Leading by Example? ALA Division Publications, Open Access, and Sustainability

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This investigation explores scholarly communication business models in American Library Association (ALA) division peer-reviewed academic journals. Previous studies reveal the numerous issues organizations and publishers face in the academic publishing environment. Through an analysis of documented procedures, policies, and finances of five ALA division journals, we compare business and access models.

We conclude that some ALA divisions prioritize the costs associated with changing business models, including hard-to-estimate costs such as the labor of volunteers. For other divisions, the financial aspects are less important than maintaining core values, such as those defined in ALA’s Core Values in Librarianship.

URL : http://m.crl.acrl.org/content/early/2015/12/14/crl15-841.abstract

Enabling Open Science: Wikidata for Research

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Wiki4R will create an innovative virtual research environment (VRE) for Open Science at scale, engaging both professional researchers and citizen data scientists in new and potentially transformative forms of collaboration. It is based on the realizations that (1) the structured parts of the Web itself can be regarded as a VRE, (2) such environments depend on communities, (3) closed environments are limited in their capacity to nurture thriving communities.

Wiki4R will therefore integrate Wikidata, the multilingual semantic backbone behind Wikipedia, into existing research processes to enable transdisciplinary research and reduce fragmentation of research in and outside Europe. By establishing a central shared information node, research data can be linked and annotated into knowledge. Despite occasional uses of Wikipedia or Wikidata in research, significant barriers to broader adoption in the sciences or digital humanities exist, including lack of integration into existing research processes and inadequate handling of provenances.

The proposed actions include providing best practices and tools for semantic mapping, adoption of citation and author identifiers, interoperability layers for integration with existing research environments, and the development of policies for information quality and interchange. The effectiveness of the actions will be tested in pilot use cases.

Unforeseen barriers will be investigated and documented. We will promote the adoption of Wiki4R by making it easy to use and integrate, demonstrate the applicability in selected research domains, and provide diverse training opportunities.

Wiki4R leverages the expertise gained in Europe through the Wikidata and DBpedia projects to further strengthen the established virtual community of 14000 people. As a result of increased interaction between professional science and citizens, it will provide an improved basis for Responsible Research and Innovation and Open Science in the European Research Area.

URL : Enabling Open Science: Wikidata for Research

Alternative location : http://rio.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=7573

Assessing Research Data Management Practices of Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University

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INTRODUCTION

Recent changes to requirements for research data management by federal granting agencies and by other funding institutions have resulted in the emergence of institutional support for these requirements. At CMU, we sought to formalize assessment of research data management practices of researchers at the institution by launching a faculty survey and conducting a number of interviews with researchers.

METHODS

We submitted a survey on research data management practices to a sample of faculty including questions about data production, documentation, management, and sharing practices. The survey was coupled with in-depth interviews with a subset of faculty. We also make estimates of the amount of research data produced by faculty.

RESULTS

Survey and interview results suggest moderate level of awareness of the regulatory environment around research data management. Results also present a clear picture of the types and quantities of data being produced at CMU and how these differ among research domains. Researchers identified a number of services that they would find valuable including assistance with data management planning and backup/storage services. We attempt to estimate the amount of data produced and shared by researchers at CMU.

DISCUSSION

Results suggest that researchers may need and are amenable to assistance with research data management. Our estimates of the amount of data produced and shared have implications for decisions about data storage and preservation.

CONCLUSION

Our survey and interview results have offered significant guidance for building a suite of services for our institution.

URL : Assessing Research Data Management Practices of Faculty at Carnegie Mellon University

DOI : http://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1258

Changing Role of Academic Librarians in Open Access Environment

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Application of information and communication technology is supporting various ways of scholarly communication. The transition from print to electronic and paid resources to open access resources has a great impact on information society and resulted open access movement. This paper enumerates various declarations on open access and discusses the impact of open access on libraries particularly on the role of academic librarians. On the basis of existing literature, an attempt has been made in this paper to understand transforming role of academic librarians and suggest new responsibilities in open access environment.

URL : Changing Role of Academic Librarians in Open Access Environment

Alternative location : http://irjlis.com/changing-role-of-academic-librarians-in-open-access-environment/

Acceptance and Adoption of Open Access Publication (OAP) in University Libraries in South East Nigeria

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This study examines the kinds of open access scholarly publication or information resources accepted and adopted by federal university libraries in South East Nigeria. The purpose was to determine the factors that affect open access scholarly publication or information resources acceptance and adoption in university libraries.

The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Findings revealed that university libraries accepts and adopts open access such as  institutional repository, open journals, subject repository, e-books, personal websites among others with the use of computers, internet facilities and services among others.

Inadequate internet facilities and services were identified as a major factor that affects open access acceptance and adoption in university libraries. The study concluded that open access scholarly communication or information resources are vital tool of solving not only financial problems in libraries in general and university libraries in particular but also enable university libraries to keep pace with information explosion or changing trends in libraries.

Based on this, it recommends that university libraries should ensure that users are provided with adequate and quality open access information resources for there is a need for access and use of information materials in all formats and acceptance and adoption of open access information resources could incite users to quickly access and utilize university library resources to a high extent.

URL : Acceptance and Adoption of Open Access Publication (OAP) in University Libraries in South East Nigeria

Alternative location : http://iiste.org/Journals/index.php/JEP/article/view/27291

Who are the Open Learners? A Comparative Study Profiling non-Formal Users of Open Educational Resources

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Open educational resources (OER) have been identified as having the potential to extend opportunities for learning to non-formal learners. However, little research has been conducted into the impact of OER on non-formal learners. This paper presents the results of a systematic survey of more than 3,000 users of open educational resources (OER). Data was collected between 2013 and 2014 on the demographics, attitudes and behaviours of users of three repositories.

Questions included a particular focus on the behaviours of non-formal learners and the relationship between formal and non-formal study. Frequency analysis shows that there are marked differences in patterns of use, user profiles, attitudes towards OER, types of materials used and popularity of different subjects. The experience of using OER is fairly consistent across platforms in terms of satisfaction and impact on future behaviour. On the whole, non-formal learners surveyed were highly positive about their use of OER and believe they will continue to use them.

With regards to this making formal study more likely some degree of polarization was observed: some believed formal study was now more likely, while others felt it made this less likely. On the whole, while non-formal learners are enthusiastic about using free and online resources, the language and concept of OER does not seem to be well understood in the groups surveyed. A range of findings relating to OER selection and use as well as differences between repositories are explored in the discussion.

URL : http://www.eurodl.org/?p=current&abstract=707

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Quand la culture scientifique s’affranchit sur le web : l’exemple des blogs de science en français (2003-2014)

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Connaissez-vous les chercheurs Baptiste Coulmont, Jean Véronis , Tom Roud (un pseudonyme), Olivier Ertzscheid ou André Gunthert ? Peut-être, mais ils vous diront sans doute plus de choses si vous êtes un lecteur aguerri des blogs de science, éventuellement de longue date. Ces pionniers des blogs de science en français, ayant chacun ouvert leur blog entre juillet 2003 et août 2005, ont contribué entre à ce que l’association des termes “blog” et “chercheur” ne soit plus incongrue. Quant à moi, si je tenais déjà un blog personnel, je n’ai ouvert mon propre blog de science qu’en janvier 2006.

J’ai par la suite contribué largement à façonner cette communauté alors en éclosion, grâce au portail du C@fé des sciences et à mon prosélytisme à tout crin. À la fois acteur et témoin privilégié de cette histoire, j’aimerais vous en conter quelques bribes, en priant les lecteurs de m’excuser des maladresses que je pourrai commettre dans cet exercice délicat et nouveau pour moi. Mon propos sera organisé de façon thématique, en suivant à peu près une progression chronologique.

Je ferai le plus souvent appel à ma mémoire et mes archives personnelles, tout en citant des documents tiers contemporains du récit qui compléteront mon témoignage et donneront un aperçu de l’évolution du discours et des arguments !

URL : https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01242707