Étiquette : case study

Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

Authors : Esther Plomp, Nicolas Dintzner, Marta Teperek, Alastair Dunning

Research data management (RDM) is increasingly important in scholarship. Many researchers are, however, unaware of the benefits of good RDM and unsure about the practical steps they can take to improve their RDM practices. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) addresses this cultural barrier by appointing Data Stewards at every faculty.

By providing expert advice and increasing awareness, the Data Stewardship project focuses on incremental improvements in current data and software management and sharing practices.

This cultural change is accelerated by the Data Champions who share best practices in data management with their peers. The Data Stewards and Data Champions build a community that allows a discipline-specific approach to RDM. Nevertheless, cultural change also requires appropriate rewards and incentives.

While local initiatives are important, and we discuss several examples in this paper, systemic changes to the academic rewards system are needed. This will require collaborative efforts of a broad coalition of stakeholders and we will mention several such initiatives.

This article demonstrates that community building is essential in changing the code and data management culture at TU Delft.

URL : Cultural obstacles to research data management and sharing at TU Delft

DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.484

Services de gestion et de partage des données de recherche : ce qu’en pensent les chercheurs

Auteurs/Authors : Violaine Rebouillat, Ghislaine Chartron

En France, les professionnels de l’information scientifique et technique (IST) se positionnent sur le développement de services pour la gestion et la valorisation des données de recherche.

L’article interroge l’utilisation de ces services par les chercheurs. Il s’appuie sur 46 entretiens, réalisés auprès de chercheurs de l’Université de Strasbourg. Le catalogue Cat OPIDoR, référençant les services de données français, a servi de base d’étude pour l’enquête. Les résultats montrent que les services développés par les professionnels de l’IST correspondent pour une faible partie à ceux qu’utilisent les répondants.

Une des explications esquissées est qu’en matière de données les chercheurs sont davantage influencés par les recommandations des éditeurs que par celles des professionnels de l’IST.

URL : https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/ISKOFRANCE2019/hal-02307085

An Analysis of Search Results from Institutional Repository: Econpapers

Authors : Sidharta Chatterjee, Sujoy Dey, Mousumi Samanta

The goal of this research is to examine and explore information retrieval process of patrons who access institutional repositories. Repositories are generally hosted by public universities and run by volunteers which allow researchers to submit their draft versions of their manuscripts in pre-print forms.

In this study, we analyze using search methods to sort out research papers classified according to their levels of relevance that are available from a repository, and report the pattern of search results as our findings.

Our model employs search methods for searching Econpapers which utilize RePEc bibliographic data. Our analysis attempts to highlight how information seekers, scholars and researchers search relevant topics of their interest and how relevant such information is which is retrieved from an institutional repository.

This could aid researchers to modify their search processes to obtain better search results from their queries. The goal is to obtain the most relevant documents from online search.

We discuss about the methods employed to retrieve information which is most pertinent to the requirements of researchers. A broad implication could be better utilization of time and resources for efficient retrieval of the most relevant documents of interest that could be expected from searching institutional repositories.

URI : https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/id/eprint/96178

Research data management and the evolutions of scholarship: policy, infrastructure and data literacy at KU Leuven

Authors : Tom Willaert, Jacob Cottyn, Ulrike Kenens, Thomas Vandendriessche, Demmy Verbeke, Roxanne Wyns

This case study critically examines ongoing developments in contemporary scholarship through the lens of research data management support at KU Leuven, and KU Leuven Libraries in particular.

By means of case-based examples, current initiatives for fostering sound scientific work and scholarship are considered in three associated domains: support for policy-making, the development of research infrastructures, and digital literacy training for students, scientists and scholars.

It is outlined how KU Leuven Libraries collaborates with partner services in order to contribute to KU Leuven’s research data management support network. Particular attention is devoted to the innovations that facilitate such collaborations.

These accounts of initial experiences form the basis for a reflection on best practices and pitfalls, and foreground a number of pertinent challenges facing the domain of research data management, including matters of scalability, technology acceptance and adoption, and methods for effectively gauging and communicating the manifold transformations of science and scholarship.

URL : Research data management and the evolutions of scholarship: policy, infrastructure and data literacy at KU Leuven

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10272

How much research shared on Facebook is hidden from public view? A comparison of public and private online activity around PLOS ONE papers

Authors : Asura Enkhbayar, Stefanie Haustein, Germana Barata, Juan Pablo Alperin

Despite its undisputed position as the biggest social media platform, Facebook has never entered the main stage of altmetrics research. In this study, we argue that the lack of attention by altmetrics researchers is not due to a lack of relevant activity on the platform, but because of the challenges in collecting Facebook data have been limited to activity that takes place in a select group of public pages and groups.

We present a new method of collecting shares, reactions, and comments across the platform-including private timelines-and use it to gather data for all articles published between 2015 to 2017 in the journal PLOS ONE.

We compare the gathered data with altmetrics collected and aggregated by Altmetric. The results show that 58.7% of papers shared on the platform happen outside of public view and that, when collecting all shares, the volume of activity approximates patterns of engagement previously only observed for Twitter.

Both results suggest that the role and impact of Facebook as a medium for science and scholarly communication has been underestimated. Furthermore, they emphasise the importance of openness and transparency around the collection and aggregation of altmetrics.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.01476

Evolution of an Institutional Repository: A Case History from Nebraska

Author : Paul Royster

The 13-year history of the institutional repository (IR) at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln is recounted with emphasis on local conditions, administrative support, recruitment practices, and management philosophy.

Practices included offering new services, hosting materials outside the conventional tenure stream, using student employees, and providing user analytics on global dissemination. Acquiring trust of faculty depositors enhanced recruitment and extra-library support.

Evolution of policies on open access, copyright, metadata, and third-party vendors are discussed, with statistics illustrating the growth, contents, and outreach of the repository over time.

A final section discusses future directions for scholarly communications and IRs in particular.

URL : https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/382/

Raising Visibility in the Digital Humanities Landscape: Academic Engagement and the Question of the Library’s Role

Authors : Kathleen Kasten-Mutkus, Laura Costello, Darren Chase

Academic libraries have an important role to play in supporting digital humanities projects in their communities. Librarians at Stony Brook University Libraries host Open Mic events for digital humanities researchers, teachers, and students on campus.

 Inspired by a desire to better serve digital humanists with existing projects, this event was initially organized to increase the visibility of scholars and students with nascent projects and connect these digital humanists to library supported resources and to one another.

For the Libraries, the Open Mic was an opportunity to understand the scope and practices of the digital humanities community at Stony Brook, and to identify ways to make meaningful interventions.

An open mic is a uniquely suitable event format in that it embodies a dynamic, permissive, multidisciplinary presentation space that is as much for exercising new and ongoing research (and technologies) as it is for making discoveries and connections.

The success of these events can be measured in the establishment of the University Libraries as a nexus for digital humanities work, consultations, instruction, workshops, and community on a campus without a designated digital humanities center.

The digital humanities Open Mic event at Stony Brook University locates the digital humanities within the library’s repertoire, while signaling that the library is — in a number of essential ways — open.

URL : http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/13/2/000420/000420.html