Three questions with... Sherry!
Our lab is growing! In our Three Questions series, we’re profiling each of our members and the amazing work they’re doing.
This post introduces Sherry Kuang, a master´s student and research assistant at the ScholCommLab. In this interview, Sherry shares her excitement about the insights she has gained from a wide variety of sources, ranging from a recent class co-taught by some of our lab members to Tang dynasty poetry. Meet Sherry below!
Q#1 What are you working on at the lab?
I will be working on the Open Access Policy and Publishing Market (ROARA) project, looking at the early trends surrounding new publishing fees and the impact they are having on research assessment and publishing behaviour. I also look forward to contributing to the expansion of the recently published APC dataset and exploring different methods to uncover more information on the web.
Q#2 Tell us about a recent paper, presentation, or project you’re proud of.
Earlier this year, I took a special topics course on open access, co-taught by Leigh-Ann and Maddie. The final project was to develop a toolkit that could be used to implement and develop OA publication strategies; my group created one for early-career, social sciences and humanities researchers. It was fascinating to learn about the publishing history and culture of this particular branch of science and shaped my understanding of the diversity of OA pathways and initiatives.
Q#3 What’s the best (or worst) piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Lately, I’ve been reading Tang dynasty poetry as a way to learn more Chinese vocabulary and found it quietly offers some great advice on living, too: to value and enjoy the natural world and our encounters with each other.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/scholcommlab.5796
Three questions with... Molly!
Our lab is growing! In our Three Questions series, we’re profiling each of our members and the amazing work they’re doing.
This post introduces Molly Frost, a research assistant at the ScholCommLab. In this interview, Molly shares what excites her about her new role at the lab, and encourages us to embrace curiosity wholeheartedly.
Q#1 What are you working on at the lab?
I’m new to the ScholCommLab, and I am very excited to start assisting on the Open Access Policy and Publishing Market (ROARA) project. I quite enjoy working with quantitative data, so I look forward to seeing what our data will allow us to piece together about the academic publishing landscape at this moment in time.
Q#2 Tell us about a recent paper, presentation, or project you’re proud of.
I’ve started my master’s degree fresh out of undergrad, so my most recent project is my undergraduate thesis in Psychology, which I completed this past April. I was fortunate enough to join a project under the supervision of Dr. Jens Kreitewolf at McGill University, which investigated how speech from different voices is processed by French-English bilingual listeners. The topic itself was fascinating, and the experience encouraged me to continue pursuing research in graduate school.
Q#3 What’s the best (or worst) piece of advice you’ve ever received?
The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is probably from my mom, who reminds me time and time again to follow the things that interest and excite me in life. She’s taught me never to take my curiosity for granted, but rather to value and engage with it. I’ve taken this to heart, and suspect that I’m better for it in ways I don’t quite yet understand.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/scholcommlab.5778
Juan Pablo Alperin reflects on his academic career
As ScholCommLab co-director Juan Pablo Alperin continues advancing in his career, he reflects on the path that brought him here. In this blog post, he revisits his professional journey and most notable achievements, including the founding and ongoing impact of the ScholCommLab. He also opens up about some of the challenges he has faced and overcome along the way, and shares the steps he plans to take as he looks ahead.
This interview contains excerpts from Juan’s application for promotion to full professor. Read the full career narrative here.
What has been the central focus of your career so far?
Over the course of my career, I have researched, advocated, and broadly worked to transform the way scholarly knowledge is produced, disseminated, and used. I have done so in order to build a more equitable, informed, and participatory public sphere—a public sphere in which knowledge is understood and treated as a public good, and in which those working at knowledge institutions are entrusted to contribute by making their own knowledge public.
My research has focused on two intersecting themes: first, the reimagining of scholarly communication systems to support equity, openness, and participation; and second, a critical examination of academic career incentives and how they shape what, how, and for whom scholars work.
What is your preferred way of working?
My contributions have taken different forms over the years. I have made methodological and empirical contributions through traditional research publications, influenced disciplinary and professional discussions through presentations and keynotes, and shaped professional practice through the development of widely used publishing software.
As shown in different aspects of my work, including my role as co-director of the the ScholCommLab, my preferred approach is to work with colleagues, students, and postdocs from across disciplines to gather evidence in multi-authored publications, and then to bring this evidence, along with my broader expertise, into advisory roles, keynote addresses, presentations, and working group contributions where my perspective is sought.
Overall, I would say my work can be said to draw on a combination of computational, quantitative, and qualitative methods, with a deep commitment to collaboration and interdisciplinarity.
What role has the ScholCommLab played in your career?
In 2017, Stefanie Haustein and I founded the Scholarly Communications Lab (ScholCommLab). Originally a place to house our collaboration and offer an affiliation to unaffiliated collaborators, the Lab has come to garner an international reputation due to the calibre of work and individuals who make up the team. Over the years, the ScholCommLab has grown into a diverse and interdisciplinary group that has supported upwards of 50 early-career researchers.
We have made important contributions from the lab, with dozens of research outputs that have garnered significant attention and proven to be influential in scholarly communication debates. We have also seen lab members go on to win national fellowships and start promising careers, both within and beyond academia.
We have made important contributions from the lab, with dozens of research outputs that have garnered significant attention and proven to be influential in scholarly communication debates.
Yet, what I am most proud of is having contributed to shaping the inclusive and collaborative culture we have cultivated in the ScholCommLab—one that prioritizes mentorship, co-authorship, and collective inquiry. We have managed to build this culture—despite the distributed nature of the members, their numerous other affiliations, and their different career stages—by leaning on a collaboratively developed Code of Conduct and Authorship Guideline documents, by modeling inclusive practices, and by holding regular online “lab events” to support each other and build community.
The Public Knowledge Project (PKP) is another key part of your work. What should we know about this project and your involvement with it?
PKP has been a central pillar of my career, and by far its most impactful aspect. I have worked with PKP since 2007, first as a software developer and researcher, and, since 2016, as part of its leadership team.
I am currently the Scientific Director of PKP, where I have led a talented team of developers, researchers, librarians, and staff in advancing one of the world’s most widely used scholarly publishing platforms: Open Journal Systems (OJS). OJS has grown to support over 50,000 journals worldwide, and has become a cornerstone of global open access infrastructure.
Supporting this number of journals carries with it a big responsibility to ensure that this content can be discovered and preserved, as well as to support those publishing these journals in keeping their content open to the public. Blending my ScholCommLab and PKP roles, our current focus is on analyzing how we can achieve universal indexing of all scholarly content.
PKP’s work has been recognized through a wide range of national and international funding, awards, and contracts. This level of support and growth reflects not just technical achievement, but the success of the deliberate positioning of PKP—and as a result, SFU more broadly—as a leader in knowledge infrastructure at a time when questions about access, trust, and equity in scholarly communication are more pressing than ever.
Your work with PKP originated while you were living in Latin America. What’s the significance of this region to your career?
My work challenging long-held assumptions in scholarly publishing can be traced back to the beginning of my academic career, especially as it pertains to the value of scholarship being produced in the Global South.
My now 10-year-old dissertation offered empirical evidence of the public’s use of open access research. I uncovered that 20-25% of downloads of open access research in Latin America come from non-academic readers, highlighting the importance of access for the broader public.
More broadly, my work documenting Latin America’s uniquely regional approach to non-commercial and cooperative publishing has helped to establish Latin America’s approach to OA as a paragon for the rest of the world. It has been gratifying to see these efforts materialize as Latin America is finally being recognized internationally in discussions about Open Access, including those taking place at the two recent Global Diamond Open Access Summits.
How do you envision your work unfolding as you continue moving forward?
My work is grounded in a belief that scholarship must serve the public good. In an era of disinformation, polarization, and growing mistrust of academic institutions, I see my efforts as part of a broader movement to realign academic systems with public needs and values. As I look ahead, I remain committed to continuing to work in the service of both the academic community and the public by building the tools, partnerships, and research needed to make scholarly communication more inclusive, participatory, and impactful.
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/w9x9x-snb72
Three questions with... Maxime!
Our lab is growing! In our Three Questions series, we’re profiling each of our members and the amazing work they’re doing.
This post introduces Maxime Descartes Mbogning Fonkou, a postdoctoral fellow at the ScholCommLab. In this interview, Maxime reflects on his trajectory and commitment to advancing an open science that is also more equitable and accountable. He further shares a piece of advice that, while it initially sounded simple to him, has deeply impacted his approach to work and life.
Q#1 What are you working on at the lab, and what do you enjoy most about it?
I’m working under the supervision of Juan Pablo Alperin alongside an amazing interdisciplinary team to explore how scientific manuscripts evolve from preprints to final publications, and what these changes reveal about equity, recognition, and transparency in scholarly publishing. I’m especially interested in the trajectories of preprints that never get formally published: are they being excluded, or are they part of an alternative model of validation? Coming from Cameroon, having studied and worked in France, and now continuing my research in Canada, I’ve seen how access to knowledge and opportunities vary greatly across contexts. These experiences shaped my deep commitment to making science not just open, but also equitable and accountable. What excites me most about this project is the chance to contribute to a global conversation on reforming scholarly communication, and to do so with a team that shares both the passion and the purpose.
Coming from Cameroon, having studied and worked in France, and now continuing my research in Canada, I’ve seen how access to knowledge and opportunities vary greatly across contexts. These experiences shaped my deep commitment to making science not just open, but also equitable and accountable.
Q#2 Tell us about a recent paper, presentation, or project you’re proud of.
I’m especially proud of two recent projects that reflect my interest in research equity, open science, and the use of large datasets to understand scholarly communication.
The first is a paper I co-authored in Nature Biotechnology, where we analyzed 25 years of global patent data related to phage therapy, an alternative to antibiotics. I helped organize and analyze data to map who is filing these patents, where they’re from, and what types of institutions they represent. We found that most patents come from high-income countries, even though low- and middle-income regions could greatly benefit from such innovations. This highlighted important gaps in access, innovation, and equity.
The second project was a large-scale study on Open Access in African research, where we examined over 850,000 publications from 2002 to 2021. We looked at how access to scientific work has changed over time, what types of Open Access are used (Gold, Green, etc.), and how collaboration and funding affect visibility. I was especially proud to see how open publications tended to be more cited, and how international collaboration played a key role in driving access. This work speaks to the importance of transparency and inclusiveness in publishing practices.
Both projects employed bibliometric and metadata analysis, methods aligned with those used at ScholCommLab, and they raised important questions about equity, access, and visibility in research.
Q#3 What’s the best (or worst) piece of advice you’ve ever received?
“Train your mind to see the positive in everything.”
It sounded simple, but it changed how I approach research and life. Even when things go wrong, I try to find what I can learn from the experience. This mindset keeps me moving forward.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/scholcommlab.5538
Anton Boudreau Ninkov Elected CAIS/ACSI President for 2025–2026
We’re thrilled to share that Anton Boudreau Ninkov, Research Associate at the ScholCommLab, has been elected President of the Canadian Association for Information Science / l’Association canadienne des sciences de l’information (CAIS/ACSI) for the 2025–2026 term. In this blog post, Anton reflects on what this role means to him and outlines the key goals he aims to pursue during his presidency.
Q1: What does serving as the CAIS/ACSI president mean to you?
I am very happy and honoured to have the opportunity to serve as CAIS/ACSI president in 2025-2026. As someone who received my doctorate at Western University, completed my bachelor's degree and postdoctoral research at uOttawa, and am now a professeur adjoint at Université de Montréal, I have a deep connection to and appreciation for the information science schools in Canada. Having the opportunity to work with them collaboratively in this position is a very meaningful experience for me. Additionally, by following in the footsteps of some of the previous presidents of CAIS, such as the immediate outgoing president Nafiz Shuva, Julia Bullard, and Phillipe Mongeon, I join a tradition of great Canadian information science scholars and am humbled to be part of such a prestigious list. It is also not lost on me that I take on this role at a time in the world when it has never meant more to be a member of a regional association like CAIS/ACSI, as a result of the lack of confidence in some of our international collaborations. I look forward to helping guide this important Canadian organization in these times.
Q2: What are you planning to achieve during your presidency?
First, I will mention that while the title is “President,” the role is not what we may think when we consider presidencies like those in the USA or France. I have no power to make executive orders or declarations. My primary and most important goal is a functional one. I view my responsibility as guiding the executive board to respond to the questions and issues we face and offer my perspectives on paths forward and improve the efficiency of how our work is done. That being said, there are a few key issues I hope we, as an executive board, can continue working towards. First is the issue of membership outreach and events. Many strides have been made on this front in recent years (Université de Montréal officially became a member of CAIS/ACSI this year), but there is still work to do. We are exploring ways to engage members by providing them with more information about CAIS/ACSI operations, gathering feedback to improve our association, considering the types of events we could plan outside of the conference that would help our members, and adding additional resources to the association website. Secondly, I hope to work with the board to continue improving our ability to meet our mandate to be bilingual. While the majority of members are unilingual Anglophones, our association has many bilingual, multilingual, and unilingual Francophone members. It is important that our organization finds ways to bridge the language gap as much as possible. At a minimum, this requires us to provide all association resources in both official languages. If we can use tools to help address the challenges of operating in two official languages, I will be happy to introduce them. Finally, I would like to reiterate that we are living in very turbulent and uncertain times. Regional, national, and federal organizations like CAIS/ACSI have never been more important. It is my goal to help guide the board and association during these times and contribute to meeting the needs of our members, who include researchers and practitioners throughout Canada and beyond.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/scholcommlab.5488
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Three questions with... Margaret!
Our lab is growing! In our Three Questions series, we’re profiling each of our members and the amazing work they’re doing.
This post introduces Margaret Rose, research assistant at the ScholCommLab. In this interview, Margaret offers a glimpse into some of her inspiring projects and reflects on a piece of advice from her brother that has guided her for nearly 30 years.
Q#1 What are you working on at the lab?
I’m working on the ROARA project as a research assistant, helping to update and expand the dataset of APC prices from archived journal websites. This work is really valuable because researchers will be able to use the dataset to figure out patterns in publisher habits and the flow of money in the academic publishing industry. This kind of data is vital to support the push for open access publishing, and I’m glad to be part of the project.
Q#2 Tell us about a recent paper, presentation, or project you’re proud of.
My work in my Master of Information Studies (MIS) courses at uOttawa has been really varied, which is fun. I’ve especially enjoyed hands-on projects working with data in different ways, such as the one we did in Dr. Stefanie Haustein’s Knowledge Organization class to examine the structure and organization of OpenAlex concepts that are part of its machine indexing system.
I think the project I’m most proud of is the data art piece I created called "My Doctor Said..." for the Big Data, Culture and Society course with Dr. Jada Watson. The artwork features anonymized first-person stories collected from Canadian women mapped as pop-ups over a drawing of a woman’s body. This was paired with a research essay on the medical treatment of women. Working on this project allowed me to try out some data collection and visualization tools in a creative way. I’m currently developing it into an Omeka exhibit so it can be shared. I should really get on that to get it finished!
Q#3 What’s the best (or worst) piece of advice you’ve ever received?
“You don’t need to figure out what you want to be when you grow up – lots of people never do. Just figure out what you want to do next.” My older brother said this to me when I was fussing about my lack of direction about 30 years ago. I still don’t have much sense of direction, but I’m always finding interesting things to do next.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/scholcommlab.5435
Three questions with... Lucía!
Our lab is growing! In our Three Questions series, we’re profiling each of our members and the amazing work they’re doing.
This post introduces Lucía Céspedes, a research associate at ScholCommLab. In this interview, Lucía tells us about her exciting work and encourages us to dare to write, rewrite, and publish, while letting go of the unachievable desire to read it all.
Q#1 What are you working on at the lab?
I joined the Lab in 2022 to work on a project related to the use of social media by physicians to communicate reliable health information and fight misinformation. It was a lovely way to reconnect with my background in Social Communication and Science Journalism after dedicating my PhD studies to Sociology of science. Since my current position at Érudit involves a lot of reflection and discussion about tendencies and practices of scholarly publication and open science, the Lab is an amazing forum to keep up to date with my colleagues’ research, share information, and just generally collaborate and support each other.
Q#2 Tell us about a recent paper, presentation, or project you’re proud of.
As a multilingual scholar and Linguistics nerd, I’m very drawn to analyzing how certain power structures of the scientific field are channelled through languages, and how those dynamics may be changing in the context of open science.
In a paper published earlier this year, we studied the coverage, accuracy and completeness of metadata about language of publication in OpenAlex. We manually verified the language of more than 6000 articles indexed in the database vis à vis the actual language of each full text. We found a much more diverse linguistic landscape in OpenAlex than in other more restrictive, more elitist indexes, which is great in terms of non-Anglophone scholars’ representation! Even so, this portrait of multilingual science could be even more accurately depicted with improvements in OpenAlex’s metadata quality. It was great to feel we were contributing to the development of a very promising new source of information – and, personally, coordinating such a large team was an exciting challenge.
Q#3 What’s the best (or worst) piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Let go of the illusion of exhaustivity – none of us will ever be able to read everything there is to read about a specific topic. At a certain point, you have to be confident enough to stop absorbing others’ texts and start crafting your own. And always remember that a first draft is just that, a first draft. It’s perfect just by existing, because its only purpose is to be the starting point from where your ideas will begin to take shape. Longer, more polished, better texts will follow! However, it’s extremely easy to get lost in the never-ending loop of revising and re-revising. So, as my thesis supervisor would say, start writing to stop reading, and commit to publishing to stop rewriting!
Check out Lucía's Bluesky account for open access updates, science policy discussions, football opinions, and carpinchos [capybara] memes!
Read her publications on her ORCID profile.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59350/scholcommlab.5380
Three questions with... Diego!
Our lab is growing! In our Three Questions series, we’re profiling each of our members and the amazing work they’re doing.
This post introduces Dr. Diego Chavarro, a Research Associate at the ScholCommLab. In this interview, Diego tells us what excites him most about his work. He also reflects on a transformative piece of advice he received from his mentor, which shaped his approach to sharing his research and cultivated in him a mindset of perseverance and lifelong learning.
Q#1 What are you working on at the lab?
I am working with Dr. Juan Pablo Alperin on assembling a database of bibliographic information from journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS), with the aim of building a quality scientometric database that can be used to perform science of science studies. This database is unique, as many journals and documents cannot be found in mainstream databases such as Scopus or Web of Science. Analyzing these data will uncover hidden portions of global science that are underestimated and marginalized by current search engines, indexers, organizations, and governments.
Q#2 Tell us about a recent paper, presentation, or project you’re proud of.
In our recent paper titled "On the Open Road to Universal Indexing: OpenAlex and Open Journal Systems," we explored the indexing of journals using Open Journal Systems (JUOJS) by OpenAlex, revealing that 71% of the 47,625 active JUOJS have at least one article indexed, with a significant reliance on Crossref DOIs for inclusion—97% of journals using Crossref DOIs were indexed. Our findings highlight systemic disparities in global scholarly visibility, particularly the underrepresentation of resource-limited journals from low-income countries and non-English languages, emphasizing the need for inclusive indexing practices that address financial, infrastructural, and linguistic barriers. This study not only critiques the current indexing landscape but also provides a theoretical framework for understanding the complexities of scholarly infrastructure dependencies, advocating for a more equitable approach to global knowledge representation.
"I am passionate about sharing science existing outside mainstream platforms, such as knowledge produced in non-dominant places and languages. Raising awareness about its importance is crucial because when we exclude this knowledge from scientific discourse, we erase valuable insights that could benefit us all. This weakens science as a whole. I want to contribute to preventing this marginalization, ensuring a more enriched scientific landscape."
Q#3 What’s the best (or worst) piece of advice you’ve ever received?
During a thought-provoking debate with my mentor, José Luis Villaveces, I asserted that a good researcher should only publish their best work and not publish for the sake of it. With a condescending smile, he replied: “Do you think great soccer players only play when they're at their best? They practice and play through all kinds of matches to improve.” This moment was a revelation for me; I realized that publishing is not just about showcasing perfection but rather about contributing to the dialogue, learning through the process, and evolving as a researcher. Embracing this perspective has not only encouraged me to share more of my work, even when it feels unfinished, but it has also fostered a mindset of continuous growth and resilience in my academic journey.
Find a list of Diego's publications here.