The Potential Role for Intermediaries in Managing the…

The Potential Role for Intermediaries in Managing the Payment of Open Access Article Processing Charges (APCs) :

« This report examines the operational challenges that universities, funders and publishers face in the UK relating to the payment of article processing charges (APCs) – the charges levied by the publishers of open access and hybrid journals to meet the costs of the publication process. It then examines the feasibility of using intermediaries of various kinds to provide services to aggregate payments as between universities and publishers, along with other services relating to the processes involved in ensuring that an article is published on open access terms. The aim would be to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes involved for funders, universities and publishers. »

URL : http://repository.jisc.ac.uk/4949/

Digital_Humanities

« Digital_Humanities is a compact, game-changing report on the state of contemporary knowledge production. Answering the question, « What is digital humanities?, » it provides an in-depth examination of an emerging field. This collaboratively authored and visually compelling volume explores methodologies and techniques unfamiliar to traditional modes of humanistic inquiry–including geospatial analysis, data mining, corpus linguistics, visualization, and simulation–to show their relevance for contemporary culture.

Included are chapters on the basics, on emerging methods and genres, and on the social life of the digital humanities, along with « case studies, » « provocations, » and « advisories. » These persuasively crafted interventions offer a descriptive toolkit for anyone involved in the design, production, oversight, and review of digital projects. The authors argue that the digital humanities offers a revitalization of the liberal arts tradition in the electronically inflected, design-driven, multimedia language of the twenty-first century.Written by five leading practitioner-theorists whose varied backgrounds embody the intellectual and creative diversity of the field, Digital_Humanities is a vision statement for the future, an invitation to engage, and a critical tool for understanding the shape of new scholarship. »

URL : http://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262018470_Open_Access_Edition.pdf

Making Data a First Class Scientific Output Data…

Making Data a First Class Scientific Output: Data Citation and Publication by NERC’s Environmental Data Centres :

« The NERC Science Information Strategy Data Citation and Publication project aims to develop and formalise a method for formally citing and publishing the datasets stored in its environmental data centres. It is believed that this will act as an incentive for scientists, who often invest a great deal of effort in creating datasets, to submit their data to a suitable data repository where it can properly be archived and curated. Data citation and publication will also provide a mechanism for data producers to receive credit for their work, thereby encouraging them to share their data more freely. »

URL : http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/view/218

Developments in Research Funder Data Policy This…

Developments in Research Funder Data Policy :

« This paper reviews developments in funders’ data management and sharing policies, and explores the extent to which they have affected practice. The Digital Curation Centre has been monitoring UK research funders’ data policies since 2008. There have been significant developments in subsequent years, most notably the joint Research Councils UK’s Common Principles on Data Policy and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s Policy Framework on Research Data. This paper charts these changes and highlights shifting emphasises in the policies. Institutional data policies and infrastructure are increasingly being developed as a result of these changes. While action is clearly being taken, questions remain about whether the changes are affecting practice on the ground. »

URL : http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/view/219

Building an Open Data Repository for a Specialized Research Community: Process, Challenges and Lessons

In 2009, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) at Yale University began building an open access digital collection of social science experimental data, metadata, and associated files produced by ISPS researchers.

The digital repository was created to support the replication of research findings and to enable further data analysis and instruction. Content is submitted to a rigorous process of quality assessment and normalization, including transformation of statistical code into R, an open source statistical software.

Other requirements included: (a) that the repository be integrated with the current database of publications and projects publicly available on the ISPS website; (b) that it offered open access to datasets, documentation, and statistical software program files; (c) that it utilized persistent linking services and redundant storage provided within the Yale Digital Commons infrastructure; and (d) that it operated in accordance with the prevailing standards of the digital preservation community.

In partnership with Yale’s Office of Digital Assets and Infrastructure (ODAI), the ISPS Data Archive was launched in the fall of 2010.

We describe the process of creating the repository, discuss prospects for similar projects in the future, and explain how this specialized repository fits into the larger digital landscape at Yale.

URL : http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/view/222

Implementing Open Access Mandates in Europe This…

Implementing Open Access Mandates in Europe :

« This work highlights existing open access policies in Europe and provides an overview of publishers’ self-archiving policies. It also highlights the strategies needed to implement these policies. It provides a unique overview of national awareness of open access in 32 European countries involving all eu member states and in addition, Norway, Iceland, Croatia, Switzerland and Turkey. Moreover, it describes funder and institutional open access mandates in Europe and national strategies to introduce and implement them. An overview is provided of the repository infrastructure currently in place in European countries, including institutional and disciplinary repositories, national repository networks and national open access information portals and support networks. »

URL : http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/univerlag/2012/oa_mandates.pdf