EN

Empirical Big Data Research: A Systematic Literature Mapping

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Background

Big Data is a relatively new field of research and technology, and literature reports a wide variety of concepts labeled with Big Data. The maturity of a research field can be measured in the number of publications containing empirical results. In this paper we present the current status of empirical research in Big Data. Method: We employed a systematic mapping method with which we mapped the collected research according to the labels Variety, Volume and Velocity. In addition, we addressed the application areas of Big Data.

Results

We found that 151 of the assessed 1778 contributions contain a form of empirical result and can be mapped to one or more of the 3 V’s and 59 address an application area.

Conclusions

The share of publications containing empirical results is well below the average compared to computer science research as a whole. In order to mature the research on Big Data, we recommend applying empirical methods to strengthen the confidence in the reported results. Based on our trend analysis we consider Variety to be the most promising uncharted area in Big Data.

URL : Empirical Big Data Research: A Systematic Literature Mapping

Alternative location : http://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03045

EN

Level of Awareness of Open Access Electronic Resources by Scientists in Agricultural Research Institutes in Edo State, Nigeria

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Purpose

This study was conducted to determine the level of awareness of open access electronic resources (OAER) by scientists in agricultural research institutes in Edo State, South – South geopolitical zone of Nigeria.

Methodology

Descriptive survey research design was adopted. One hundred and fifty research scientists in agricultural research institutes in Edo (70 from Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria and 80 from Nigerian Institute For Oil Palm Research) constituted the population for the study. Questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection.  Two research questions guided the study.

Findings

The result of the study showed that scientists in agricultural research institutes in Edo state are fully aware of the existence of open access electronic resources but yet have greater access to traditional library materials than electronic journals and books for their research work.

Implication

The study implies that the scientists though fully aware of existence of open access electronic resources but have challenges that compeled them to still access traditional library materials for their research work.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the management of the two agricultural research institutes in Edo State should provide functional Internet facilities for the scientists and organize regular workshops and seminars aimed at informing their scientists on the relevance and use of open access electronic resources.

URL : Level of Awareness of Open Access Electronic Resources by Scientists in Agricultural Research Institutes in Edo State, Nigeria

Alternative location : http://www.ijier.net/assets/level-of-awareness-of-open-access-electronic-resources-ijier.net-vol-3-8-11.pdf

EN

Ethical Research Primer for the Novice Researcher

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

As the research process is embarked upon, it is important that a novice researcher become well versed in ethical standards. Maintaining the highest level of ethical conduct is of paramount importance at all stages of the endeavor. Unethical behavior compromises research quality, slows the advancement of knowledge, and undermines societal trust. Thus, development of familiarity and expertise surrounding ethical complexities will enhance the chances of a successful and worthwhile research project. The purpose of this article is to create awareness of the ethical dilemmas novice researchers are faced with in maintaining the academic integrity of published works. The article explores the literature related to ethics in research, and provides a discussion of a number of ethical issues which threaten research quality.

URL : Ethical Research Primer for the Novice Researcher

Alternative location : http://www.ijier.net/assets/ethical-research-primer-ijier.net-vol-3-8-13.pdf

Non classé

Barriers to Open Access Publishing: Views from the Library Literature

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

The library and information science (LIS) community has an active role in supporting access to information and, therefore, is an important stakeholder in the open access conversation. One major discussion involves the barriers that have hindered the complete transition to open access in scientific publications.

Building upon a longitudinal study by Bo-Christer Björk that looked at barriers to the open access publishing of scholarly articles, this study evaluates the discussion of those barriers in the LIS literature over the ten year period 2004–2014, and compares this to Björk’s conclusions about gold open access publishing. Content analysis and bibliometrics are used to confirm the growth of the discussion of open access in the past ten years and gain insight into the most prevalent issues hindering the development of open access.

URL : Barriers to Open Access Publishing: Views from the Library Literature

DOI : 10.3390/publications3030190

EN

Fee Waivers for Open Access Journals

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Open access journals which charge article processing charges (APCs) sometimes offer fee waivers to authors who cannot afford to pay them. This article measures the extent of this practice among the largest toll access and open access publishers by gathering stated fee waiver policies from publishers’ websites. A majority (68.8%) were found to offer fee waivers and sometimes they are only available to authors from low- and middle-income countries. This has implications for the ability of authors without funding to publish in journals from these publishers.

URL : Fee Waivers for Open Access Journals

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/publications3030155

EN

Sharing Research Data and Intellectual Property Law: A Primer

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

Sharing research data by depositing it in connection with a published article or otherwise making data publicly available sometimes raises intellectual property questions in the minds of depositing researchers, their employers, their funders, and other researchers who seek to reuse research data. In this context or in the drafting of data management plans, common questions are (1) what are the legal rights in data; (2) who has these rights; and (3) how does one with these rights use them to share data in a way that permits or encourages productive downstream uses? Leaving to the side privacy and national security laws that regulate sharing certain types of data, this Perspective explains how to work through the general intellectual property and contractual issues for all research data.

URL : Sharing Research Data and Intellectual Property Law: A Primer

DOI : 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002235

EN

Open Access and Discovery Tools: How do Primo Libraries Manage Green Open Access Collections?

Posted on by Hans Dillaerts

The Open Access (OA) movement gains more and more momentum with an increasing number of institutions and funders adopting OA mandates for publicly funded research. Consequently, an increasing amount of research output becomes freely available, either from institutional, multi-institutional or thematic repositories or from traditional or newly established journals.

Currently, there are more than 2,700 Open Access repositories (Green Open Access) of all kinds listed on OpenDOAR. Scholarly OA repositories contain lots of treasures including rare or otherwise unpublished materials and articles that scholars self-archive, often as part of their institution’s mandate. But it can be hard to discover this material unless users know exactly where to look.

Since the very beginning, libraries have played a major role in supporting the OA movement. Next to all services they can provide to support the deposit of research output in the repositories, they can make Open Access materials widely discoverable by their patrons through general search engines (Google, Bing…), specialized search engines (like Google Scholar) and library discovery tools, thus expanding their collection to include materials that they would not necessarily pay for.

In this paper, we intend to focus on two aspects regarding Open Access and Primo discovery tool.

In early 2013, Ex Libris Group started to add institutional repositories to Primo Central Index (PCI), their mega-aggregation of hundreds of millions of scholarly e-resources (journal articles, e-books, reviews, dissertations, legal documents, reports…). After two years, it may be interesting to take stock of the current situation of PCI regarding Open Access repositories. This paper will analyze their progressive integration into PCI, the numbers of references, the resource types, the countries of origin…

On basis of a survey to carry out among the Primo community, the paper will also focus on how libraries using Primo discovery tool integrate Green Open Access contents in their catalog. Two major ways are possible for them. Firstly, they can directly harvest, index and manage any repository ‒their own or any from another institution‒ in their Primo and display those free contents next to the more traditional library collections. Secondly, if they are Primo Central Index subscribers, they can quickly and easily activate any, if not all, of the Open Access repositories contained PCI, making thus the contents of those directly discoverable to their end users.

This paper shows what way is preferred by libraries, if they harvest or not their own repository (even if it is included in PCI) and suggests efforts that Ex Libris could take to improve the visibility and discoverability of OA materials included in the “Institutional Repositories” section of PCI.

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/2268/185329