Posts Tagged ‘research’
UKSG Conference Summary
This is the summary I put together for my SAGE colleagues. I am reposting here in case it is of use. Comments on theme omissions welcome.
The 33rd Annual UKSG Conference was held in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, with a varied programme and over 850 attendees. Themes gleaned from the sessions and discussions I attended are summarised below. The very active twitter stream from the conference can be found here. I was amazed at the ability of delegates to listen, assimilate and then tweet or blog all at the same time!
Social Media
An increase in focus on Social Media and new ways of sharing information and research was very evident. There was a much higher engagement and understanding of newer communication channels. Interestingly, it was not younger researchers quoted as spending more time blogging or commenting online but more established researchers who have already secured a reputation and can afford to spend time in this way. They are contributing to knowledge and growth in their field but not just in the tradition of peer-reviewed high impact journals. An interesting development would be a unique researcher identifier such as ORCID which would help tie all researcher output together.
Researchblogging is interesting, its focus is on serious posts about peer reviewed academic research. It has over 1200 blogs and has doubled in the last year. Adam Bly from Researchblogging explained that more collaborative science and the creation of new knowledge has the scientific information industry running to keep up. We’ll be contacting them to ensure posts on Sage content can be linked back to the original research.
Open Access
OA feels like it is slowly gaining traction as a publishing model. The vibe from various sessions was less if than when. Tony Hirst was emphatic on the new openness of communication channels. Why use traditional journal articles to share ideas he asked? If he or his colleagues do decide to publish an article it will be in OA jnls. However, no clear wide-ranging path for institutions to fund OA was apparent yet.
Usage
JISC Collections have secured funding to progress with the JISC usage stats portal or “make it real”. We'll be contacted for our input, the prototype involved data from Elsevier, OUP and Springer. Its aim is to present usage data in user-friendly ways for librarians and include new ways to benchmark usage. There is not clarity on confidentiality issues and was no resolution proposed on the question of the confidential nature of usage data. It’s early days.
Big Deals, Value & Pricing
An interesting session on value had Ted Bergstrom from UCSB explaining that he is securing information about big deal pricing so he can publish information about outliers in the public domain. His reason: “as citizens of the academic community, we are interested in helping librarians to understand the dynamic economic problem that they face and aiding them in negotiating effectively with large publishers. We plan to release a collection of information and analyses that will serve this purpose.” See his Big Deal Contract Project page.
As in previous years the mood seemed to be that the Big Deal bubble must burst, as it is unsustainable for many institutions, but there was no clear way forward proposed still.
Carol Tenopir talked about developing real tools for librarians to demonstrate value of their collections. She pointed us to the ARL website for more information.
Jill emery from Texas talked about patron-driven ebook and journal article acquisition stating 'the age of the article is here'. She explained they need “aggregated article access”. She wants publishers to listen as they have to purchase “Just in time not just in case'.
Quality Metrics
Frustration with the reliance on the Impact Factor and the fact it ranks journals and not articles was apparent. There is a desire to produce new ranking metrics. the Australian Research Assessment is no longer using the Impact Factor we were told.
Pete Binfield (PLOS) ran a session on how they have introduced article-level metrics - it’s worth a look if you haven’t seen. They recognise they are very much at the beginning but are very keen to do whatever they can to help users decide which content is highly valued by the community. Also, these metrics not just about evaluation but to help users filter and discover articles of value.
Pete talked about how they have work to do on working out how to measure “influence”. It’s important to demonstrate influence beyond the scientific community. This ties in with our work to show the value of social science research. How do we ensure the research we publish is credited appropriately when it influences Government policy for instance?
As Hannah Whaley says on her blog: The discussion around these issues is healthy, as is the growing volume with which librarians and researchers are willing to speak them out loud. However these key themes are notable for representing problems, not solutions. It is clear that licensing models, researcher metrics, electronic and open access still have some way to evolve to meet the growing needs and expectations of the community.
Posted in New Law Books | 
Tags: article-level metrics, big deal, blog, impact factor, open access, research, sage, social networking, summary, value
Roadblocks and what not to do
"Who owns our work?" - simple words but a vexed question, says Dorothea Salo of the University of Wisconsin. Whose work are we referring to? Lots of people are involved in creating journal articles. There's no one owner, but lots of stakeholders. And the "who" might not be a "who" but a "what". But Dorothea's ultimate point is that, in protecting our various roles in 'creating' 'work', we must avoid putting roadblocks in the path of the work's ultimate goal - usage. (All this talk of roadblocks is pretty apt, given the state of Edinburgh's roads while they work towards an access-friendly tram system...)
Credit where it's due
Researchers are keen to keep ownership of their work to ensure their ideas are protected. But even at this embryonic stage of the publication process, lots of other people are involved in the work - research assistants and lab partners and so on. These people look not for monetary compensation but for credit in the form of prestige. Author lists are a blunt tool for addressing this, so publishers are involved in trying to solve the problem even though it starts way before they become a part of the process. Publishers are perceived as having a "hold on career credit and career prestige" that needs to be broken.
Different stakeholders
The early 'content' that researchers create - conference presentations, for example - are indisputably owned by them, since publishers, librarians etc have not had a role at this point. In open notebook science, the online posting of lab notebooks (methods, equipment lists, preliminary data etc), people are 'publishing' and claiming ownership of their content much earlier in the process. Dorothea warns publishers who plan to extend their services to include research data to be careful how they claim ownership of this. There are many more stakeholders in the process, who want to do different things with research results - peer reviewers, funders etc. "But ownership is only a proxy for what these people really want." The researcher establishes primacy over his ideas by publishing them, and doesn't generally mind relinquishing ownership to the publisher - but in doing so he can start to prevent others from reusing his work. Publishers feel that they should be paid for the work they contribute to the process, but libraries and their users should be able to [use content for learning] without fear of a lawsuit.
Funders are primarily interested in impact, and may also be keen to encourage wider access to the research they fund. Are they doing enough to help researchers achieve the level of ownership they seek? Publishers and libraries conflict over "appropriate ownership in the copies that we purchase", and digital preservation is a key issue here. Librarians are starting to get more radical in their expectations. "Learn to engage in public, online, on these issues." says Dorothea. "Don't use proxies, don't use sock pockets .. don't use private email and don't use workplace chains of command. It will look like you have something to hide, and are trying to intimidate your protractors."
Changing expectations
"Being a roadblock is a poor business model." Librarians are instinctive gatekeepers but "our patrons do not want us getting in their way." The same is true of publishers: when you use ownership rights to get in the way of access and reuse, you're damaging your own brands. There are beginning to be other options for content distribution (repositories, OA publishing), and "closing off access is going to become a liability for publishers who want to make arguments about impact and prestige."
Credit where it's due
Researchers are keen to keep ownership of their work to ensure their ideas are protected. But even at this embryonic stage of the publication process, lots of other people are involved in the work - research assistants and lab partners and so on. These people look not for monetary compensation but for credit in the form of prestige. Author lists are a blunt tool for addressing this, so publishers are involved in trying to solve the problem even though it starts way before they become a part of the process. Publishers are perceived as having a "hold on career credit and career prestige" that needs to be broken.
Different stakeholders
The early 'content' that researchers create - conference presentations, for example - are indisputably owned by them, since publishers, librarians etc have not had a role at this point. In open notebook science, the online posting of lab notebooks (methods, equipment lists, preliminary data etc), people are 'publishing' and claiming ownership of their content much earlier in the process. Dorothea warns publishers who plan to extend their services to include research data to be careful how they claim ownership of this. There are many more stakeholders in the process, who want to do different things with research results - peer reviewers, funders etc. "But ownership is only a proxy for what these people really want." The researcher establishes primacy over his ideas by publishing them, and doesn't generally mind relinquishing ownership to the publisher - but in doing so he can start to prevent others from reusing his work. Publishers feel that they should be paid for the work they contribute to the process, but libraries and their users should be able to [use content for learning] without fear of a lawsuit.
Funders are primarily interested in impact, and may also be keen to encourage wider access to the research they fund. Are they doing enough to help researchers achieve the level of ownership they seek? Publishers and libraries conflict over "appropriate ownership in the copies that we purchase", and digital preservation is a key issue here. Librarians are starting to get more radical in their expectations. "Learn to engage in public, online, on these issues." says Dorothea. "Don't use proxies, don't use sock pockets .. don't use private email and don't use workplace chains of command. It will look like you have something to hide, and are trying to intimidate your protractors."
Changing expectations
"Being a roadblock is a poor business model." Librarians are instinctive gatekeepers but "our patrons do not want us getting in their way." The same is true of publishers: when you use ownership rights to get in the way of access and reuse, you're damaging your own brands. There are beginning to be other options for content distribution (repositories, OA publishing), and "closing off access is going to become a liability for publishers who want to make arguments about impact and prestige."