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From publishers to self-publishing: The disruptive effects of digitalisation on the book industry

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Authors : Morten Hviid, Sabine Jacques, Sofia Izquierdo Sanchez

This paper explores the structure of the book publishing industry post-digitalisation. We argue that the introduction of successful e-book readers has belatedly given digitalisation the characteristics of a disruptive technology by making self-publishing a serious option for authors.

This has been supported by the entry of new types of intermediaries and the
strengthening of others. These changes have reduced the overall complexities for an author to get a book self-published.

As a result, a larger share of the surplus from the book industry is likely going to authors, explaining the significant increase in the supply of books. The potential over-supply of books has created a new problem by making consumer search more difficult.

We argue that digitalisation has shifted the potential market failure from inadequate supply of books to asymmetric information about quality.

It remains to be seen whether the market will provide appropriate intermediaries to solve the associated asymmetric information problem and, if not, what appropriate interventions should be contemplated.

URL : https://zenodo.org/record/321609/files/CREATe-Working-Paper-2017-06.pdf

Metrics for openness

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Authors : David M. Nichols, Michael B. Twidale

The characterization of scholarly communication is dominated by citation-based measures. In this paper we propose several metrics to describe different facets of open access and open research.

We discuss measures to represent the public availability of articles along with their archival location, licenses, access costs, and supporting information. Calculations illustrating these new metrics are presented using the authors’ publications.

We argue that explicit measurement of openness is necessary for a holistic description of research outputs.

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10289/10842

Imagining tomorrow’s university: open science and its impact

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Authors : Adina Howe, Michael D. Howe, Amy L. Kaleita, D. Raj Raman

As part of a recent workshop entitled “Imagining Tomorrow’s University”, we were asked to visualize the future of universities as research becomes increasingly data- and computation-driven, and identify a set of principles characterizing pertinent opportunities and obstacles presented by this shift.

In order to establish a holistic view, we take a multilevel approach and examine the impact of open science on individual scholars as well as on the university as a whole.

At the university level, open science presents a double-edged sword: when well executed, open science can accelerate the rate of scientific inquiry across the institution and beyond; however, haphazard or half-hearted efforts are likely to squander valuable resources, diminish university productivity and prestige, and potentially do more harm than good. We present our perspective on the role of open science at the university.

URL : Imagining tomorrow’s university: open science and its impact

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.11232.1

Rethinking the Subscription Paradigm for Journals: Using Interlibrary Loan in Collection Development for Serials

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Authors : Gail Perkins Barton, George E. Relyea, Steven A. Knowlton

Many librarians evaluate local Interlibrary Loan (ILL) statistics in order to affect collection development decisions concerning new subscriptions.

In this study, the authors examine whether the number of ILL article requests received in one academic year can predict the use of those same journal titles once added to library resources.

There is little correlation between ILL requests for individual titles and their later use as subscribed titles. However, there is strong correlation between ILL requests within a subject category and later use of subscribed titles in that subject category.

An additional study examining the sources from which patrons made ILL requests shows that database search results, not journal titles, dominate. These results call into question the need for libraries to subscribe to individual journal titles rather than providing access to a broad array of articles.

URL : http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2017/04/06/crl17-1061.short

What Constitutes Peer Review of Data: A survey of published peer review guidelines

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Author : Todd A Carpenter

Since a number of journals specifically focus on the review and publication of data sets, reviewing their policies seems an appropriate place to start in assessing what existing practice looks like in the ‘real world’ of reviewing and publishing data.

This article outlines a study of the publicly available peer review policies of 39 scientific publications that publish data papers to discern which criteria are most and least frequently referenced. It also compares current practice with proposed criteria published in 2012.

URL : What Constitutes Peer Review of Data: A survey of published peer review guidelines

Alternative location : https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.02236

The scientific impact of nations on scientific and technological development

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Authors : Aurelio Patelli, Giulio Cimini, Emanuele Pugliese, Andrea Gabrielli

Determining how scientific achievements influence the subsequent process of knowledge creation is a fundamental step in order to build a unified ecosystem for studying the dynamics of innovation and competitiveness.

Yet, relying separately on data about scientific production on one side, through bibliometric indicators, and about technological advancements on the other side, through patents statistics, gives only a limited insight on the key interplay between science and technology which, as a matter of fact, move forward together within the innovation space.

In this paper, using citation data of both scientific papers and patents, we quantify the direct impact of the scientific outputs of nations on further advancements in science and on the introduction of new technologies.

Our analysis highlights the presence of geo-cultural clusters of nations with similar innovation system features, and unveils the heterogeneous coupled dynamics of scientific and technological success.

This study represents a first step in the buildup of a comprehensive framework for knowledge creation and innovation.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.03768

Networked Scholarship and Motivations for Social Media use in Scholarly Communication

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Authors : Stefania Manca, Maria Ranieri

Research on scholars’ use of social media suggests that these sites are increasingly being used to enhance scholarly communication by strengthening relationships, facilitating collaboration among peers, publishing and sharing research products, and discussing research topics in open and public formats.

However, very few studies have investigated perceptions and attitudes towards social media use for scholarly communication of large cohorts of scholars at national level.

This study investigates the reasons for using social media sites for scholarly communication among a large sample of Italian university scholars (N=6139) with the aim of analysing what factors mainly affect these attitudes.

The motivations for using social media were analysed in connection with frequency of use and factors like gender, age, years of teaching, academic title, and disciplinary field. The results point out that for the most used tools the influence of the variables examined was higher in shaping scholars’ motivations.

In fact, frequency of use, age, years of teaching, and disciplinary field were found to be relevant factors especially for LinkedIn and ResearchGate-Academia.edu, while gender and academic title seemed to have a limited impact on scholars’ motivations for all social media sites considered in the study.

Considerations for future research are provided along with limitations of the study.

URL : Networked Scholarship and Motivations for Social Media use in Scholarly Communication

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i2.2859