4. Research design and methods
4.3. Data collection 1: ÅAU publication data
4.3.4 Search strategies for retrieval of ÅAU publication data in 2018
This section describes the search strategies conducted in Juuli to retrieve the ÅAU publication data of 2018. The search strategies for retrieving ÅAU publication data for 2018, with a particular focus on the OA availability of the publications, are based on Ilva’s (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020a, 2020b) descriptions and methods of data retrieval.
The first step in mapping the patterns of scholarly publishing at ÅAU is to retrieve the publication data of all fields of science of peer reviewed publications produced in 2018.
The search criteria Institution, and 2018 for Year of publication were used in all
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searches, and therefore not mentioned in the documentation of all search strategies described below.
Search strategy 1: Peer review in A, all fields of science & peer review in C, all fields of science
This search strategy retrieves the number of peer reviewed publications in each field of science. The results of the advanced search were filtered according to field of science:
natural sciences, engineering and technology, medicine and health sciences, humanities, and social sciences, to show the number of publications type A and C in each field of science. The publication data of all fields of science is retrieved to provide the context of scholarly publishing at ÅAU.
Search strategy 2: Publication types in all fields of science
The number of publications in all publication types A1, A2, A3, A4, and C1, C2 were retrieved separately, and the total number of publications in each field of science was documented. The result of this search strategy is intended to show the differences of publishing patterns in different fields of science, in particular the differences between humanities and other fields of science.
Search strategy 3: OA status of publications in A1–A4, according to field of science Publication type A is the main venue for publishing in all fields of science. The OA status of publications in all fields of science is retrieved to show the differences between different fields of science, in particular between the humanities and other fields of science. The OA status of publications was retrieved by examining each field of science and publication sub type (A1, A2, A3, A4) individually and documenting the OA status (gold OA channel, other OA availability, green OA) in each of them. In addition, the proportion of additional parallel publishing (indicated as green OA+ to remark the additional value of parallel publishing) was retrieved by sorting out and excluding those publications which were available both in the publisher’s channel and in a repository.
To confirm the proportion of publications which are not available as OA at all, the number of gold OA, other OA and green OA+ were subtracted from the total number of publications in each publication type.
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Search strategy 4: OA status in different publication types, humanities
In this search strategy, the focus shifts to the humanities only to examine the OA status of publications in different publication types (A and C) in humanities. The OA status is retrieved by conducting the search for each publication type individually and
documenting the number of publications and their OA status (gold OA channel, other OA availability, green OA+) in each publication type separately.
Search strategy 5: Publication Forum classification in publication type A1–A4, all fields of science
By using this search strategy, the distribution of Publication Forum classification across all fields of science is examined. The search is limited to publication type A, since type C is not prevalent in other fields of science than humanities and social sciences (as examined by search strategy 1). The share of publications in each Publication Forum class (1–3) is retrieved by first retrieving all publications in publication type A for each field of science individually. For each field of science, the number of publications in each Publication Forum class is documented. Publications classified at level 0 (-), and those unranked in Publication Forum, are not included in the total number of
publications in each field of science.
Search strategy 6: Routes to OA at different Jufo levels in publication type A, in all field of science
This search strategy is conducted to examine which routes to OA (gold OA channel, other OA availability, green OA+) are used for publication type A at different Jufo levels (1–3). All publications in all fields of science categorized as A1–A4 are retrieved for each OA status individually. Simultaneously as the OA status is examined, the numbers of publications in each Jufo level are documented.
Search strategy 7: Routes to OA at different Jufo levels in A, humanities
This search strategy is conducted to examine which routes to OA are used at different Jufo levels in humanities (A1–A4). First, all publications in A in humanities are retrieved. The OA status of those publications are examined individually, and the number of publications in Jufo 1–3 are documented.
When checking the OA status of the publications by searching the original publication on the publisher’s website, the VPN and university credentials were not in use, ensuring
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that these would not give access to subscription channels. To control the reliability, consistency and quality of the publication data, the different versions of the data sets acquired by using the search strategies documented above, have been compared with each other to ensure their correctness. The dates for retrieving the publication data and the search strategies used are documented in separate Excel files, to identify the potential changes over time. The last version was used for analysis of publishing patterns and is presented in the results in Chapter 6.