The advancement of open access to scientific knowledge has become a determining strategy in the sphere of scientific communication. Open access implies, along with a free access to full-text information online, the creation of a legal basis for the results of research to be used fairly by all interested bodies. The Directory of Open Access Journals, DOAJ, as well as other similar institutions, carries the mission of providing and guaranteeing the quality of open access. Russian journals are increasingly become part of this project, which is considered to be a positive trend. Currently, about 163 Russian titles are listed in DOAJ. However, some journals face difficulties in bringing their publication standards in compliance with the DOAJ quality criteria, which has become a reason for suspending 15 Russian titles from this esteemed international database. This article investigates the process of open access advancement inRussia, in particular, the implementation of international quality standards in the sphere of Russian scientific periodicals. Main DOAJ acceptance criteria are analyzed, as well as those problems that Russian titles experience adapting to them.

Russian medical journals are presented in the Scopus database in a limited number, although demonstrating a significant increase over the past 2 years, featured about 70 journals at the end of 2017 (including those coming from Medline, which are not viewed as indexed by Scopus). This value cannot be considered representative of Russian medical science, particularly in comparison with the total number of medical journals and Russian journals of other subjects in Scopus. Therefore, it seems important to assess the possibility of expanding the presence of Russian medical titles in Scopus, as well as to understand which medical fields or areas are poorly represented or not covered by Russian journals. The Medical Section of the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP) is currently working to identify the most promising journals and help them to prepare for inclusion in Scopus. To this end, a preliminary selection out of 1000 journals was carried out to reveal 335 titles that, according to the authors, can be classified as major Russian medical scientific journals. These journals are either indexed in Scopus, or seen as good candidates for this database. Subsequently, the selected journals were analysed in terms of their subject classification according to the Scopus All Science Journal Classification Code List (ASJC). The key objectives were (1) to determine the subject classification of those Russian titles that, according to preliminary estimates, can meet the needs of Russian researchers in presenting their results in Scopus and (2) to identify those journals that can fill the gap of certain subject areas under represented by Russian journals. Our study has revealed that Russian titles are not distributed homogeneously among clinical, medical, biological and other related thematic areas. Among the 335 journals, 2/3 represent clinical medicine in 49 categories, with the remaining 82 categories accounting for 1/3 of the titles on related subjects. This data shows that publications on medicine in Russian journals are dispersed across various journals. Along with this, a significant part of related subject area journals is well-represented in Scopus. The journals selected as a result of the research were included in the preliminary list of titles considered as candidates for the State Support Programme that began in 2017.

The article probes into challenges, which scientific peer-reviewed journals face in Russia in respect to attracting expert reviewers competent in the scientific field of reviewed articles from various universities and academic centers.

The authors suggest for public discussion a model of journal clusters in different scientific fields with a view to forming a base of reviewers representing multiple locations and specialties within one branch of science. The suggested approach may lead to organizing the reviewing process at its utmost and is likely to consolidate the academia within professional and scientific or academic associations (as exemplified by RASEP).

Background. Open access (OA) publishing via article processing charges (APCs) is growing as an alternative to subscription publishing. The Pay It Forward (PIF) Project is exploring the feasibility of transitioning from paying subscriptions to funding APCs for faculty at research intensive universities. Estimating of the cost of APCs for the journals authors at research intensive universities tend to publish is essential for the PIF project and similar initiatives. This paper presents our research into this question.

Methods . We identified APC prices for publications by authors at the 4 research intensive United States (US) and Canadian universities involved in the study. We also obtained APC payment records from several Western European universities and funding agencies. Both data sets were merged with Web of Science (WoS) metadata. We calculated the average APCs for articles and proceedings in 13 discipline categories published by researchers at research intensive universities. Wealso identified 41 journals published by traditionally subscription publishers which have recently converted to APC funded OA and recorded the APCs they charge.

Results . We identified 7629 payment records from the 4 European APC payment databases and 14 356 OA articles authored by PIF partner university faculty for which we had listed APC prices. APCs for full OA journals published by PIF authors averaged 1775 USD; full OA journal APCs paid by Western European funders averaged 1865 USD; hybrid APCs paid by Western European funders averaged 2887 USD. The APC for converted journals published by major subscription publishers averaged 1825 USD. APC funded OA is concentrated in the life and basic sciences. APCs funded articles in the social sciences and humanities are often multidisciplinary and published in journals such as PLOS ONE that largely publish in the life sciences.

Conclusions . Full OA journal APCs average a little under 2000 USD while hybrid articles average about 3000 USD for publications by researchers at research intensive universities. There is a lack of information on discipline differences in APCs due to the concentration of APC funded publications in a few fields and the multidisciplinary nature of research.

The incidence of academic misconduct in publishing appears to be increasing and is creating a moral outrage. This papers looks at two contributing factors: the collision of different understandings of what is and what is not, acceptable, and the increasing pressure on students and faculty to publish. It concludes that detection and punishment are not the sole solution to the problem: we need better education in publication ethics and the responsibility for that must be shared between journal and research supervisors.

Computerization and IT penetration of many spheres of public life did affect the editorial-and-publishing process as well. On the one hand, this allows significant facilitation of academic periodicals establishment and quickening of issues appearance. On the other hand, rich technological capacities of word processing combined with troublesome economic environment and lack of up-to-date scientifically-based standards for editing and publishing operations lead to deterioration in research articles quality and as a result, to increasingly negative attitude towards university journals. Precisely, major obstacles hampering the work of humanities-oriented academic journal published by technical university are associated with quality of authors’ manuscripts. It is not easy for small editorial staff to keep the journal issues’ content at an adequate level. Nevertheless the editorial board works hard to stand up to reality.

The article contains recommendations on the creation and presentation of articles in the scientific journal. These recommendations were developed by the author on the basis of many years’ experience in creating and promoting scientific network logs of free access. When developing recommendations, the author took into account the requirements for the journals for inclusion in the List of the Higher Attestation Commission and Roskomnadzor, as well as the modern requirements for compliance with the scientific publication ethics. First of all, the author draws attention to the fact that, in the modern conditions, the difference between a paper journal and a network publication lies only in the lack of the possibility for readers to download/read the articles free of charge directly from the journal’s website. The article emphasizes that, as the best option, it can recommend to publish a separate journal on the separate site that has its own unique domain name registered to the publisher/founder of the journal. It is also noted that it is best to create a full-fledged English-language version of the site, the presence of which significantly increases the journal chances of the entry in the International Database of Scientific Citation. The special attention is paid to usability of the site. The author gives the recommendations for filling the website sections, in particular: the section «About the Journal», editorial policies and pages of the website dedicated to the ethical issues. The recommendations for presentation of the section devoted to the retraction of scientific articles are given.

The Academic Publishing in Europe 12 (APE 2017) — Publishing Ethics: Doing the Right Thing — Doing Things Right, 17–18 January 2017, Berlin, Germany

Peer Review Week–2017: Transparency, 11–17 September 2017

8th International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication, 10–12 September 2017, Chicago, USA

FORCE 2017: Changingtheculture, 25–27 October 2017, Berlin, Germany

14th Extended Semantic Web Conference, 28 May – 1 June 2017, Portopož, Slovenia