Archives des mots-clés : academic libraries

Using Peer Review to Support Development of Community Resources for Research Data Management

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Authors : Heather Soyka, Amber Budden, Viv Hutchison, David Bloom, Jonah Duckles, Amy Hodge, Matthew S. Mayernik, Timothée Poisot, Shannon Rauch, Gail Steinhart, Leah Wasser, Amanda L. Whitmire, Stephanie Wright

Objective

To ensure that resources designed to teach skills and best practices for scientific research data sharing and management are useful, the maintainers of those materials need to evaluate and update them to ensure their accuracy, currency, and quality.

This paper advances the use and process of outside peer review for community resources in addressing ongoing accuracy, quality, and currency issues. It further describes the next step of moving the updated materials to an online collaborative community platform for future iterative review in order to build upon mechanisms for open science, ongoing iteration, participation, and transparent community engagement.

Setting

Research data management resources were developed in support of the DataONE (Data Observation Network for Earth) project, which has deployed a sustainable, long-term network to ensure the preservation and access to multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-national environmental and biological science data (Michener et al. 2012).

Created by members of the Community Engagement and Education (CEE) Working Group in 2011-2012, the freely available Educational Modules included three complementary components (slides, handouts, and exercises) that were designed to be adaptable for use in classrooms as well as for research data management training.

Methods

Because the modules were initially created and launched in 2011-2012, the current members of the (renamed) Community Engagement and Outreach (CEO) Working Group were concerned that the materials could be and / or quickly become outdated and should be reviewed for accuracy, currency, and quality.

In November 2015, the Working Group developed an evaluation rubric for use by outside reviewers. Review criteria were developed based on surveys and usage scenarios from previous DataONE projects.

Peer reviewers were selected from the DataONE community network for their expertise in the areas covered by one of the 11 educational modules. Reviewers were contacted in March 2016, and were asked to volunteer to complete their evaluations online within one month of the request, by using a customized Google form.

Results

For the 11 modules, 22 completed reviews were received by April 2016 from outside experts. Comments on all three components of each module (slides, handouts, and exercises) were compiled and evaluated by the postdoctoral fellow attached to the CEO Working Group.

These reviews contributed to the full evaluation and revision by members of the Working Group of all educational modules in September 2016. This review process, as well as the potential lack of funding for ongoing maintenance by Working Group members or paid staff, provoked the group to transform the modules to a more stable, non-proprietary format, and move them to an online open repository hosting platform, GitHub.

These decisions were made to foster sustainability, community engagement, version control, and transparency.

Conclusion

Outside peer review of the modules by experts in the field was beneficial for highlighting areas of weakness or overlap in the education modules. The modules were initially created in 2011-2012 by an earlier iteration of the Working Group, and updates were needed due to the constant evolving practices in the field.

Because the review process was lengthy (approximately one year) comparative to the rate of innovations in data management practices, the Working Group discussed other options that would allow community members to make updates available more quickly.

The intent of migrating the modules to an online collaborative platform (GitHub) is to allow for iterative updates and ongoing outside review, and to provide further transparency about accuracy, currency, and quality in the spirit of open science and collaboration.

Documentation about this project may be useful for others trying to develop and maintain educational resources for engagement and outreach, particularly in communities and spaces where information changes quickly, and open platforms are already in common use.

URL : Using Peer Review to Support Development of Community Resources for Research Data Management

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.2017.1114

Information in the ecosystem: Against the “information ecosystem”

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Authors : Timothy B. Norris, Todd Suomela

The “information ecosystem” metaphor is widely used in academic libraries and has become nearly ubiquitous when speaking of the information systems that support scholarly communication and varied forms of data sharing and publication.

The trending use of this language arises from non-academic applications — for example in big data (the Hadoop ecosystem) or software development (the node.js ecosystem) — and there remains little critical examination of the use of this metaphor.

Indeed, the definition of ecosystem as the set of relations between living organisms and their surrounding non-living environment is apparently not directly a part of the metaphor.

This paper first describes the emergence of ecological thinking and how it was influenced by early information science and then explores how different “ecologies” are used within the academy, including in the emergent field of information ecology.

A short critique of the metaphor is then posed and the paper concludes that the information ecosystem metaphor is useful, yet at the same time there are dangerous elements that render aspects of human societies and natural ecosystems invisible.

URL : http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6847

The interactive library as a virtual working space

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Author : Andreas Degkwitz

The internet and the new digital media are challenging the traditional business model of academic libraries and enable new capabilities of information provisioning and new shapes of collaborations between the librarians and the users.

To pick up the demands and the expectations of the many users, whose information behavior is heavily influenced by the internet, a new business model for academic libraries has to be designed urgently.

The aim of the project is to analyze and to identify the organizational and technical requirements of a business model for the future library, which is based on the potential of the internet and the new media.

The result is a pilot study about the interactive, multi-user driven library as the future business model for libraries.

URL : The interactive library as a virtual working space

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10214

Learning Analytics and the Academic Library: Professional Ethics Commitments at a Crossroads

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Authors : Kyle M.L. Jones, Dorothea Salo

In this paper, the authors address learning analytics and the ways academic libraries are beginning to participate in wider institutional learning analytics initiatives. Since there are moral issues associated with learning analytics, the authors consider how data mining practices run counter to ethical principles in the American Library Association’s “Code of Ethics.”

Specifically, the authors address how learning analytics implicates professional commitments to promote intellectual freedom; protect patron privacy and confidentiality; and balance intellectual property interests between library users, their institution, and content creators and vendors.

The authors recommend that librarians should embed their ethical positions in technological designs, practices, and governance mechanisms.

URL : Learning Analytics and the Academic Library: Professional Ethics Commitments at a Crossroads

Alternative location : http://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/16603

Maintaining collections with a flat budget

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Authors : Sara E Morris, Lea Currie

This paper focuses on the various processes, methods and tough decisions made by the University of Kansas Libraries to provide library materials while maintaining a flat collections budget for over eight years.

During this period, those responsible for the Libraries’ collections have implemented quick stop- gap measures, picked all the ‘low-hanging fruit’, and eventually canceled a large journal package. This case study will help other librarians facing the reality of maintaining collections at a time when budgets, changing formats and publication practices are all obstacles to providing patrons with what they need.

URL : Maintaining collections with a flat budget

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.334

Navigating the Political Waters of Open Access Publishing in Libraries

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Authors : Carol Ann Borchert, Charlene N. Simser, Wendy C. Robertson

In recent years, many libraries have forayed into the world of open access (OA) publishing. While it marks a major shift in the mission of libraries to move from providing access to content to generating and creating content ourselves, it still involves the same basic values regarding access to information.

The environment has changed, and libraries are adapting with new approaches and new staff skills to promote these fundamental values. The authors selected nineteen libraries and conducted phone interviews with a specific list of questions, encouraging discussion about how each library approached being a publisher.

This chapter examines the politics and issues involved, and makes recommendations for defining our roles in this new territory.

The authors highlight the approaches various libraries have taken—and the challenges faced—in selecting a platform, writing a business plan, planning for preservation, educating researchers about OA publishing, working with a university press, marketing, and navigating staff training issues.

The chapter concludes with recommendations for areas of focus and future research.

URL : http://ir.uiowa.edu/lib_pubs/200/

Organization and Delivery of Scholarly Communications Services by Academic and Research Libraries in the United Kingdom: Observations from Across the Pond

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Author: Christine Fruin

INTRODUCTION

The U.K. library community has implemented collaborative strategies in key scholarly communication areas such as open access mandate compliance, and U.S. librarians could benefit from learning in greater detail about the practices and experiences of U.K. libraries with respect to how they have organized scholarly communication services.

METHODS

In order to better understand the scholarly communication activities in U.K. academic and research libraries, and how U.S. libraries could apply that experience in the context of their own priorities, an environmental scan via a survey of U.K. research libraries and in-person interviews were conducted.

RESULTS

U.K. libraries concentrate their scholarly communication services on supporting compliance with open access mandates and in the development of new services that reflect libraries’ shifting role from information consumer to information producer.

DISCUSSION 

Due to the difference in the requirements of open access mandates in the U.K. as compared to the U.S., scholarly communication services in the U.K. are more focused on supporting compliance efforts. U.S. libraries engage more actively in providing copyright education and consultation than U.K. libraries. Both U.K. and U.S. libraries have developed new services in the areas of research data management and library publishing.

CONCLUSION

There are three primary takeaways from the experience of U.K. scholarly communication practitioners for U.S. librarians: increase collaboration with offices of research, reconsider current organization and delegation of scholarly communication services, and increase involvement in legislative and policy-making activity in the U.S. with respect to access to research.

URL : Organization and Delivery of Scholarly Communications Services by Academic and Research Libraries in the United Kingdom: Observations from Across the Pond

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2157