Archives des mots-clés : scientific pratices

Electronic resources usage by postgraduates at the University of Colombo: Identifying the critical success factors

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“E-resources have exploded in popularity and usage by helping users in retrieving accurate, relevant and timelyinformation as and when required for their learning and research needs. This case study was carried out at the University of Colombo to investigate the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) on e-resources usage of postgraduates. A questionnaire basedsurvey was carried out using 302 postgraduates belonging to seven faculties. Exploratory factor analysis with Verimaxrotation was employed to identify the CSFs on e-resource usage and multiple regression analysis was carried out todetermine the relationship of those identified factors with overall e-resource usage. Factor analysis identified nine factorswhich affect on e-resources usage. Among the nine factors, postgraduates identified “Technology” as the most critical factorin using e-resources. Library support, information literacy, computer competency, usefulness and user attitudes areidentified as other CSFs for using e-resources for their learning activities.”

URL : http://op.niscair.res.in/index.php/ALIS/article/view/31

The effects of open access mandates on institutional…

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The effects of open access mandates on institutional repositories in the UK and Germany :

“Purpose :
This research project explores the effects of institutional open access mandates on institutional repositories in Higher Education Institutions in the UK and Germany. Therefore, it analyses the experiences, opinions, and expectations of institutional repository managers from both countries.

Methodology : A thorough literature review and a questionnaire-based survey were conducted to gain background information regarding open access publishing, institutional repositories, and institutional open access mandates. Semi-structured follow-up interviews provide an in-depth insight into the views of institutional repository managers regarding the effects of institutional open access mandates. The results are presented thematically.

Findings : There is evidence that institutional mandates do have effects on institutional repositories in different ways, e.g. on content deposited and service provision. The effects vary according to the characteristics of repositories and the approach taken by institutions. The research results also indicate that the experiences of institutions with a mandate and the expectations of institutions without one are almost identical across both the UK and Germany, although the developmental context of institutional repositories and institutional mandates in these two countries are very different.

Impact : The findings of the dissertation are of interest for Higher Education Institutions considering the implementation of an institutional open access mandate.

Research limitations : The research was limited in the comparative analysis of the experiences of institutional repository managers as there are almost no mandates implemented in Germany. The limited time did not allow to follow-up further questions after the
interviews were transcribed and analysed. A study of larger scale, for example on European level, should be interesting.

Value : The value of this dissertation is the exploration of the effects of institutional open access mandates on institutional repository services, a neglected field within the vast research about open access publishing and mandates so far.”

URL : https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/9327

Survey on open access in FP7 Open…

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Survey on open access in FP7 :

“Open access refers to the practice of granting free Internet access to research outputs. The principal objective of an open access policy in the seventh framework programme (FP7) is to provide researchers and other interested members of the public with improved online access to EU-funded research results. This is considered a way to improve the EU’s return on research and development investment.

The European Commission launched in August 2008 the open access pilot in FP7. It concerns all new projects from that date in seven FP7 research areas: energy, environment, health, information and communication technologies (cognitive systems, interaction, and robotics), research infrastructures (e-infrastructures), science in society (SiS) and socioeconomic sciences and humanities (SSH). Grant beneficiaries are expected to deposit peer-reviewed research articles or final manuscripts resulting from their projects into an online repository and make their best efforts to ensure open access to those articles within a set period of time after publication.

In addition to the pilot, FP7 rules of participation also allow all projects to have open access fees eligible for reimbursement during the time of the grant agreement (1) (‘open access publishing’, also called ‘author pays’ fees).

In May 2011, the Commission identified the 811 projects designated at the time and sent a questionnaire to all project coordinators in order to collect feedback on their experiences of both the implementation of the pilot and the reimbursement of open access publishing costs. A total of 194 answers were received by the end of August 2011. They provide important input for the future of the open access policy and practices in Horizon 2020 (the future EU framework programme for research and innovation), and for the preparation of a communication from the Commission and a recommendation to Member States on scientific publications in the digital age.”

URL : http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/survey-on-open-access-in-fp7_en.pdf

Inter institutional scientific collaboration an approach from social…

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Inter-institutional scientific collaboration: an approach from social network :

“This paper presents a tool that can be used to characterize, analyze and interpret the patterns of collaboration among institutions by means of the visual display of scientific information. These graphic representations allow for a combined analysis of a given institution in the system of relations (network), and of the particular attributes of that institution (indicators). The tool affords the possibility of regenerating the network to make any number of aggregates appear or disappear, thus allowing one to focus on institutional sectors, geographic regions, etc. It also allows for analysis of sectorial interaction, institutional backing of research, and the influence of geographic proximity, linguistic affinity, or regional politics. This is indeed a versatile analytical tool, and it is bound to prove its potential for evaluating patterns of collaborative research, development and innovation.”

URL : http://hdl.handle.net/10760/16704

How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted…

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How the Scientific Community Reacts to Newly Submitted Preprints: Article Downloads, Twitter Mentions, and Citations :

“We analyze the online response of the scientific community to the preprint publication of scholarly articles. We employ a cohort of 4,606 scientific articles submitted to the preprint database arXiv.org between October 2010 and April 2011. We study three forms of reactions to these preprints: how they are downloaded on the arXiv.org site, how they are mentioned on the social media site Twitter, and how they are cited in the scholarly record. We perform two analyses. First, we analyze the delay and time span of article downloads and Twitter mentions following submission, to understand the temporal configuration of these reactions and whether significant differences exist between them. Second, we run correlation tests to investigate the relationship between Twitter mentions and both article downloads and article citations. We find that Twitter mentions follow rapidly after article submission and that they are correlated with later article downloads and later article citations, indicating that social media may be an important factor in determining the scientific impact of an article.”

URL : http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.2461