Showing papers in "Science Editing in 2021"

Bibliometric analysis of journals, authors, and topics related to COVID-19 and Islamic finance listed in the Dimensions database by Biblioshiny

Abstract: Purpose: This bibliometric study investigated the current state of documents on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Islamic finance published by digital object identifiere-quipped journals listed in the Dimensions database The analysis focused on describing the characterictics and trends of the keywords, authors, and journals Methods: The data analyzed were from 149 research publications in Dimensions The search tems were "COVID" and "Islamic finance " The searches used to establish the study dataset were last updated on August 27, 2020 Descriptive statistical methods were used, and a bibliometric analysis was conducted using Biblioshiny, an R-based app, to generate a bibliometric map Results: The number of articles discussing the theme of COVID-19 and Islamic finance was quite large in recent months, with more than 100 articles published The most popular keywords used were "COVID," "food," and "pandemic," although there were also many keywords that related more specifically to the field of Islamic finance, namely "banks," "markets," "health," "debt," "equity," "management," and "stock " Conclusion: This study provides an overview of trends in the most popular keywords, journals, and authors of articles on the topic of COVID-19 and Islamic finance, which has been quite a popular theme in recent months, thereby providing information for researchers specializing in the field of Islamic finance This theme has the potential to continue to be developed

A bibliometric and co-occurrence analysis of COVID-19-related literature published between December 2019 and June 2020

Abstract: Purpose: The main purposes of this study were to analyze the document types and languages of published papers on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), along with the top authors, publications, countries, institutions, and disciplines, and to analyze the co-occurrence of keywords and bibliographic coupling of countries and sources of the most-cited COVID-19 literature Methods: This study analyzed 16,384 COVID-19 studies published between December 2019 and June 2020 The data were extracted from the Web of Science database using four keywords: "COVID-19," "coronavirus," "2019-nCoV," and "SARS-CoV-2 " The top 500 most-cited documents were analyzed for bibliographic and citation network visualization Results: The studies were published in 19 different languages, and English (95 313%) was the most common Of 157 research-producing countries, the United States (25 433%) was in the leading position Wang Y (n=94) was the top author, and the BMJ (n=488) was the top source The University of London (n=488) was the leading organization, and medicine-related papers (n=2,259) accounted for the highest proportion The co-occurrence of keywords analysis identified "coronavirus," "COVID-19," "SARS-CoV-2," "2019-nCoV," and "pneumonia" as the most frequent words The bibliographic coupling analysis of countries and sources showed the strongest collaborative links between China and the United States and between the New England Journal of Medicine and the JAMA Conclusion: Collaboration between the United States and China was key in COVID-19 research during this period Although BMJ was the leading title for COVID-19 articles, the co-author link between New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA was the strongest

Korean editors’ and researchers’ experiences with preprints and attitudes towards preprint policies

Abstract: Purpose: This study investigated editors’ and researcher’s experiences with preprints and their attitudes towards preprint policies in Korea. Methods: From December 30, 2019 to January 10, 2020, a Google Forms survey was mailed to members of the Korean Council of Science Editors and the Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies. The 16 survey items included two demographic items, six items on experience with preprints, five 5-point Likert-scale items on attitudes towards preprints, and three items on advantages and disadvantages. Results: Out of 365 respondents, 56 had deposited their manuscripts on preprint servers, while 49 stated that they allowed preprints in their journals. More than half of the respondents expressed favorable attitudes towards prioritizing preprint deposition, promotion of open access, rapid feedback on preprints, earlier citations, and evidence of research work. Responders in engineering had more experience with the concept of preprints, and were more likely to have heard about preprint servers and preprint deposition by other researchers, than those in medicine. Half of the editors disagreed with the need for preprints, for reasons including a lack of scientific integrity, stealing ideas/scooping data, priority issues regarding research ideas, and copyright problems. Conclusion: The above results showed that preprints are still not actively used in Korea. Although experiences with preprints were not widespread, more than half of the respondents showed favorable attitudes towards preprints. More of a consensus should emerge for preprint policies to be accepted by editors in Korea.

Preprint acceptance policies of Asian academic society journals in 2020

Abstract: Purpose: In the current era of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the trend of sharing new research results through preprint platforms is receiving more attention from researchers than ever before. Preprints have been recognized as a primary and essential method to disseminate new findings faster than traditional publications. Therefore, it has become necessary for journals and editors to acknowledge these changes, prepare preprint policies, and notify authors accordingly. This study aimed to review the status of preprint policies of international publishers and Asian academic society journals. Methods: In total, 383 Asian academic society journals registered in Science Citation Index Expanded were selected as a dataset for analysis between December 11, 2020 and January 8, 2021. Three different parameters were investigated whether each journal had a preprint policy, whether journals allowed preprint manuscripts to be submitted, and whether preprint articles were allowed to be included in the references. Results: Among the 383 Asian academic society journals from 22 countries, only 28 journals accepted preprint manuscripts, and eight allowed the use of preprint manuscripts as references. Japan had the most journals that both had preprint policies and accepted preprint manuscripts, with 13 journals, followed by Korea with 10 journals. Conclusion: Despite the limitations of this study, the results show that editors and journal staff should understand the current preprint trend and try to prepare preprint policies that best meet the journals’ and authors’ interests.

PubMed Central as a platform for the survival of open-access biomedical society journals published in Korea

Abstract: Twenty-one years have passed since PubMed Central (PMC) launched. The present case study describes Korean editors’ history of participation in PMC and their contributions to PMC. The three main turning points in the history of Korean editors’ involvement with PMC were as follows: first, the production of PMC XML files and deposition starting in 2008; second, thorough evaluations of applying journals since 2014; and third, the feasibility of non-English journals being indexed in PMC starting in 2019. The importance of PMC is further shown by the fact that KoreaMed Synapse, a full-text XML database of biomedical journals in Korea that was launched in 2007, was created by benchmarking PMC. Scholarly societies or institutes publish 724 (34.2%) of the 2,119 PMC journals without embargo in June 2021. Out of those 724 journals, 127 (17.5%) are published in Korea. PMC has helped local journals receive more citations from researchers worldwide, increasing their likelihood of being indexed in international databases. The number of submissions from international researchers has increased, thereby making it possible for journals to achieve international diversity. As the best full-text platform of biomedical journals, PMC has provided an excellent opportunity for biomedical journal editors in Korea to change their journals’ language to English and produce full-text JATS (Journal Article Tag Suite) XML files. These factors have made Korea the second-ranked country in terms of no-embargo PMC journals published by academic societies or institutes.

Development of an open peer review system using blockchain and reviewer recommendation technologies

Abstract: In order to create a transparent and sound academic communication ecosystem centered on researchers, we developed a system that applied blockchain technology to an open peer review system. In this study, an open peer review system was developed based on Hyperledger Fabric, which is a private blockchain. The system can be operated in connection with the reviewer recommendation module of the existing submission management system. In the reviewer recommendation module, reviewers are recommended by excluding co-authors and colleagues after an expertise test. The blockchain system performs an open peer review process based on smart contracts, while the submission management system selects reviewers for peer review. A service broker intervenes between these two systems for data interchange. The system developed herein is expected to be used as a researchercentered scholarly communication model in the open science era, in which the intervention of publishers is minimized, and authors and reviewers (as researchers) are centered.

COVID-19 research trends in the fields of economics and business in the Scopus database in November 2020

Abstract: Purpose: This study explored the state of the literature on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in two subject areas: (1) economics, econometrics, and finance, and (2) business, management, and accounting The study focused on the most productive and influential journals, countries, institutions, documents, and clusters of keywords Methods: Data were retrieved from Scopus on November 21, 2020 The search term was the keyword "COVID-19" in the title, abstract, and author's keywords, and the articles were limited to two subject areas The data were analyzed using VOSviewer and Excel Results: In the analysis of 1,719 articles on COVID-19, the most productive journal that published these articles was Gender, Work, and Organization (n=49) The most productive country and institutions were the United States (n=526) and Universiteit van Pretoria (n=16) and the University of Oxford (n=16), respectively Based on citations, the most influential authors, countries, and journals were Dmitry Ivanov (n=233), the United States (n=1,027), and Finance Research Letters (n=326), respectively The most cited article was authored by Stefan Gossling (n=157) on the impact of COVID-19 on society, the economy, and tourism The articles were from 111 countries, of which 85 6% had collaborations The keywords of research on COVID-19 formed 14 clusters (e g , small and medium enterprises, aviation, tourism, banking and finance, supply chain, economic growth, and the digital economy) Conclusion: The number of COVID-19 articles related to economics and business is fairly large and is continuing to grow significantly The keyword analysis showed that COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on all economic sectors

Network of institutions, source journals, and keywords on COVID-19 by Korean authors based on the Web of Science Core Collection in January 2021

Abstract: Purpose: The aim of this study was to characterize the network of institutions, journals, and topics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) literature by Korean authors in the Web of Science Core Collection The specific goals were to identify the collaborative relationships between Korean authors and international authors and to explore clusters of institutions, journals, and topics Methods: Literature was searched in the Web of Science Core Collection on January 30, 2021 The search terms were "SARS-CoV-2" or "COVID" or "novel coronavirus" in the subject field The search results were limited again to "South Korea" as the country and the publication type of "article " The measurement tool was Biblioshiny, an app version tool for Bibliometrix Results: Korean authors published 3 2 times more COVID-19-related articles in journals outside of Korea than in Korean journals The journals showed three clusters by bibliographic coupling In contrast, the co-citation network showed four clusters Only a few journals were included in the clusters in both analyses The conceptual structure of Keywords Plus by factorial analysis showed two clusters: "pathology and clinical treatment" and "knowledge and attitudes " Institutions' collaborative network consisted of four clusters Korean researchers actively collaborated with international researchers, especially those in the United States Conclusion: Because only a few Korean journals were included in the journal clusters by both coupling and co-citation network, more active citation of Korean journals is recommended The identification of human behavior as a distinct theme in COVID-19 research suggests a different focus in this area besides clinical studies

Influence of open access journals on the research community in Journal Citation Reports

Abstract: Purpose: The number of open access (OA) journals is rapidly increasing, and it is very important for librarians to understand the influence of OA journals on the research community. This study investigated the influence of the OA journals listed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) based on various indicators. Methods: The data for this study were prepared by combining the JCR 2014 to 2019 journal list with the number of hybrid OA articles obtained by searching the Web of Science. Each journal’s JCR indicators and article processing charge were added. The influence of OA journals was compared according to OA type, whether they were published by large publishers, and whether they were top gold OA journals. Results: Gold OA journals remained weaker in terms of JCR indicators than hybrid journals. However, the top 20 gold OA journals, accounting for 27.0% of all OA articles in JCR 2014 to 2019, were superior in all JCR indicators. The top three OA publishers (MDPI, BioMed Central, and Public Library of Science) showed potential for development despite concerns regarding poor journals. The top three subscription publishers were very active in OA publishing, but their actual share of hybrid OA articles (Elsevier, 5.1%; Springer, 10.1%; and Wiley, 12.4% in JCR 2019) was still insufficient. Conclusion: Some gold OA journals showed high competitiveness and even the possibility for development beyond traditional journals. The transition of subscription journals to hybrid journals was found to be at the early stage. In light of these findings, librarians should continue monitoring the influence of OA journals.

Open access status of journals and articles in Journal Citation Reports

Abstract: Purpose: There is somewhat of a difference between understanding the open access (OA) concept and practicing it by stakeholders. OA articles are mainly published by gold and hybrid OA journals, but the OA status may be confusing depending on the target databases. This study investigated the OA status of journals and articles and evaluated the extent to which OA2020 (publishing 90% of articles as OA) was achieved. Methods: This study collected OA data by combining 2014-2019 data from Journal Citation Reports at the journal level with Web of Science at the article level. Finally, 12,449 journals were analyzed focusing on gold and hybrid OA journals, and progress towards the goal of OA2020 was evaluated. Results: Even though 80.4% of Journal Citation Reports journals were gold and hybrid OA journals, only 20.9% of the articles were OA (gold OA journals, 16.6%; hybrid journals, 4.3%). The compound annual growth rate of the total articles was 4.7%, that of OA articles was 16.4%, and that of subscription articles was only 1.7%. Among the subscription journals, 77.4% had shifted to become hybrid journals, but only 5.2% of their articles were OA. Therefore, the hybrid journals were at the very early stage of OA publishing. Conclusion: Considerable progress must still be made to achieve the goal of OA2020. The influence of OA publishing will eventually expand and therefore, librarians should take interest in OA publishing for the library services.

Policies of scholarly journal accreditation in Indonesia

Abstract: It was known that there were 5,900 scientific journals in Indonesia in 2013. Those journals were grouped into three classes, namely non-accredited journals (5,579 titles), accredited journals (342 titles), and international journals (16 titles), and most journals are published by universities, faculties, or departments [1]. In June 2019, the number of scientific journals increased to more than 14,000. Among them, only a few journals are indexed in international databases. Up to 2019, there were 49 journals in Scopus, 63 in Web of Science master journal list, and 1, 358 in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) [2]. In July 2021, the number of journals in SCImago (https://www.scimagojr.com), which included Scopus journals, was 69; in Web of Science Master Journal List, 88; and in DOAJ, 1,867. It showed that there had been a remarkable improvement in the journal qualities. It may be possible not only by the editors’ and researchers’ devotion to the journals but also by the national policies of scholarly journal accreditation in Indonesia. Also, the Indonesian government has provided some support for journal publishing. It is necessary to review the scholarly journal accreditation policies to improve its system. This essay aims to explain the history of policies of scholarly journal accreditation, to clarify the current national accreditation policies, and to show trends in the journal accreditation in Indonesia

Was the number of submissions to scholarly journals in Korea affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Abstract: This study investigated whether there was an increase in submissions to scholarly journals in Korea according to journals' field and indexation status in Scopus or Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) in 2020, the year when the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic first spread throughout the world The analysis included 60 journals with e-submission systems operated by M2PI Yearly and monthly submissions were counted from 2016 to 2020 The yearly proportional change was also calculated In 2020, submissions soared for medical journals indexed in Scopus/SCIE (49 5%), corresponding to an increase of 36 9% relative to the expected number of submissions There was also a surge of submissions to these journals from March to July 2020 However, non-medical journals and medical journals not indexed in Scopus/SCIE did not show an increase in submissions The number of submissions to scholarly journals in Korea was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in a specific subset of journals The background of the spike in submissions is required to be re-investigated Editors' burden also should be mitigated through editorial board members' help and publishers' support

Korean court cases regarding research and publication ethics from 2009 to 2020

Abstract: Research and publication misconduct may occur in various forms, including author misrepresentation, plagiarism, and data fabrication. Research and publication ethics are essentially not legal duties, but ethical obligations. In reality, however, legal disputes arise over whether research and publication ethics have been violated. Thus, in many cases, misconduct in research and publication is determined in the courts. This article presents noteworthy legal cases in Korea regarding research and publication ethics to help editors and authors prevent ethical misconduct. Legal cases from 2009 to 2020 were collected from the database of the Supreme Court of Korea in December 2020. These court cases represent three case types: 1) civil cases, such as affirmation of nullity of dismissal and damages; 2) criminal cases, such as fraud, interference with business, and violations of copyright law; and 3) administrative cases related to disciplinary measures against professors affiliated with a university. These cases show that although research and publication ethics are ethical norms that are autonomously established by the relevant academic societies, they become a criterion for case resolution in legal disputes where research and publication misconduct is at issue.

Five clusters of flood management articles in Scopus from 2000 to 2019 using social network analysis

Abstract: Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the bibliographic characteristics and content of articles on flood management published in journals indexed by Scopus written by researchers from throughout the world from 2000 to 2019. Methods: We obtained data from the Scopus database on October 2, 2020. “Flood management” was used to search across several categories, including article title, abstract, and keywords, filtered by subject area (social science; environmental science; and business, management, and accounting). We only retrieved articles written in English. We conducted content analysis using the VOSviewer software and visualized the co-occurrence of keywords and bibliographic coupling of sources and countries. Results: Following the study protocol, we found 984 articles on flood management over the past 20 years. Among the three subject areas, environmental science was the most productive field for publishing flood management articles. Flood control, flood management, and risk assessment were the top three most popular topics. Flood management publications were published in 266 journals. In total, 86 countries collaborated to produce research related to flood management. Natural Hazard Journal and Journal of Flood Risk Management were the most prominent journals. Institutions from Europe ominated the top 10 institutions with the most publications by affiliated researchers. Conclusion: From a global perspective, flood management research in the past two decades has increased significantly. There were five major topic clusters, and European-published journals ominated publications. Thus, Asian institutions need to conduct more active research on this topic.

Consultation questions on publication ethics from 2016 to 2020 addressed by the Committee on Publication Ethics of the Korean Council of Science Editors

Abstract: With the goal of improving the publishing ecosystem and promoting transparency in journal publishing, we describe some recent cases in scientific publishing in Korea. The current article summarizes ethical inquiries from domestic journals and publishers, most of whom are members of the Korean Council of Science Editors. We selected 15 representative questions asked during the last 4 years. Those inquiries were classified into hot topics such as plagiarism, duplicate publications, multiple submission, and others (informed consent, copyright, compliance with journal regulations, authors’ responsibilities, and voluntary retraction requests). When plagiarism is suspected, editors and reviewers should assess the situation following the relevant rules and procedures, and if necessary, the manuscript should be rejected. Cases of duplicate publication should be clearly stated in both papers based on the explicit agreement of the editor-in-chief of both journals. As a general rule, the entire content of an article should be published in one issue, but if the article is too long, it may need to be published in two issues. Permission from both journals is required. The abstract and references should be separated accordingly. In cases of copyright conflict, voluntary withdrawal of a paper, or non-compliance with publishing regulations, the manuscript must be withdrawn according to specific procedures (referring to the COPE flow chart). All correspondence regarding a manuscript should be with the corresponding author, who communicates directly with the journal. We hope that these recommendations will help readers in the field of scientific publishing to address issues related to publication ethics.

Bibliometric analysis of publications on inclusive education from the Web of Science Core Collection published from 1992 to 2020

Abstract: Purpose: This study analyzed the bibliometric characteristics of publications on inclusive education in the Social Science Citation Index and Science Citation Index Expanded in the Web of Science Core Collection from 1992 to 2020. Methods: Terms related to “inclusive education” and “inclusion of education” were used as keywords to search for journal articles on July 3, 2020. Results: There were 1,786 articles, representing 3,376 authors, in the 345 journals scanned. The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia were the three leading countries/regions in this field. In the top 12 countries, the top 15 institutions and the top 10 most-cited journals were identified by either the number of publications or the number of total citations. Core themes from the 30 most highly-cited articles were teachers’ attitudes, teachers’ self-efficacy, and the effects of inclusive education. Teachers included both pre-service and in-service teachers; students represented those with and without special educational needs. Conclusion: The results indicate that the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia dominated inclusive education research, originating most of the highly-cited articles, having more prolific authors, and presenting the most-cited institutions. Furthermore, three emerging core themes from the 30 most highly-cited articles were teachers’ attitudes, teachers’ self-efficacy, and the effects of inclusive education. Frontline teachers are recommended to submit manuscripts about their teaching experiences to the most-cited journals, which have a large readership. To measure the effects of inclusive education, it is essential to formulate reliable, valid, and culturefree research instruments for future studies.

Relationship between publication indicators and citation impact indicators for publications in business, management, and accounting listed in Scopus from 2015 to 2019

Abstract: Purpose: This study examined whether article-level publication indicators were related to citation impact indicators in the business, management, and accounting categories listed in Scopus. Article-level publication indicators included the number of authors, countries, and keywords, as well as title length, while citation impact indicators included the field-weighted citation impact (FWCI) at the article level and Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) at the journal level. The optimal values of four article-level publication indicators for maximizing the FWCI and SJR were calculated. Methods: All publication and citation impact indicators were gathered for articles and reviews in the business, management, and accounting fields published from 2015 and 2019 and listed in Scopus and SciVal. Correlations between four article-level citation indicators and each citation impact indicator were analyzed. Results: The number of authors was positively associated with the FWCI, while the number of countries and keywords was not associated with the FWCI or SJR. Title length was negatively associated with the FWCI and SJR. The optimal publication indicators to maximize the FWCI were four authors, three more countries, six keywords, and a title word count of 14 to 19. The optimal publication indicators to maximize the SJR were three to four coauthors, three to four countries of collaborators, five keywords, and a title word count of two to seven. Conclusion: Authors aiming to get higher citations and publish in higher-ranking SJR journals in the business, management, and accounting categories are recommended to pay close attention to design of research team and the number of keywords and impactful title length so that the publication will have a higher likelihood of being accepted and receiving citations.

Comparison of length limits and the actual length of abstracts in pharmacology, oncology, and neurology journals listed in PubMed

Abstract: Purpose: This study aimed to compare the length limits specified in the author guidelines with the actual length of abstracts in 90 journals in the fields of pharmacology, oncology, and neurology. Specifically, the following parameters were examined: abstract formats among the three subject areas; the relationship between the length limit and the actual length of abstracts; and actual abstract length according to the number of subheadings, the length of structured abstract subheadings, the length of frequently used subheading sets, and clinical trial registration information. Methods: Thirty journals from each of three medical fields (pharmacology, oncology, and neurology) were selected from Elsevier’s Scimago Journal Rank. This included the journals indexed in PubMed from 2018 to 2019 that published the most articles. Article abstracts from these journals were used to create a dataset for this study. Descriptive, comparative, and correlational analyses of data for the three fields were conducted. Results: The number of subheadings and abstract length increased in parallel. The Results component was the longest, suggesting that authors tended to use longer text to report results than for other structural abstract components. Authors generally utilized the length limit to a full extent without exceeding it. Conclusion: The traditionally used 250-word length limit should be reconsidered for pharmacology, oncology, and neurology journals because it disregards the distinctive characteristics of abstracts and length differences between structured and unstructured abstracts. Various characteristics of abstract lengths presented in this study should be considered to establish more justifiable policies.

Manuscript Exchange Common Approach and Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) compatibility: a case study utilizing the JATS Compatibility Meta Model

Abstract: The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) Manuscript Exchange Common Approach (MECA) project is a cross-organization industry initiative to develop a common approach to manuscript transfer that can be adopted across the scholarly publishing industry. MECA establishes a vocabulary set that includes transfer, review, and manifest models. These models are designed to work with different article XML schemas, including the latest NISO Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) standard (v1.2). In order to avoid conflicts between these project vocabularies and the JATS, we reviewed the MECA vocabularies against the NISO JATS Compatibility Meta Model (v0.7). This paper describes the review and analysis of the MECA schemas against the JATS Meta Model, how we documented the analysis, and the recommendations we made to resolve issues revealed by the analysis. It includes the documentation we produced to communicate the results of the analysis and what actions we took to move forward with the project, including both changes to the schemas and requests for changes in the JATS. We hope sharing our experiences with this process will help others who are trying to do the same.

Scientific journals should be transformed into science storytellers to improve their visibility

Abstract: What is the objective for science journals to publish research papers? Would it be enough to collect research manuscripts and simply publish them in print or on the web? Science journal publishers have always strived to find ways of disseminating journal content to as many readers as possible. It is now time for science journal publishers to think about why a journal should be published; whether it is acceptable for valuable scientific findings to lie dormant in a journal’s archive; and whether traditional science communication is still effective. The present article suggests that science journals should transform themselves into science storytellers to improve the visibility and discoverability of their research findings. First, a new communication network between journals, authors, peers, the public, and policymakers is required. Second, conversion of media from academic language to plain language is critical to broadening the audience. Third, audio-visual content should be introduced into journal publishing to facilitate easy comprehension of the content. Fourth, research-focused channels, including EurekAlert, Medium, and social networking service channels are recommended as new media to propagate journals’ content to researchers. Improving visibility and discoverability is an urgent mission, especially for small society journals. To achieve this mission, science journals should be adapted to become storytellers and science communicators, as suggested above. A small society journal’s editor is not merely an editor, but an editor-publisher; therefore, editors should understand and take on this role.

The 2021 Korean National Open Access Policy Forum

Abstract: Brief meeting information Date and delivery method: June 17, 2021 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., live broadcast on Naver TV, Kakao TV, and YouTube. Venue: GLAD Yeouido Hotel, Seoul, Korea. Organized by: Offices of Members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea including Wonwook Lee, Dukgoo Kang, and Yeungshik Kim. Hosted by: National Research Foundation of Korea, Korea Federation of Science and Technology Societies, and Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information. Sponsored by: Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology Information and Communication. Purpose: The purpose of the 2021 National Open Access Policy of Korea was to design comprehensive measures for the direction of a national open access (OA) policy in South Korea, with goals such as providing free access to government-funded research results, encouraging OA publication in domestic academic journals, and mitigating expensive international journal subscription fees.

Writing letters and emails in English: correspondence for the editorial office

Abstract: One of the main responsibilities of the editorial office is to communicate effectively with authors through emails, formal letters, and most importantly through decision letters. Even when the content is informative and constructive and the editor has only good intentions, if the tone and level of formality are not managed properly, the image of the journal may be negatively affected, which may deter authors from submitting papers to the journal again. Despite their best efforts to treat authors respectfully, some editors may unintentionally cause offense if they lack the appropriate sociolinguistic knowledge required for effective English correspondence. In order to ease the burden of the editorial office, this tutorial aims to assist non-native English speaking editors by demonstrating the basic format and principles of writing formal letters and email, providing tips on how to select an acceptable level of formality, and offering strategies to avoid unintentional rudeness. Specific tips include framing issues positively, using indirect language, and using hedging. Through this tutorial, non-native English speaking editors are expected to develop sociolinguistic competence to write professionally and improve their efficiency in corresponding with authors.