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Donor Funded Open Educational Resources: Making the Case

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

PURPOSE

This paper aims to explain the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) and how libraries can make a good case to donors to fund these types of projects.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The literature reveals that donors have been willing to support projects that save students money on textbooks. Course reserves have traditionally been a popular model. More recently, libraries have found funding for OER initiatives. These types of initiatives are discussed and several case studies of donors currently funding OER projects are examined.

FINDINGS

Donors, internal and external to the library and to the university, have shown an interest in funding projects that reduce textbook costs for students. They have funded course reserves in the past and have begun to fund OER projects. There are both qualitative and quantitative methods to induce donors to fund these types of projects.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Libraries have traditionally supported the mission of access to information and for academic libraries that has sometimes included access to textbooks. Course reserves are a limited solution, whereas when an OER replaces an expensive textbook, it is a viable solution for all students.

SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS

OERs have strong social implications. Any person, whether associated with an institution of higher learning, or not, can access the information in an OER and learn the associated content.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

There is some literature on specific OER projects. This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature, specifically on how to approach donors regarding OER initiatives.

URL : http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/handle/1957/57920

EN

Science bloggers’ self-perceived communication roles

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

This study addresses an open question about science bloggers’ self-perceived roles as science communicators. Previous research has investigated the roles science journalists see themselves engaging in, but such research has failed to capture the experiences of science bloggers as a broad and diverse group that is yet often very different in their practices from professional journalists.

In this study, a survey of over 600 science bloggers reveals that on the broadest level, science bloggers see themselves engaging most often as explainers of science and public intellectuals. Perceived communication role depends predominantly on occupation, science communication training, blog affiliation and gender.

URL : Science bloggers’ self-perceived communication roles

Alternative location : http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/14/04/JCOM_1404_2015_A02

EN

Open Scholarship Practices Reshaping South Africa’s Scholarly Publishing Roadmap

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

South African higher education institutions are the largest producers of research output on the African continent. Given this status, South African researchers have a moral obligation to share their research output with the rest of the continent via a medium that minimizes challenges of access; open scholarship is that medium. The majority of South African higher education libraries provide an open access publishing service. However, in most of these cases this service is via engagement with the green open access route, that is, institutional repositories (IR).

Some of the libraries have piloted and adopted gold open access services such as publishing of “diamond” gold open access journals and supporting article processing charges. The experiment with publishing open monographs is a new venture. This venture must be viewed against the backdrop of the need for open educational resources (OERs). OER is an area that is very much in a fledgling stage and is gaining traction, albeit, at a slow pace.

The growth of IRs, the growth in support for gold open access including the library acting as a publisher, the experimentation with open monographs, and OERs are all shaping South Africa’s scholarly publishing roadmap.

URL : Open Scholarship Practices Reshaping South Africa’s Scholarly Publishing Roadmap

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications3040263

EN

Considering Non-Open Access Publication Charges in the “Total Cost of Publication”

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Recent research has tried to calculate the “total cost of publication” in the British academic sector, bringing together the costs of journal subscriptions, the article processing charges (APCs) paid to publish open-access content, and the indirect costs of handling open-access mandates. This study adds an estimate for the other publication charges (predominantly page and colour charges) currently paid by research institutions, a significant element which has been neglected by recent studies.

When these charges are included in the calculation, the total cost to institutions as of 2013/14 is around 18.5% over and above the cost of journal subscriptions—11% from APCs, 5.5% from indirect costs, and 2% from other publication charges. For the British academic sector as a whole, this represents a total cost of publication around £213 million against a conservatively estimated journal spend of £180 million, with non-APC publication charges representing around £3.6 million.

A case study is presented to show that these costs may be unexpectedly high for individual institutions, depending on disciplinary focus. The feasibility of collecting this data on a widespread basis is discussed, along with the possibility of using it to inform future subscription negotiations with publishers.

URL : Considering Non-Open Access Publication Charges in the “Total Cost of Publication”

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications3040248

EN

The Challenges of Journal Startup in the Digital Era

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

This paper aims to contribute to the evolving literature on the new landscape of scholarly journals. It builds on a series of experiences as a journal editor which span the print and digital eras, and focuses on two current activities with new journals.

One was designed as a synoptic journal in a broad multidisciplinary field, supported by a commercial publisher; the other a non-revenue journal which aims to showcase the work of undergraduates in the author’s institution. Despite the uniqueness of goals and delivery, some of the experiences—and challenges—have proved remarkably similar.

URL : The Challenges of Journal Startup in the Digital Era

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications3040219

EN

The open research value proposition: How sharing can help researchers succeed

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Open access, open data, open source, and other open scholarship practices are growing in necessity and popularity, rapidly becoming part of the integral workflow of researchers. However, widespread adoption of many of these practices has not yet been achieved. Understandably, researchers have concerns as to how sharing their work will affect their careers. Some of these concerns stem from a lack of awareness about the career benefits associated with open research.

Herein, we review literature on the open citation advantage, media attention for publicly available research, collaborative possibilities, and special funding opportunities to show how open practices can give researchers a competitive advantage.

URL : The open research value proposition: How sharing can help researchers succeed

Alternative location : https://figshare.com/articles/The_open_research_value_proposition_How_sharing_can_help_researchers_succeed/1619902

FR

Enjeux de la numérisation des herbiers pour l’information et la communication scientifiques : de la transformation des matières documentaires à l’évolution des pratiques

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Nous appréhendons les mutations entraînées par la numérisation des collections d’histoire naturelle dans la production et la communication de l’information scientifique. Notre étude s’appuie sur une analyse des herbiers comme artefacts répondant aux besoins de la conservation et de la communication de l’information entre acteurs intervenant dans la production des savoirs mobilisant les collections.

Nous analysons le statut documentaire des images à partir de leur exploitation différentielle dans les pratiques scientifiques selon les objectifs et étapes des recherches. Malgré les limites de l’exploitation des bases de données d’images pour le travail sur les spécimens, elles sont essentielles à l’accès et à l’enrichissement des informations des collections.

URL : http://lesenjeux.u-grenoble3.fr/2015-dossier/05-Chupin/index.html