Étiquette : digital scholarship

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Humanities scholars’ needs for open social scholarship platforms as online scholarly information sharing infrastructure

Authors : Daniel Tracy, Graham Jensen

The contemporary scholarly communication environment is characterized by the growth in mandates and infrastructure for open access publication and open approaches to the research lifecycle, with a consequent explosion in the number of online platforms seeking to provide infrastructure for open scholarship. These include corporate academic social networks and scholar-governed infrastructure created as a reaction against those networks, as well as the recent major transformation of the social media landscape in the wake of changes at Twitter (now X), previously a major outlet for scholarly engagement with the public.

Analysts of this environment have pointed out that most platform initiatives focus on narrow use cases rather than building up solutions through a holistic understanding of scholar workflows. This exploratory study uses focus group interviews to draw out responses to one academically governed platform, the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Commons, in the context of humanities scholars’ existing work.

It explores humanities scholars’ needs and behaviors related to sharing scholarly information with each other and broader audiences, particularly on the Internet. Feedback from participants sheds light on opportunities and challenges for academy-governed infrastructure for “open social scholarship.” Themes identified include technical fatigue and burnout in the current multi-platform environment, sustainability, and desires to reach and engage the right academic and non-academic audiences when appropriate.

URL : Humanities scholars’ needs for open social scholarship platforms as online scholarly information sharing infrastructure

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v30i2.13742

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Exploring scholarly perceptions of preprint servers

Authors : Shir Aviv-Reuven, Jenny Bronstein, Ariel Rosenfeld

Introduction

Preprint servers play an important role in scholarly communication.  The study investigates scholars’ engagement, experiences, and perceptions regarding the use of these servers, both as information sources and publishing venues. This qualitative study seeks to extend our understanding of how these servers operate within the academic ecosystem and influence scholarly communication.

Method

Data was collected through 32 semi-structured interviews with scholars from different disciplines, to explore their engagement, experiences and perceptions in using these platforms.

Analysis

The data collected from these interviews underwent thematic content analysis using ATLAS.ti software. This analysis facilitated the organization and thematic examination of the textual narratives derived from the interviews.

Results

In this study, scholars discussed their perceptions about the benefits of using preprint servers in scholarly work such as rapid dissemination of information and open access, but also raised concerns regarding the lack of peer review for the studies uploaded to these servers.

Conclusion

These findings emphasize the growing, yet diverse, role preprint servers play in scholarly communication and their differential impact across academic disciplines.

URL : Exploring scholarly perceptions of preprint servers

DOI : https://doi.org/10.47989/ir292820

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An Open Social Scholarship Path for the Humanities

Authors : Alyssa Arbuckle, Ray Siemens, Jon Bath, Constance Crompton, Laura Estill, Tanja Niemann, Jon Saklofkse, Lynne Siemens

Open digital scholarship is significant for facilitating public access to and engagement with research, and as a foundation for growing digital scholarly infrastructure around the world today and in the future. But the path to adopting open, digital scholarship on a national—never mind international—scale is challenged by several real, pragmatic issues. In this article, we consider these issues as well as proactive strategies for the realization of robust, inclusive, publicly engaged, open scholarship in digital form.

We draw on the INKE Partnership’s central goal of fostering open social scholarship (academic practice that enables the creation, dissemination, and engagement of open research by specialists and non-specialists in accessible and significant ways).

In doing so, we look to pursue more open, and more social, scholarly activities through knowledge mobilization, community training, public engagement, and policy recommendations in order to understand and address challenges facing digital scholarly communication.

We then provide tangible details, outlining how the INKE Partnership puts open social scholarship theory into practice, with an eye to a more open and engaged future.

URL : An Open Social Scholarship Path for the Humanities

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3998/jep.1973

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Digital Humanities in European Research Libraries: Beyond Offering Digital Collections

Author : Lotte Wilms

Libraries are increasingly becoming involved in digital humanities research beyond the offering of digital collections. This article examines how libraries in Europe deal with this shift in activities and how they compare with libraries in other parts of the world.

This article builds on the results of surveys conducted in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and the United Kingdom, and compares them with a survey conducted in Europe. We found that European libraries are mostly active in research supporting activities, such as digitisation and storage, while US libraries often include analysis in their activities.

Funding comes from the library’s main budget and non-structural funding in a variety of forms. Staff working in DH roles has a diverse range of titles, with various forms of librarians being the most used.

Analytical staff such as GIS specialists are only found in the US survey. All surveyed libraries agree that the biggest skill gap amongst their staff is in technical skills.

When looking towards the future, European libraries see the role of digital humanities (or digital scholarship) within the library grow and are making plans to facilitate this change within their organisation by positioning themselves as an attractive research partner, by opening and increasing their digital collections and by improving the internal workings of the library.

URL : Digital Humanities in European Research Libraries: Beyond Offering Digital Collections

Original location : https://liberquarterly.eu/article/view/10884

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Collaboration, Consultation, or Transaction: Modes of Team Research in Humanities Scholarship and Strategies for Library Engagement

Authors : Megan Senseney, Eleanor Dickson Koehl, Leanne Nay

With the rise of digital scholarship, humanists are participating in increasingly complex research teams and partnerships, and academic libraries are developing innovative service models to meet their needs.

This paper explores modes of coworking in humanities research by synthesizing responses from two qualitative studies of research practices in the humanities and proposes a taxonomy of multiperson research that includes collaborative, consultative, and transactional research partnerships among scholars, graduate students, academic staff, and a range of other potential stakeholders.

Based on an analysis of humanities scholars’ self-described research behaviors, we provide recommendations for academic librarians who are developing and sustaining service models for digital scholarship.

URL : Collaboration, Consultation, or Transaction: Modes of Team Research in Humanities Scholarship and Strategies for Library Engagement

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.80.6.787

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Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

Author : Matthew D. Bunker

Fair use in copyright law is an enormously complex legal doctrine. Although much scholarly attention has been paid to fair use in the context of teaching — particularly in on-line education — relatively little research exists on the problem of fair use in scholarship.

This article analyzes reported federal cases on fair use in scholarly contexts, with a particular emphasis on the transformative use doctrine that has become enormously influential in fair use determinations.

The article explores insights from this body of case law that may assist future scholars wishing to fairly use copyrighted expression in their scholarship.

URL : Decoding Academic Fair Use: Transformative Use and the Fair Use Doctrine in Scholarship

DOI : https://doi.org/10.17161/jcel.v3i1.6481

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Sustaining Scholarly Infrastructures through Collective Action: The Lessons that Olson can Teach us

Author : Cameron Neylon

The infrastructures that underpin scholarship and research, including repositories, curation systems, aggregators, indexes and standards, are public goods. Finding sustainability models to support them is a challenge due to free-loading, where someone who does not contribute to the support of an infrastructure nonetheless gains the benefit of it.

The work of Mancur Olson (1965) suggests that there are only three ways to address this for large groups: compelling all potential users, often through some form of taxation, to support the infrastructure; providing non-collective (club) goods to contributors that are created as a side-effect of providing the collective good; or implementing mechanisms that lower the effective number of participants in the negotiation (oligopoly).

In this paper, I use Olson’s framework to analyse existing scholarly infrastructures and proposals for the sustainability of new infrastructures. This approach provides some important insights.

First, it illustrates that the problems of sustainability are not merely ones of finance but of political economy, which means that focusing purely on financial sustainability in the absence of considering governance principles and community is the wrong approach.

The second key insight this approach yields is that the size of the community supported by an infrastructure is a critical parameter. Sustainability models will need to change over the life cycle of an infrastructure with the growth (or decline) of the community.

In both cases, identifying patterns for success and creating templates for governance and sustainability could be of significant value.

Overall, this analysis demonstrates a need to consider how communities, platforms, and finances interact and suggests that a political economic analysis has real value.

URL : Sustaining Scholarly Infrastructures through Collective Action: The Lessons that Olson can Teach us

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/kula.7