Keiko Kurata

Remarkable Growth of Open Access in the Biomedical Field: Analysis of PubMed Articles from 2006 to 2010

Introduction This study clarifies the trends observed in open access (OA) in the biomedical field between 2006 and 2010, and explores the possible explanations for the differences in OA rates revealed in recent surveys. Methods The study consists of a main survey and two supplementary surveys. In the main survey, a manual Google search was performed to investigate whether full-text versions of articles from PubMed were freely available. Target samples were articles published in 2005, 2007, and 2009; the searches were performed a year after publication in 2006, 2008, and 2010, respectively. Using the search results, we classified the OA provision methods into seven categories. The supplementary surveys calculated the OA rate using two search functions on PubMed: “LinkOut” and “Limits.” Results The main survey concluded that the OA rate increased significantly between 2006 and 2010: the OA rate in 2010 (50.2%) was twice that in 2006 (26.3%). Furthermore, majority of OA articles were available from OA journal (OAJ) websites, indicating that OAJs have consistently been a significant contributor to OA throughout the period. OA availability through the PubMed Central (PMC) repository also increased significantly. OA rates obtained from two supplementary surveys were lower than those found in the main survey. “LinkOut” could find only 40% of OA articles in the main survey. Discussion OA articles in the biomedical field have more than a 50% share. OA has been achieved through OAJs. The reason why the OA rates in our surveys are different from those in recent surveys seems to be the difference in sampling methods and verification procedures.

Status of open access in the biomedical field in 2005

OBJECTIVES This study was designed to document the state of open access (OA) in the biomedical field in 2005. METHODS PubMed was used to collect bibliographic data on target articles published in 2005. PubMed, Google Scholar, Google, and OAIster were then used to establish the availability of free full text online for these publications. Articles were analyzed by type of OA, country, type of article, impact factor, publisher, and publishing model to provide insight into the current state of OA. RESULTS Twenty-seven percent of all the articles were accessible as OA articles. More than 70% of the OA articles were provided through journal websites. Mid-rank commercial publishers often provided OA articles in OA journals, while society publishers tended to provide OA articles in the context of a traditional subscription model. The rate of OA articles available from the websites of individual authors or in institutional repositories was quite low. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS In 2005, OA in the biomedical field was achieved under an umbrella of existing scholarly communication systems. Typically, OA articles were published as part of subscription journals published by scholarly societies. OA journals published by BioMed Central contributed to a small portion of all OA articles.

The current status of Open Access in biomedical field: the comparison of countries relating to the impact of national policies

The purpose of the article is to show the current status of Open Access (OA) in biomedical field, and compare some countries such as the U.S., the U.K. and Japan in terms of the OA situation. There are controversies about the definition of OA. After examining the requirements about OA, we recognized OA as the situation in which researchers could read the full text of articles in unrestricted way. In order to investigate the current situation of OA, 4,756 articles were sampled randomly from articles published between January and September in 2005 and indexed in PubMed. The main results are as follows: 1) The rate of OA articles was 25%, and 75% of all the articles were available online including electronic subscription journal articles. 2) The means of OA was classified into five types. Among them, the rate of OA articles by “OA and Hybrid OA journals” was overwhelming (more than 70%), and that of PMC was 26.2%. The rates of OA articles by “institutional repositories” and “authors’ personal sites” were considerably low (6.0% and 4.9% respectively). 3) When comparing the rates of OA articles by countries, Belgium ranked the first with 41.7%. The five countries indicated more than 30% in OA articles: Canada and India (38.7%), Brazil (36.4%), Australia (30.8%), and the U.S. (30.7%). Each country was different in the means of OA. 4) We explored the rates of OA for two groups; one group consists of articles published in journals with an impact factor (IF), and the other consists of articles published in journals without IF. The rate of OA for the group of articles in journals with IF is 20.6%, and that of articles in journals without IF is 30.8%.

Print or digital? Reading behavior and preferences in Japan

In todays digital age, daily reading may be becoming digital reading. To understand this possible shift from reading print media to reading digital media, we investigated reading behavior for 11 media and reading preferences between print and digital in different circumstances. In August 2012, an online survey was used to inquire about the reading behavior and preference of 1,755 participants, ranging in age from 18 to 69 years. The participants contained equal numbers of men and women from five age brackets. Our main finding was that approximately 70% of total reading time was spent on digital media and that preferences favored print media. Cluster analysis of reading time by media was used to categorize respondents into eight clusters, and a second cluster analysis on stated preference (digital or print) yielded six clusters. The correspondence analysis between reading behavior clusters and preference clusters revealed that there is a mismatch between reading behavior and stated preference for either print or digital media.

Identifying the Complex Position of Research Data and Data Sharing Among Researchers in Natural Science

This article aims to provide an overview of researchers’ practices and perceptions on data use and sharing. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 23 Japanese researchers in the natural sciences to identify their research practices and data use, including data sharing. We divided the interview scripts into meaningful phrases as a unit of analysis. Next, we focused on 406 statements on research data and reanalyzed them based on four aspects: stance on research data, practices and perceptions of data use, range of data sharing, and data type. A cluster analysis identified 14 clusters, which were divided into five groups: open access for data, restricted access for data, data interpretation, data processing and preservation, and data infrastructure. Our results reveal the complexity and diversity of the relationship between data and research practices. That is, the practice of research data sharing is heterogeneous, with no “one size fits all” between and among researchers.

The changes in Japanese researchers' usage and perception of electronic resources: Result of SCREAL Survey 2011

The Standing Committee for Research on Academic Libraries (SCREAL), in cooperation with 45 institutions in Japan, conducted a questionnaire survey from October to December 2011. As a result, 3,922 valid responses across various fields were collected. Following up this survey, we attempt here to clarify how usage and perception of e-journals and scholarly articles among researchers and graduate students in Japan changed. The basic findings were as follows. 1) More than 90% of respondents in natural sciences, including pharmaceutical science, chemistry, biology, physics and medicine, reported that they used e-journals at least once or twice a month. 2) E-journals were not as heavily used in humanities and social sciences as in natural sciences, but the proportion of regular users turned out to be more than 4 times that of the 2001 survey. 3) This difference in e-journals usage by discipline is strongly associated with the degree of dependence on domestic documents written in Japanese. The two groups of respondents, users of international documents and users of domestic documents, showed a statistically significant difference in answering the question concerning “Frequency of e-journals use.” 4) Attitude to the necessity of printed version drastically transmuted. 62.3% of respondents in natural sciences and 53.6% in humanities and social sciences thought “printed journals are unnecessary when e-journals are accessible.” 5) Use of digital devices for e-books was not popular as yet, but the respondents expressed their high interest in the future use. Some preliminary discussion is made to identify the factors affecting the usage and/or perception of electronic resources by Japanese researchers.

Conceptual design for comprehensive research support platform: Successful research data management generating big data from little data

Data sharing, which is hot issues in scholarly communication, is regarded as generating big data from little data in little science. In this article, a conceptual framework for research support platform in university is proposed, by the survey of two cases of representative and subject-based data archives in Japan; Data Integration and Analysis System Program (DIAS) and Inter-university Upper atmosphere Global Observation Network (IUGONET).

Analyzing viewing patterns while reading picture books

We examine the eye movements of children who can read books on their own as they read printed picture books. Our analysis focuses on two points; 1) Is it the pictures or the text that they most frequently gaze at?, and 2) In what sequence do they read picture books? Our results indicate that children look at both text and pictures, but that there are large variations in the ratio of viewing time for each child. Both circular and linear patterns are found in the sequence of eye movements.

Analyzing OPAC use with screen views and eye tracking

Eye tracking was used to analyze which elements of which screens were viewed by users searching an Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). Eye tracking data was obtained for 32 participants performing a known-item search task. The results show that more than 30% of participants did not make effective use of screens offering additional details, and that participants who did, and found the correct answer, gazed at specific screen elements more frequently than participants who gave incorrect answers.