It Takes a Village! Editorship, Advocacy, and Research in Running an Open Access Data Journal

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article describes the team's experience in transforming a virtually inactive journal (Journal of Open Humanities Data, JOHD) into what is indeed now one of the most prestigious data-focused journals in the human sciences and, more specifically, in the publication of both experimental and observational data. There are a few others that could be named to make sure that this article is not just a piece of advertisement : « Humanities & Social Sciences Communications » or « Humanities & Social Sciences Communications » for instance. 

Despite this success and excellent growth of JOHD in just a few years, the authors are aware of the low penetration rate that the journal has managed to achieve, compared with that of the major journals in the so-called hard sciences or medicine, of course.

 

Managers of open access (OA) journals and open research data in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) face a number of challenges, mainly linked to the specific characteristics of HSS research, the chronic lack of funding and the difficulty of obtaining a collective expression from researchers.

The authors note several encouraging factors :

• recognition by the social sciences and humanities community ;
• awareness among HSS researchers of the importance of rigorous data, its conservation and even its sharing ;
• the usefulness of specialist data journals, which are on the increase;
• peer review in this field as a real help to researchers.

One would have liked to see some mention of the ranking of journals, the complexity of data in the human sciences, the diversity of operating ways, of publication habits and of consideration for data, as well as the problems linked to the protection of personal data.

 

Interestingly, a recent paper by van Bellen, Alperin and Larivière is addressing the fact that « the oligopoly of academic publishers persists in exclusive database »  (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.17893).

Author Response

Comment 1: “There are a few others that could be named to make sure that this article is not just a piece of advertisement : «Humanities & Social Sciences Communications» for instance.”

Response 1: We thank the reviewer for this comment. We have moved mentions of other data-focused journals from footnote 7 to the main body of the text (p. 4) and included a few more to showcase the various data journals in HSS. Of course, we do not want to come across as advertising JOHD, but at the same time, we wanted to be as transparent as possible about where our experience comes from.

Comment 2: “One would have liked to see some mention of the ranking of journals, the complexity of data in the human sciences, the diversity of operating ways, of publication habits and of consideration for data, as well as the problems linked to the protection of personal data.”

Response 2: While we think that performance metrics developed in STEM might be misleading for journals in HSS. We make the comment in the body of the text (p. 4) that a more helpful way to look at quality and impact of journals is according to the San Francisco Declaration of Research Assessment (DORA). Additionally, we think that JOHD’s listing in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and its recent admission to the Web of Science indexing service are signs of quality.

Comment 3: “Interestingly, a recent paper by van Bellen, Alperin and Larivière is addressing the fact that « the oligopoly of academic publishers persists in exclusive database »  (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2406.17893).”

Response 3: Thank you for directing our attention to this interesting preprint which was deposited on arxiv on 25 June 2024 after we submitted our paper to Publications. We have commented on this paper and referenced it on page 7.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attached Microsoft Word document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comment 1: “Highlighting how their innovative outreach and metric/assessment work expands upon the expected, industry-standard roles/responsibilities for scholarly journal edit. … I would encourage the authors to add a brief paragraph on the typical roles/responsibilities completed by journal editors in contemporary research landscape [with] any relevant scholarship on these typical roles.”

Response 1: We have added this information in the first paragraph of the section ‘Intertwining editorship, advocacy, and research’ (pp. 4-5) and made references to articles discussing roles and responsibilities in different journal contexts. 

Comment 2: “Reflecting on the ways that editors might be involved in the data article peer review process. … I would encourage the authors to cite any existing literature on editorial peer review work, as well as to add commentary on how their data journal editorship actions cited in the paper begin to complicate and/or expand editorship best practices.”

Response 2: On p. 5, we have included a paragraph to discuss data peer review, where we refer to studies on the data peer review process including a pilot project we were involved in with researchers from South Korea. We also talk about data peer review checks that our editors and reviewers carry out as part of the editorial process which we aim to formalise in the near future by having an in-house data curator and, if necessary, by sending the deposited data to external data peer review.

Comment 3: “Rethinking the title of the article to better focus reader’s attention on the evolving roles for data journal editors – although this is relatively minor feedback.”

Response 3: We have suggested a change to the title echoing the section header that reviewer found compelling: “It takes a village! Editorship, advocacy, and research in running an open access data journal”. We have also updated the abstract to reflect changes in the text.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No further comments.

Author Response

Thank you for your review.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I appreciate the efforts of the authors to address my previous comments. In particular, the additional commentary on data peer review, and their contributions towards refining this role in the editorial process, makes the paper more significant to the profession. 

With these additions finished, I would recommend publication.

Author Response

Thank you for your review.