Highlights 2023 of Bibliometrics Office and Open Access Service

” Publish or Perish? Survival Guide” course for young researchers

Publish or Perish? Survival Guide is our course aimed to young researchers. Evaluation criteria, ASN (National Scientific Qualification), VQR (Evaluation of Research Quality), bibliometrics. IRIS, Scopus, WoS (Web of Science). And then again: open access, predatory journals, research data management. Additionally: access to databases, journals, books vailable in electronic and/or paper format through Unimore libraries. Aproximately 200 doctoral students, research fellows and researchers participated in the 5 sessions (4 online and 1 in-person) that we held in 2023.

Data Lake / Responsible metrics in italian CRIS

In the 2023 the Bibliometric Office contributed significantly to the launch of the Data Lake project by CINECA: a database of statistics and bibliometric indicators on scientific publications cataloged in Italian IRIS systems. The database and the resulting reports, soon to be accessible to Italian universities using IRIS, open innovative development lines related to the responsible use of bibliometrics in research evaluation and the experimentation of transparent and shared advanced metrics at the national level.

Quick Report / A self-assessment tool for researchers

In December 2023, the Bibliometric Office produced 700 individual Quick Reports (QR) for faculty and researchers in the bibliometric area. The QR is a summary of the main raw and normalized indicators of productivity, citation impact, scientific collaboration, and journal visibility. In addition to providing useful elements for self-assessment, the QR is a valuable support for defining individual publication strategies: the report also lists the most important journals assigned by Scopus to the same thematic areas in which the author has published.

Full Report / What bibliometrics tells us about Unimore

In March 2023 the Bibliometric Office completed the third edition of the University Full Report (FR) which identifies and analyzes, in quantitative terms, the scientific publications produced from Unimore faculty and researchers from all disciplinary areas between 2017 and 2021. The FR is a complex tool that allows retrieving the main bibliometric indicators of productivity and impact at six level of aggregation: the single publication; the individual author; the Scientific-Disciplinary Sector (SSD); the department; the CUN Area; the competition sector (SC) – limited to ASN simulations.

LIBER Europe / Unimore ULS moves to the international level

LIBER is the Association of European Research Libraries. Since 2023, Unimore has been a partner not only formally: some members of the Bibliometric Office and the Open Access service are active members of three working groups, those on “Educational Resources”, ’“Open access” and “Data Science in Libraries”. Participation in international working groups, as well as in networking events organized by LIBER, drives the internationalization activities of the University Library System.

IRIS group / Backoffice activity quality and quantity

In addition to providing direct assistance and support to teachers and researchers, in 2023 the IRIS group made a substantial contribution to increasing the quality of data and attachments of publications in IRIS Unimore: 10,000 DOI codes , integrated Scopus/Wos and PMID; approximately 6,000 metadata related to issues and volumes inserted; over 9,000 files uploaded or modified for green open access. These numbers add to those of previous years, totaling nearly 17,000 codices, 14,000 files and 10,000 metadata inserted i the triennium 2021-2023.

Open APC / Transparency on costs for open access

Since May, 2023 Unimore – the only Italian state university along with Statale of Milan – is officially part of OpenAPC, a European initiative that collects and disseminates data on expenses paid by institutions to publish open access their researchers’ contributions. This milestone marks the conclusion of the extensive work carried out by the Open access group in identifying, collecting and analysing publication expenses incurred by the departmets of our university in the periods 2015-2019 and 2020-2021.

Pubblica! / An event within the framework of the Open Access Week

In October 2023 the Library System partecipated in the International Open Access Week with a rich programme. The core of the week of events was the conference, open to the entire community, “Pubblica! Repubblica della scienza e impero della valutazione”, which featured speakers from various Italian universities. The conference concluded with a roundtable discussion on research evaluation, with extensive references to the newly established COARA – Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment to which Unimore has also joined.

R&P contract with Elsevier / One million euros from SBA

In 2023 Unimore, through the University Library System, has joined the contract that the CARE group of CRUI has signed with Elsevier for the period 2023-2027. Similarly to comparable contracts signed with other publishers, this one is also of the Read&Publish type: in addition to accessing Elsevier’s published journals, the agreement allows Unimore researchers to publish open access in the publisher’s journals without incurring any additional costs, as these are already covered by the contract expenses. The cost paid by SBA is approximately 1 million euros.

Open Access service / 2012-2022 report

The several activities carried out in 2023 also provided an opportunity to look back and take stock to the open access initiatives undertaken by the University Library System over the past ten years. The report outlines the main actions taken during the period 2012-2022: training activities (especially aimed at doctoral students), the acquisition of IRIS and its use for (green) open access, analysis of publication expenses and coordination of a national working group, the creation of a structured service, and the development of the pop.unimore.it website.

GENDER*MORE / Gender bias in scientific communication

In 2023 the Gender*MoRe project was launched to create a documentation center on gender disparities in scientific communication. The project received a special mention from the Italian Library Association for the Maria A. Abenante Award and it was presented at the National Conference of CUG (Committees for Equal Opportunities) of Italian Universities in December, officially launching the first services of the Center: specialized bibliographic consulting, retrieval of specialized material, analysis on the production of female researchers at Unimore.