Étiquette : academic libraries

Evolving and Enduring Patterns Surrounding Student Usage and Perceptions of Academic Library Reference Services

Authors : Jodi Jameson, Gerald Natal, John Napp

This descriptive study analyzes results from an 18-item survey which assessed students’ usage and perceptions of library reference services at a comprehensive public metropolitan university.

Among 235 surveys completed between November 2016 and January 2017, the majority of respondents represented the “Generation Z” population of college students, 18 to 24 years of age. Quantitative and qualitative findings revealed patterns of reference service usage, perceptions of librarians, and barriers and facilitators to seeking help from a librarian.

These findings can inform decision-making to improve marketing and outreach to students regarding general reference services, reference models, and liaison roles.

URL : Evolving and Enduring Patterns Surrounding Student Usage and Perceptions of Academic Library Reference Services

Alternative location : https://crl.acrl.org/index.php/crl/article/view/17116

Assessing Data Management Support Needs of Bioengineering and Biomedical Research Faculty

Authors : Christie A. Wiley, Margaret H. Burnette

Objectives

This study explores data management knowledge, attitudes, and practices of bioengineering and biomedical researchers in the context of the National Institutes of Health-funded research projects. Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following questions:

  1. What is the nature of biomedical and bioengineering research on the Illinois campus and what kinds of data are being generated?
  2. To what degree are biomedical and bioengineering researchers aware of best practices for data management and what are the actual data management behaviors?
  3. What aspects of data management present the greatest challenges and frustrations?
  4. To what degree are biomedical and bioengineering researchers aware of data sharing opportunities and data repositories, and what are their attitudes towards data sharing?
  5. To what degree are researchers aware of campus services and support for data management planning, data sharing, and data deposit, and what is the level of interest in instruction in these areas?

Methods

Librarians on the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign campus conducted semi-structured interviews with bioengineering and biomedical researchers to explore researchers’ knowledge of data management best practices, awareness of library campus services, data management behavior and challenges managing research data.

The topics covered during the interviews were current research projects, data types, format, description, campus repository usage, data-sharing, awareness of library campus services, data reuse, the anticipated impact of health on public and challenges (interview questions are provided in the Appendix).

Results

This study revealed the majority of researchers explore broad research topics, various file storage solutions, generate numerous amounts of data and adhere to differing discipline-specific practices. Researchers expressed both familiarity and unfamiliarity with DMP Tool.

Roughly half of the researchers interviewed reported having documented protocols for file names, file backup, and file storage. Findings also suggest that there is ambiguity about what it means to share research data and confusion about terminology such as “repository” and “data deposit”. Many researchers equate publication to data sharing.

Conclusions

The interviews reveal significant data literacy gaps that present opportunities for library instruction in the areas of file organization, project workflow and documentation, metadata standards, and data deposit options.

The interviews also provide invaluable insight into biomedical and bioengineering research in general and contribute to the authors’ understanding of the challenges facing the researchers we strive to support.

URL : Assessing Data Management Support Needs of Bioengineering and Biomedical Research Faculty

Alternative location  : https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/vol8/iss1/1/

 

Sci-Hub, a challenge for academic and research libraries

Authors : Llarina González-Solar, Viviana Fernández-Marcial

Sci-Hub emerged into the field of scientific communication in 2011 as a platform for free access to scientific papers. It is the most popular of the so-called shadow libraries, systems that overcome the limits of legal access to scientific publications, standing apart from the open access movement.

Besides from the media coverage that has served to boost its popularity, several studies reveal the impact of Sci-Hub among researchers, who have embraced this initiative. Sci-Hub has revealed new forms of access to scientific information, affecting academic and research libraries that cannot remain on the sidelines.

This study addresses the Sci-Hub phenomenon and its implications for academic and research libraries from different points of view, through a bibliographic review and an analysis of examples of action.

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/34165

Replicable Services for Reproducible Research: A Model for Academic Libraries

Authors : Franklin Sayre, Amy Riegelman

Over the past decade, evidence from disciplines ranging from biology to economics has suggested that many scientific studies may not be reproducible. This has led to declarations in both the scientific and lay press that science is experiencing a “reproducibility crisis” and that this crisis has consequences for the extent to which students, faculty, and the public at large can trust research.

Faculty build on these results with their own research, and students and the public use these results for everything from patient care to public policy. To build a model for how academic libraries can support reproducible research, the authors conducted a review of major guidelines from funders, publishers, and professional societies. Specific recommendations were extracted from guidelines and compared with existing academic library services and librarian expertise.

The authors believe this review shows that many of the recommendations for improving reproducibility are core areas of academic librarianship, including data management, scholarly communication, and methodological support for systematic reviews and data-intensive research.

By increasing our knowledge of disciplinary, journal, funder, and society perspectives on reproducibility, and reframing existing librarian expertise and services, academic librarians will be well positioned to be leaders in supporting reproducible research.

URL : Replicable Services for Reproducible Research: A Model for Academic Libraries

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.80.2.260

Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?

Author: Katrine Sundsbø

Open access (OA) has had, and will continue to have, a significant effect on the scholarly publishing landscape in academia, yet many academic staff publish OA in order to comply with policies, rather than engaging with the value of open scholarship and in debates that ultimately affect them.

Training sessions and workshops are often arranged to increase knowledge and awareness in the academic community, but engagement is often low. On the other hand, some academic staff, who already do engage, will happily attend sessions and workshops to increase their knowledge even further.

The struggle to increase OA engagement overall could be due to the training not being appealing enough, and academics not being aware of benefits until after they have attended workshops.

At the University of Essex, we took a bold, brave and curious approach to increasing engagement during Open Access Week 2018, and created an OA-themed escape room.

This resulted in great engagement from students, academic staff and professional services staff, some of whom reported that they never knew how relevant OA was for them. The Open Access Escape Room was a success, and provided a positive environment for conversations around OA.

URL : Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.459

Data Management Practices in Academic Library Learning Analytics: A Critical Review

Author : Kristin A Briney

INTRODUCTION

Data handling in library learning analytics plays a pivotal role in protecting patron privacy, yet the landscape of data management by librarians is poorly understood.

METHODS

This critical review examines data-handling practices from 54 learning analytics studies in academic libraries and compares them against the NISO Consensus Principles on User’s Digital Privacy in Library, Publisher, and Software-Provider Systems and data management best practices.

RESULTS

A number of the published research projects demonstrate inadequate data protection practices including incomplete anonymization, prolonged data retention, collection of a broad scope of sensitive information, lack of informed consent, and sharing of patron-identified information.

DISCUSSION

As with researchers more generally, libraries should improve their data management practices. No studies aligned with the NISO Principles in all evaluated areas, but several studies provide specific exemplars of good practice.

CONCLUSION

Libraries can better protect patron privacy by improving data management practices in learning analytics research.

URL : Data Management Practices in Academic Library Learning Analytics: A Critical Review

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2268

Les données de la recherche à l’Université Bordeaux Montaigne : Synthèse d’une enquête qualitative auprès des chercheurs

Auteur/Author : Julie Duprat

Alors que ces dernières années l’importance de l’ouverture des publications écrites par les chercheurs des universités françaises a été largement abordée, les regards se tournent désormais sur une autre de leurs productions avec les données de la recherche.

Dans ce contexte, l’Université Bordeaux Montaigne, spécialisée en sciences humaines et sociales, souhaite mettre en place un service « données de la recherche » afin d’accompagner ses chercheurs dans la gestion et le partage de leurs données de recherche.

Au préalable du service à venir, une enquête a été menée entre septembre et décembre 2018 auprès des chercheurs de l’Université par la conservatrice-stagiaire Julie Duprat afin de faire remonter les besoins du terrain, dans une logique bottom up.

URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02020141