Digital OA Monographs In Poland: Challenges Of Evaluation
Creators: name: Świetlik, Marta M.
name: Wnuk, Magdalena
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: research output evaluation
open science
open monographs
open humanities
OPERAS
OPERAS-PL
OA monographs
open access

description: Poster presented at the RESSH 2024 conference (23-24 May 2024)

"Monographs – on the contrary to journal publishing – have so far been on the margins of the digital and OA revolution in Poland (and in Europe in general) (Morka and Gatti 2021). Due to the additional costs of preparing professional electronic publication formats (e.g. epub) as well as strong tradition of a printed book as more prestigious (Maryl i in., 2020), polish publishing houses rarely publish scientific monographs in open access and even more reluctantly they turn to such publications formats as born-digital monographs or other innovative outputs. Some of the consequences are that OA humanistic monographs and digital outputs are less visible in databases, reach smaller audiences, even in the respected fields, and have lower impact factors, which sums up to be considered less profitable.

Our poster will present the main results of the two-year project "OPERAS-PL", led by the national node of the OPERAS infrastructure. The project’s main goal was to increase the availability and impact of Polish research outputs in the humanities, with a particular focus on monographs. In the research phase, aimed at recognizing challenges, pain points and needs in monograph publishing, we implemented various techniques and methods, such as a survey, interviews and design thinking workshops, which provided in-depth insight into stakeholders' needs, expectations and ways of thinking about solutions. Provided methodology could be reusable in the study and recommendations for publishing houses in different environments.

The poster will contribute to the discussion on evaluation models for the humanities research outputs, particularly monographs. Digital monographs, although they meet the definition of the Polish regulation on the evaluation of the quality of scientific activity, are not considered equivalent to printed scientific monographs. The final stage of the OPERAS-PL project leads to the proposal for new evaluation rules that will take into account the specifics of innovative forms of digital scholarly communication. New evaluation standards for OA monographs and innovative digital outputs (e.g. digital monographs) – developed in cooperation with the scientific community and the other stakeholders (publishers, research institutions, libraries, public administration and researchers) are to be presented to policymakers in order to implement adequate changes in the Polish evaluation system at the national level. With potential changes in evaluation of open science communication, researchers and scientific institutions will be more willing to test innovative solutions, which is currently one of the most important conditions for effective communication of scientific research results."

(from: Ma, L., Ochsner, M., & Kulczycki, E. (2024, maj 16). RESSH2024 Book of Abstracts. Research Evaluation in the Social Sciences and Humanities (RESSH2024), s. 47-48, Galway, Ireland. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11203991)

 

Publication funded by the state budget within the framework of the program of the Ministry of Education and Science called "Science for the Society", project number NdS/551343/2022/2022.