Étiquette : knowledge sharing

Understanding and supporting researchers’ choices in sharing their publications: the launch of the FairShare Network and Shareable PDF

Author : Charlie Rapple

Researchers have for many years had access to new platforms and channels for networking and sharing resources, but the pace of growth in their usage of these networks has substantially increased recently.

This has led to full-text sharing on a scale that concerns publishers and libraries, because of the proportion of such sharing that infringes copyright. This article summarizes key findings of a 2017 survey that explored researchers’ awareness of and behaviours in relation to scholarly collaboration networks and other emerging mechanisms for discovering and gaining access to content, along with their views on copyright.

The article also describes ‘Shareable PDF’, a new approach to PDF-based sharing that better enables such sharing to be measured and contextualized, and which has recently been successfully launched with authors and readers.

URL : Understanding and supporting researchers’ choices in sharing their publications: the launch of the FairShare Network and Shareable PDF

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.408

Against capital

Author : Stuart Lawson

The ways in which scholars exchange and share their work have evolved through pragmatic responses to the political and economic contexts in which they are embedded.

So rather than being designed to fulfil their function in an optimal way, our methods of scholarly communication have been distorted by the interests of capital and by neoliberal logic.

If these two interlinked political forces – that suffuse all aspects of our lives – are the reason for the mess we are currently in, then surely any alternative scholarly communication system we create should be working against them, not with them. The influence of capital in scholarly publishing, and the overwhelming force of neoliberalism in our working practices, is the problem.

So when the new ‘innovative disrupters’ are fully aligned with the political forces that need to be dismantled, it is questionable that the new way of doing things is a significant improvement.

URL : http://stuartlawson.org/2017/07/against-capital/

 

Towards certified open data in digital service ecosystems

Authors : Anne Immonen, Eila Ovaska, Tuomas Paaso

The opportunities of open data have been recently recognized among companies in different domains. Digital service providers have increasingly been interested in the possibilities of innovating new ideas and services around open data.

Digital service ecosystems provide several advantages for service developers, enabling the service co-innovation and co-creation among ecosystem members utilizing and sharing common assets and knowledge.

The utilization of open data in digital services requires new innovation practices, service development models, and a collaboration environment. These can be provided by the ecosystem. However, since open data can be almost anything and originate from different kinds of data sources, the quality of data becomes the key issue.

The new challenge for service providers is how to guarantee the quality of open data. In the ecosystems, uncertain data quality poses major challenges. The main contribution of this paper is the concept of the Evolvable Open Data based digital service Ecosystem (EODE), which defines the kinds of knowledge and services that are required for validating open data in digital service ecosystems.

Thus, the EODE provides business potential for open data and digital service providers, as well as other actors around open data. The ecosystem capability model, knowledge management models, and the taxonomy of services to support the open data quality certification are described.

Data quality certification confirms that the open data is trustworthy and its quality is good enough to be accepted for the usage of the ecosystem’s services. The five-phase open data quality certification process, according to which open data is brought to the ecosystem and certified for the usage of the digital service ecosystem members using the knowledge models and support services of the ecosystem, is also described.

The initial experiences of the still ongoing validation steps are summarized, and the concept limitations and future development targets are identified.

URL : Towards certified open data in digital service ecosystems

DOI : 10.1007/s11219-017-9378-2

Knowledge Sharing as a Social Dilemma in Pharmaceutical Innovation

Author : Daria Kim

The article addresses the problem of restricted access to industry-sponsored clinical trial data. In particular, it analyses the intersection of the competing claims that mandatory disclosure of pharmaceutical test data impedes innovation incentives, and that access facilitates new drug development.

These claims are characterised in terms of public-good and common-resource dilemmas. The analysis finds that confidentiality protection of primary research data plays an ambiguous role.

While secrecy, as such, does not solve the public-good problem in pharmaceutical innovation (in the presence of regulatory instruments that protect the originator drug against generic competition), it is likely to exacerbate the common-resource problem, in view of data as a source of verified and new knowledge.

It is argued that the claim of the research-based industry that disclosure of clinical data impedes innovation incentives is misplaced and should not be leveraged against the pro-access policies. The analysis proposes that regulation should adhere to the principle that protection should be confined to competition by imitation.

This implies that the rules of access should be designed in such a way that third-party use of data does not interfere with protection against generic competition. At the same time, the long-term collective benefit can be maximised when the ‘cooperative choice’ – i.e. when everyone shares data – becomes the ‘dominant strategy’.

This can be achieved only when access is not subject to the authorisation of the initial trial sponsors, and when primary data is aggregated, refined and managed on the collective basis.

URL : https://ssrn.com/abstract=2834493

Sharing of Knowledge among Faculty in a Mega Open University

Authors : Sujata Santosh, Santosh Panda

Developments in ICTs and knowledge societies have revolutionized the traditional paradigms of education. There is a lot of emphasis on a culture of sharing and collaboration in the education scenario of today though educators have certain inhibitions about sharing of knowledge, ideas and resources.

The present study was undertaken to explore the sharing behaviour of the faculty of the National Open University in India. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire on knowledge sharing behaviour and barriers to sharing from 62 faculty members belonging to various disciplines.

The findings suggested that sharing was less preferred voluntarily and in networks; publishing was most preferred knowledge sharing mechanism; sharing of learning materials was more encouraged in the institution; and borrowing from Internet was more preferred.

The important perceived barriers included lack of recognition and absence of organizational knowledge sharing culture. The findings have been discussed in relation to related research and the existing institutional context.

URL : Sharing of Knowledge among Faculty in a Mega Open University

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.8.3.317

Knowledge Sharing Behaviour of Academics in The Polytechnic Ibadan

The study was designed to investigate the factors driving the academics to engage in work-related knowledge sharing activity using a conceptual model adapted from Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) of Ajzen (1991) and the two affective components (affective commitment and affect-based trust). A descriptive survey research design covering academics in all departments of the five faculties in The Polytechnic, Ibadan was employed.

The literature review covered knowledge management KM, knowledge sharing KS and knowledge sharing behaviour KSB. Self-structured questionnaire based on the adapted model were administered as data collection instrument. Complete enumeration survey study was carried out because the total study population was about 346 lecturers and the same copies of questionnaire were distributed to the academics across the five faculties of the polytechnic of which 235 copies were returned.

The data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.Academics of The Polytechnic, Ibadan will be willing to share their work-related knowledge if both the factors encouraging and inhibiting sharing of knowledge with their colleagues are adequately addressed.

The result shows, on one hand, that perceived behavioural control (.000) and affective commitment (.000) were significant predictors of intention to share knowledge while attitude (.066), subjective norm (.308) and affect-based trust (.694)are not.On the other hand, academics’ intention to share knowledge (.000) significantly predicted academics’ knowledge sharing behaviour.

The study further concludes and recommends that more group activities should be encouraged and collaborative teaching and research should be emphasized to further promote knowledge sharing among academics.Further studies could focus on a comparative study between or across two or more federal, state and/or private polytechnics.

URL : http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/1287/

A Case Study of Scholars’ Open and Sharing Practices

Although the open scholarship movement has successfully captured the attention and interest of higher education stakeholders, researchers currently lack an understanding of the degree to which open scholarship is enacted in institutions that lack institutional support for openness. I help fill this gap in the literature by presenting a descriptive case study that illustrates the variety of open and sharing practices enacted by faculty members at a North American university. Open and sharing practices enacted at this institution revolve around publishing manuscripts in open ways, participating on social media, creating and using open educational resources, and engaging with open teaching.

This examination finds that certain open practices are favored over others. Results also show that even though faculty members often share scholarly materials online for free, they frequently do so without associated open licenses (i.e. without engaging in open practices). These findings suggest that individual motivators may significantly affect the practice of openness, but that environmental factors (e.g., institutional contexts) and technological elements (e.g., YouTube’s default settings) may also shape open practices in unanticipated ways.

URL : A Case Study of Scholars’ Open and Sharing Practices

Related URL : http://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/206