May 2023 – Page 5 – DigitalKoans

Digital Collections Manager at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Archive

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Archive is seeking a full-time on-site Digital Collections Manager (DCM) to lead the continued implementation, maintenance and expansion of the Archive’s digital preservation and access program which was started in 2019. The DCM is responsible for the acquisition, description, storage, preservation, and access of all digital materials in accordance with the established policies and procedures of the archive and the archival profession.

https://bit.ly/44H8nGq

"AI Is Tearing Wikipedia Apart"

The current draft policy notes that anyone unfamiliar with the risks of large language models should avoid using them to create Wikipedia content. . . . The community is also divided on whether large language models should be allowed to train on Wikipedia content. While open access is a cornerstone of Wikipedia’s design principles, some worry the unrestricted scraping of internet data allows AI companies like OpenAI to exploit the open web to create closed commercial datasets for their models. This is especially a problem if the Wikipedia content itself is AI-generated, creating a feedback loop of potentially biased information, if left unchecked.

https://bit.ly/3NLrc50

Senior Manager, Digital Humanities Outreach at ITHAKA

As Senior Manager for Digital Humanities Resources Outreach you will be the internal and external subject matter expert responsible for achieving participation goals,helping to drive adoption and usage for new programs and services in the Digital Humanities, focusing on text and data analytics education and support. You will collaborate internally with colleagues to contribute to the ongoing development for the products and services you support as well as provide training and knowledge sharing for those products across the ITHAKA Outreach team.

https://cutt.ly/j6yTzlj

"EU Ready to Back Immediate Open Access without Author Fees"

The EU is ready to agree that immediate open access to papers reporting publicly funded research should become the norm, without authors having to pay fees, and that the bloc should support non-profit scholarly publishing models.

In a move that could send shockwaves through commercial scholarly publishing, the positions are due to be adopted by the Council of the EU member state governments later this month.

https://cutt.ly/x6yTrFW

Electronic Resources Librarian at University of Lynchburg

Knight-Capron Library at the University of Lynchburg seeks an experienced and motivated Electronic Resources Librarian to manage electronic resources throughout their life cycle, manage and maintain discovery services and ERM systems, provide oversight and daily operation of the institutional repository, participate in liaison duties, and provide user-centered service to a diverse academic community.

https://bit.ly/3NJ757Q

"Springer Nature Doublespeak"

Let’s take a close look at what SN says in its advice on this matter to authors:

"Springer Nature only ever assesses manuscripts on their editorial merit. If primary research manuscripts contain Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) language, they will not be rejected on the grounds of its inclusion, and we will not remove that text before publication if it is included in a section that is a normal part of the published primary research article."

The information gets off to a good start. Assessing manuscripts on editorial merit alone is something any author would want to be reassured about. Equally, authors will be pleased to learn that, even if they include rights retention language, SN will not amend the author’s text by removing the RR statement that the author included in the text they created and provided at no charge to SN for publication. So far, so good. The information continues:

"Authors should note, however, that manuscripts containing statements about open licensing of accepted manuscripts (AMs) can only be published via the immediate gold open access (OA) route, to ensure that authors are not making conflicting licensing commitments, and can comply with any funder or institutional requirements for immediate OA."

This is where things start to get tricksy. Translation &mdash: if the author assigns a prior licence to their AAM and submits the manuscript to a SN subscription journal that also offers an Open Access (OA) option (sometimes known as a hybrid journal), then the publisher will only accept it if the author pays for OA publication (sometimes known as ‘gold’ OA). Mind you, SN is not rejecting the manuscript outright; it’s just that they will ONLY accept it if the author pays. So by extension, if they don’t pay, SN won’t publish the paper, which amounts to a rejection. However hard I try, I can’t seem to tally "only be published via the immediate gold open access (OA) route" with "only accepting manuscripts on their editorial merit." The wording is slippery here. Like those politicians, SN doesn’t ACTUALLY state that if you don’t, won’t or can’t pay, they will reject your paper. But in practice, that is exactly what they imply. This is pure smoke and mirrors.

https://bit.ly/44rWrbr

| Research Data Curation and Management Works |
| Digital Curation and Digital Preservation Works |
| Open Access Works |
| Digital Scholarship |

Program Manager – HCAC Digital Humanities at Florida A&M University

Survey collections and select artifacts, images, and or documents to be used in the HCAC digitization project; Participates in George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for Humanities and New Media Digital Humanities HCAC workshops; Uses existing finding aids, indices, transcripts, and databases to add records to the HCAC digitization project; Participates in the testing of the HCAC digitization model; Works in Omeka S and CSV data entry files with pilot data representing MEBA’s collections; Categorizes and describes relevant information regarding artifacts, images, and documents identified for use;. . . Creates authority records and ingest data in Omeka S for names and places related to selected archival collections;

https://bit.ly/3pfAkVt

"Supporting Diamond Open Access Journals. Interest and Feasibility of Direct Funding Mechanisms"

More and more academics and governements consider that the open access model based on Article Processing Charges (APC) is problematic, not only due to the inequalities it generates and reinforces, but also because it has become unsustainable and even opposed to open access values. They consider that scientific publishing based on a model where both authors and readers do not pay, the so-called Diamond, or non-APC model, should be developed and supported. However, beyond the display of such a support on an international scale, the landscape of Diamond journals is rather in the form of loosely connected archipelagos, and not systematically funded. This article explores the practical conditions to implement a direct funding mechanism to such journals, that is reccurent money provided by a funder to support the publication process. Following several recommendations from institutional actors in the open access world, we consider the hypothesis that such a funding would be fostered by research funding organizations (RFOs), which have been essential to the expansion of the APC model, and now show interest in supporting other models. Based on a questionnaire survey sent to more than 1000 Diamond Open Access journals, this article analyzes their financial needs, as well as their capacity to interact with funders. It is structured around four issues regarding the implementation of a direct funding model: do Diamond journals really make use of money, and to what end? Do they need additional money? Are they able to engage monetary transactions? Are they able to meet RFOs visibility requirements? We show that a majority of OA Diamond journals could make use of a direct funding mechanism with certain adjustments. We conclude on the challenges that such a financial stream would spur.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.05.03.539231

Open Educational Resources Librarian at California State University, Dominguez Hills

As a member of the Reference, Instruction, and Outreach Services team, the Open Educational Resources Librarian promotes and facilitates the adoption of open educational resources (OER) and other affordable alternatives to textbooks. The successful candidate will provide leadership and coordination for initiatives within the library and across campus related to open education, OER creation and adoption, and Affordable Learning Solutions (AL$).

https://bit.ly/3LENXF1

"OA and the Academy: Evaluating an OA Fund with Authors’ Input"

The University Libraries at Virginia Tech established an Open Access Subvention Fund (OASF) in August 2012. Although it began as a two-year pilot project, the Fund has continued to the present. Anyone at Virginia Tech is eligible to apply for funding to offset the cost of an article processing charge to publish in an open access journal. To learn more about user perceptions of the OASF and open access in general, we surveyed everyone who had requested support. The survey, conducted during the fall of 2019, provided a means to gauge the needs of our users, seek feedback on the request and award process, and gather input on the fund guidelines. In this article, we review our findings in the hope that the lessons learned will be useful to other libraries in assessing similar open access subvention funds.

https://bit.ly/3nxjUHs

"Review of Research on Predatory Scientific Publications from Scopus Database between 2012 and 2022"

This study also reveals the complexity of issues and research trends around the topic of predatory scientific publications, including the review process for scientific journals, publication fees and article processing charges, open science and open-access publications, and the like and related topics such as the impact on scholars in developing countries and academic ethics. Finally, this article provides several recommendations, namely, the need for more efficient criteria to evaluate the quality of scientific journals, more public communication on the importance of ethics in research and publication, and a greater awareness among scholars and organizations of the implications of the "predator" issue in scientific publishing.

https://doi.org/10.3138/jsp-2022-0045

Head of Health Research Services at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Head of Health Research Services will provide vision, direction, and coordination for existing and future services designed to advance the mission of our research partners at UNC. Existing services include support for assessing and visualizing research impact and research scope through analysis of citation, grant, and other data (e.g., patent data); research data management and sharing; and application of automation tools, including machine learning, designed to increase efficiency of evidence synthesis projects. Future and expanded services may be related to text analytics, machine learning, natural language processing, research data management, data ethics, responsible metrics, alt-metrics, and/or support of UNC’s School of Data Science and Society (SDSS).

https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/255461

"For Thousands of Texas Professors Seeking Tenure, a Bill Banning the Benefit Could Be a Turning Point in Their Careers"

Republican lawmakers, led by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have pledged this legislative session to end in Texas the nearly century-old practice used by universities across the country to give faculty an additional safeguard to pursue long-term, independent research — which, in turn, helps schools attract and retain sought-after talent. . . .

Under a bill that the Texas Senate already sent to the House, if a university system’s board of regents has not approved a professor for tenure by Jan. 1, 2024, they would no longer be able to earn that position in Texas. The move would not only make it hard for schools to recruit new faculty, it would throw the careers of nearly 5,000 Texas professors who are seeking the benefit into chaos, abruptly eliminating a benefit they have been working for years to earn and were hired with the understanding they could obtain.

https://bit.ly/3LXegb9

Data Services Librarian at Ohio University Libraries

As a member of the Research Services department, the data services librarian supports OHIO students and faculty in discovering, using, and managing quantitative data for their research. This position works collaboratively across library units and with external stakeholders on developing, implementing, delivering, and assessing research data life cycle services.

https://www.ohiouniversityjobs.com/postings/45956

"Spain Adopts National Open Access Strategy"

Spain has approved a four-year national strategy for open science, under which all outputs of publicly financed research will made available free upon publication.

Under the strategy open access will become the default mode for all research funded directly or indirectly, with public funds. . . .

A budget of €23.8 million in 2023 will be maintained annually until 2027.

https://bit.ly/414w2gY

Digital Preservation Analyst at University of Arizona

The Analyst will report to and work closely with the Digital Preservation Librarian to expand, scale, support, and oversee workflows and services for the various streams of content stewarded by the University of Arizona Libraries. . . . The Digital Preservation Analyst performs a sizable portion of duties in the Libraries’ Digital Preservation Lab, which is the site of significant innovation and stewardship, deploying forensic analysis of born-digital media to ensure both preservation and access for the libraries’ distinctive special collections. The Analyst processes incoming and legacy born-digital media, such as optical media (CDs/DVDs), flash drives, external/internal hard drives, floppy disks, and other dynamic digital objects in support of their preservation and access. The Analyst will also be responsible for creating and maintaining documentation of workflows, setting up hardware and testing software, performing format analysis and migration, and conducting research as needed.

https://bit.ly/3APn38v

"LSU Libraries Announces New Government Publications and Open Scholarship Department"

In the latter half of 2022, the Government Documents and Open Scholarship & Affordable Learning departments combined into a new LSU Libraries department named Open Scholarship & Government Publications. This new department aims to combine the uncopyrighted materials in Government Publications with openly licensed resources available via Open Scholarship to provide students and faculty with free access to research materials.

Open Scholarship & amp;Affordable Learning saved students and their families more than $4.1 million in the 2022 fiscal year through LSU Libraries’ e-Textbook Initiative, which provides free access to library-licensed eBooks that are used in courses. Since its inception in 2014, it has saved more than $11.6 million.

https://bit.ly/3nrhLwZ

Head of Digital Scholarship Services at University of Missouri – Kansas City

The UMKC Libraries are seeking a collaborative individual responsible for operational management of the Digital Collaboration Studio, a technology-rich space designed to support research and teaching across all disciplines with an emphasis on Digital and Public Humanities; creating programming, resource guides, and consulting services that support digital research and pedagogy; and administrative management and direction for the Libraries’ participation in the Center for Digital and Public Humanities, a partnership between the Libraries and the School for Humanities and Social Sciences. The Head of DSS serves as the Libraries’ co-director for the Center for Digital and Public Humanities and supervises staff in the Digital Scholarship Services department within the Special Collections & Archives Division of UMKC Libraries.

https://bit.ly/3nkoo4h

Paywall: "’Significant Reservations’ on UK’s Springer Nature Open-Access Deal"

These concerns centred on the high cost of publishing open access outside the agreement and limited transparency, particularly regarding how Springer Nature’s article-processing charges (APCs) are calculated, with gold open access for Nature priced at £8,490. Springer Nature was one of several major publishers — along with Elsevier — which opted in November not to participate in Plan S’ Journal Comparison Service, in which journals shared information about their costs and services.

https://bit.ly/44nG8wf

Scholarly Communications Librarian at Colby College

The Librarian serves as the Libraries’ expert on scholarly communication, including alternative publishing models, scholarly visibility and impact, online identity management, open educational resources, and equitable access to the College’s scholarly output. The Scholarly Communications Librarian will develop and implement educational programs, support metadata creation for digital assets, and serve as an advisor for researchers (as well as library staff) on scholarly communications and digital scholarship issues.

https://apply.interfolio.com/124719

Academic Publishing and Open Access. What Does Economics Teach Us?

While the gold regime seems the most natural way to achieve open access, a generalized switch to open access may also have undesired consequences: projections indeed suggest that a massive move towards the gold regime would generate an explosion in the amount of APC unless there are controls to limit market power. Beside the sharp increase in APC, the shift to gold open access may create conflicts of interest for publishers given that their income comes from authors and may alter the quality of publications. The green regime, by introducing competition between the journal’s version of an article and a free public version, seems an efficient way to reduce market power while expanding access.

https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04080573

Electronic Resources Librarian at University of Memphis

Combining their theoretical and practical knowledge of library principles and practice with their technical expertise, they provide advice and guidance on the management and support of electronic resources to other Libraries’ faculty and staff. They take steps to incorporate new and emerging techniques and technologies into the program.

https://workforum.memphis.edu/postings/36170

"What Can I Do with This? Indicators of Usage Rights in the User Interface "

With the continued push towards open access (OA) and the complicated nature of copyright law, users are often left wondering what they can do with the scholarly articles they find. Creative Commons (CC) licenses are the predominant mechanism for communicating usage rights; however, finding the CC license information — or being confident that there is not any — can be a challenge. Today we report on a project to investigate how publisher platforms represent CC licenses for OA and non-OA journal articles. We looked at how publishing platforms indicate usage rights for articles in results displays as well as in full-text formats.

https://bit.ly/3HwTZq1

Digital Initiatives Librarian at University of Memphis

The Digital Initiatives Librarian provides content processing activities to ensure quality of data files and other content in the Digital Commons for the University Libraries (UL). This position provides vision and guidance for the Digital Commons and will make critical decisions regarding digital collection development. Working closely with the Association Dean for Innovation and Scholarly Engagement, the Digital Initiatives Librarian will collaborate with faculty across campus to fulfill data storage needs, which includes but is not limited to legacy preservation, open access journal publications, faculty publications, open educational resources, and datasets.

https://workforum.memphis.edu/postings/36246

"How and Why Do Researchers Reference Data? A Study of Rhetorical Features and Functions of Data References in Academic Articles"

Data reuse is a common practice in the social sciences. While published data play an essential role in the production of social science research, they are not consistently cited, which makes it difficult to assess their full scholarly impact and give credit to the original data producers. Furthermore, it can be challenging to understand researchers’ motivations for referencing data. Like references to academic literature, data references perform various rhetorical functions, such as paying homage, signaling disagreement, or drawing comparisons. This paper studies how and why researchers reference social science data in their academic writing. We develop a typology to model relationships between the entities that anchor data references, along with their features (access, actions, locations, styles, types) and functions (critique, describe, illustrate, interact, legitimize). We illustrate the use of the typology by coding multidisciplinary research articles (n = 30) referencing social science data archived at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). We show how our typology captures researchers’ interactions with data and purposes for referencing data. Our typology provides a systematic way to document and analyze researchers’ narratives about data use, extending our ability to give credit to data that support research.

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2023-010