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I'm hoping that someone out there deals with academic/scientific publications and can answer this question.
First the background: I am the Editorial Assistant for a scientific publication, Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal. The journal is listed in CrossRef and is an open access peer reviewed publication.
We regularly receive updates about CrossRef, how it works, and changes to how to register our information etc.
We received an email announcing a new way for "publishers and funders to track scholarly output via "FundRef"
Our editor wrote to me and sent the announcement, and asked how this impacts us. I have absolutely no idea. According to the FundRef website (http://www.crossref.org/fundref/):
WHO DOES FUNDREF BENEFIT?
- Funding organizations, which will be able to better track the results of their funding policies.
- Authors, in simplifying their submission process
- Research institutions, which will be able to track the productivity of their employees
- Publishers, which will be able to analyze the sources of funding for their published content, and
- Readers and the public, by providing greater transparency into the results of R&D funding.
THE QUESTION: What the heck does funding have to do with publications in a journal? And why would anyone care? In my understanding of things, I provide the funding information and publications info in reports to donors (personal or foundations) and let them know what's been published as a result of their funding. To now have this in a database like this seems to me like overkill.
Does anyone understand what FundRef is, why it really is important, and what we, as a scholarly publication should consider with relation to this?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Deborah
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