Understanding Repository Growth at the University of North Texas: A Case Study

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“Over the past decade the University of North Texas Libraries (UNTL) has developed a sizable digital library infrastructure for use in carrying out its core mission to the students, faculty, staff and associated communities of the university. This repository of content offers countless research possibilities for end users across the Internet when it is discovered and used in research, scholarship, entertainment, and lifelong learning. The characteristics of the repository itself provide insight into the workings of a modern digital library infrastructure, how it was created, how often it is updated, or how often it is modified. In that vein, the authors created a dataset comprised of information extracted from the UNT Libraries’ archival repository Coda and analyzed this dataset in order to demonstrate the value and insights that can be gained from sharing repository characteristics more broadly. This case study presents the findings from an analysis of this dataset.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1407.0547

Wikipedia in the eyes of its beholders: A systematic review of scholarly research on Wikipedia readers and readership

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“Hundreds of scholarly studies have investigated various aspects of the immensely popular Wikipedia. Although a number of literature reviews have provided overviews of this vast body of research, none of them has specifically focused on the readers of Wikipedia and issues concerning its readership. In this systematic literature review, we review 99 studies to synthesize current knowledge regarding the readership of Wikipedia and also provide an analysis of research methods employed. The scholarly research has found that Wikipedia is popular not only for lighter topics such as entertainment, but also for more serious topics such as health information and legal background. Scholars, librarians and students are common users of Wikipedia, and it provides a unique opportunity for educating students in digital literacy. We conclude with a summary of key findings, implications for researchers, and implications for the Wikipedia community.”

URL : http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/978653/

Why and where Wikipedia is cited in journal articles?

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“The aim of this research was to identify the motivations for citation to Wikipedia in scientific papers. Also, the number of citation to Wikipedia, location of citation, type of citing papers, subject of citing and cited articles were determined and compared in different subject fields. From all English articles indexed in Scopus in 2007 and 2012 that have cited Wikipedia, 602 articles were selected using stratified random sampling. Content analysis and bibliometric methods were used to carry out the research. Results showed that there are 20 motivations for citing Wikipedia and the most frequent of them are providing general information and definition, facts and figures. Citations to Wikipedia often were in the introduction and introductory sections of papers. Computer sciences, internet and chemistry were the most cited subjects. The use of Wikipedia in articles is increasing both in terms of quantity and diversity. However, there are disciplinary differences both in the amount and the nature of use of Wikipedia.”

URL : http://www.jscires.org/text.asp?2013/2/3/231/135415

Let’s Put Data to Use: Digital Scholarship for the Next Generation

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“The ways in which research data is used and handled continue to capture public attention and are the focus of increasing interest. Electronic publishing is intrinsic to digital data management, and relevant to the fields of data mining, digital publishing and social networks, with their implications for scholarly communication, information services, e-learning, e-business and the cultural heritage sector.

This book presents the proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Electronic Publishing (ELPUB), held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 2014. The conference brings together researchers and practitioners to discuss the many aspects of electronic publishing, and the theme this year is ‘Let’s put data to use: digital scholarship for the next generation’. As well as examining the role of cultural heritage and service organisations in the creation, accessibility, duration and long-term preservation of data, it provides a discussion forum for the appraisal, citation and licensing of research data and the new developments in reviewing, publishing and editorial technology.

The book is divided into sections covering the following topics: open access and open data; knowing the users better; researchers and their needs; specialized content for researchers; publishing and access; and practical aspects of electronic publishing.

Providing an overview of all that is current in the electronic publishing world, this book will be of interest to practitioners, researchers and students in information science, as well as users of electronic publishing.”

URL : Let’s Put Data to Use: Digital Scholarship for the Next Generation

Alternative URL : http://www.ebooks.iospress.nl/book/lets-put-data-to-use-digital-scholarship-for-the-next-generation

The Determinants of Open Access Publishing: Survey Evidence from Countries in the Mediterranean Open Access Network (MedOANet)

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“We discuss the results of a survey conducted between April 2013 and May 2014 in six Mediterranean countries and covering 2,528 researchers from Spain (1,291), Portugal (142), France (380), Italy (596), Turkey (131) and Greece (130). We compare the results to our German survey with 1,913 respondents. We show that there are significant differences between the scientific disciplines with respect to researcher’s awareness of and experience with both open access (OA) journals and self-archiving. Accordingly, the publishing culture (e.g. reputation, publishing language) but also other issues like age and certain policies (MedOANet) may explain why researchers make more frequent use of OA publishing in some countries and disciplines.”

URL : http://ssrn.com/abstract=2457550

Evaluating big deal journal bundles

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“Large commercial publishers sell bundled online subscriptions to their entire list of academic journals at prices significantly lower than the sum of their á la carte prices. Bundle prices differ drastically between institutions, but they are not publicly posted. The data that we have collected enable us to compare the bundle prices charged by commercial publishers with those of nonprofit societies and to examine the types of price discrimination practiced by commercial and nonprofit journal publishers. This information is of interest to economists who study monopolist pricing, librarians interested in making efficient use of library budgets, and scholars who are interested in the availability of the work that they publish.”

URL : http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/PNAS-2014-Bergstrom-1403006111.pdf

Quality of author guidelines of journals in the biomedical and physical sciences

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“To assess quantitatively the completeness and clarity of author guidelines of international English-language journals in the biomedical and physical sciences, we randomly sampled 80 journals for which author guidelines were available online in English. The guidelines were reviewed for completeness and clarity in addressing ‘aims and scope,’ ‘submission and post-submission processes,’ ‘formatting instructions,’ ‘ethical requirements,’ and ‘authorship,’ and were subjectively assessed as being complete (score, 1) or incomplete (0), and clear (1) or unclear (0). Scores were represented as mean percentages. No journal scored 100% for completeness and clarity. ‘Formatting instructions’ was the most complete and clear category, and ‘authorship,’ the least complete and clear category. Biomedical science journals were more complete and clear in all categories, except ‘authorship,’ compared to physical science journals. While author guidelines of many English-language journals of biomedical and physical sciences adequately address some essential aspects, they currently do not provide all necessary information as clearly as possible. ”

URL : http://www.editage.com/insights/quality-of-author-guidelines-of-journals-in-the-biomedical-and-physical-sciences