EN

Toward a Critical Approach for OER: A Case Study in Removing the ‘Big Five’ from OER Creation

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Kris Joseph, Julia Guy, Michael B McNally

This paper examines the role of proprietary software in the production of open educational resources (OER). Using a single case study, the paper explores the implications of removing proprietary software from an OER project, with the aim of examining how complicated such a process is and whether removing such software meaningfully advances a critical approach to OER.

The analysis reveals that software from the Big Five technology companies (Apple, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft) are deeply embedded in OER production and distribution, and that complete elimination of software or services from these companies is not feasible.

The paper concludes by positing that simply rejecting Big Five technology introduces too many challenges to be justified on a pragmatic basis; however, it encourages OER creators to remain critical in their use of technology and continue to try to advance a critical approach to OER.

URL : Toward a Critical Approach for OER: A Case Study in Removing the ‘Big Five’ from OER Creation

Alternative location : https://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/1020

EN

Collaborating for public access to scholarly publications: A case study of the partnership between the US Department of Energy and CHORUS

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : H. Frederick Dylla, Jeffrey Salmon

Key points

  • The success of the CHORUS and DOE relationship is the result of nearly two decades of interactions between the DOE and a group of scientific publishers.
  • The relationship between CHORUS and the US federal agencies required understanding of different motivations, operations, and philosophies.
  • Although achieving public access was simple in principle, it required considerable effort to develop systems that satisfied all parties.
  • Publishers had been working with federal agencies to achieve open access before the 2013 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, but this helped to create a path for a more fruitful relationship.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1298

Non classé

Journal data policies: Exploring how the understanding of editors and authors corresponds to the policies themselves

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Thu-Mai Christian, Amanda Gooch, Todd Vision, Elizabeth Hull

Despite the increase in the number of journals issuing data policies requiring authors to make data underlying reporting findings publicly available, authors do not always do so, and when they do, the data do not always meet standards of quality that allow others to verify or extend published results.

This phenomenon suggests the need to consider the effectiveness of journal data policies to present and articulate transparency requirements, and how well they facilitate (or hinder) authors’ ability to produce and provide access to data, code, and associated materials that meet quality standards for computational reproducibility.

This article describes the results of a research study that examined the ability of journal-based data policies to: 1) effectively communicate transparency requirements to authors, and 2) enable authors to successfully meet policy requirements.

To do this, we conducted a mixed-methods study that examined individual data policies alongside editors’ and authors’ interpretation of policy requirements to answer the following research questions.

Survey responses from authors and editors along with results from a content analysis of data policies found discrepancies among editors’ assertion of data policy requirements, authors’ understanding of policy requirements, and the requirements stated in the policy language as written.

We offer explanations for these discrepancies and offer recommendations for improving authors’ understanding of policies and increasing the likelihood of policy compliance.

URL : Journal data policies: Exploring how the understanding of editors and authors corresponds to the policies themselves

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230281

EN

Access to Scientific Literature by the Conservation Community

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Daisy Larios, Thomas M. Brooks, Nicholas B.W. Macfarlane, Sugoto Roy

Access to the scientific literature is perceived to be a challenge to the biodiversity conservation community, but actual level of literature access relative to needs has never been assessed globally.

We examined this question by surveying the constituency of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a proxy for the conservation community, generating 2,285 responses. Of these respondents, ∼97% need to use the scientific literature in order to support their IUCN-related conservation work, with ∼50% needing to do so at least once per week.

The crux of the survey revolved around the question, “How easy is it for you currently to obtain the scientific literature you need to carry out your IUCN-related work?” and revealed that roughly half (49%) of the respondents find it not easy or not at all easy to access scientific literature.

We fitted a binary logistic regression model to explore factors predicting ease of literature access. Whether the respondent had institutional literature access (55% do) is the strongest predictor, with region (Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and gender (male) also significant predictors.

Approximately 60% of respondents from Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have institutional access compared to ∼50% in Asia and Latin America, and ∼40% in Eastern Europe and in Africa. Nevertheless, accessing free online material is a popular means of accessing literature for both those with and without institutional access.

The four journals most frequently mentioned when asked which journal access would deliver the greatest improvements to the respondent’s IUCN-related work were Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Nature, and Science.

The majority prefer to read journal articles on screen but prefer to read books in hard copy. Overall, it is apparent that access to the literature is a challenge facing roughly half of the conservation community worldwide.

URL : Access to Scientific Literature by the Conservation Community

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.30.010058

Non classé

GitHub Repositories with Links to Academic Papers: Open Access, Traceability, and Evolution

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Supatsara Wattanakriengkrai, Bodin Chinthanet, Hideaki Hata, Raula Gaikovina Kula, Christoph Treude, Jin Guo, Kenichi Matsumoto

Traceability between published scientific breakthroughs and their implementation is essential, especially in the case of Open Source Software implements bleeding edge science into its code. However, aligning the link between GitHub repositories and academic papers can prove difficult, and the link impact remains unknown.

This paper investigates the role of academic paper references contained in these repositories. We conducted a large-scale study of 20 thousand GitHub repositories to establish prevalence of references to academic papers. We use a mixed-methods approach to identify Open Access (OA), traceability and evolutionary aspects of the links.

Although referencing a paper is not typical, we find that a vast majority of referenced academic papers are OA. In terms of traceability, our analysis revealed that machine learning is the most prevalent topic of repositories. These repositories tend to be affiliated with academic communities. More than half of the papers do not link back to any repository.

A case study of referenced arXiv paper shows that most of these papers are high-impact and influential and do align with academia, referenced by repositories written in different programming languages. From the evolutionary aspect, we find very few changes of papers being referenced and links to them.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.00199

Non classé

Digital Objects – FAIR Digital Objects: Which Services Are Required?

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Ulrich Schwardmann

Some of the early Research Data Alliance working groups reused the notion of digital objects as digital entities described by metadata and referenced by a persistent identifier. In recent times the FAIR principles became a prominent role as framework for the sustainability of scientific data.

Both approaches had always machine actionability, the capability of computational systems to use services on data without human intervention, in their focus. The more technical approach of digital objects turned out to provide a complementary view on several aspects of the policy framework of FAIR from a technical perspective.

After a deeper analysis and integration of these concepts by a group of European data experts the discussion intensified on so called FAIR digital objects. But they need to be accompanied by services as building blocks for automated processes. We will describe the components of this framework and its potentials here, and also which services inside this framework are required.

URL : Digital Objects – FAIR Digital Objects: Which Services Are Required?

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-015

EN

Lessons From the Open Library of Humanities

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Martin Paul Eve, Paula Clemente Vega, Caroline Edwards

The Open Library of Humanities was launched almost half a decade ago with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. In this article, we outline the problems we set out to address and the lessons we learned.

Specifically, we note that, as we hypothesized, academic libraries are not necessarily classical economic actors; that implementing consortial funding models requires much marketing labour; that there are substantial governance and administrative overheads in our model; that there are complex tax and VAT considerations for consortial arrangements; and that diverse revenue sources remain critical to our success.

URL : Lessons From the Open Library of Humanities

DOI : http://doi.org/10.18352/lq.10327