Category: Other

Perhaps you have had the experience, like I have, of a university librarian demonstrating to your class how to use the search engines of various academic databases. Then you would know that a search engine can be quite nuanced, often with an ‘Advanced Search’ feature hidden away at the top corner of the homepage, reserved only for those who are “trained” by their university librarian to know to look for it, let alone use it!  

The ScienceOpen Search Engine Upgrade

On the ScienceOpen platform, the search engine that powers our discovery database is unique in that it is front and center on each new search—without any barricades, inviting all users to tinker with and explore content with it. Excitingly, the ScienceOpen technical team has recently upgraded the search functionalities on the site to be even more advanced and user-friendly! 

This upgrade has some really useful features, and I would like to guide you through the new search options in this post. So, sit back and enjoy this demonstration of the new functions with an example I have chosen on the topic, penguins and climate change.

Happy Earth Day 2021! 

To celebrate Earth Day this year, we are taking the time to share with you some impactful Journals and Research Collections on the platform that are focused on conservation, sustainability, and the environment. Then, we would also like to invite you to a webinar we are hosting about ScienceOpen’s Community-Curated Sustainable Development Goals Research Collections. The webinar will take place on May 6th and all details can be found below!

Introducing BAPIO

We are pleased to announce our new partnership with the British Association for Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO). We have collaborated to index two of BAPIO’s medical journals, The Physician and Sushruta Journal of Health Policy, in featured collections on ScienceOpen to increase their visibility and discoverability to a wider audience. BAPIO is a non-profit, voluntary professional organisation in its silver jubilee year, whose mission is to provide a global forum for health professionals to promote excellence in healthcare, education, research and leadership by promoting diversity, equality and inclusion for all. BAPIO as a national organisation, functions through a number of regional chapters, special interest forums and arms-length bodies and is closely affiliated to the Global Association of Physicians of Indian Origin.

Introduction

To speed up the transformation to Open Access (OA), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) will be funding 20 innovative projects over the next two years. We are proud to announce that ScienceOpen is participating with a project around Open Access book metadata for increased discoverability, and we would like to give a preview here of what we are working on.

March 22nd – UN Recognized World Water Day

Since 1993, March 22^nd has been designated World Water Day to bring awareness to the importance of fresh water. It goes without saying that access to safe drinking water is essential for survival, good health, sanitation, and quality of life. Access to fresh water is also clearly a concern as average global temperatures rise. Fresh water is predicted to become scarce in some areas of the world while more extreme flooding seasons are expected in others. Presently, the United Nations reports that 1 in 3 people do not have access to safe drinking water and estimates that by 2050 up to 5.7 billion people could be living in areas where water is scarce for at least one month a year. Thus, ensuring access to fresh water to everyone is critically important and will only become more difficult in the wake of global warming.

The Sustainable Development Goals

At the heart of the United Nations’ ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These represent a call for action from both developed and developing countries in a global partnership to end poverty and improve health and education for all. The SDGs strive to promote economic growth and development in a way that tackles climate change and preserves biodiversity in our oceans and forests. Increasingly, the academic and publishing communities are coming together to support and promote these ambitious goals. The COVID-19 pandemic has only increased the urgency of awareness and action. ScienceOpen is stepping up. 

Welcoming International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation

ScienceOpen and Hogrefe Publishing Group are pleased to announce an extension to their partnership to feature Hogrefe’s newest journal: International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, Consultation. International Perspectives in Psychology has been integrated into the ScienceOpen platform and featured in a unique ScienceOpen Collection, joining seven other Collections of Hogrefe content.  

Join us for a demonstration of open peer review

At ScienceOpen, we’ve realized that “open,” which was once applied really only at the article level, should actually be applied to the whole process. Open peer review is a prime example of this. By opening up the peer review process, we increase transparency in the review process, and it simultaneously benefits researchers by giving them credit for the work they do to review a manuscript. On the ScienceOpen platform, you will find that we have innovatively implemented open peer review in a variety of ways–i.e. in the management of preprints, post publication review, and in the creation of open access journals. To demonstrate the solutions we have created in recent months, we invite you to an online session in which Stephanie Dawson will give a complete overview of open peer review on ScienceOpen!  

Additions to Book Services

Recently ScienceOpen has made several important additions to our services around books and book chapters on ScienceOpen. We announced new book hosting services for two publishers—African Minds and Carl Grossmann Verlag. Additionally, we have indexed several publishers’ book collections onto the platform, providing extensive technical support which led to the creation of an interface for producing and enhancing book metadata. These customers include UUM Press, Huddersfield Uuniversity Press, University of Westminster Press, and Trivent among others. 

Introducing the newest Psychology Journal on the platform

We are excited to announce a new partnership with Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal (SBP). Through this collaboration, we have indexed SBP content in a unique collection on ScienceOpen where it will be featured and placed within the context of over 67 million other scholarly records. The addition of SBP content to the platform brings over 1,000 high-quality psychology publications, with new issues published each month. This partnership is therefore a great asset to humanities and social science content on ScienceOpen.