IISH Guidelines for preserving research …

IISH Guidelines for preserving research data: a framework for preserving collaborative data collections for future research :

“Our guidelines highlight the iterative process of data collection, data processing, data analysis and publication of (interim) research results. The iterative process is best analyzed and illustrated by following the dynamics of data collection in online collaboratories. The production of data sets in such large scale data collection projects, typically takes a lot of time, whilst in the meantime research may already be performed on data sub-sets. If this leads to a publication a proper citation is required. Publishers and readers need to know exactly in what stage of the data collection process specific conclusions on these data were drawn. During this iterative process, research data need to be maintained, managed and disseminated in different forms and versions during the successive stages of the work carried out, in order to validate the outcomes and research results. These practices drive the requirements for data archiving and show that data archiving is not a once off data transfer transaction or even a linear process. Therefore from the perspective of the research process, we recommend the interconnection and interfacing between data collection and data archiving, in order to ensure the most effective and loss-less preservation of the research data.”

URL : http://www.surffoundation.nl/nl/themas/openonderzoek/cris/Documents/SURFshare_Collectioneren_Guidelines_IISH_DEF.pdf

E-Journal Usage and Impact in Scholarly …

E-Journal Usage and Impact in Scholarly Research: A Review of the Literature :

“This article reviews the literature dealing with scholarly information behavior around the use of e-journals. Its aims are to examine the use and impact the availability of e-journals has had on the community of scholars, mainly from the UK, but looking also at literature from other countries. Results demonstrated the huge rise in availability and take-up of e-journals, although there are mixed findings regarding the fate of the print format. Access to e-literature is dominated by keyword searching, with subject-specific (e.g., chemical abstracts); or general academic (Web of Knowledge) gateways and search engines (typically Google) all used above publishers platforms, alerts, and other ways to find literature. The value of e-journals has been shown to be high, both in terms of in gaining new insights and helping with teaching, and in measure of “Contingent valuation”: the time or cost incurred by not having provision. Barriers to e-journal use included non-purchase of titles by the library and years or volumes not available electronically. Although many disciplinary differences exist, due to their differing natures and means of scholarly communication, nevertheless, the review concludes that it is now unthinkable for researchers to work without the convenience and comprehensiveness that e-journals provide them.”

URL : http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a928400689&fulltext=713240928

Influencing the Deposit of Electronic Theses in UK HE: report on a sector-wide survey into thesis deposit and open access

This survey formed part of the ‘Influencing the Deposit of Electronic Theses in UK HE’ project, commissioned by the JISC and led by UCL.

The survey was designed to capture a snapshot of current and planned electronic theses policies and practices in UK HEIs, and to gather evidence about the main barriers to the electronic deposit of e-theses.

URL : http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/116819

Access, Readership, Citations: A Randomi…

Access, Readership, Citations: A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Scientific Journal Publishing :

“This dissertation explores the relationship of Open Access publishing with subsequent readership and citations. It reports the findings of a randomized controlled trial involving 36 academic journals produced by seven publishers in the sciences, social sciences and humanities. Between January, 2007 and February, 2008, 712 articles were randomly assigned free access status upon publication from the publisher’s websites (the treatment), leaving 2,533 control articles that were accessible by subscription (the control). Article usage data was gathered from the publishers’ websites and article citations were gathered from ISI’s Web of Knowledge. At the time of this writing, all articles have aged at least two years. Articles receiving the Open Access treatment received significantly more readership (as measured by article downloads) and reached a broader audience (as measured by unique visitors), yet were cited no more frequently, nor earlier, than subscription-access control articles. A pronounced increase in article downloads with no commensurate increase in citations to Open Access treatment articles may be explained through social stratification, a process which concentrates scientific authors at elite, resource-rich institutions with excellent access to the scientific literature. For this community, access is essentially a non-issue. The real beneficiaries of Open Access are the communities that consume, but do not contribute to, the scientific literature. The focus on information consumers requires us to advance the theory of the attention economy. The linear transmission model, where information flows from the sender to the receiver is rejected for a two-sided market model, with authors on one side, readers on the other and journals fulfilling the role of the intermediary agent. The primary purpose of the journal-agent is to transmit quality signals to potential readers. I argue that this model is able to explain both author and reader behaviors as well as the persistent role of journals in an information environment that decouples certification from dissemination.”

URL : http://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/17788

Développement et Usage des Archives Ouvertes en France. 2e partie : Usage

Le rapport présente les résultats d’un projet de recherche mené en 2009 à l’université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille 3. L’objectif du projet : évaluer les résultats de la politique en faveur des archives ouvertes en France. La 2e partie du rapport intitulé « Usage » contient un état de l’art de l’analyse des statistiques d’utilisation des archives ouvertes et fournit quelques éléments chiffrés sur les archives ouvertes en France, à partir de données collectées en ligne sur plusieurs sites. L’enquête est suivie d’une étude de cas, l’analyse des fichiers log de l’archive institutionnelle IRIS de l’université Lille 1.

URL : http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00527043/fr/

The Anatomy of an Electronic Discussion …

The Anatomy of an Electronic Discussion List for Librarians, KUTUP-L: Bibliometric and Content Analyses of Postings :

“Electronic discussion lists are widely used as a professional and scientific communication tool since late 1980s. Analysis of messages sent to discussion lists provides useful information on professional as well as scientific communication patterns. In this paper, we present the findings of a bibliometric analysis of some 20,000 messages sent to KUTUP‐L, an electronic discussion list for Turkish librarians, between 1994 and 2008. We test if the distributions of messages and their authors conform to Pareto, Price and Lotka laws. We then analyze the contents of 977 messages based on a stratified sample. Findings indicate that the number of messages sent to KUTUP‐L has increased over the years along with the number of authors. Two thirds (1,232) of about 1,900 list members posted at least one message to the list while the rest preferred to be so called “lurkers”. Some 35 authors posted almost half (49%) the messages while 20% of the authors posted 83% of all messages. The distribution of messages to authors conform to Price (“the square root of all authors would post half the messages”) and Pareto laws (so called “80/20 rule”), respectively. Of the 1,232 authors, one third (as opposed to 60% predicted by Lotka’s Law) sent only one message to the list. Results of content analysis show that 40% of messages sent to the list were off‐topic. Issues about or related with information management services (32%), library and information science (23%) and professional and scientific communication (19%) were discussed more often in the list. The intent analysis of the postings shows that three quarters of the messages were initiatory while the rest were reflexive. That’s to say that the majority of messages posted on KUTUP‐L to initiate a discussion did not seem to generate enough interest for others to reflect upon them by sending follow up messages, suggesting that professional and scientific communication taking place on KUTUP‐L on certain subjects can be characterized as more of a one‐way communication than a participatory one.”

URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/18727/