The Research Information Network, the Institute of Physics, Institute of Physics Publishing, and the Royal Astronomical Society have released Collaborative Yet Independent: Information Practices in the Physical Sciences.

Here's an excerpt:

In many ways, the physical sciences are at the forefront of using digital tools and methods to work with information and data. However, the fields and disciplines that make up the physical sciences are by no means uniform, and physical scientists find, use, and disseminate information in a variety of ways. This report examines information practices in the physical sciences across seven cases, and demonstrates the richly varied ways in which physical scientists work, collaborate, and share information and data.

| Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

The New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative have released the NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition.

Here's an excerpt:

The internationally recognized NMC Horizon Report series and regional NMC Technology Outlooks are part of the NMC Horizon Project, a comprehensive research venture established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years in education around the globe. . . .

To create the report, an international body of experts in education, technology, and other fields was convened as an advisory board. The group engaged in discussions around a set of research questions intended to surface significant trends and challenges and to identify a wide array of potential technologies for the report. This dialog was enriched by a wide range of resources, current research, and practice that drew on the expertise of both the NMC community and the communities of the members of the advisory board. These interactions among the advisory board are the focus of the NMC Horizon Report research, and this report details the areas in which these experts were in strong agreement.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

The Research Information Network has released Access to Scholarly Content: Gaps and Barriers.

Here's an excerpt:

The overall aim of this study is to investigate and quantify the extent to which members of different communities in the UK can gain ready access to formally-published scholarly literature, in particular journal articles and conference proceedings. . . .

Much of the information presented here is based on an online survey of researchers and knowledge workers from UK universities and colleges, medical schools and health providers, industry and commerce, and research institutes. . . .

Other information in this report comes from a detailed analysis of the literature and secondary data analysis of the Labour Force Survey in an attempt to quantify the size of the UK professional knowledge worker sector.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

NISO has released Making Good on the Promise of ERM: A Standards and Best Practices Discussion Paper.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

"Our standards review and findings focused on five categories: link resolvers and knowledge bases; the work, manifestations, and access points; cost and usage-related data; license terms; and data exchange using institutional identifiers," states Tim Jewell, Director, Information Resources and Scholarly Communications, University of Washington, and Chair of the ERM Data Standards and Best Practices Review Steering Committee. "We did a more extensive review of fourteen of the most relevant standards and mapped the data elements for each to the elements defined in the ERMI report. We also looked at how ERM systems could improve their workflow support-a shortcoming in most existing systems-and we include a detailed workflow best practices bibliography and a list of illustrative workflow diagrams."

"Our final analysis showed that there is value to updating and maintaining a data dictionary that encompasses ERM functions and evolves with technologies and business models," maintains Ivy Anderson, Director of Collections, California Digital Library and member of the ERM Data Standards and Best Practices Review Steering Committee. "However, for practical considerations, we did not recommend that NISO pursue such a project at this time. Instead we identified a number of narrower initiatives targeting specific ERM functional needs and strategies aimed at furthering interoperability."

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Archives New Zealand has released Rendering Matters—Report on the Results of Research into Digital Object Rendering.

Here's an excerpt from the report:

Maintaining the ability of an organisation or user to be able to "open" or "render" a file or set of files is one of the core digital preservation challenges. This report outlines the results of research investigating whether changes are introduced to the information that is presented to users when files are rendered in different hardware and software environments. The report concludes with a set of observations about the impact of the research and provides some recommendations for future research in this area.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

The European Commission has released the Online Survey on Scientific Information in the Digital Age.

Here's an excerpt:

Respondents were asked if there is no access problem to scientific publications in Europe: 84 % disagreed or disagreed strongly with the statement. The high prices of journals/subscriptions (89%) and limited library budgets (85%) were signalled as the most important barriers to accessing scientific publications. More than 1,000 respondents (90%) supported the idea that publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be in open access (OA) mode. An even higher number of respondents (91%) agreed or agreed strongly that OA increased access to and dissemination of scientific publications. Self-archiving ("green OA") or a combination of self-archiving and OA publishing ("gold OA") were identified as the preferred ways that public research policy should facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications available in OA. Respondents were asked, in the case of self-archiving ("green OA"), what the desirable embargo period is (period of time during which publication is not yet open access): a six-month period was favoured by 56% of respondents (although 25% disagree with this option).

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography | Digital Scholarship Publications Overview |

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released The Digital Dilemma 2: Perspectives from Independent Filmmakers, Documentarians and Nonprofit Audiovisual Archives (registration required).

The Academy’s first report, The Digital Dilemma: Strategic Issues in Archiving and Accessing Digital Motion Picture Materials (registration required), is also available.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

The Scalable Preservation Environments project has released the Report on Decision Factors and Their Influence on Planning.

Here's an excerpt:

This report sheds light on the actual decision criteria and influence factors to be considered when choosing digital preservation actions. It is based on an extensive evaluation of case studies on preservation planning for a range of different types of objects with partners from different institutional backgrounds. We analyse objective trees from a number of real-world decision making instances and classify the objectives and decision criteria. We analyse the measurability and required information for decision criteria, and the objectives and decision factors contained in objective trees. We further discuss the mapping of different quality models and map decision criteria to standardised models for decision factors in the areas of software quality, format assessment, and object properties.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

The European Commission has released Survey on Open Access in FP7

Here's an excerpt:

In May 2011, the Commission identified the 811 projects designated at the time with Special Clause 39 in their grant agreement and sent a questionnaire to all project coordinators in order to collect feedback on experiences of both the implementation of the pilot and the reimbursement of open access publishing costs. The objective was to provide input for the future of the open access policy and practices in Horizon 2020, which is 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.

The online questionnaire was open between 29 June and 26 August 2011 and enabled the collection of a total of 194 responses (success rate: 24 %). Many respondents used the possibility to answer ‘no opinion’ to some questions, but this constitutes valuable information. The final report was prepared in October/November 2011. Annexes include tables of statistical results in each FP7 research area.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

David Robert Hansen has self-archived "Orphan Works: Definitional Issues" in SSRN. This is a white paper from the Berkeley Digital Library Copyright Project.

Here's an excerpt:

When discussing orphan works, two basic definitional questions arise: (1) exactly what is the "orphan works" problem?, and (2) what is the size of this problem? The answers to these two questions are central to understanding how proposed solutions work to remedy the situation. Though both questions have long been posed, the answer to the first (what is the "orphan works"; problem) can vary based on the type of work or the particular user, and the answer to the second (what is the size of the problem) remains difficult to state with precision. This paper explores both and identifies areas where further research is needed.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has released Tablet and E-book Reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period.

Here's an excerpt:

The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10% to 19% between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10% to 19% over the same time period.

The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18% in December to 29% in January.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |

PEER (Publishing and the Ecology of European Research) has released the final version of the PEER Economics Report.

Here's an excerpt:

This study considers the effect of large-scale deposit on scholarly research publication and dissemination (sharing of research outputs), beginning with the analysis of publishers and institutions managing repositories and their sustainability. The study associates costs with specific activities, performed by key actors involved in research registration, certification, dissemination and digital management: authors, the scholarly community, editors, publishers, libraries, readers and funding agencies. Contrary to most of the existing literature, the study analyses cost structures of individual organizations. The focus of this study is therefore to provide context for the costs to specific organizations and to their choices in terms of scale and scope. . . .

This study analyses 22 organizations involved with journal article publication and dissemination. Data were gathered via literature and public document analysis, as well as through individual in-depth interviews in order to assess the cost structure of publishers, OA journal publishers and institutions managing repositories and the conditions for their sustainability.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital Bibliographies | Digital Scholarship |