UOC scientific journals join RACO's editorial management platform
Subject: Multidisciplinary
The UOC has joined the Catalan repository of open access journals, a prestigious joint project led by the Catalan University Service Consortium (CSUC).
From now on, Artnodes, BiD, Digithum, IDP and Dictatorships & Democracies (D&D) will be edited and published in full using the RACO professional platform, an advanced version of the repository run by Catalan Journals in Open Access (RACO). The UOC is the third Catalan university to join the repository's new editorial management interface.
The UOC's decision to move a significant number of the scientific journals it co-publishes onto RACO professional was made with two aims in mind: to raise the visibility of the articles and to upgrade technical aspects of the editorial process. According to Mireia Salgot, UOC Library for Research director, "the University is standing by its commitment through a prestigious project that fosters the principles of open science". Despite the change, access to the journals and the ability to read the articles remains untouched.
Shining a brighter spotlight on research
The journal content made available on RACO can also be retrieved from nationwide Spanish repositories, including Dialnet and the University Union Catalogue of Catalonia (CCUC), as well as from international repositories such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). What's more, the articles are included in electronic resource databases such as Scopus (Elsevier), EBSCO and ProQuest.
Up-to-date editorial management
In addition to providing a repository for preserving and disseminating articles, RACO also offers advanced editorial management based on Open Journal Systems (OJS) software. Thanks to this option, journals are able to work with more intuitive, streamlined and robust software. Not only that, the teams also receive user training and guidance, problem-solving support and a guarantee of fulfilment of their legal duties (e.g. GDPR, computer servers).
For BiD's co-editor-in-chief, Candela Ollé, RACO "is a highly consolidated platform, with an exceedingly professional reputation and background". When asked, she was quick to highlight the fluid and personable communication with the Catalan University Service Consortium (CSUC) team.
Taking part in a prestigious joint project
The CSUC and Biblioteca de Catalunya launched RACO over 10 years ago, with a view to disseminating the open access journals published by universities and institutions in the cultural and scientific spheres.
The repository serves as a platform for disseminating the scientific production published in journals and, in doing so, helps further the advancement of open science. It currently contains more than 500 open access journals from Catalan organizations and institutions. Last year alone the web page received 9 million hits from Spain, China, Germany, the United States and other countries in Europe and Latin America. To boot, in the most recent Transparent Ranking of Repositories, RACO placed second in the list of Spanish repositories.
The cooperative project's aims are also in line with the UOC's Open Knowledge Action Plan, which encourages the publication of scientific output in open access, in order to shine a light on quality research and university education.
Salgot said: "The UOC's participation in RACO opens up avenues for collaboration with the Catalan University Service Consortium (CSUC), which will make it possible to permeabilize the UOC's quality and expertise in this area."
