Discover the new Gateway on F1000Research, welcoming submissions from authors affiliated with the University of Tsukuba in both English and Japanese.
Today, the University of Tsukuba launched its own open access publishing hub that will enable researchers to publish in either English or Japanese. The hub, which is hosted on the F1000Research site, adopts its pioneering approach to open science publishing.
Not only does the publishing hub, known as the University of Tsukuba Gateway, make it simple for authors affiliated with the University of Tsukuba to publish any research or data they wish to share rapidly, openly and transparently, but it also enables those studying the humanities and social sciences to choose whether to publish in English or in Japanese, revolutionising how the results of research in Japan are disseminated.
The Gateway welcomes research from all fields in the physical, biological, medical, and social sciences, arts and humanities, in all forms, from traditional research articles to a protocols, registered reports, data notes, case studies and much more.
Kyosuke Nagata, President of the University of Tsukuba said:
“Creating a publishing platform that transcends the language barrier is of great significance. As a university that caters to all disciplines, we at the University of Tsukuba felt that we must do something to make the world more aware of the value of humanities and social sciences researchers. The F1000Research gateway allows researchers to submit papers in Japanese, and if certain criteria are met, these papers will be indexed in international databases. ( blank:a, vol.7, 2021, p.16).
“Scientists and scholars must take charge of the core of research—this is the most important message we want to convey. ( blank:a, vol.7, 2021, p.7)”
Over the past few years, there have been huge strides towards open research around the world. The 2016 Amsterdam Call for Open Science led the way for a raft of initiatives across Europe to rethink how research is conducted and disseminated, and how researchers and their institutions are rewarded and incentivized.
Across the world, and notably in the US and China, there has been significant momentum in the development of policies designed to ensure full open access to new research. Increasingly today, open access policies are accompanied by requirements to provide access to any data, code and resources that underpin research findings, to better support the use and reuse of those discoveries so that we can build on those findings to enable the next big discoveries and innovations.
The University of Tsukuba have therefore shown real leadership and innovation in not only embracing open research publishing practices but also establishing our first partnership to offer a full bi-lingual service.
Rebecca Lawrence, Managing Director of F1000 Research Ltd said:
“It is wonderful to see that the first articles have now been published on the University of Tsukuba Gateway. This is a very important collaboration for us, providing an opportunity to work together to learn and evolve our publish model so that open research publishing models can better serve the scholarly community. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with colleagues at the University of Tsukuba and look forward to supporting their researchers in maximizing the reach and impact of their scholarly outputs.”
The first Japanese language articles that will be published on the University of Tsukuba Gateway are:
COVID-19 Measures and the Japanese Constitution By Hajime Akiyama
Since March 2020, the Act on Special Measures for Pandemic Influenza and New Infectious Diseases Preparedness and Response has been a significant statute in dealing with COVID-19 in Japan. The Act mandates requests and orders for business suspension and shortened business hours, and stay-at-home requests. Although there have been no penalties as of January 2021, these requests and orders limit freedom of movement and establishment, guaranteed rights under the Japanese Constitution. This article poses the following research question: “Does the Japanese Constitution allow measures against COVID-19 such as requests and orders for business suspension and shortened business hours, and stay-at-home requests?” It also asks: “Are measures with penalties allowed by the Constitution?” This paper argues while introducing constitutional concepts that guarantee or limit individual freedom that since measures against COVID-19 are considered public welfare, the Constitution allows limiting freedom of establishment and movement.
Hajime Akiyama, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, said of his rationale for publishing on the Gateway:
“I am researching COVID-19 measures from a Japanese constitutional perspective. Since this is a timely issue that is highly relevant to society, I wished to publish a Japanese article that can be read by the general public in Japan. I also wanted to share the article with scholars researching COVID-19 globally so that they would be able to know a legal discussion in Japan concerning COVID-19 measures. The University of Tsukuba Gateway associated with F1000Research was ideal for me because I could submit my article in Japanese, and the English abstract would be read by scholars on natural sciences globally. This Gateway is attractive because it enables to share the result of research with both the Japanese general public and scholars all over the world in a timely manner. Its open peer-review process is attractive too because students can learn the process of writing and peer-review.”
Motoda Nagazane’s Standards of Confucianism –Between Confucianism and Emperor Centralism by Seogin Eom
This paper discusses the ideological significance of the activities of Motoda Nagazane, who, in the latter half of his life, became an attendant of Emperor Meiji as a member of the Kumamoto school of practical science. While the times were trending towards modernisation and Westernisation, Motoda Nagazane led a conservative reaction attempting to restore Confucianist politics/policies. I scrutinise the theories of revolution and lineage, considering the history of East Asian Confucianism and comparing Motoda’s assertions to the views expressed by Kumazawa Banzan. In doing so, I assert that Motoda’s consistent attitude shows that he does not approve of the theory of revolution and that he regards the theory of lineage as an established fact. Thus, he highlights the cultivation of virtues in rulers, adopting the stance typically taken by Confucian scholars in the history of Japanese ideology.
The gateway has also published the following English language articles:
Atsuko Higashino said: “One of the greatest advantages of this open-identity review system is that the authors can nominate their potential referees. In my case, I registered the names of ‘the best and the brightest’ of the field. I was pleasantly surprised to see that 4 out of 5 experts agreed to review and give their comments to my paper. I believe that their comments that are published on F1000 would be of invaluable academic contributions in themselves.”
Naoya Yahagi said of his motivations behind choosing the University of Tsukuba Gateway to publish his article: “Our original method is a valuable resource to biologists working on identifying regulatory transcription factors, which is why we wanted to share this procedure with the community. The University of Tsukuba gateway accepts Brief Reports, which enabled us to openly share this method, helping to increase its visibility and broaden its dissemination. Afterall, it should be articles that determine the value of journals, rather than journals judging the impact of articles. We also liked that the peer review process is transparent, allowing all to see how the work has been evaluated.”
