Archive for Irish Open Access Publishers

The IOAP Diamond Open Access Awards

Posted in Crosswords, Open Access with tags , , , on March 21, 2024 by telescoper

Before Christmas on this blog I mentioned the Irish Open Access Publishers inaugural Diamond Open Access awards. I nominated the Open Journal of Astrophysics in the 1st Category – Best Peer Reviewed Open Access Journal. I was also nominated in the 4th Category – Outstanding Contribution to the Open Access Publishing Field in Ireland. Neither nomination was successful.

In fact I was on my way back to Ireland from Arizona when the awards were announced at webinar on March 12th which I couldn’t attend because I was on my way back from Arizona then. The rules for the competition stated that “Nominees including winners notified by email on the 1st March, 2024”. Since I heard nothing at all by then (or indeed until the weekend before the official announcement) I made the (correct) inference that I was not in contention* and my presence was not required. I subsequently forgot about the awards until I was coincidentally reminded yesterday.

*Update: although I wasn’t informed by the organizers, and only found out indirectly on Saturday 23rd March, it seems I was given an honourable mention.

Anyway, here are the lucky winners:

The winner in Category 1 was Alphaville, a journal “about all aspects of film and screen media history, theory and criticism through multiple research methodologies and perspectives” which is based at University College Cork. This journal was founded in 2011, so has been going for far longer than the Open Journal of Astrophysics! Congratulations to them!

There was no winner in Category 2, Best Peer Reviewed Open Access Monograph.

The winner in Category 3, Best Open Educational Resource was the MTU Assignment Toolkit.

There were joint winners in Category 4: Yvonne Desmond of TU Dublin, and the team behind the journal SCENARIO, based at University College Cork. The latter journal is a trilingual journal “in the area of performative teaching, learning and research” which was founded in 2007, so has been going for even longer than the Category 1 Winner!

Congratulations to all the winners!

P.S. At least I had some consolation when I got back from the USA, in the form the Times Literary Supplement Crossword prize!

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IOAP Diamond Open Access Awards 2024

Posted in Open Access with tags , , , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2024 by telescoper

A week or so before Christmas I posted about a new organization called Irish Open Access Publishers whose mission statement is as follows:

Irish Open Access Publishers (IOAP) is a community of practice driven by Irish open access publishers for Irish open access publishers.  The IOAP promotes engagement with the Diamond Open Access publishing model (free to publish and free to read) as well as indexing on the Directory of Open Access Journals and the Directory of Open Access Books. The aim of this dynamic community of practice is to promote publishing activity that is free of pay walls and publication embargoes to further the dissemination of high quality scholarly output to all in society.

These aims are laudable and I support them wholeheartedly. I should also mention that the Open Journal of Astrophysics is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals here, where you will find details of all the papers we have published so far. This index is all part of the service. We have also been accepted for inclusion in Scopus, in case that matters to you.

Anyway, I thought I would remind readers of this blog (both of them) about the fact that the IOAP is offering a new set of awards, for which nominations are now open:

(Unfortunately the links in the above image are not clickable, but you can the award details here…)

Nominations for the first three categories are by self-nomination only. I will of course, on behalf of Maynooth Academic Publishing, the Editorial Board, the authors, and everyone who has helped behind the scenes, be nominating the Open Journal of Astrophysics.

Nominations for the final category, Outstanding Contribution to the OA Field are described thus:

Category 4 welcomes third party as well as self nominations from academics, students, librarians, research managers, academic leaders, publishers and other stakeholders across further and higher education for an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to open access publishing in Ireland. Nominations from scholarly societies and other scholarly organisations are also welcome. Nominations for individuals based in Northern Ireland are also invited.

Self nominations are restricted to individuals based in Ireland including Northern Ireland. Third party nominations are invited from individuals based in Ireland including Northern Ireland as well as individuals based overseas. All third party nominations must be for individuals practising in the field of open access publishing in Ireland including Northern Ireland solely.

Notice that nominations are not restricted to individuals based in Ireland. So, wherever you are, if you can think of any individual based in Ireland who has done enough to merit being described as having made an “outstanding contribution”, perhaps not only for being a long-term advocate of Diamond Open Access but also for setting up and being Managing Editor of a successful Diamond Open Access journal in the field of astrophysics, then please feel free to nominate me them. I hope you get the message. If you want subtle, you’ve come to the wrong place!

The nomination form is here. The closing date for nominations is 1st February 2024.

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IOAP Diamond Open Access Awards 2024

Posted in Open Access with tags , , , , , , , , on December 18, 2023 by telescoper

Last week I found out about a new organization called Irish Open Access Publishers whose mission statement is as follows:

Irish Open Access Publishers (IOAP) is a community of practice driven by Irish open access publishers for Irish open access publishers.  The IOAP promotes engagement with the Diamond Open Access publishing model (free to publish and free to read) as well as indexing on the Directory of Open Access Journals and the Directory of Open Access Books. The aim of this dynamic community of practice is to promote publishing activity that is free of pay walls and publication embargoes to further the dissemination of high quality scholarly output to all in society.

These aims are laudable and I support them wholeheartedly. I should also mention that the Open Journal of Astrophysics is listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals here, where you will find details of all the papers we have published so far. This index is all part of the service.

The reason I found out about the existence of IOAP is that they are offering a new set of awards, for which nominations are now open:

(Unfortunately the links in the above image are not clickable, but you can the award details here…)

Nominations for the first three categories are by self-nomination only. I will of course, on behalf of Maynooth Academic Publishing, the Editorial Board, the authors, and everyone who has helped behind the scenes, be nominating the Open Journal of Astrophysics.

Nominations for the final category, Outstanding Contribution to the OA Field are described thus:

Category 4 welcomes third party as well as self nominations from academics, students, librarians, research managers, academic leaders, publishers and other stakeholders across further and higher education for an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to open access publishing in Ireland. Nominations from scholarly societies and other scholarly organisations are also welcome. Nominations for individuals based in Northern Ireland are also invited.

Self nominations are restricted to individuals based in Ireland including Northern Ireland. Third party nominations are invited from individuals based in Ireland including Northern Ireland as well as individuals based overseas. All third party nominations must be for individuals practising in the field of open access publishing in Ireland including Northern Ireland solely.

Notice that nominations are not restricted to individuals based in Ireland. So, wherever you are, if you can think of any individual based in Ireland who has done enough to merit being described as having made an “outstanding contribution”, perhaps not only for being a long-term advocate of Diamond Open Access but also for setting up and being Managing Editor of a successful Diamond Open Access journal in the field of astrophysics, then please feel free to nominate me them. I hope you get the message. If you want subtle, you’ve come to the wrong place!

The nomination form is here. The closing date for nominations is 1st February 2024.

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