EN

Understanding and supporting researchers’ choices in sharing their publications: the launch of the FairShare Network and Shareable PDF

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Charlie Rapple

Researchers have for many years had access to new platforms and channels for networking and sharing resources, but the pace of growth in their usage of these networks has substantially increased recently.

This has led to full-text sharing on a scale that concerns publishers and libraries, because of the proportion of such sharing that infringes copyright. This article summarizes key findings of a 2017 survey that explored researchers’ awareness of and behaviours in relation to scholarly collaboration networks and other emerging mechanisms for discovering and gaining access to content, along with their views on copyright.

The article also describes ‘Shareable PDF’, a new approach to PDF-based sharing that better enables such sharing to be measured and contextualized, and which has recently been successfully launched with authors and readers.

URL : Understanding and supporting researchers’ choices in sharing their publications: the launch of the FairShare Network and Shareable PDF

DOI : http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.408

FR

Usages et applications du web sémantique en bibliothèques numériques

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Hiba Melhem

Ce travail de recherche se situe dans le champ interdisciplinaire des sciences de l’information et de la communication (SIC) et a pour but d’explorer la question de l’usage du web sémantique en bibliothèques numériques.

Le web oblige les bibliothèques à repenser leurs organisations, leurs activités, leurs pratiques et leurs services, afin de se repositionner en tant qu’instituts de références pour la diffusion des savoirs. Dans cette thèse, nous souhaitons comprendre les contextes d’usage du web sémantique en bibliothèques numériques françaises.

Il s’agit de s’interroger sur les apports du web sémantique au sein de ces bibliothèques, ainsi que sur les défis et les obstacles qui accompagnent sa mise en place. Ensuite, nous nous intéressons aux pratiques documentaires et à leurs évolutions suite à l’introduction du web sémantique en bibliothèques numériques.

La problématique s’attache au rôle que peuvent jouer les professionnels de l’information dans la mise en place du web sémantique en bibliothèques numériques. Après avoir sélectionné 98 bibliothèques numériques suite à une analyse de trois recensements, une enquête s’appuyant sur un questionnaire vise à recueillir des données sur l’usage du web sémantique dans ces bibliothèques.

Ensuite, une deuxième enquête réalisée au moyen d’entretiens permet de mettre en évidence les représentations qu’ont les professionnels de l’information du web sémantique et de son usage en bibliothèque, ainsi que de l’évolution de leurs pratiques professionnelles.

Les résultats montrent que la représentation des connaissances dans le cadre du web sémantique nécessite une intervention humaine permettant de fournir le cadre conceptuel pour déterminer les liens entre les données.

Enfin, les professionnels de l’information peuvent devenir des acteurs du web sémantique, dans le sens où leurs rôles ne se limitent pas à l’utilisation du web sémantique mais aussi au développement de ses standards pour assurer une meilleure organisation des connaissances.

URL : https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01742957

EN

The State of Assessing Data Stewardship Maturity – An Overview

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Author : Ge Peng

Data stewardship encompasses all activities that preserve and improve the information content, accessibility, and usability of data and metadata. Recent regulations, mandates, policies, and guidelines set forth by the U.S. government, federal other, and funding agencies, scientific societies and scholarly publishers, have levied stewardship requirements on digital scientific data.

This elevated level of requirements has increased the need for a formal approach to stewardship activities that supports compliance verification and reporting. Meeting or verifying compliance with stewardship requirements requires assessing the current state, identifying gaps, and, if necessary, defining a roadmap for improvement.

This, however, touches on standards and best practices in multiple knowledge domains. Therefore, data stewardship practitioners, especially these at data repositories or data service centers or associated with data stewardship programs, can benefit from knowledge of existing maturity assessment models.

This article provides an overview of the current state of assessing stewardship maturity for federally funded digital scientific data. A brief description of existing maturity assessment models and related application(s) is provided.

This helps stewardship practitioners to readily obtain basic information about these models. It allows them to evaluate each model’s suitability for their unique verification and improvement needs.

URL : The State of Assessing Data Stewardship Maturity – An Overview

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2018-007

EN

Student perceptions of the creation and reuse of open educational resources: A case study of the development-oriented student organisation

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Michael Paskevicius, Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams

This case study explores students’ perceptions of the creation and reuse of digital teaching and learning resources in their work as tutors as part of a volunteer community development organisation at a large South African University.

Through a series of semi-structured interviews, student-tutors reflect on their use and reuse of digital educational resources, and identify the challenges they experience in curating, adapting, and reusing educational resources for use in their teaching activities.

The data is analysed qualitatively within the framework of an activity system (Engeström, 1987) to surface the primary systemic tensions that student-tutors face in the reuse of resources found online as well as open educational resources (OER).

This study found that student-tutors sourced and used educational materials from the Internet, largely irrespective of their licensing conditions, while also creating and remixing a substantial number of educational materials to make them suitable for use in their context.

We conclude that greater awareness of the availability of OER and explicit open licencing for works sourced and created within community development organisations could enhance sharing, collaboration, and help sustain high impact resources.

URL : Student perceptions of the creation and reuse of open educational resources: A case study of the development-oriented student organisation

Alternative location : http://www.jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/253

EN

Evidence of Open Access of scientific publications in Google Scholar: a large-scale analysis

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Alberto Martín-Martín, Rodrigo Costas, Thed van Leeuwen, Emilio López-Cózar

This article uses Google Scholar (GS) as a source of data to analyse Open Access (OA) levels across all countries and fields of research. All articles and reviews with a DOI and published in 2009 or 2014 and covered by the three main citation indexes in the Web of Science (2,269,022 documents) were selected for study.

The links to freely available versions of these documents displayed in GS were collected. To differentiate between more reliable (sustainable and legal) forms of access and less reliable ones, the data extracted from GS was combined with information available in DOAJ, CrossRef, OpenDOAR, and ROAR.

This allowed us to distinguish the percentage of documents in our sample that are made OA by the publisher (23.1%, including Gold, Hybrid, Delayed, and Bronze OA) from those available as Green OA (17.6%), and those available from other sources (40.6%, mainly due to ResearchGate).

The data shows an overall free availability of 54.6%, with important differences at the country and subject category levels. The data extracted from GS yielded very similar results to those found by other studies that analysed similar samples of documents, but employed different methods to find evidence of OA, thus suggesting a relative consistency among methods.

URL : Evidence of Open Access of scientific publications in Google Scholar: a large-scale analysis

Alternative location : https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/k54uv/

EN

Defining Success in Open Science

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Authors : Sarah E. Ali-Khan, Antoine Jean, Emily MacDonald, E. Richard Gold

Mounting evidence indicates that worldwide, innovation systems are increasing unsustainable. Equally, concerns about inequities in the science and innovation process, and in access to its benefits, continue. Against a backdrop of growing health, economic and scientific challenges global stakeholders are urgently seeking to spur innovation and maximize the just distribution of benefits for all.

Open Science collaboration (OS) – comprising a variety of approaches to increase open, public, and rapid mobilization of scientific knowledge – is seen to be one of the most promising ways forward. Yet, many decision-makers hesitate to construct policy to support the adoption and implementation of OS without access to substantive, clear and reliable evidence.

In October 2017, international thought-leaders gathered at an Open Science Leadership Forum in the Washington DC offices of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to share their views on what successful Open Science looks like.

Delegates from developed and developing nations, national governments, science agencies and funding bodies, philanthropy, researchers, patient organizations and the biotechnology, pharma and artificial intelligence (AI) industries discussed the outcomes that would rally them to invest in OS, as well as wider issues of policy and implementation.

This first of two reports, summarizes delegates’ views on what they believe OS will deliver in terms of research, innovation and social impact in the life sciences. Through open and collaborative process over the next months, we will translate these success outcomes into a toolkit of quantitative and qualitative indicators to assess when, where and how open science collaborations best advance research, innovation and social benefit.

Ultimately, this work aims to develop and openly share tools to allow stakeholders to evaluate and re-invent their innovation ecosystems, to maximize value for the global public and patients, and address long-standing questions about the mechanics of innovation.

URL : Defining Success in Open Science

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/mniopenres.12780.2