Archives des catégories : EN

A Preliminary Examination of the Cost Savings and Learning Impacts of Using Open Textbooks in Middle and High School Science Classes

Posté le par

Proponents of open educational resources claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the classroom. Over a period of two years, we worked with 20 middle and high school science teachers (collectively teaching approximately 3,900 students) who adopted open textbooks to understand the process and determine the overall cost of such an adoption.

The teachers deployed open textbooks in multiple ways. Some of these methods cost more than traditional textbooks; however, we did identify and implement a successful model of open textbook adoption that reduces costs by over 50% compared to the cost of adopting traditional textbooks.

In addition, we examined the standardized test scores of students using the open textbooks and found no apparent differences in the results of students who used open textbooks compared with previous years when the same teachers’ students used traditional textbooks. However, given the limited sample of participating teachers, further investigation is needed.”

URL : http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1153/2256

The impact of open access initiative on knowledge sharing

Posté le par

The main focus of this paper is to look at the role of the open access initiative (OAI) as a channel for knowledge sharing that could be used for the disseminate knowledge and research funding. For this purpose OAI was selected for analytical as role communication among the research.

To assess if the articles found in the OAI contents knowledge sharing a method called contextual analysis was used. The result showed that OAI can aptly serve as a tool for disseminate knowledge and sharing ideas. By analysis is these material, OAI might be able to drive benefits directly or indirectly and eventually become beneficial took for scholars in their.

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/17219

Open Access, scholarship and digital anthropology

Posté le par

This paper consists of three arguments. The first advocates the development of Open Access for anthropological books and journals and critiques the way we have ceded control of dissemination to inappropriate commercial concerns that come to stand for what should have been academic criteria.

The second argues that this is best accomplished while being conservative about the process of review, selection, and the canons of scholarship. Third, the paper address the emergence of Digital Anthropology, suggesting this has considerable significance for the very conceptualization of anthropology and its future, and suggesting that it can be given definition.

But, this should not be confused with the issues of Open Access and review. This is followed by ten helpful and critical comments. In the concluding discussion I respond to these and argue how these points can be taken into account in creating the conditions for a shift to Open Access while defending the concept of Digital Anthropology.

URL : http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/93

OAPEN-UK: an Open Access Business Model for Scholarly Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Posté le par

This paper presents the initial findings of OAPEN-UK, a UK research project gathering evidence on the social and technological impacts of an open access business model for scholarly monographs in the humanities and social sciences.

URL : http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/13912/

The weakening relationship between the Impact Factor and papers’ citations in the digital age

Statut

Authors : George A. Lozano, Vincent Lariviere, Yves Gingras

Historically, papers have been physically bound to the journal in which they were published but in the electronic age papers are available individually, no longer tied to their respective journals. Hence, papers now can be read and cited based on their own merits, independently of the journal’s physical availability, reputation, or Impact Factor.

We compare the strength of the relationship between journals’ Impact Factors and the actual citations received by their respective papers from 1902 to 2009. Throughout most of the 20th century, papers’ citation rates were increasingly linked to their respective journals’ Impact Factors.

However, since 1990, the advent of the digital age, the strength of the relation between Impact Factors and paper citations has been decreasing. This decrease began sooner in physics, a field that was quicker to make the transition into the electronic domain.

Furthermore, since 1990, the proportion of highly cited papers coming from highly cited journals has been decreasing, and accordingly, the proportion of highly cited papers not coming from highly cited journals has also been increasing.

Should this pattern continue, it might bring an end to the use of the Impact Factor as a way to evaluate the quality of journals, papers and researchers.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.4328

India’s Efforts in Open Access Publishing

Posté le par

For a long time, India has been generating a great deal of scholarly resources in all disciplines. After independence, there was a lot of investment in science and technology, and S&T were used to leverage development efforts and to improve the standard of living. However, one in four Indians still lives below the poverty line. There is a considerable research effort in a wide variety of areas including science, technology, medicine, humanities and social sciences. Research is performed essentially in three sectors: (1) higher educational institutions, such as universities and deemed universities (2) laboratories under different government agencies such as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), and (3) laboratories in the industrial sector, both public and private.

With difficulties such as lack of funds and infrastructure for good quality research, a very common problem for Indian scientists is access and visibility. The accelerating cost of subscriptions to academic serials has created a serials crisis in almost all libraries around the world, including India. Most Indian libraries cannot afford to subscribe to key journals needed by their users/scientists. As a result, it becomes difficult for researchers to have current knowledge. After spending so much effort on research and getting it published in journals, small or big, from around the world, their work is often not noticed by others elsewhere, even within India, working in the same and related areas. No wonder Indian work is poorly cited due to low visibility or circulation of such journals where their works have been published.

To overcome both these handicaps, one possible solution may be the publishing through Open Access (OA). Open-access publishing is the provision of free online access to quality scholarly material that is available on “open domain,” and not having any restriction of copyright. Although the open access movement began before the advent of the Web, it became more widespread with the adoption of Web access in scholarly activities. The movement spread to all disciplines. There are many different models of open access publishing, for example sponsored OA, OA supported by author fees, and embargoed OA. The intention of all such models is to provide access to scholarly contents to clients. It is, however, assumed as one of the useful media to share research and getting wide visibility from around the world. Some countries like the UK and the US have made better progress, whereas many other countries are lagging behind. The primary goal of this study is to discover the present status of Indian open access ventures and help librarians to understand the opportunities in OA scholarly resources in India.

URL : http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/mukherjee-mal.htm