Student Embargoes within Institutional Repositories: Faculty Early Transparency Concerns

Libraries encourage students to utilize Institutional Repositories (IRs) to house e-portfolios that demonstrate their skills and experiences. This is especially important for students when applying for jobs and admission into graduate schools. However, within the academic sphere there are legitimate reasons why some faculty-student collaboration efforts should not be documented and openly shared in institutional repositories. The need for the protection of ideas and processes prior to faculty publication can be in direct conflict with the intention for institutional repositories to promote the excellent efforts of students.

This is certainly true in laboratory situations where details of experiments and research areas are guarded for the lifetime of the exploration process. Librarians must work with others to develop guidelines and educational programs that prepare all stakeholders for these new information release considerations. One outcome of such deliberations could be the development of mutually beneficial publication guidelines which protect sensitive details of research yet allow students to submit selective research documentation into an IR.

The other extreme, with no agreed upon partial embargo scenarios, could result in the removal of students from sensitive collaborations. Given the need for scientific laboratories to utilize student workers, and the benefit of real research experiences for students, the academy must find a balanced solution to this inherent conflict situation.

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss2/6/

Scholarly Communication at Canadian Research Libraries Conversations with…

Scholarly Communication at Canadian Research Libraries: Conversations with Librarians :

« INTRODUCTION. The landscape of librarianship in relation to the practice of scholarly communication is evolving. The objectives of this study were to investigate: the scope of scholarly communication activities within Canadian research libraries; the organizational structures in place to support them; and the roles of librarians who participate in them. Key challenges to its advancement and how librarians envision its future were also investigated.
METHODS Twenty-nine academic librarians from Canadian Association of Research Libraries member institutions participated in semi-structured, open-ended interviews. Interviews were analyzed for recurring themes.
RESULTS. Participants outlined initiatives, services, and structures to support scholarly communication at their institutions. Solo scholarly communication librarians, specialized teams, and committees were identified as primary structures. Liaison librarians play an essential supporting role regardless of structure. Individually, librarians are seen to have an impact as leaders and advocates in promoting scholarly communication. The concept of “librarian as researcher” is also important. Participants shared a desire for better communication and collaboration in this area. Many participants saw the need for standardized assessment and evaluation methods. Participants enumerated their greatest challenges and provided suggestions for addressing them in the future.
CONCLUSION. This study demonstrates that organizational structure can enhance scholarly communication activities in libraries. Leadership both at the personal and collective level is necessary to provide an impetus for scholarly communication activities. Librarians should be knowledgeable about the issues and be ready to deliver the “pitch.” Strengthening collaboration and communication among Canadian librarians is essential for moving the scholarly communication agenda forward. »

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol2/iss2/3/

Pratiques d’éditeurs : 50 nuances de numérique

Avec le numérique, émergent dans le champ du livre et de la lecture de nouveaux acteurs très imprégnés de culture web et aux savoir-faire singuliers : les éditeurs pure players.

Ils sont rejoints par les éditeurs papier qui commencent à investir le monde digital. Dans cette période de mutation, il nous est apparu important dans un premier temps d’identifier cette nouvelle population qui travaille avec les ressources et les logiques du numérique, et d’analyser comment les éditeurs papier se projettent dans ce nouvel univers.

Puis de cerner en quoi de nouvelles pratiques professionnelles émergent ou se modifient à l’ère de l’internet, des réseaux sociaux et des technologies numériques tant sur le plan éditorial, commercial, organisationnel, que contractuel. Et enfin de dégager les modèles économiques et les nouvelles compétences qui se dessinent.

URL : http://www.lemotif.fr/fichier/motif_fichier/541/fichier_fichier_etude.50.nuances.de.numerique.pdf

Towards an understanding of Web growth an empirical…

Towards an understanding of Web growth: an empirical study of socio-technical web activity of Open Government Data :

« This thesis proposes a new interdisciplinary approach to understanding how the World Wide Web is growing, as a socio technical network, co-constructed by interrelationships between society and technological developments. The thesis uses a longitudinal empirical case study of Web and offline activity surrounding the UK Open Government Data communityto explore the Web as a socio-technical `networks of networks’. It employs a mixed methods framework, underpinned by sociological theory but also drawing on computer science for technical approaches to the problem of understanding theWeb. The study uses quantitative and qualitative sources of data in a novel analysis of online and offline activities to explore the formation and growth of UK Open Government Data and to understand this case, and the Web itself. The thesis argues that neither technology nor `the social’ alone is sufficient to explain the growth of this network, or indeed the Web, but that these networks develop out of closely co-constructed relationships and interactions between humans and technology. This thesis has implications not only for how the Web is understood, but for the kinds of future technological design and social activity that will be implicated in its continued growth. »

URL : http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/362306/

Evaluer Wikipédia de l’expertise du produit éditorial à…

Evaluer Wikipédia : de l’expertise du produit éditorial à l’analyse des règles et pratiques citationnelles :

« L’originalité du mode d’élaboration de Wikipédia a suscité de nombreuses recherches relatives à la qualité de l’information disponible dans cette source. Leur synthèse, présentée ici, ne prétend pas à l’exhaustivité mais vise plutôt à les catégoriser. Nous différencions ainsi trois approches de l’évaluation de cette encyclopédie collaborative que nous désignons sous les termes d’ « expertise informationnelle », de « processus éditorial-produit  » et de « point de vue interne ». En lien avec cette dernière approche, nous exposons les enjeux et questions de recherche à propos d’un objet d’étude spécifique : les règles et pratiques citationnelles au sein de Wikipédia. »

URL : http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00959595/fr/

Open access et SHS: controverses

Après avoir rappelé la genèse et l’actualité vive de l’Open Access pour les publications scientifiques, cet article s’attache à discuter l’injonction politique pressante au regard des spécificités de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales. Partant du constat que les politiques publiques s’élaborent majoritairement selon des caractéristiques empruntées aux sciences biomédicales, technologiques ou de la nature, l’auteur s’attache à discuter la pertinence des postulats avancés, notamment la barrière d’accès aux savoirs, les enjeux sur l’innovation et la croissance, le retour sur l’investissement public, l’enjeu des données ouvertes et du datamining.

La contribution souligne les risques d’une transformation numérique non mesurée pour l’édition des sciences humaines et sociales et esquisse différents scénarios possibles selon les politiques publiques décidées.

URL : http://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_00965272

Publisher Support for Self Archiving Laudatory or Predatory…

Publisher Support for Self-Archiving: Laudatory or Predatory? :

« Most publishers with self-archiving policies in the SHERPA RoMEO database allow authors to deposit their articles in a repository or post them to a website – supporting the green route to open access. Nevertheless, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) enthusiastically endorsed legislation proposed and defeated twice in the United States to prohibit federal agencies from mandating repository deposits of articles reporting on research they funded. The AAP also endorsed the Finch Report issued in the United Kingdom. The Report denigrated repository deposits and elevated open access publishing – the gold route to open access – as the preferred path to expand public access. Given that the green route is more affordable than the gold route (Houghton et al 2009), that the green route exceeds the gold route in growth rate and proportion of articles available open access (Gargouri et al 2012), and that mandates increase repository deposits (Van Noorden 2013, Poynder May 2012), these are puzzling tactics for publishers professing to support self-archiving.
Despite conspicuous progress in providing open access to scholarly articles, there is a steady, unsettling undercurrent stirred by traditional publishers that could undermine the green route to open access. This article examines data and discourse to better understand publisher perspectives on self-archiving and, based on this understanding, urges action from open access advocates. »

URL : http://works.bepress.com/denise_troll_covey/79/