DigitalKoans – Page 12 – What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?

"Additional Experiments Required: A Scoping Review of Recent Evidence on Key Aspects of Open Peer Review"

Diverse efforts are underway to reform the journal peer review system. Combined with growing interest in Open Science practices, Open Peer Review (OPR) has become of central concern to the scholarly community. However, what OPR is understood to encompass and how effective some of its elements are in meeting the expectations of diverse communities, are uncertain. This scoping review updates previous efforts to summarize research on OPR to May 2022. Following the PRISMA methodological framework, it addresses the question: "What evidence has been reported in the scientific literature from 2017 to May 2022 regarding uptake, attitudes, and efficacy of two key aspects of OPR (Open Identities and Open Reports)?" The review identifies, analyses and synthesizes 52 studies matching inclusion criteria, finding that OPR is growing, but still far from common practice. Our findings indicate positive attitudes towards Open Reports and more sceptical approaches to Open Identities. Changes in reviewer behaviour seem limited and no evidence for lower acceptance rates of review invitations or slower turnaround times is reported in those studies examining those issues. Concerns about power dynamics and potential backfiring on critical reviews are in need of further experimentation. We conclude with an overview of evidence gaps and suggestions for future research. Also, we discuss implications for policy and practice, both in the scholarly communications community and the research evaluation community more broadly.Diverse efforts are underway to reform the journal peer review system. Combined with growing interest in Open Science practices, Open Peer Review (OPR) has become of central concern to the scholarly community. However, what OPR is understood to encompass and how effective some of its elements are in meeting the expectations of diverse communities, are uncertain. This scoping review updates previous efforts to summarize research on OPR to May 2022. Following the PRISMA methodological framework, it addresses the question: "What evidence has been reported in the scientific literature from 2017 to May 2022 regarding uptake, attitudes, and efficacy of two key aspects of OPR (Open Identities and Open Reports)?" The review identifies, analyses and synthesizes 52 studies matching inclusion criteria, finding that OPR is growing, but still far from common practice. Our findings indicate positive attitudes towards Open Reports and more sceptical approaches to Open Identities. Changes in reviewer behaviour seem limited and no evidence for lower acceptance rates of review invitations or slower turnaround times is reported in those studies examining those issues. Concerns about power dynamics and potential backfiring on critical reviews are in need of further experimentation. We conclude with an overview of evidence gaps and suggestions for future research. Also, we discuss implications for policy and practice, both in the scholarly communications community and the research evaluation community more broadly.

https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvae004

Scholarly Research Services Program Lead Librarian at University of Colorado Denver

The Scholarly Research Services Program Lead Librarian leads the Auraria Library’s efforts to support the research mission of the Auraria Campus. This position provides leadership for areas related to the library’s research assistance role such as scholarly communication, data support and literacy, citation management, research consultations, and research recognition and promotion.

http://tinyurl.com/mu262tm5

"From Data Creator to Data Reuser: Distance Matters"

Sharing research data is complex, labor-intensive, expensive, and requires infrastructure investments by multiple stakeholders. Open science policies focus on data release rather than on data reuse, yet reuse is also difficult, expensive, and may never occur. Investments in data management could be made more wisely by considering who might reuse data, how, why, for what purposes, and when. Data creators cannot anticipate all possible reuses or reusers; our goal is to identify factors that may aid stakeholders in deciding how to invest in research data, how to identify potential reuses and reusers, and how to improve data exchange processes. Drawing upon empirical studies of data sharing and reuse, we develop the theoretical construct of distance between data creator and data reuser, identifying six distance dimensions that influence the ability to transfer knowledge effectively: domain, methods, collaboration, curation, purposes, and time and temporality. These dimensions are primarily social in character, with associated technical aspects that can decrease — or increase — distances between creators and reusers. We identify the order of expected influence on data reuse and ways in which the six dimensions are interdependent. Our theoretical framing of the distance between data creators and prospective reusers leads to recommendations to four categories of stakeholders on how to make data sharing and reuse more effective: data creators, data reusers, data archivists, and funding agencies.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.07926

GIS Specialist at The Ohio State University

GIS Specialist The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialist works with the Geospatial Information Librarian to enhance and expand the University Libraries’ geospatial information services program in support of faculty, students, and researchers using geospatial data, methods, and tools. The specialist helps researchers and project teams understand and apply GIS in their research and instruction through consultations and a variety of educational programming. The specialist is responsible for leveraging GIS and geospatial technology resources to enhance curriculum development and research innovation across a wide range of academic disciplines. In collaboration with library colleagues and university partners, the specialist plays an important role in supporting all facets of geospatial information services offered through the University Libraries, including hardware, software, data access, and user services.

http://tinyurl.com/4s5bpvtw

"Court Dismisses Authors’ Copyright Infringement Claims Against OpenAI"

Several authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman, have suffered an early loss in their copyright battle against OpenAI. The authors accused OpenAI of using pirated copies of their books to train its models. A California federal court dismissed the vicarious copyright infringement and DMCA violation claims. However, the lawsuit isn’t over yet.

http://tinyurl.com/478vm6kw

IT Programmer at University of North Texas

Working with Python, the Django web framework, and other open source components, develops, maintains, and tests Digital Libraries applications and infrastructure. Provides programming support for the development of digital library initiatives, including The Portal to Texas History and the UNT Digital Library. Working collaboratively with other programmers and technologists, provides documentation and technical support, and assists with planning and implementing digital projects in the UNT Libraries.

http://tinyurl.com/5txrffaz

"Completeness Degree of Publication Metadata in Eight Free-Access Scholarly Databases"

The main objective of this study is to compare the amount of metadata and the completeness degree of research publications in new academic databases. Using a quantitative approach, we selected a random Crossref sample of more than 115k records, which was then searched in seven databases (Dimensions, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, OpenAlex, Scilit, Semantic Scholar, and The Lens). Seven characteristics were analyzed (abstract, access, bibliographic info, document type, publication date, language, and identifiers), to observe fields that describe this information, the completeness rate of these fields, and the agreement among databases. The results show that academic search engines (Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, and Semantic Scholar) gather less information and have a low degree of completeness. Conversely, third-party databases (Dimensions, OpenAlex, Scilit, and The Lens) have more metadata quality and a higher completeness rate. We conclude that academic search engines lack the ability to retrieve reliable descriptive data by crawling the Web, while the main problem of third-party databases is the loss of information derived from integrating different sources.

https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00286

Data Planning and Presentation Librarian at Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University Libraries is hiring a new Data Planning and Presentation Librarian (Associate) with a passion for curating research data and data visualization to join their team. This Associate Librarian will be responsible for ensuring compliance with university, funding agency, and government requirements, and facilitating all parts of the research data lifecycle. In addition, this position will ensure that research data are cataloged, discoverable, and preserved in accordance with requirements.

http://tinyurl.com/bdjs5nfc

2024 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study

Moving from reaction to action, higher education stakeholders are currently exploring the opportunities afforded by AI for teaching, learning, and work. . . To aid in these efforts, we present this inaugural EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study, in which we summarize the higher education community’s current sentiments and experiences related to strategic planning and readiness, policies and procedures, workforce, and the future of AI in higher education.

http://tinyurl.com/4fhprhs6

Digital Curator at Arizona State University

Digital Curators contribute to the development and expansion of the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR), an international repository of digital data and documents related to archaeological investigations. Curators follow established procedures relating to digital data entry, file storage, file maintenance, and security of the archaeological data stored in tDAR. Digital Curators need to have professional knowledge and experience in at least one of these areas: archaeology (field, lab and classes); digital preservation and digital data management; information technology, scripting, and programming.

http://tinyurl.com/5cfa42eu

"NIST Releases Version 2.0 of Research Data Framework (RDaF)"

The NIST RDaF is a resource for the entire research data community, including both organizations and individuals engaged in research data management in any discipline, community members from industry, universities, government departments and agencies, funders, and scholarly publishers. . . .

[It is:]

a map of the research data management ecosystem, organized by a canonical data lifecycle, into topics and subtopics;

a dynamic guide for research data stakeholders to understand best practices in research data management and dissemination;

a resource for understanding costs, benefits, and risks associated with research data management;

and a consensus document based on inputs and conversations amongst stakeholders in research data.

Providing perhaps the most comprehensive view of the research data ecosystem to date, the NIST RDaF comprises: 6 lifecycle stages, 50 topics, and 335 subtopics (programmatic and operational activities, concepts, and other important factors relevant to research data management with definitions), 14 overarching themes, 8 “generic” profiles (samples for common job functions or roles), and over 1,000 informational references (standards, guidelines, and policies, that assist stakeholders in addressing that subtopic).

http://tinyurl.com/fbep35xu

Software Engineer, Enterprise Library Systems at Indiana University

The Enterprise Library Systems Team in UITS encompasses a team-based work environment in which we develop and support all aspects of Indiana University Library Systems including the SirsiDynix Symphony Library Management System, the IU online Catalog (IUCAT), and the locally developed Bento-style library discovery tool. Additionally, this team provides infrastructure for Enterprise Scholarly Systems such as Digital Collections, Media Collections Online (Avalon), Pages Online and Imago.

http://tinyurl.com/4y2jbtu3

"Strategies for Negotiating and Signing Transformative Agreements in the Global South: The Colombia Consortium Experience"

The article presents the methodology used by the Colombia Consortium to negotiate the first transformative agreements (TAs) in Latin America. These TAs are a strategy to manage costs associated with Article Processing Charges (APCs), facilitate the transition to Open Access (OA) and increase the visibility of Colombian publications.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2023.2287945

Data Preservation Archivist at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Data Preservation Archivist is a position in the Research Data Management Core (RDMC) unit that supports an essential component of the research data lifecycle that ensures the long-term preservation and access to research data assets produced by UNC researchers. Reporting to the Assistant Director for Research Data Stewardship, this position evaluates, develops, tests, and deploys data preservation-related technologies and services as part a unified, campus-wide ecosystem of research data management and sharing infrastructure and services to ensure compliance with funding agency policies and to promote the goals of those policies.

https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/274485

"WARC-GPT: An Open-Source Tool for Exploring Web Archives Using AI"

Using WARC-GPT, you can ask specific questions in natural language against a collection of WARC files. Rather than relying on keyword searches and metadata filters to sort through search results, WARC-GPT provides a new starting point for search using multi-document full-text search with summarization to explore the contents of web archives. WARC-GPT lists the sources used to generate the response and relevant text excerpts, which you can use to verify the information provided and identify points of interest within a collection of web archives.

http://tinyurl.com/3vvpsyj9

Metadata Librarian at University of Arkansas

Reporting to the Director of Metadata and Preservation Services, the Metadata Librarian serves as the primary metadata specialist for the Libraries’ CONTENTdm digital collections, working collaboratively with the department head, the Digital Services Department, the Special Collections Division, and other departmental staff to complete individual projects. The librarian also collaborates with the Office of Scholarly Communications and User Services to create metadata for University of Arkansas Department of Music concert recordings in the ScholarWorks (Digital Commons) institutional repository.

http://tinyurl.com/3mkwd5f2

"E-book Acceptance by First-Year Undergraduate Students: A Longitudinal Examination and Implications for Library Researchers"

The frequency of electronic book usage by students, according to the research described here, appears fairly positive. On a six-level scale, ranging from 1 (I don’t use it at all) to 6 (I use it several times a week), the average score was 3.27, and the most frequent response, was "Use several times a month" (n = 84, 28 %). This suggests that, on average, students tend to use e-books approximately once or twice a month.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102847

Open Access Manager at Kings College London

On a day-to-day basis you will provide operational management of the Library’s OA publishing services — managing enquiries and requests for block grant funding from King’s authors, together with support for the repository part of King’s CRIS system — overseeing the creation and quality checking of records.

http://tinyurl.com/d5uwarhj

Inteview with Stevan Harnad: "Open and Impactful Scholarly Communication"

We posed selected questions to Stevan Harnad thirty years after his "subversive proposal" to self-archive online scholarly articles in university-hosted or disciplinary repositories to make them openly available and thus maximize research impact. A combination of factors including unfounded scepticism concerning open access, and bureaucratic access to the few institutional repositories launched by universities chiefly drove this outcome. The conclusions of the study may further inform educational efforts on scholarly communication in the digital era aimed at undergraduate students and researchers alike.

http://tinyurl.com/383u7nfe

Copyright/Fair Use Librarian at Texas A&M University

The Copyright/Fair Use Librarian will coordinate the development and implementation of copyright education programs and best practices for faculty, staff, and students. The selected candidate will provide expertise to users on author rights, copyright laws, fair use, and open access resources. This Librarian will also coordinate change management and informational sessions for faculty, researchers, and students on open access, open educational, and scholarly communication issues on digital platforms. Additional responsibilities may include collaborating with Research Librarians on promoting and supporting the Texas A&M Digital Repository and publishing platforms supported by the University Libraries.

http://tinyurl.com/3e4hdfnj

Open Scholarship in the Humanities

The book begins with the history of digital developments and their influence on the founding of international policies toward open scholarship. The concept of making research more freely available to the broader community, in practice, will require changes across every part of the system: government agencies, funders, university administrators, publishers, libraries, researchers and IT developers. To this end, the book sheds light on the urgent need for partnership and collaboration between diverse stakeholders to address multi-level barriers to both the policy and practical implementation of open scholarship. It also highlights the specific challenges confronted by the humanities which often makes their presentation in accessible open formats more costly and complex. Finally, the authors illustrate some promising international examples and ways forward for their implementation. The book ends by asking the reader to view their role as a researcher, university administrator, or member of government or philanthropic funding body, through new lenses. It highlights how, in our digital era, the frontiers through which knowledge is being advanced and shared can reshape the landscape for academic research to have the greatest impact for society.

http://tinyurl.com/2453s6du

Metadata and Digital Marketing Specialist at University of Michigan (Michigan Publishing)

The Metadata and Digital Marketing Specialist supports marketing and sales strategies at Michigan Publishing (MPub), which is comprised of three units: the University of Michigan Press, Michigan Publishing Services, and Deep Blue Repository and Research Data Services. Michigan Publishing is the Publishing Division of the University of Michigan Library. The Metadata and Digital Marketing Specialist plays a crucial role in enhancing the discoverability and marketability of MPub’s diverse publications — primarily books but also a small open-access journals list and innovative digital products.

http://tinyurl.com/bdhxmc5f

"Generative Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Evidence from an Analysis of Institutional Policies and Guidelines"

In this paper we examined documents produced by 116 US universities categorized as high research activity or R1 institutions to comprehensively understand GenAI related advice and guidance given to institutional stakeholders. Through an extensive analysis, we found the majority of universities (N=73, 63%) encourage the use of GenAI and many provide detailed guidance for its use in the classroom (N=48, 41%). More than half of all institutions provided sample syllabi (N=65, 56%) and half (N=58, 50%) provided sample GenAI curriculum and activities that would help instructors integrate and leverage GenAI in their classroom. Notably, most guidance for activities focused on writing, whereas code and STEM-related activities were mentioned half the time and vaguely even when they were (N=58, 50%).

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.01659

Digital Projects Librarian, Digital Scholarship at University of Calgary

Provide reference, consultation, outreach, and instruction to support scholarly communications services

Develop and maintain current knowledge of and trends in scholarly publishing, Open Access, repositories, research assessment, digital scholarship, and related areas

As part of a collaborative team, support researcher use of UCalgary’s digital repositories, including PRISM and PRISM Data, as well as Open Journal Systems

http://tinyurl.com/4h9dhvad

"Google Scholar is Manipulatable"

Citations are widely considered in scientists’ evaluation. As such, scientists may be incentivized to inflate their citation counts. While previous literature has examined self-citations and citation cartels, it remains unclear whether scientists can purchase citations. Here, we compile a dataset of ~1.6 million profiles on Google Scholar to examine instances of citation fraud on the platform. We survey faculty at highly-ranked universities, and confirm that Google Scholar is widely used when evaluating scientists. Intrigued by a citation-boosting service that we unravelled during our investigation, we contacted the service while undercover as a fictional author, and managed to purchase 50 citations. These findings provide conclusive evidence that citations can be bought in bulk, and highlight the need to look beyond citation counts.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04607