Search

Disruptive changes are transforming the scholarly communications environment. In an era of false reporting and fake news, quality information and verifiable data is essential. However, much of the world's best publicly funded research remains hidden behind commercial publisher paywalls. Unlocking this research can help solve the world's greatest research and social challenges, and result in a more informed society. This paper will explore how, within the Australian context, librarians are seeking to make research more findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR). The Australasian Open Access Strategy Group (AOASG) and the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) have worked on a range of initiatives to improve the openness of research including the establishment and implementation of the F.A.I.R. Policy Statement -- www.fairaccess.net.au/fair-statement. The statement was created through consultation with a range of stakeholders, including government and funding agencies, providing opportunities for libraries to demonstrate leadership. A range of projects under a new CAUL Program for Fair, affordable and open access to knowledge, have been established. These include an improved repository environment, an exploration of researchers retaining rights to their research, and the consistent collection of open access costs. The AOASG is undertaking a communication campaign to increase awareness of the benefits of open access, establish communities of practice, and to progress critical areas for development through a range of complimentary projects. This paper will outline how strategic partnership, collaboration and leadership within the Australian library context can address challenges globally, resulting in a better information environment for all. The paper and presentation will aim to encourage coordinated innovation among stakeholders to progress the open access movement in similar ways the world over. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lorcan Dempsey has coined the term "inside-out" to describe how academic libraries are increasingly supporting the processes of research at their institutions (Dempsey, 2016). Digital scholarship, changes in scholarly communication practices, advancing technology, and the growing use of bibliometrics for research evaluation, are fuelling the evolution of library research support services. Researcher-facing librarians are increasingly being required to upskill and engage with the research process at deeper, more technical, levels. In 2019 a project commenced at the University of Otago Library to gather information about the knowledge, skills, abilities and attributes of researcher-facing librarians performing inside-out tasks. Various job descriptions were collected and analysed, a survey was sent to IATUL members mapping inside-out tasks to capabilities, and a workshop was held at the 2019 IATUL conference where further data was collected. All this work has now resulted in a capability framework designed to support recruitment, professional development, and address the challenges faced by researcher-facing librarians and their managers grappling to introduce and sustain inside-out services. This paper will introduce the capability framework in its current form. It provides commentary on interesting findings in the project data and discusses how they influenced the building of the capability framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the widespread use of social media tools in the discovery, dissemination and discussion of research output, altmetric measurements are fast gaining popularity and they supplement the traditional research metrics by tracking the number of social mentions of research articles. In recent years, there a few such tools and they adopt different models and have different coverage. Publishers such as Scopus and PLoS have already incorporated altmetrics in their websites. This paper seeks to make sense of these available tools and evaluate their effectiveness. Do they identify quality research or just HOT topics? This paper also analyses most cited papers from 18 different subject categories in Web of Science (WOS) and compares the results with an altmetrics database to find out the correlation between these 2 sets of data. This paper ends by highlighting how users could leverage altmetrics effectively to disseminate their works to a wider audience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the FAIR Principles were developed for research data, they can also be aptly applied to other research outputs. Applying FAIR Principles to scholarly publications ensures research can easily be found, accessed, used and re-purposed by others. Using these principles in the context of scholarly publishing helps facilitate access to publications by other researchers and the wider community. The existing services and infrastructure, provided by The University of Queensland Library Scholarly Communication & Repository Services (SCARS) team, supports practical implementation of some of the FAIR Principles in scholarly publishing. The Scholarly Publishing, Research Outputs & Impact, and UQ eSpace (institutional repository) teams from SCARS recently assisted a Research Centre with open access (OA) reporting. During the time the Centre was in operation the funder renewed their Open Access Policy mandating that all research outputs be made openly accessible within twelve months. This necessitated that the Centre had to approach the task of OA reporting retrospectively. The Research Outputs and Impact team provided metrics on how many publications by the researchers from the Centre were already available via open access at that time, predominantly via Gold OA. The Scholarly Publishing team provided advisory support on Green OA strategies to improve compliance. A project was undertaken by the Centre to identify and obtain author accepted manuscripts, which were then assessed by staff in the UQ eSpace team and uploaded to the repository in accordance with relevant copyright restrictions and embargo periods. As a result of the project, the Centre optimised their level of OA compliance, with over 92% of their publications recorded as OA at the time of completion of the work done with the UQ Library. This paper will demonstrate the practical methods employed by the SCARS teams that supported the Centre's OA publishing efforts and the implementation of FAIR Principles. It will also discuss some of the work yet to be done to enhance Library systems and processes to better support all FAIR Principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper outlines the strategies and processes that were adopted by the Library at the University of New South Wales, a research intensive university in Australia, to provide eResearch support services for the University's academic community. The focus of the paper is on how structural, technical, staff and content-related components of the Library were reshaped to integrate eResearch services with the organisation's existing business. Relationships between Library work units were reconfigured and new collaborations with researchers and external partners were developed. The authors conclude that organisational flexibility is a core requirement for academic libraries to be responsive to changing research practice and developments in scholarly communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a series of independent studies conducted by Dr. Anthony Breitzman of 1790 Analytics, IEEE has learned that granted patents cite scientific and the technical literature found in journal articles, conference papers and industry standards. This paper outlines the findings of three studies conducted by 1790 Analytics and discusses the implications for library professionals and members of the scientific and scholarly community. Patent citation analysis is a viable metric to quantify both usage and value of access to scholarly materials at universities, corporations and government research centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing European Open Access policy to scientific resources is one of the most important issues undertaken during the public debate about the future trends in scholarly communication process. The Open Access landscape is determined by several factors (e.g. mandates). The open mandate: voluntary or mandatory, can be implemented at the institutional, national or international level. It requires scholars to use open repository to deposit results of scientific research funded with public money and research grants. The current paper reflects European Commission guidelines regarding dissemination of scientific results funded with EU funds together with recommendations at the national level for Polish universities. The process of preparing and implementing Open Access policy at the institutional level, and the role of libraries in this process were presented on the example of Gdansk University of Technology in comparison to the other technical universities in Poland. Gdansk University of Technology implements a project called Multidisciplinary Open System Transferring Knowledge. The acronym of its name in the Polish language is "MOST Wiedzy", which means "the bridge of knowledge". The repository is a project of an archive of scientific publications, scientific documentation, research data, scientific dissertations, as well as other documents and sources, created as a result of scientific experiments and other research and development work conducted at the Gdansk University of Technology. It will also be a solution supporting communication between researchers and a platform for cooperation between science and business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences 2022 IATUL Proceedings Jun 16th, 3:30 PM - 4:45 PM Paper submission for IATUL 2022 Annual ConferenceSubmitted by: Kara Jones, University LibrarianAmerican University of Sharjah Presentation title: University rankings called to account - library voices in the conversation The past few years have seen increasingly raised voices against the impact of UniversityRankings, such as QS, THE World University Rankings, ARWU and USNews. Researchadministrators have been particularly vocal about the influence of ranking systems onuniversity behaviors and called for more responsible metrics and profiling tools thatdemonstrate distinctiveness. [Extracted from the article]

In 2013, the Purdue Libraries partnered with the Joint Transportation Research Program (JTRP), a collaboration between Purdue University and the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), to incorporate the publication of research data sets into the technical report publication process. This project extended an existing process, developed in partnership between the Purdue Libraries, Purdue University Press, and JTRP, which leveraged Purdue's institutional repository to replace artisanal production processes with a more professional approach (Zilinski, Scherer, Bullock, Horton, & Matthews, forthcoming; Newton, Bullock, Watkinson, Bracke, & Horton, 2012). The existing workflow focused on production of textual documents, but did not address opportunities related to research data or geospatial information within the reports. The new workflow was intended to improve access to, and usability of, research data embedded in the reports by combining functions of Purdue e-Pubs with functions of the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). This paper will present a framework for repository assessment including performance indicators and instruments measuring the impact of leveraging data and institutional repositories for linking publications to data. This framework will allow us to address research questions such as: What is the strategic value of linking data and publication for researchers and research centers? How can repositories contribute to key performance outcomes for researchers and research center administrators? What is the value of this initiative to library administration? Why is this relationship and initiative important to the libraries in developing repository and data services? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scholarly communication system is sustained by its functions of a) registration, b) certification or legitimization, c) dissemination and awareness d) archiving or curation and e) reward. These functions have remained stable during the development of scholarly communication but the means through which they are achieved have not. It has been a long journey from the days when scientists communicated primarily through correspondence. The impact of modern-day technological changes is significant and has destabilized the scholarly communication system to some extent because many more options have become available to communicate scholarly information with. Pasteur's Quadrant was articulated by Donald E Stokes in his book Pasteur's Quadrant Basic Science and Technological Innovation. It is the idea that basic science (as practiced by Niels Bohr) and applied science (as exemplified by Thomas Edison) can be brought together to create a synergy that will produce results of significant benefit, as Louis Pasteur did. Given the theory (fundamental understanding) we have of scholarly communication and given how modern-day technological advances can be applied, a case can be made that use-inspired basic research (Pasteur's Quadrant) should be the focus for current research in scholarly communication. In doing so the different types of digital scholarly resources and their characteristics must be investigated to determine how the fundamentals of scholarly communication are being supported. How libraries could advocate for and contribute to the improvement of scholarly communication is also noted. These resources could include: e-journals, repositories, reviews, annotated content, data, pre-print and working papers servers, blogs, discussion forums, professional and academic hubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Librarians working in academic libraries are often exhorted to advance the cause of open access through their daily work with scholars and students in the institution. For experienced librarians as well as those new to the profession, there may be some confusion about how to carry out this work. There may be a lack of understanding about potential roles in a changing vision of scholarly communication that includes advocacy for openness as well as a responsibility for participation in local, national and global efforts. Librarian roles may not have changed to incorporate new models of scholarly communication. Library leaders may be using a level of rhetoric that may not resonate with the actual experience of librarians in their work in reference, instruction, collection development, or liaison work with teaching faculty. Librarians, often seeing themselves as members of a service profession seek to make available and provide services around the traditional library collections desired by institutional faculty and students. Incentives may not exist to produce the kinds of changes to collections or services that are held up as the future vision of the library. Also, whether they hold professional staff or faculty appointments, librarians endeavor to publish their own research in the established corpus of scholarly literature of library and information science (LIS). Librarians may not be invested in changing their own publishing behavior to match the messages they are asked to convey about open access to those in other disciplines. In library schools, LIS educators may not be integrating scholarly communication topics of relevance to future public services librarians into their curricula. The focus may be on digitization efforts and less on the types of services that librarians offer every day to faculty and students in reference encounters, liaison work, instruction or collection development work. After more than a decade of open access advocacy in libraries, it may be time to focus on the practical side and to move toward the promulgation of specific actions that are likely to produce real and positive result. Librarians working on the front lines will benefit from a better understanding of the type of contributions they can make. This paper is focused on the practical impact of open access on public services, collection development and other common academic librarian roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite millions of dollars being spent on research each year in Canada, little attention is paid to the dissemination of the results of research. There is a disconnect between Canadian public policies in this area; although a high priority is assigned to the generation of research, there is a lack of policies addressing its dissemination. Meanwhile, the environment in which research knowledge is being disseminated is undergoing a profound transformation because of several important drivers. In particular, these drivers include new technology, changing research patterns, new users, economics, and commercialization. The major objective of this study was to examine the rapidly transforming environment in which research knowledge is disseminated and determine whether there is a need for a national research strategy to adapt to the new, dynamic scholarly communication environment in Canada. To address the latter question, the study adopted a consensus panel process. A consensus panel of 10 Canadian academic researchers from across Canada from a variety of disciplines and at different stages of their careers was recruited from over 70 volunteers. The objective of the panel was to reach a consensus on priorities for research into scholarly communication in Canada. The consensus panel identified five major themes in which there is a need for research in scholarly communication in Canada: Knowledge systems; knowledge/data storage and retrieval; power and infrastructure within the academy; knowledge production and the social contract; copyright and intellectual property. These themes are expanded upon in more detail in the full paper and specific research topics discussed. The results of this study also clearly support the creation of a more holistic and integrated knowledge ecosystem for scholarly communication. In its report, the consensus panel strongly recommended that, "a coherent national policy of knowledge preservation and dissemination must he devised to create a greater cohesion, accessibility, security and access to research findings." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For European universities the year 2010 is crucial to their two main activities: teaching and research. Much has been said about the European Higher Education Area and about the innovative aspects of university teaching. However, we should also consider research, as the European Union governments have also set 2010 as the starting date for the European Research Area, whose aim will be to enhance research throughout the old continent and place it on a par with the current world leaders: the United States and Japan. Within the new frame work for higher education in Europe, university libraries have already shown that they can offer quality learning support services. European research is basically undertaken at universities. Institutions of higher education will have to be one of the driving forces behind the ambitious project to improve research policy, and university libraries will have to demonstrate that they are capable of offering first-class information services. This paper sets out the initiatives undertaken by UPC (Technical University of Catalonia) libraries in support of research. It is clear that cooperation between the academic and library communities is, and will continue to be, a key factor in meeting the challenges set. Although we concentrate on our own particular university, the research support services offered by the Library are evolving in much the same way as they are at most Spanish universities. These initiatives focus on the following aspects: access to quality scientific information, the dissemination of the Open Access movement, support for information management (the creation of specialist websites and the availability of reference management systems), the dissemination of the University's scientific output (heightened profile for the journals published by the University and for doctoral theses), advice regarding legal protection for the information generated by the scientific community (providing information relating to copyright and publishing issues) and also the dissemination of the results of the University' s research, as a means of providing the encouragement that the University wants to give its staff to publish more and in the best journals (the creation of an observatory of scientific publications). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]