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Converting STEM Doctoral Dissertations into Patent Applications: A Study of Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, and Chemical Engineering Dissertations from CIC Institutions

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Doctoral candidates may request short-term embargoes on the release of their dissertations in order to apply for patents. This study examines how often inventions described in dissertations in chemical engineering, chemistry, physics, and mathematics are converted into U.S. patent applications, as well as the relationship between dissertation approval dates and patent application filing dates.

Dissertations approved in 2008 by the 13 Committee on Institutional Cooperation universities provided the sample populations. Authors were searched as inventors in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Applications Full-text database to identify relevant patent applications. The number of dissertations yielding applications varied by discipline. Mathematics had none; chemical engineering had the most.

The majority of applications in chemical engineering and chemistry were filed either prior to or in the same month as the dissertation approval dates; all of those in physics were filed after them. These results will be of interest to librarians, administrators, advisors, and anyone else associated with determining and approving embargoes for dissertations, as well as science and engineering librarians working with graduate students interested in patenting the results of their research.

URL : http://www.istl.org/15-summer/refereed3.html

The Future of Institutional Repositories at Small Academic Institutions: Analysis and Insights

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Institutional repositories (IRs) established at universities and academic libraries over a decade ago, large and small, have encountered challenges along the way in keeping faith with their original objective: to collect, preserve, and disseminate the intellectual output of an institution in digital form. While all institutional repositories have experienced the same obstacles relating to a lack of faculty participation, those at small universities face unique challenges.

This article examines causes of low faculty contribution to IR content growth, particularly at small academic institutions. It also offers a first-hand account of building and developing an institutional repository at a small university. The article concludes by suggesting how institutional repositories at small academic institutions can thrive by focusing on classroom teaching and student experiential learning, strategic priorities of their parent institutions.

URL : http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september15/wu/09wu.html

The presence of High-impact factor Open Access Journals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM) disciplines

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The present study means to establish to what extent high-quality open access journals are available as an outlet for publication, by examining their distribution in different scientific disciplines, including the distribution of those journals without article processing charges.

The study is based on a systematic comparison between the journals included in the DOAJ, and the journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) Science edition 2013, released by Thomson Reuters.

The impact factor of Open Access (OA) journals was lower than those of other journals by a small but statistically significant amount. Open access journals are present in the upper quartile (by impact factor) of 85 out of 176 (48.8%) categories examined. There were no OA journals with an Impact Factor in only 16 categories (9%).

URL : The presence of High-impact factor Open Access Journals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM) disciplines

Alternative location : http://leo.cineca.it/index.php/jlis/article/view/11257

Changes in Data Sharing and Data Reuse Practices and Perceptions among Scientists Worldwide

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The incorporation of data sharing into the research lifecycle is an important part of modern scholarly debate. In this study, the DataONE Usability and Assessment working group addresses two primary goals: To examine the current state of data sharing and reuse perceptions and practices among research scientists as they compare to the 2009/2010 baseline study, and to examine differences in practices and perceptions across age groups, geographic regions, and subject disciplines.

We distributed surveys to a multinational sample of scientific researchers at two different time periods (October 2009 to July 2010 and October 2013 to March 2014) to observe current states of data sharing and to see what, if any, changes have occurred in the past 3–4 years. We also looked at differences across age, geographic, and discipline-based groups as they currently exist in the 2013/2014 survey.

Results point to increased acceptance of and willingness to engage in data sharing, as well as an increase in actual data sharing behaviors. However, there is also increased perceived risk associated with data sharing, and specific barriers to data sharing persist. There are also differences across age groups, with younger respondents feeling more favorably toward data sharing and reuse, yet making less of their data available than older respondents. Geographic differences exist as well, which can in part be understood in terms of collectivist and individualist cultural differences.

An examination of subject disciplines shows that the constraints and enablers of data sharing and reuse manifest differently across disciplines. Implications of these findings include the continued need to build infrastructure that promotes data sharing while recognizing the needs of different research communities.

Moving into the future, organizations such as DataONE will continue to assess, monitor, educate, and provide the infrastructure necessary to support such complex grand science challenges.

URL : Changes in Data Sharing and Data Reuse Practices and Perceptions among Scientists Worldwide

DOI : 10.1371/journal.pone.0134826

E-thesis repositories in the world: A critical analysis

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The advent of Information Communication & Technology (ICT) has resulted into a revolution in the ways of production, dissemination, preservation and accessibility of information. Traditional librarianship has opened its doors and embraced ICT to enhance and improve the quality and quantity of services provided by libraries. Libraries have expanded their scope to Library & Information Centres. With the changing trends of libraries, the users have also moved to advanced stages of accessing the information.

Theses and dissertations are one of the major sources of authentic in-depth information on a particular topic on which a researcher conducts extensive research work. In spite of being a main source of scholarly communication, the print theses and dissertations is mostly not accessible to outside world. In this way, the important information remains unused and unknown to users. The Electronic format of the theses and dissertations makes it possible for the information content to be used by information seekers.

‘Open Access’ is a boon for the users who strive for information. Policy Guidelines framed by National and International Organizations like UNESCO, BOAI, Berlin Declaration, ECHO Charter, Bethesda Statement, Salvador Declaration, National Open Access Policy and National Knowledge Commission‟s Report on Open Access (India) have promoted the benefits of open access for researchers, organizations, public and funding organizations.

Institutional repositories provide access to various institutional documents through open access. The type of contents vary from books, journals, conference proceedings, theses, dissertations, newspaper clippings, datasets, manuscripts, software, lectures, learning objects, maps, pre-prints, post-prints, research reports, audio-visual material etc.

The present research work deals with the Electronic Thesis Repositories which are a major form of grey literature of any organization. There are various benefits of ETDs like they help in increasing the citation count of the author and the institution, minimum time required for dissemination of scholarly information, various file formats can be incorporated in the electronic form which is not possible in the print theses and dissertations and they provide a solution of long term preservation of theses and dissertations. In spite of the benefits of ETDs, authors hesitate in depositing their research work in electronic format mainly due to fear of plagiarism.

There are various concepts in the whole process of setting up of an ETD Program. The present research work aims to study the various concepts of ETDs by analyzing the E-thesis Repositories in the world and collecting data from the Repository administrators through Web Questionnaire.

URL : http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/pubnum/3715419.html

The Impact of Public Access Venue Information and Communication Technologies in Botswana Public Libraries

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Objective

A study on the impact of Public Access Venue (PAV) Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) was conducted in Botswana libraries with Internet connections. The main objective was to determine the impact of ICTs in public libraries.

Methods

Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework as a theoretical lens, the study used semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to investigate the impact of PAV ICTs in 4 study sites, resulting in data from a total of 39 interviews and 4 focus groups.

Results

The results of the study show that PAV ICTs had a positive impact on users in the areas of education and economic benefits. Within educational and economic impacts, social benefits were also found, pertaining to the use of social media and the Internet for formal and informal communication. The study also revealed a slight difference between school going users and non-school going elderly users where the use and acquisition of computer skills was concerned. Elderly non-school going users tended to rely on venue staff for skills more than the younger school going users.

Conclusion

The study recommends that PAV facilities should be improved in terms of skills offered and resources availed so as to appeal to both the younger school going generation and the older non-school going users. It is also recommended that education on ICT be improved to help curb rising unemployment in Botswana; such skills would enhance the income generation skills of the unemployed users as well as school leavers.

URL : The Impact of Public Access Venue Information and Communication Technologies in Botswana Public Libraries

Alternative location : http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/23908

The role of trust and authority in the citation behaviour of researchers

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Introduction

This paper reports on an interview-based citation behaviour study, part of a wider study of trust in information resources, investigating why researchers chose to cite particular references in one of their publications. Their motivations are explored, with an emphasis on whether they regarded the reference as an authoritative and trustworthy source, and, if so, to what extent and why.

Method

Semi-structured critical incident interviews were carried out with eighty-seven researchers from the UK and the USA.

Analysis

The answers were analysed using qualitative techniques and then grouped under descriptive headings of the types of reasons for citation provided. These were then used to create a table of these types of reason and the frequency of their use.

Results

The motivations for citing were found to be complex and multi-faceted but, in nearly all cases, researchers do regard the authority and trustworthiness of the cited source as an important factor in choosing to cite it. This suggests that citation is at least partly an acknowledgement of the intellectual influence of the content of the cited source. It was also found, however, that researchers have strong social networks of trust and collaboration. They make considerable use of these in receiving and gathering information for research and thus context is also important in their eventual citation decisions.

Conclusions

Citing behaviour does include an acknowledgement of useful intellectual content, but this process cannot be separated from the researcher’s position in networks of trusted social and research influence. The digital transition has provided tools to help maintain and develop these social networks and it has also made it easier for researchers to investigate the credentials of the sources of documents. This suggests that the current distinction in the literature between normative and constructionist theories of citation behaviour may not capture the nuanced and complex relationship between these two factors.

URL : http://www.informationr.net/ir/20-3/paper677.html