Archives des catégories : EN

Effective Practices and Strategies for Open Access Outreach: A Qualitative Study

Posté le par

Author : Diane (DeDe) Dawson

INTRODUCTION

There are many compelling reasons to make research open access (OA), but raising the awareness of faculty and administrators about OA is a struggle. Now that more and more funders are introducing OA policies, it is increasingly important that researchers understand OA and how to comply with these policies.

U.K. researchers and their institutions have operated within a complex OA policy environment for many years, and academic libraries have been at the forefront of providing services and outreach to support them. This article discusses the results of a qualitative study that investigated effective practices and strategies of OA outreach in the United Kingdom.

METHODS

Semistructured interviews were conducted with 14 individuals at seven universities in the United Kingdom in late 2015. Transcripts of these interviews were analyzed for dominant themes using an inductive method of coding.

RESULTS

Themes were collected under the major headings of “The Message”; “Key Contacts and Relationships”; “Qualities of the OA Practitioner”; and “Advocacy versus Compliance.” 

DISCUSSION

Results indicate that messages about OA need to be clear, concise, and jargon free. They need to be delivered repeatedly and creatively adapted to specific audiences. Identifying and building relationships with influencers and informers is key to the uptake of the message, and OA practitioners must have deep expertise to be credible as the messengers.

CONCLUSION

This timely research has immediate relevance to North American libraries as they contend with pressures to ramp up their own OA outreach and support services to assist researchers in complying with new federal funding policies.

URL : Effective Practices and Strategies for Open Access Outreach: A Qualitative Study

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2216

Format Aside: Applying Beall’s Criteria to Assess the Predatory Nature of both OA and Non-OA Library and Information Science Journals

Posté le par

Authors : Joseph D. Olivarez, Stephen Bales, Laura Sare, Wyoma vanDuinkerken

Jeffrey Beall’s blog listing of potential predatory journals and publishers, as well as his Criteria for Determining Predatory Open-Access (OA) Publishers are often looked at as tools to help researchers avoid publishing in predatory journals.

While these Criteria has brought a greater awareness of OA predatory journals, these tools alone should not be used as the only source in determining the quality of a scholarly journal.

Employing a three-person independent judgment making panel, this study demonstrates the subjective nature of Beall’s Criteria by applying his Criteria to both OA and non-OA Library and Information Science journals (LIS), to demonstrate that traditional peer-reviewed journals could be considered predatory. Many of these LIS journals are considered as top-tier publications in the field and used when evaluating researcher’s publication history for promotion and tenure.

URL:  Format Aside: Applying Beall’s Criteria to Assess the Predatory Nature of both OA and Non-OA Library and Information Science Journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.1.52

Worth the Wait? Using Past Patterns to Determine Wait Periods for E-Books Released After Print

Posté le par

Author : Karen Kohn

This paper asks if there is an optimal wait period for e-books that balances libraries’ desire to acquire books soon after their publication with the frequent desire to purchase books electronically whenever feasible.

Analyzing 13,043 titles that Temple University Libraries received on its e-preferred approval plan in 2014–15, the author looks at the delays from the publication of print books to publication of their electronic versions. The analysis finds that most books on the approval plan are published electronically within a week of the print. Recommended wait periods are provided for different subjects.

URL : Worth the Wait? Using Past Patterns to Determine Wait Periods for E-Books Released After Print

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.1.35

Librarians’ Perspectives on the Factors Influencing Research Data Management Programs

Posté le par

Authors: Ixchel M. Faniel, Lynn Silipigni Connaway

This qualitative research study examines librarians’ research data management (RDM) experiences, specifically the factors that influence their ability to support researchers’ needs.

Findings from interviews with 36 academic library professionals in the United States identify 5 factors of influence: 1) technical resources; 2) human resources; 3) researchers’ perceptions about the library; 4) leadership support; and 5) communication, coordination, and collaboration. Findings show different aspects of these factors facilitate or constrain RDM activity. The implications of these factors on librarians’ continued work in RDM are considered.

URL : Librarians’ Perspectives on the Factors Influencing Research Data Management Programs

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.79.1.100

How to counter undeserving authorship

Posté le par

Authors: Stefan Eriksson, Tove Godskesen, Lars Andersson, Gert Helgesson

The average number of authors listed on contributions to scientific journals has increased considerably over time. While this may be accounted for by the increased complexity of much research and a corresponding need for extended collaboration, several studies suggest that the prevalence of non-deserving authors on research papers is alarming.

In this paper a combined qualitative and quantitative approach is suggested to reduce the number of undeserving authors on academic papers: 1) ask scholars who apply for positions to explain the basics of a random selection of their co-authored papers, and 2) in bibliometric measurements, divide publications and citations by the number of authors.

URL : How to counter undeserving authorship

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.395

Reproducible research and GIScience: an evaluation using AGILE conference papers

Posté le par

Authors : Daniel Nüst​, Carlos Granell, Barbara Hofer, Markus Konkol, Frank O Ostermann, Rusne Sileryte, Valentina Cerutti

The demand for reproducibility of research is on the rise in disciplines concerned with data analysis and computational methods. In this work existing recommendations for reproducible research are reviewed and translated into criteria for assessing reproducibility of articles in the field of geographic information science (GIScience).

Using a sample of GIScience research from the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE) conference series, we assess the current state of reproducibility of publications in this field. Feedback on the assessment was collected by surveying the authors of the sample papers.

The results show the reproducibility levels are low. Although authors support the ideals, the incentives are too small. Therefore we propose concrete actions for individual researchers and the AGILE conference series to improve transparency and reproducibility, such as imparting data and software skills, an award, paper badges, author guidelines for computational research, and Open Access publications.

URL : Reproducible research and GIScience: an evaluation using AGILE conference papers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26561v1

Content is King: An Analysis of How the Twitter Discourse Surrounding Open Education Unfolded From 2009 to 2016

Posté le par

Authors : Michael Paskevicius, George Veletsianos, Royce Kimmons

Inspired by open educational resources, open pedagogy, and open source software, the openness movement in education has different meanings for different people. In this study, we use Twitter data to examine the discourses surrounding openness as well as the people who participate in discourse around openness.

By targeting hashtags related to open education, we gathered the most extensive dataset of historical open education tweets to date (n = 178,304 tweets and 23,061 users) and conducted a mixed methods analysis of openness from 2009 to 2016.

Findings show that the diversity of participants has varied somewhat over time and that the discourse has predominantly revolved around open resources, although there are signs that an increase in interest around pedagogy, teaching, and learning is emerging.

URL : Content is King: An Analysis of How the Twitter Discourse Surrounding Open Education Unfolded From 2009 to 2016

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i1.3267