Étiquette : open access

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Open Access Publishing Practices in a Complex Environment: Conditions, Barriers, and Bases of Power

The system of scholarly communication is a complex environment made up of various stakeholders including not only researchers, librarians, and publishers, but also academic administrators. This paper examines conditions each group faces while also noting barriers preventing movement toward open access.

To further analyze interrelationships and interdependencies among groups, a discussion is presented using French & Raven’s bases of power to describe how members of each stakeholder group exert some degree of power upon all other groups while at the same time being influenced, either directly or indirectly, by external forces.

A better understanding of the many existing interactions and dependencies can help those who work within this system navigate ongoing changes while more successfully positioning their organizations for the future.

URL : http://jlsc-pub.org/jlsc/vol1/iss1/10/

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EN

Lasting Impact: Sustainability of Disciplinary Repositories

Librarians need to be familiar with the evolving aspects of scholarly communication and the changing scholarly record. One component of that is the role of repositories. It’s crucial for anyone working in a research library to understand the repository landscape, both to advise researchers on where to look for information and how to disseminate their own research articles.

Librarians should appreciate the nature of the leading disciplinary repositories and have a sense of their motivations, their scope, and how they operate. Before getting involved with a disciplinary repository, they should be familiar with the risks and opportunities in depending on the repository and, most importantly, they need to know if the repository has a sustainable model.

For a library considering starting a disciplinary repository or taking on the operation of an existing one, these considerations are essential.

URL : http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/library/2012/2012-03.pdf

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Non classé

Scientific Utopia I Opening scientific communication Existing…

Scientific Utopia: I. Opening scientific communication :

« Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the efficiency in meeting the purpose of public science – knowledge accumulation. We call for six changes: (1) full embrace of digital communication, (2) open access to all published research, (3) disentangling publication from evaluation, (4) breaking the « one article, one journal » model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets, (5) publishing peer review, and, (6) allowing open, continuous peer review. We address conceptual and practical barriers to change, and provide examples showing how the suggested practices are being used already. The critical barriers to change are not technical or financial; they are social. While scientists guard the status quo, they also have the power to change it. »

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.1055

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Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for…

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research for Voluntary and Charitable Sector Organisations :

« This study was carried out by The Office for Public Management (OPM) in partnership with the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). We were commissioned in July 2011 by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) on behalf of the Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG) to conduct research into the benefits of open access (OA) to scholarly research outputs to voluntary and community sector (VCS) organisations. »

URL : http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/576/

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Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to…

Benefits of Open Access to Scholarly Research to the Public Sector :

« The objective of this project was to synthesise and generate evidence on the benefits that Open Access to scholarly research outputs has generated to the public sector, and to provide case studies of organisations that have realised such benefits. The project considered the benefits of Open Access for researchers in public sector organisations. It did not aim to be comprehensive in its coverage of the public sector, as there are many organisations for which research is only a very small part of their activity, and has only very limited impact on their policies and decisions. We have also focused on Open Access to research articles, as these still make up the largest proportion of research outputs used in analysis, policy and decision-making: research data is becoming more important but is still nascent in its influence in the organisations we surveyed. These organisations in any case often generate their own data through commissioned surveys and other tools as their needs tend to be very specific. »

URL : http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/575/

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Non classé

Usage and Impact of Controlled Vocabularies in a…

Usage and Impact of Controlled Vocabularies in a Subject Repository for Indexing and Retrieval :

« Since 2009, the German National Library for Economics (ZBW) supports both indexing and retrieval of Open Access scientific publications like working papers, postprint articles and conference papers by means of a terminology web service. This web service is based on concepts organized as a ‘Standard Thesaurus for Economics’ (STW), which is modelled and regularly published as Linked Open Data. Moreover, it is integrated into the institution’s subject repository for automatically suggesting appropriate key words while indexing and retrieving documents, and for automatically expanding search queries on demand to gain better search results. While this approach looks promising to augment ‘off the shelf’ repository software systems in a lightweight manner with a disciplinary profile, there is still significant uncertainty about the effective usage and impact of controlled terms in the realm of these systems. To cope with this, we analyze the repository’s logfiles to get evidence of search behaviour which is potentially influenced by auto suggestion and expansion of scientific terms derived from a discipline’s literature. »

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2011-3_4/index.html?000555

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Non classé

Fostering New Roles for Librarians Skills Set for…

Fostering New Roles for Librarians: Skills Set for Repository Managers — Results of a Survey in Italy :

« The open access movement in scholarly communication has grown considerably over the last ten years and it has driven an increase in the number of institutional repositories (IRs). New professional roles and skills had to be developed to secure effective IR management.

Collection developmente expertise and metadata curation are regarded as strategic roles for repositories and therefore it is only logical for the library and information community to take on the responsibility for managing these digital archives. However, it has become clear that traditional librarian skills do not suffice anymore to run successful repositories. A richer set of skills is needed, including management and communication skills, technical skills, and expertise with regard to access rights and preservation of digital content.

Referring to the work carried out by the SHERPA Project in the UK with regard to the skills set for repository staff, the authors performed a survey among repository managers in Italy to assess the educational and professional background of the repository managers and the skills set required to implement successful institutional repositories.

The survey findings show that the professional profile of the repository manager is a multiform and complex one. It requires cross-functional and highly specialised competencies. Italian repository managers are of the opinion that the skills required to promote the repository within the institution and those required to deal with copyright issues as the most essential skills repository managers should acquire and be trained for. Collection development and metadata expertise, familiarity with project management and expertise in repository workflow design are also highly rated. Technical skills are needed to deal with interoperability standards and protocols.

In Italy academic curricula do not meet the repository managers’ educational needs. Academic programmes should be developed to include communication, project management and team work skills and pay more attention to copyright issues. Until that time repository managers will have to spend a considerable part of their working lives on professional training and self-directed learning. »

URL : http://liber.library.uu.nl/publish/issues/2011-3_4/index.html?000553