Versioned data: why it is needed and how it can be achieved (easily and cheaply)

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Authors : Daniel S. Falster, Richard G. FitzJohn, Matthew W. Pennell, William K. Cornwell

The sharing and re-use of data has become a cornerstone of modern science. Multiple platforms now allow quick and easy data sharing. So far, however, data publishing models have not accommodated on-going scientific improvements in data: for many problems, datasets continue to grow with time — more records are added, errors fixed, and new data structures are created. In other words, datasets, like scientific knowledge, advance with time.

We therefore suggest that many datasets would be usefully published as a series of versions, with a simple naming system to allow users to perceive the type of change between versions. In this article, we argue for adopting the paradigm and processes for versioned data, analogous to software versioning.

We also introduce a system called Versioned Data Delivery and present tools for creating, archiving, and distributing versioned data easily, quickly, and cheaply. These new tools allow for individual research groups to shift from a static model of data curation to a dynamic and versioned model that more naturally matches the scientific process.

URL : Versioned data: why it is needed and how it can be achieved (easily and cheaply)

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3401v1

 

Faculty Attitudes toward Open Access and Scholarly Communications: Disciplinary Differences on an Urban and Health Science Campus

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Authors : Jere Odell, Kristi Palmer, Emily Dill

Access to scholarship in the health sciences has greatly increased in the last decade. The adoption of the 2008 U.S. National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy and the launch of successful open access journals in health sciences have done much to move the exchange of scholarship beyond the subscription-only model.

One might assume, therefore, that scholars publishing in the health sciences would be more supportive of these changes. However, the results of this survey of attitudes on a campus with a large medical faculty show that health science respondents were uncertain of the value of recent changes in the scholarly communication system.

URL : Faculty Attitudes toward Open Access and Scholarly Communications: Disciplinary Differences on an Urban and Health Science Campus

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2169

 

The role of the library in scholarly publishing: The University of Manchester experience

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Author : Simon Bains

The emergence of networked digital methods of scholarly dissemination has transformed the role of the academic library in the context of the research life cycle. It now plays an important role in the dissemination of research outputs (e.g. through repository management and gold open access publication processing) as well as more traditional acquisition and collection management.

The University of Manchester Library and Manchester University Press have developed a strategic relationship to consider how they can work in partnership to support new approaches to scholarly publishing. They have delivered two projects to understand researcher and student needs and to develop tools and services to meet these needs.

This work has found that the creation of new journal titles is costly and provides significant resourcing challenges and that support for student journals in particular is mixed amongst senior academic administrators.

Research has suggested that there is more value to the University in the provision of training in scholarly publishing than in the creation of new in-house journal titles. Where such titles are created, careful consideration of sustainable business models is vital.

URL : The role of the library in scholarly publishing: The University of Manchester experience

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.380

 

New models for open digital collections?

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Authors: Paola Marchionni, Peter Findlay

This article discusses the potential for new community-based funding models to support digitization and open access (OA) publishing of digital collections. Digital collections of archival material such as texts, images and moving images are an important complement to journals and books in the ecosystem of scholarly resources that researchers, teachers and learners use.

However, institutions find them expensive to acquire from publishers or to digitize themselves. In the US, Reveal Digital (RD) has set up a ‘library crowdfunding’ programme based on a cost-recovery OA model.

The article describes how Jisc has collaborated with RD to introduce the model to UK institutions through their ‘Independent Voices’ collection of 20th-century alternative press materials and, in doing so, explores the potential and challenges for developing a similar approach in the UK.

URL : New models for open digital collections?

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.375

 

Research Data Management Practices in University libraries: A study

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Authors : Manorama Tripathi, Archana Shukla, Sharad Kumar Sonkar

The paper has studied the research data management (RDM) services implemented by different university libraries for managing, organizing, curating and preserving research data generated at their universities’ departments and laboratories, for data reuse and sharing.

It has surveyed the central university libraries and the best 20 university libraries of the world to highlight how RDM is extended to the researchers. Further, it has suggested a model for the university libraries in the country to follow for actually deploying RDM services.

URL : Research Data Management Practices in University libraries: A study

Alternative location : http://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/index.php/djlit/article/view/11336

Use of Open Educational Resources and Print Educational Materials by Federal College of Education Katsina, Nigeria: A Study

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Authors : Rufai Danmusa Gambo, Sani Masanawa Aliyu

This research work investigates the usage of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Print Educational Materials by the students of Federal College of Education Katsina, Nigeria. Using descriptive survey, 358 students were sampled as respondents.

The research find out that while print section still remain relevant, an alarming negative attitudes by the students toward print educational materials have been found. Factors including students’ learning needs and interest, infrastructural decay, outdated books stocks, under equipped nature of the print sections and the unfriendly attitudes of the librarians toward clients are responsible this attitudes. However,

OER enjoy an overwhelming patronage of students. The unrestricted nature of open educational resources coupled with its ease of access, freeness, proximity, relevance and IT infrastructural advancements are what make it an educational hotcake of the time.

Better funding of education, inculcation of reading culture in younger generation, massive development of print materials into open educational resources and in-service training of library staff has been recommended.

URL : Use of Open Educational Resources and Print Educational Materials by Federal College of Education Katsina, Nigeria: A Study

Alternative location : http://publications.drdo.gov.in/ojs/index.php/djlit/article/view/10628

 

Evaluation of research activities of universities of Ukraine and Belarus: a set of bibliometric indicators and its implementation

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Authors : Vladimir Lazarev, Serhii Nazarovets, Alexey Skalaban

Monitoring bibliometric indicators of University rankings is considered as a subject of a University library activity. In order to fulfill comparative assessment of research activities of the universities of Ukraine and Belarus the authors introduced a set of bibliometric indicators.

A comparative assessment of the research activities of corresponding universities was fulfilled; the data on the leading universities are presented. The sensitivity of the one of the indicators to rapid changes of the research activity of universities and the fact that the other one is normalized across the fields of science condition advantage of the proposed set over the one that was used in practice of the corresponding national rankings.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.02059