Implementing the Declaration on Research Assessment: a publisher case study

Abstract

There has been much debate around the role of metrics in scholarly communication, with particular focus on the misapplication of journal metrics, such as the impact factor in the assessment of research and researchers. Various initiatives have advocated for a change in this culture, including the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which invites stakeholders throughout the scholarly communication ecosystem to sign up and show their support for practices designed to address the misuse of metrics. This case study provides an overview of the process undertaken by a large academic publisher (Taylor & Francis Group) in signing up to DORA and implementing some of its key practices in the hope that it will provide some guidance to others considering becoming a signatory. Our experience suggests that research, consultation and flexibility are crucial components of the process. Additionally, approaching signing with a project mindset versus a 'sign and forget' mentality can help organizations to understand the practical implications of signing, to anticipate and mitigate potential obstacles and to support cultural change.

Who are the 100 largest scientific publishers by journal count? A webscraping approach

“…An authoritative list of the largest academic publishers, however, could be helpful in many ways. It would aid in achieving robust analyses regarding various aspects of scholarly publishing, such as on the implementation of research ethics policies (Gardner et al, 2022); on the prices of Article Processing Charges, or APCs (Asai, 2020;Sch€ onfelder, 2019); on peer review practices (Besançon et al, 2020;Hamilton et al, 2020;Spezi et al, 2018); on journals' social media presence (Ortega, 2017;Zheng et al, 2019); on their profit-orientation (Beverungen et al, 2012); on their open access and pre-print policies (Laakso, 2014;Laakso et al, 2011); on "editormetrics" (Mendonça et al, 2018;Pacher et al, 2021); on community engagement through paper awards (Lincoln et al, 2012) or through podcasts (Quintana and Heathers, 2021); on data-sharing policies (Holt et al, 2021); on their efforts in fostering diversity (Metz et al, 2016) or in supporting early career researchers (O'Brien et al, 2019); on their rate of ORCID adoption (cf. Porter, 2022); and so forth.…”

“…An authoritative list of the largest academic publishers, however, could be helpful in many ways. It would aid in achieving robust analyses regarding various aspects of scholarly publishing, such as on the implementation of research ethics policies (Gardner et al. , 2022); on the prices of Article Processing Charges, or APCs (Asai, 2020; Schönfelder, 2019); on peer review practices (Besançon et al.…”