Mois : février 2012

Users narcissism and control – tracking the impact…

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Users, narcissism and control – tracking the impact of scholarly publications in the 21st century :

“What is the scientific and social impact of my research publications? This question has been of interest to scientists and scholars since the inception of modern science 400 years ago. But it was hard to answer. This may now be changing. Scholarship is transforming into a variety of digital networked forms. These developments have created new possibilities and challenges in the evaluation of the quality of research. This is of interest to research funders assessing the quality of research. It is also relevant to the individual researchers interested in assessing their career development.

This report explores the explosion of tracking tools that have accompanied the surge of web based information instruments. Is it possible to monitor ‘real-time’ how new research findings are being read, cited, used and transformed in practical results and applications? And what are the potential risks and disadvantages of the new tracking tools? This report aims to contribute to a better understanding of these developments by providing a detailed assessment of the currently available novel tools and methodologies. A total of 16 quite different tools are assessed.

The report concludes that web based academic publishing is producing a variety of novel information filters. These allow the researcher to make some sort of limited self-assessment with respect to the response to his/her work. However, this does not mean that these technologies and databases can also legitimately be used in research assessments. For this application, they need to adhere to a far stricter protocol of data quality and indicator reliability and validity. Most new tools do not (yet) comply with these more strict quality criteria.

The report therefore advises to start a concerted research programme in the dynamics, properties, and potential use of new web based metrics which relates these new measures to the already established indicators of publication impact. Its goal would be to contribute to the development of more useful tools for the scientific and scholarly community. This programme should monitor at least the following tools: F1000, Microsoft Academic Research, Total-Impact, PlosONE altmetrics, and Google Scholar. The programme should moreover develop the following key research themes: concepts of new web metrics and altmetrics; standardisation of tools and data; and the use and normalisation of the new metrics.”

URL : http://www.surffoundation.nl/nl/publicaties/Documents/Users%20narcissism%20and%20control.pdf

The Future of Taxpayer-Funded Research: Who Will Control Access to the Results?

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This report examines the costs and benefits of increased public access, and proposals to either extend or overturn the NIH policy. It looks at increased public access to research results through the lens of “openness,” with a particular interest in how greater openness affects the progress of science, the productivity of the research enterprise, the process of innovation, the commercialization of research, and economic growth.

URL : http://www.ced.org/images/content/issues/innovation-technology/DCCReport_Final_2_9-12.pdf

Use of ICT Based Electronic Resources in selected…

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Use of ICT Based Electronic Resources in selected Central Universities of India :

“The paper divulge in the increasing use of electronic resources and the widening acceptance of the same among academic library patrons. Reaffirms the necessity of making the end users aware of the e-resources based services offered by the libraries. Conducts a cursory examination of the web design of the university libraries. Finally, attempts to identify ways to maximise the use of e-resources by taking into consideration 18 central university libraries.”

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/16561

Studies on Subject Specific Requirements for Open Access…

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Studies on Subject-Specific Requirements for Open Access Infrastructure :

“This study addresses subject-specific requirements for research infrastructure
with a focus on the influences of Open Access (OA). OA is treated in a broad sense covering open access to literature, open data and open science. Considering the wide variety of aspects to be analysed and the early stages of developing a general account of OA infrastructure, the study took a case based approach and deliberately did not attempt to provide a representative account of research. In the pragmatic approach taken, six partners (institutions and organisations) were chosen to provide their subjective view on OA infrastructure. These partners are considered as exemplars of research and infrastructure institutions in a given subject area.”

URL : http://pub.uni-bielefeld.de/download/2445229/2460478

The Influence of the National Institutes of Health…

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The Influence of the National Institutes of Health : Public-Access Policy on the Publishing Habits of Principal Investigators :

“The mandatory NIH public-access policy, which became effective on April 7, 2008, requires the NIH-funded principal investigators (PIs) to self-archive to the National Library of Medicine subject repository PubMed Central a manuscript’s electronic version immediately upon publication, which will then be available to the public free of cost the latest after a twelve-month embargo period. The Public Library of Science (PLoS), a non-profit open-access publisher in health sciences, publishes seven journals in the health sciences field (PLoS ONE, PLoS Biology, PLoS Medicine, PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics, PLoS Pathogenes and PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases) and submits to PubMed Central all the published articles, irrespective of the funder of the research results. The PIs who had published in one of the PLoS journals were chosen based on the journals’ established high impact factor immediately after their creation. The PIs’ motivation to publish in one of the seven PLoS journals was unknown. Whether the NIH public-access policy has affected the PIs’ publishing decisions was also unknown.

A random sample of NIH-funded PIs, who had published in one of the PLoS journals between the years 2005- 2009, was selected from the RePORTER database. During the period
March-May 2011, forty-two PIs were interviewed using SkypeTM software, and a semi-structured open-ended interview protocol was followed. The participants were divided into two groups; the pre-mandate PIs, who had published in one of the seven PLoS journals during the period 2005-2007 and the post-mandate, who had published in the PLoS journals the during period 2008-2009. The publishing habits of these two groups were compared, in order to reach an understanding about their publishing decisions.

Based on the findings, the NIH-funded PIs choose the PLoS journals due to their high impact factor, fast publication speed, fair peer-review system and the articles’ open-access availability. Although the PIs agree with the premise that publicly funded research must be distributed for-free to everyone who has funded it, the steps required to comply with the policy were perceived to be time consuming. Since conformity with the policy is essential, the participants’ goal is to ensure that the manuscripts will appear to PubMed Central, which either can be self-archived by the PIs, by an administrative assistant or by the journal.

The NIH public-access policy did not cause either an increase in the PIs’ open-access awareness or a change in their publishing habits. The open-access advocates were supporters of the immediate free access to scientific information before the policy and provided their manuscripts free-of-cost before the policy’s mandate. The non-open-access advocates choose their publications based on quality criteria such as the journal’s prestige, impact factor, speed of publication and the attracted audience, while the article’s open-access availability is considered to be a plus. Furthermore, since a large number of journals comply with the NIH-policy, the participants did not have to change their publishing habits.”

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/17208

Preservation Status Of E Resources A Potential Crisis…

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Preservation Status Of E-Resources: A Potential Crisis In Electronic Journal Preservation :

“E-journals have replaced the majority of titles formerly produced in paper format. Academic libraries are increasingly dependent on commercially produced, born-digital content that is purchased or licensed. The purpose of this presentation is to share the findings of a 2CUL study that assesses the role of LOCKSS and PORTICO in preserving each institution’s e-journal collections. The 2CUL initiative is a collaboration between Columbia University Library (CUL) and Cornell University Library (CUL) to join forces in providing content, expertise, and services that are impossible to accomplish acting alone.

Although LOCKSS is considered a successful digital preservation initiative, neither of the CULs felt that they fully understood the potential of the system for their own settings and collections. In support of this goal, a joint team was established in November 2010 to investigate various questions to assess how LOCKSS is being deployed and the implications of local practices for both CUL’s preservation frameworks. This study was seen as a high-level investigation to characterize the general landscape and identify further research questions. One of the practical outcomes was a comparative analysis of Portico and LOCKSS preservation coverage for Columbia and Cornell’s serial holdings. A key finding was that only 15-20% of the e-journal titles in the libraries’ collections are currently preserved by these two initiatives. Further analysis suggests the remaining titles fall into roughly 10 categories, with a variety of strategies needed to ensure their preservation.”

URL : http://www.cni.org/topics/digital-preservation/preservation-status-of-eresources/