FAIRness and Usability for Open-access Omics Data Systems

Omics data sharing is crucial to the biological research community, and the last decade or two has seen a huge rise in collaborative analysis systems, databases, and knowledge bases for omics and other systems biology data. We assessed the FAIRness of NASAs GeneLab Data Systems (GLDS) along with four similar kinds of systems in the research omics data domain, using 14 FAIRness metrics. The range of overall FAIRness scores was 6-12 (out of 14), average 10.1, and standard deviation 2.4. The range of Pass ratings for the metrics was 29-79%, Partial Pass 0-21%, and Fail 7-50%. The systems we evaluated performed the best in the areas of data findability and accessibility, and worst in the area of data interoperability. Reusability of metadata, in particular, was frequently not well supported. We relate our experiences implementing semantic integration of omics data from some of the assessed systems for federated querying and retrieval functions, given their shortcomings in data interoperability. Finally, we propose two new principles that Big Data system developers, in particular, should consider for maximizing data accessibility

Digital Object Identifier and their Use in Accessing Online Scholarly Materials in Africa

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) has been internationally recognized as a standard for identifying information resources on the web. It is an advanced tool that provides unique identification or permanent links to find specific journal articles and other information resources online. This paper discusses digital object identifier and their use in accessing online scholarly materials in Africa. It looks at the extent of Uniform Resource Locators (URL), understanding DOI functionalities, and benefits of DOI, scholarly materials with DOI in Africa with a critical examination of African Online Journals (AJOL) which is the biggest database in Africa. It was therefore discovered that the use and application of DOI in accessing online scholarly materials of African origin is still at crawling stage. The study recommends that the publishers in Africa should take advantage of this development by doing the needful and emulate those journals in African Online Journals (AJOL) to register their publications for DOI. This will enhance wider visibility and easy retrieval of African scholarly materials, while African authors also needs to wake up to explore the benefit of the DOI

FAIRness and Usability for Open-Access Omics Data Systems

Omics data sharing is especially crucial to the biological research community, and the last decade or two has seen a huge rise in collaborative analysis systems, databases, and knowledge bases for omics and other systems biology data. We assessed the "FAIRness" of NASA's GeneLab Data Systems (GLDS) along with four similar kinds of systems in the research omics data domain, using 14 FAIRness metrics. 14 metrics. The range of Pass ratings was 29-79% of the 14 metrics, Partial Pass 0-21%, and Fail 7-50%. The range of overall FAIRness scores was 5-12 (out of 14). The systems we evaluated performed the best in the areas of data findability and accessibility, and worst in the area of data interoperability. We propose two new principles that Big Data systems, in particular, should consider for increasing data accessibility. We relate our experiences implementing semantic integration of omics data from several systems for the federated querying and retrieval functions of the GLDS, given the shortcomings in data interoperability of these systems

New academic journals: an international overview of indexing and access models

Introduction. An international analysis of academic journals newly created in the period from 2011 to 2020 according to type of publisher, place of publication, their relationship with open access, and their indexing in databases. Studies of the issues of concentration of journal publisher ownership, uses of metrics, and access to titles reveal a changing landscape that is nevertheless still dominated by large commercial oligopolies. One notable trend is the creation of new titles in various configurations

The Applications of APA styles in African Academic publications: An Evidence from Bahir Dar Journal of Education

Having skimmed through recently published articles of Bahir Journal of Education (BJE), I inadvertently engrossed with a few imperfections that are incompatible with a currently in use publication manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) style. Notwithstanding strong efforts have been made to produce high-quality articles in terms of contents, methodological approaches and scientific credibility, the oversights of very technical details of specific APA style and formatting have been found. From professional points of views, these oversights might certainly affect the quality of the journal. The main objective of this paper is to uncover the frequent errors that overlooked within the articles since 2014, and thereby to conquer the errors using sixth edition publication manual of the APA and up-to-date manuscripts that are available at the http://apastyle.apa.org/. I presented a series of errors observed in seven randomly selected articles regarding the titles, abstracts, citations, methods, statistical presentations and lists of reference entries to take viable measures that tackle the errors virtually. Finally, based on the observed mismatches, I forwarded implications for the quick use of publication manual of APA that could support the authors, the reviewers and the examiners of the journal articles. Keywords: BJE; APA styles; publication manual; oversights; frequent errors DOI: 10.7176/IKM/9-2-0

The fundamental problem blocking open access and how to overcome it : the BitViews project

In our view the fundamental obstacle to open access (OA) is the lack of any incentive-based mechanism that unbundles authors’ accepted manuscripts (AMs) from articles (VoRs). The former can be seen as the public good that ought to be openly accessible, whereas the latter is owned by publishers and rightly paywall-restricted. We propose one such mechanism to overcome this obstacle: BitViews. BitViews is a blockchain-based application that aims to revolutionize the OA publishing ecosystem. Currently, the main academic currency of value is the citation. There have been attempts in the past to create a second currency whose measure is the online usage of research materials (e.g., PIRUS). However, these have failed due to two problems. Firstly, it has been impossible to find a single agency willing to co-ordinate and fund the validation and collation of global online usage data. Secondly, online usage metrics have lacked transparency in how they filter non-human online activity. BitViews is a novel solution which uses blockchain technology to bypass both problems: online AM usage will be recorded on a public, distributed ledger, obviating the need for a central responsible agency, and the rules governing activity-filtering will be part of the open-source BitViews blockchain application, creating complete transparency. Once online AM usage has measurable value, researchers will be incentivized to promote and disseminate AMs. This will fundamentally re-orient the academic publishing ecosystem. A key feature of BitViews is that its success (or failure) is wholly and exclusively in the hands of the worldwide community of university and research libraries, as we suggest that it ought to be financed by conditional crowdfunding, whereby the actual financial commitment of each contributing library depends on the total amount raised. If the financing target is not reached, then all contributions are returned in full and if the target is over-fulfilled, then the surplus is returned pro rata.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

New academic journals

Une analyse internationale des revues académiques nouvellement créées dans la période 2011-2020 selon le type d’éditeur, le lieu de publication, leur relation avec le libre accès et leur indexation dans les bases de données. Les études sur les questions de concentration de la propriété des éditeurs de revues, l’utilisation des métriques et l’accès aux titres révèlent un paysage changeant qui reste néanmoins dominé par les grands oligopoles commerciaux. Une tendance notable est la création de nouveaux titres dans diverses configurations