Serbian Citation Index: The sustainability of a business model based on partnership between a non-profit web publisher and journal owners

The paper presents an in-depth analysis of the innovative business model underlying the SerbianCitation Index (SCIndeks), as a local Open Access publishing platform in Serbia. It explains therole of the platform in the local publishing ecosystem and its international relevance in terms ofinteroperability, multilingualism, promotion of local research, development of good publishingpractice and evaluation indicators, demonstrating that the only way to ensure a sustainablefuture of local journals is devising publishing models adjusted to the local context and needs relying on extensive research and receptiveness for global trends. The paper focuses on theperiod after 2015, when the business model was changed from a publicly funded project to aplatform maintained in a partnership between a web publisher and journal owners, marked byextensive guidance and strict quality control. The results of the comparisons between the old andthe new model and between SCIndeks and similar platforms indicate that such a model may besustainable and even superior to the publicly funded model of journal publishing, at least in somesocio-political and academic environments.Conference presentation: [https://twitter.com/ELPUB_Conf/status/1252545663595958273

Elektronski izvori informacija u Biblioteci Naučnog instituta za veterinarstvo - full text radovi istraživača i njihova citiranost

In the contemporary society development of today the economy of information is transforming into the economy of knowledge and the knowledge management is based on the identification, retrieval, evaluating and making accessible for using and satisfying the user information needs. The importance and role of the Library of the Research Institute for Veterinary Medicine in Novi Sad, which tries to fulfill the new requirements in the process of its own advancement, are reviewed. Once the Institute's research documents have been analytically processed in accordance to the ISBD(CP) standard, their records are included into the database of the Institute's Library, as well as their full-text accompanied by the coefficient of scientific evaluating. The citation coefficient of the Institute researchers is given a special attention during the information processing in the Library

Beyond Open Access mandates: institutional repositories as building blocks in open scholarly communication

Aim: The presentation traces the emerging roles of institutional repositories in Serbia, beyond the main task required by the national Open Science (OS) policy (adopted in 2018): to serve as Green Open Access (OA) venues. Background: At the time when the national OS policy was adopted (2018), Serbia had already had a developed network of Diamond OA journals and a national repository of PhD theses, but there were only a few fully functional institutional repositories. To comply with the policy, which mandates Open Access to publications, research organizations have undertaken to establish institutional repositories, without dedicated financial support from public funders. Almost three years later, there are around 40 repositories and their content goes beyond the policy requirements. Methods: The presence of content types not covered by the OA mandate (posters, images, research data, etc.) and the coverage of content from the period preceding the adoption of the OA mandate are taken as the quantitative indicators of the emerging roles for institutional repositories in Serbia. We analyze content types in around 40 institutional repositories based on data provided by repositories and aggregators. A qualitative analysis based on a survey conducted among repository managers is also presented. Finally, as the authors are also members of a repository development team, a brief overview of measures taken towards supporting the emerging roles of institutional repositories is given. Results and discussion: The results show that although most institutional repositories in Serbia were established with the aim of ensuring compliance with the OA mandate, research organizations have assigned them other roles, namely: to serve as comprehensive digital libraries of the institution’s research outputs as, far back in history as possible, no matter whether the content is OA or not; to serve as a source of information in various reporting procedures (annual reports, promotion procedures, etc.); to showcase the institution’s publishing activity; to make print-only publications, especially monographs, available in a digital environment; to showcase various non-publication outputs (technical reports, posters, promotional materials, students’ works, etc.); to serve as research data repositories. One of the most important incentives for this is the high visibility of local repositories and their content in international aggregators, discovery platforms (OpenAIRE, BASE, CORE), and search engines (Google Scholar). There is an apparent tendency to make content open whenever possible. Interestingly, institutional repositories in Serbia are still not used for sharing Open Education Resources and training materials. The initiative to increase content diversity in an institutional repository usually comes either from institutional decision-makers or from librarians. Whether an innovative idea in this direction will be realized or not largely depends on the readiness of repository development teams and librarians to support it. Conclusion: In most cases, once an institution decides to invest in a repository, it wants to make the best use of it, especially if its functionalities can make up for some missing links in the local infrastructure for scholarly communication (e.g. book publishing platforms or CRIS). Our analysis shows that institutional repositories can successfully meet various innovative needs and serve as crucial building blocks of open scholarly communication if appropriate support from repository developers and librarians is provided. Furthermore, training related to repositories and researchers’ involvement with this type of infrastructure contribute to the development of skills relevant for Open Science and scholarly communication. The fact that innovative initiatives come from within institutions, without any pressure from research funders, indicates that there is an intrinsic interest in open scholarly communication. On the other hand, the lack of incentives from the responsible ministry may be discouraging in the long term

Setting the scene for a sustainable national repository network in Serbia

Serbian research community faces a major delay in the development of the national and institutional infrastructure for open science. To mitigate this, the University of Belgrade Computer Centre (RCUB) undertook to develop an interoperable, sustainable and affordable software and organizational model suitable for Serbian research organizations. The solution rests on the following pillars: a customized software platform based on DSpace: a separate instance installed for each organization (so far, a dozen and growing), all of them hosted, centrally maintained and further developed by RCUB; a set of tools and external applications developed to improve DSpace functionalities and respond to users’ needs (e.g. performing automated maintenance tasks, assigning ORCIDs, metadata normalization, massive metadata import, monitoring Altmetric scores, creating author profiles); standardized workflows and quality control; integration of repositories in international infrastructures;  flexible technical support and training for repository managers and users. In this model, the compliance with the OpenAIRE Guidelines for Literature Repositories v.3 is of paramount importance because the OpenAIRE infrastructure is heavily used, as there is no national system for tracking research outputs (e.g. CRIS). Apart from OpenAIRE, the repository content is harvested by BASE, Unpaywall, CORE and WorldCat. The platform is optimized for Google Scholar crawlers. Users are encouraged to deposit content types other than conventional research publications, and additional customizations are made, if necessary, to enable this (e.g. for spatial plans). Positive results are already apparent, the most important being: an increased visibility of Serbian research outputs, especially in humanities; 90–100% of deposits in humanities are OA; fairly high percentage of full-text content in repositories (75% on average); growing awareness in the local research community of repositories’ potential in scholarly communication. Priorities for further development include upgrading to DSpace 7 and compliance with OpenAIRE Guidelines v.4

DSpace – institutional repositories – dissemination of research results: A local case study

DSpace is an open source software package intended for creating digital archives. It is primarily used as a platform for open access repositories and it enables (1) archiving various types of documents in a variety of digital formats and describing them using a standardized set of metadata; (2) searching the repository content (metadata and full-text content, in case of textual documents); (3) importing and exporting the repository content and (4) disseminating it via OAI-PMH. At the administration level, it is possible to assign and control user roles and access to metadata and deposited documents. The platform is customizable and it is available in multiple languages (community translations). The software package is developed and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by the non-profit organization Dura Space. DSpace is the most commonly used repository software: 43% of all repositories registered in OpenDOAR use DSpace as the platform. DSpace is also the backbone of Serbia’s (still underdeveloped) repository infrastructure, which heavily relies on a number of DSpace instances installed, customized and maintained by the Computer Centre of the University of Belgrade. These are namely the national repository of PhD theses (NaRDuS) and institutional repositories of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and three research institutes of the University of Belgrade. This case study deals with the institutional repositories established and maintained by the Computer Centre of the University of Belgrade. It presents the challenges faced during the processes of customizing the software platform, ensuring interoperability and integration with major international open science infrastructures, devising standardized workflows and procedures, and training administrators and users – librarians and researchers. The established institutional repositories serve as a powerful research dissemination platform, especially in those disciplines where print publications in local languages still prevail

Building capacity for Open Science through institutional repository training

Apart from an underdeveloped infrastructure, a major obstacle to the implementation of the national Open Science (OS) Platform (adopted in 2018) in Serbia was the lack of institutionalized training for librarians and researchers. Training on OS was provided mainly through international projects. The Library and Information Science curriculum, professional development programmes for librarians, and training offered by university libraries were not focused on developing skills for OS. When the University of Belgrade Computer Centre started building the repository infrastructure, this knowledge gap hindered the adoption of repositories and it was soon realized that the service package offered to institutions (software, hosting, technical support) should also include training, both for repository managers (usually librarians) and end users (researchers). To this end, a user support team was established. Two training modules and materials have been designed, and users have been offered a flexible training schedule. To address the knowledge gap, the training covers a range of topics beyond repository features and workflows: Open Access policies, FAIR principles, metadata standards, copyright, self-archiving policies, altmetrics, dissemination through metadata harvesting, discovery platforms (OpenAIRE, BASE, CORE), using institutional repositories in the context of Research Data Management and cultural heritage. So far, this concept has proven to be efficient in mitigating the lack of institutionalized training. Along with supporting the growth of institutional repositories (more than 20 in three years), this approach to training has helped build an institutional capacity for OS, raise the awareness of librarians’ roles, and increase employment opportunities for librarians. At the same time, it has stirred an interest in archiving research data and non-publication materials in institutional repositories, as well as a growing demand among researchers and librarians for additional, more specialized training, which can be easily provided by expanding the existing concept in a modular fashion.Conference presentation: [https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5543994]Video recording: [https://youtu.be/g0a5XUtDeFg?t=1610

Stanje oralnog zdravlja dece sa posebnim potrebama

Background/Aim. Due to their primary medical condition, children with special needs often display lower levels of oral hygiene, larger prevalence of caries and other oral diseases. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of dental caries, oral cleanliness and presence of malocclusion in children with disabilities, as well as to evaluate eruption time of the permanent molars. Methods. Case-control study was carried out on a group of 107 children with disabilities at the Faculty of Dental Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia. The control group comprised of 104 healthy school children. Results. Children with disabilities had statistically higher mean [decayed missing and filled teeth - dmft for primary DMF for permanent dentition (dmft DMFT)] values in both dentitions than children from the control group (p lt 0.05). Oral cleanliness level was much lower in children with disabilities. A significantly higher percentage of Class II malocclusions and a higher tendency to have a delayed time of eruption of permanent molars were observed in the test group in permanent dentition. Conclusion. Considering poor oral health status and higher tendency for development of malloclusions and delayed eruption, it is necessary to develop preventive dental programmes for children with special needs, as well as improve public awareness about these issues.Uvod/Cilj. Deca sa posebnim potrebama često zbog svoje primarne bolesti, imaju niži nivo oralne higijene i veću prevalencu karijesa i drugih oralnih oboljenja. Cilj rada bio je da se proceni prevalenca karijesa, nivoa oralne higijene i prisustvo malokluzija kod dece sa posebnim potrebama, kao i vreme erupcije stalnih molara. Metode. Ispitivanjem oralnog zdravlja obuhvaćeno je 107 dece sa posebnim potrebama na Klinici za dečju i preventivnu stomatologiju Stomatološkog fakulteta u Beogradu. Kontrolnu grupu je činilo 104 zdrave školske dece. Rezultati. Deca sa posebnim potrebama imala su statistički značajno viši nivo indeksa karijesnih, ekstrahovanih i plombiranih zuba (KEP) u obe denticije, u odnosu na kontrolnu grupu (p lt 0.05). Nivo oralne higijene bio je lošiji kod dece sa posebnim potrebama. Takođe, primećeno je statistički značajno povećanje malokluzija klase II, kao i kasnije vreme erupcije stalnih molara kod dece sa posebnim potrebama u odnosu na kontrolnu grupu. Zaključak. Zbog lošijeg stanja oralnog zdravlja i povećane verovatnoće razvoja malokluzija i odloženog nicanja zuba, neophodno je formirati preventivne stomatološke programe za decu sa posebnim potrebama, kao i poboljšati informisanost javnosti o ovom problemu

Electroconvulsive therapy: eighty years of Croatian and international experience

Elektrokonvulzivna terapija (EKT) i nakon više od 80 godina primjene i dalje predstavlja najučinkovitiju terapiju kod najtežih kliničkih slika psihijatrijskih poremećaja. U Hrvatskoj se EKT primjenjuje od 40-ih godina prošlog stoljeća. Danas se koristi samo u KBC-u Zagreb, najčešće u pacijenata sa shizofrenijom. Brojna istraživanja su utvrdila različite biološke učinke EKT-a koji pridonose antidepresivnom, antimaničnom, antipsihotičnom, antikonvulzivnom i antiparkinsonskom učinku. Konvulzije imaju snažan učinak na perfuziju i metabolizam pojedinih moždanih regija, povećanje propusnosti krvnomoždane barijere te imaju modulatorni učinak na glutamatnu, GABA, serotoninsku, dopaminsku i noradrenergičku neurotransmisiju, hormonalnu sekreciju, promjene u ekspresiji brojnih gena te potiču neuroplastičnost i u konačnici dovode do strukturnih promjena mozga. Neke su od ovih promjena kratkog vijeka, a neke traju mjesecima, poput neuroplastičnosti. Iako se EKT smatra medicinskim postupkom niskog rizika, mnoge teške somatske bolesti zahtijevaju pažljivu procjenu koristi i rizika. Najčešće su neželjene reakcije prolazne teškoće pamćenja i glavobolja. Prije prve aplikacije kandidati prolaze detaljnu dijagnostičku obradu u skladu s međunarodnim standardima. U postupku primjene EKT-a sudjeluje interdisciplinarni tim koji uključuje psihijatra, anesteziologa, anesteziološku sestru/tehničara i psihijatrijsku sestru/tehničara. Primjena opće anestezije omogućuje brz gubitak svijesti, kratkotrajnu mišićnu relaksaciju, smanjenje hiperdinamskog odgovora na električnu stimulaciju te brz oporavak spontane ventilacije i svijesti. Nedavno su predložene Hrvatske nacionalne smjernice o primjeni EKT-a. Zbog učinka u terapijskoj rezistenciji te kod vrlo teških kliničkih slika EKT može ostvariti značajan učinak u pažljivo odabranih bolesnika.Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), even more than 80 years since its introduction, continues to be the most effective treatment for severe mental disorders. Croatian psychiatrists have used ECT since 1940s. Today it is performed only at the University Hospital Centre Zagreb, predominantly in patients with schizophrenia. Extensive research reported numerous biological effects of ECT, which contribute to its antidepressant, antimanic, antipsychotic, anticonvulsive and antiparkinsonian effects. Convulsions trigger changes in the cerebral blood flow and metabolism, increase the permeability of the blood-brain barrier, modulate glutamatergic, GABAergic, serotonergic, noradrenergic and dopaminergic neurotransmission, affect hormone secretion, gene expression, stimulate neuroplasticity, and eventually induce brain structural changes. Some of these effects are short-lasting and others, such a neuroplasticity, last for at least several months. While ECT is generally considered a low-risk medical treatment, patients with severe somatic comorbidity require careful risk-benefit assessment. The most commonly observed adverse events are transient forgetfulness and headache. Prior to initiation, candidates undergo comprehensive diagnostic evaluation according to international standards. The procedure is performed by an interdisciplinary team, consisting of psychiatrist, anesthesiologist, and psychiatric and anesthesiological nurses. The application of general anesthesia enables rapid loss of consciousness, short-time muscular relaxation, suppression of hyperdynamic response to electrical current and fast recovery of breathing and awareness. Recently, the Croatian expert group has proposed national guidelines for the ECT treatment. Due to its efficacy in both treatment-refractory and very severe symptomatology, ECT might be of a great benefit in carefully selected patients

Building National Open Science Cloud Initiatives (NOSCIs) in Southeast Europe: supporting research and scholarly communication

The National Initiatives for Open Science in Europe (NI4OS Europe) project supports the development of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) by contributing to its portfolio of services, by involving national and regional research communities in the EOSC governance, by strengthening open science (OS) practices, and by promoting the FAIR principles (Macan et al., 2020; Garavelli et al., 2021) to help build the infrastructure and create a favourable environment for open and intensive scholarly communication. The main instrument in achieving this is the network of 15 national Open Science Cloud Initiatives (NOSCIs) established in the partner countries as national-level coalitions of Open Science stakeholders that have a prominent role and interest in the EOSC. The concept of NOSCI has been developed in response to the specific traits and challenges in the targeted region, based on complex and multilayered analyses of stakeholders, policies, and local contexts (Toli et al., 2020). Inclusive by nature, NOSCIs connect stakeholders from across the research lifecycle at the national level and provide not only a testbed for the formulation of OS policies but also a forum for knowledge dissemination and sharing. Drawing on a secondary analysis of the abundant data collected and materials produced during the project, this presentation focuses on the challenges identified as the NOSCIs were built – from data collection in the context of landscaping (Kosanović & Ševkušić, 2019) and policy analysis, through concept development, to implementation, testing, and verification (use cases). It highlights the relationship between individual challenges and NOSCI elements that address these challenges. The challenges are largely owed to diversities within the region, most notably the varying levels of integration into European structures (of the 15 partner countries, eight are not EU members), linguistic diversity, different research governance systems, policy traditions, and available funding. The framework for NOSCI development, the so-called blueprint (Toli et al., 2020), was designed in full recognition of these diversities. It relies on three modular workflows (Toli et al., 2021) and gives maximum flexibility to countries or national initiatives while making sure that all locally specific aspects are addressed. We believe that the approach adopted by the NI4OS-Europe team could be applied in other highlydiversified environments, as has been demonstrated by the NI4OS-Europe use cases, thanks to the flexible mechanism of interaction between challenges and responses underlying the very concept of NOSCI.Interactive poster: https://open.ac.rs/index.php/ni4os-europe-pubmet2022-posterPoster: [http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7315249]Full paper: [https://dais.sanu.ac.rs/admin/10.3390/publications10040042

Building National Open Science Cloud Initiatives (NOSCIs) in Southeast Europe: supporting research and scholarly communication

The National Initiatives for Open Science in Europe (NI4OS Europe) project supports the development of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) by contributing to its portfolio of services, by involving national and regional research communities in the EOSC governance, by strengthening open science (OS) practices, and by promoting the FAIR principles (Macan et al., 2020; Garavelli et al., 2021) to help build the infrastructure and create a favourable environment for open and intensive scholarly communication.The main instrument in achieving this is the network of 15 national Open Science Cloud Initiatives (NOSCIs) established in the partner countries as national-level coalitions of Open Science stakeholders that have a prominent role and interest in the EOSC. The concept of NOSCI has been developed in response to the specific traits and challenges in the targeted region, based on complex and multilayered analyses of stakeholders, policies, and local contexts (Toli et al., 2020). Inclusive by nature, NOSCIs connect stakeholders from across the research lifecycle at the national level and provide not only a testbed for the formulation of OS policies but also a forum for knowledge dissemination and sharing.Drawing on a secondary analysis of the abundant data collected and materials produced during the project, this presentation focuses on the challenges identified as the NOSCIs were built – from data collection in the context of landscaping (Kosanović & Ševkušić, 2019) and policy analysis, through concept development, to implementation, testing, and verification (use cases). It highlights the relationship between individual challenges and NOSCI elements that address these challenges.The challenges are largely owed to diversities within the region, most notably the varying levels of integration into European structures (of the 15 partner countries, eight are not EU members), linguistic diversity, different research governance systems, policy traditions, and available funding. The framework for NOSCI development, the so-called blueprint (Toli et al., 2020), was designed in full recognition of these diversities. It relies on three modular workflows (Toli et al., 2021) and gives maximum flexibility to countries or national initiatives while making sure that all locally specific aspects are addressed.We believe that the approach adopted by the NI4OS-Europe team could be applied in other highlydiversified environments, as has been demonstrated by the NI4OS-Europe use cases, thanks to the flexible mechanism of interaction between challenges and responses underlying the very concept of NOSCI.The results presented in this poster were subsequently published in: Ševkušić M, Toli E, Lenaki K, Kanavou K, Sifakaki E, Kosanović B, Papastamatiou I, Papadopoulou E. Building National Open Science Cloud Initiatives (NOSCIs) in Southeast Europe: Supporting Research and Scholarly Communication. Publications. 2022; 10(4):42. [https://doi.org/10.3390/publications10040042]Interactive version: [https://open.ac.rs/index.php/ni4os-europe-pubmet2022-poster]Conference abstract: [https://doi.org/10.15291/pubmet.3952]Conference abstract: [https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_dais_13397