading material. Yet the business and legal (copyright issues) infrastructure has hardly changed and presents a barrier to innovation and reengineering of the overall process. This paper describes some recent trends in how the Internet influences these two fields (publication of research results and production of teaching material) as well as related developments in the organisation of software development, and discusses them both from an economic and philosophical perspective

Björk, Bo-Christer. Internet och den vetenskapliga publikationsprocessens ekonomi. (Internet and the economics of the scientific publishing process, in Swedish). Ekonomiska samfundets tidskrift, Ekonomiska samfundet i Finland, Helsingfors, 2001:3, s. 5-17. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
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Abstract. Internet håller på att radikalt förändra infrastrukturen för den vetenskapliga publikationsprocessen. Tekniskt är det fullt möjligt att skapa ett globalt superarkiv av vetenskapliga publikationer, som när de refererar till varandra på några sekunder för forskaren till den rätta källan genom en hyperlink. I praktiken finns det dock stora organisatoriska och psykologiska hinder för att nå dit, genom att publiceringsprocessen för framförallt vetenskapliga tidskrifter under de senaste decennierna tagits över av ett fåtal kommersiella storförlag som har föga att vinna på fri gratispublicering på webben.
I denna artikel diskuteras först en livscykelmodell för den vetenskapliga publiceringsprocessen och hur Internet kommer att förändra kostnadsbilden. Internet förväntas radikalt minska kostnaderna för tryckning, distribution, arkivering och läsarnas insatser för att söka efter källor, förutsatt att tidskrifterna publiceras enbart elektroniskt och läggs ut gratis öppet tillgängliga på webben. Resultaten från en empirisk enkät vilken 236 forskare från olika delar av världen svarade på visade att de redan i dagsläget laddar ned 51 % av allt det material de läser via Internet. Som läsare prioriterar de ännu gratis och snabb tillgång till andras publikationer via Internet, men som författare är de konservativa och framförallt måna att publicera sig i tidskrifter med hög prestige, även på bekostnad av snabb publicering och lättillgänglighet.

2000

Björk, Bo-Christer, Turk, Ziga. How Scientists Retrieve Publications: An Empirical Study of How the Internet Is Overtaking Paper Media. Journal of Electronic Publishing, Michigan University Press, Vol. 6/2.  2000
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Abstract. A survey of how scientists retrieve publications was conducted in February 2000, aimed at measuring to what extent the opportunities offered by the Internet are already changing the scientific information exchange and how researchers feel about this. This paper presents the results based on 236 replies to an extensive Web-based questionnaire, which was announced to around 3,000 researchers in the domains of construction information technology and construction management. The questions dealt with how researchers find, access, and read different sources; how many and what publications they read; how often and to which conferences they travel; how much they publish, and criteria for where they eventually decide to publish. Some of the questions confronted traditional and electronic publishing, with one final section dedicated to opinions about electronic publishing. According to the survey, researchers already download half of the material that they read digitally from the Web. The most popular method for retrieving an interesting publication is downloading it for free from the author's or publisher's Web site. Researchers are not particularly willing to pay for electronic scientific publications. There is much support for a scenario of electronic journals available freely in their entirety on the Web, where the costs could be covered by, for instance, professional societies or the publishing university.

Björk, Bo-Christer, Turk, Ziga. How do researchers find and retrieve scientific publications – a case study of the impact of the Internet on the construction IT and construction management research communities. Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction, Vol 5 (2000) / 5
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Abstract. The World Wide Web provides the opportunity for a radically changed and much more efficient communication process for scientific results. A survey in the closely related domains of construction information technology and construction management was conducted in February 2000, aimed at measuring to what extent these opportunities are already changing the scientific information exchange and how researchers feel about the changes. The paper presents the results based on 236 replies to an extensive Web based questionnaire. 65% of the respondents stated their primary research interest as IT in A/E/C and 20% as construction management and economics. The questions dealt with how researchers find, access and read different sources; how much and what publications they read; how often and to which conferences they travel; how much they publish, and what are the criteria for where they eventually decide to publish. Some of the questions confronted traditional and electronic publishing with one final section dedicated to opinions about electronic publishing. According to the survey researchers already download half of the material that they read digitally from the Web. The most popular method for retrieving an interesting publication is downloading it for free from the author’s or publisher’s website. Researchers are not particularly willing to pay for electronic scientific publications. There is much support for a scenario of electronic journals available totally freely on the Web, where the costs could be covered by for instance professional societies or the publishing university. The shift that the Web is causing seems to be towards the "just in time" reading of literature. Also, frequent users of the Web rely less on scientific publications and tend to read fewer articles. If available with little effort, papers published in traditional journals are preferred; if not, the papers should be on the Web. In these circumstances, the role of paper-based journals published by established publishers is shifting from the core "information exchange" to the building of authors' prestige. The respondents feel they should build up their reputations by publishing in journals and relevant conferences, but then make their work freely available on the Web.

1996

Bjork, B., 1996. ITcon--Re-Engineering the Scientific Publishing Process. INFORMATION, Centre International du batiment, October/November - Nr. 4/96. http://oacs.shh.fi/publications.html
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Abstract. The prevailing methods for publishing scientific research results are inefficient, slow and expensive. It usually takes between one to two years from the original submission of a manuscript to its final printing in an issue of a peer-reviewed journal. In addition publication as such is no guarantee that the information reaches its target readership. Fortunately recent developments in IT and computer networks, the World Wide Web (WWW) in particular, offer good opportunities for radically reengineering the scientific publishing process. Since commercial publishers are moving rather slowly to utilise the full potential of these new techniques, researchers in many fields are taking the lead in the publication of electronic journals. The Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction - ITcon, is the first such journal devoted to a sub-discipline of civil engineering.

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Updated: 26.05.2009