August 2023 – Page 4 – DigitalKoans

"The New York Times Prohibits AI Vendors from Devouring Its Content"

The new terms prohibit the use of Times content—which includes articles, videos, images, and metadata—for training any AI model without express written permission. In Section 2.1 of the TOS, the NYT says that its content is for the reader’s “personal, non-commercial use” and that non-commercial use does not include “the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system.”

https://tinyurl.com/2cc4uhuc

Data Curation & Visualization Librarian at University of Miami

The Data Curation & Visualization Librarian, reporting to the Director of Research Data & Open Scholarship, within the Data & Visualization Services unit, is responsible for data-oriented pedagogical and support services for students, faculty and staff across all three UM campuses. The first component, data-oriented support services, will focus on providing expertise on research data management, data curation, data literacy, and data publishing. The second component is teaching, including workshops, course support, and small group/one-on-one instruction for a range of disciplines across the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, with particular emphasis on data visualizations (e.g., data dashboards, GIS visualizations, StoryMaps, and static images for print journals).

https://tinyurl.com/2bfa35sz

"Care to Share? Experimental Evidence on Code Sharing Behavior in the Social Sciences"

Transparency and peer control are cornerstones of good scientific practice and entail the replication and reproduction of findings. The feasibility of replications, however, hinges on the premise that original researchers make their data and research code publicly available. This applies in particular to large-N observational studies, where analysis code is complex and may involve several ambiguous analytical decisions. To investigate which specific factors influence researchers’ code sharing behavior upon request, we emailed code requests to 1,206 authors who published research articles based on data from the European Social Survey between 2015 and 2020. In this preregistered multifactorial field experiment, we randomly varied three aspects of our code request’s wording in a 2x4x2 factorial design: the overall framing of our request (enhancement of social science research, response to replication crisis), the appeal why researchers should share their code (FAIR principles, academic altruism, prospect of citation, no information), and the perceived effort associated with code sharing (no code cleaning required, no information). Overall, 37.5% of successfully contacted authors supplied their analysis code. Of our experimental treatments, only framing affected researchers’ code sharing behavior, though in the opposite direction we expected: Scientists who received the negative wording alluding to the replication crisis were more likely to share their research code. Taken together, our results highlight that the availability of research code will hardly be enhanced by small-scale individual interventions but instead requires large-scale institutional norms.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289380

Director of Digital Collections at Texas A&M University

The Librarian Director will direct the development and implementation of the University Library’s Digital Collections and associated projects supporting Texas A&M University Colleges, Schools, Agencies, and other educational institutions. The selected candidate will oversee the acquisition, development, and integration of technologies and systems that support the full spectrum of digital objects and services. Additionally, the Director will lead the operational decisions impacting the Libraries’ digital collections and digital collection development, as well as collaborating with Web & User Experiences, and Technology Services to validate, maintain, and develop integration points in Digital Asset Management Systems and other applicable applications.

https://tinyurl.com/4p2zm9vy

"Actually Accessible Data: An Update and a Call to Action"

As funder, journal, and disciplinary norms and mandates have foregrounded obligations of data sharing and opportunities for data reuse, the need to plan for and curate data sets that can reach researchers and end-users with disabilities has become even more urgent. We begin by exploring the disability studies literature, describing the need for advocacy and representation of disabled scholars as data creators, subjects, and users. We then survey the landscape of data repositories, curation guidelines, and research-data-related standards, finding little consideration of accessibility for people with disabilities. We suggest three sets of minimal good practices for moving toward truly accessible research data: 1) ensuring Web accessibility for data repositories; 2) ensuring accessibility of common text formats, including those used in documentation; and 3) enhancement of visual and audiovisual materials. We point to some signs of progress in regard to truly accessible data by highlighting exemplary practices by repositories, standards, and data professionals. Accessibility needs to become a mainstream component of curation practice included in every training, manual, and primer.

https://tinyurl.com/2p4au2ar

Digital Library Services Specialist at Grinnell College

The Digital Library Services Specialist will oversee and coordinate the services of Burling Library’s digital scholarship studio in support of faculty, staff, and student digital project work. The digital scholarship studio will provide equipment and support for digitization, audio-visual media production, and other humanistic digital methods. This position will have primary responsibility for maintenance and basic support for studio equipment and software, including creating and maintaining accessible documentation for entry-level users. In collaboration with librarians and DLAC staff, the Specialist will develop, coordinate, and promote programming for the digital scholarship studio.

https://jobs.grinnell.edu/postings/5137

"Sites Scramble to Block ChatGPT Web Crawler after Instructions Emerge"

But for large website operators, the choice to block large language model (LLM) crawlers isn’t as easy as it may seem. Making some LLMs blind to certain website data will leave gaps of knowledge that could serve some sites very well (such as sites that don’t want to lose visitors if ChatGPT supplies their information for them), but it may also hurt others. For example, blocking content from future AI models could decrease a site’s or a brand’s cultural footprint if AI chatbots become a primary user interface in the future. As a thought experiment, imagine an online business declaring that it didn’t want its website indexed by Google in the year 2002—a self-defeating move when that was the most popular on-ramp for finding information online.

https://tinyurl.com/yc4mcejn

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Technical Lead, Digital Library Systems at National Library of Ireland

As Technical Lead, you’ll manage, lead and develop the Digital Library Systems team, currently comprising two senior software developers and the NLI’s Systems Librarian. You’ll provide technical leadership in planning, developing, and implementing the NLI’s library systems infrastructure. Working with the Head of Digital Collections and the NLI’s ICT Operations lead, you will play a leading role in architecting the next generation of library systems and infrastructure, leveraging Public Cloud offerings (SaaS/IaaS/PaaS). The role will have with a particular focus on developing infrastructure and services that enable innovative re-use of the national collections by NLI staff, researchers, digital scholarship projects, third-party developers, and the public at large, e.g. programmatic access to our digital assets and metadata by developing a simple and coherent set of APIs.

https://tinyurl.com/yc3sw47j

"Publishers, Internet Archive Agree to Streamline Digital Book-Lending Case"

The proposed order would require the Archive to pay Lagardere SCA’s (LAGA.PA) Hachette Book Group, News Corp’s (NWSA.O) HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons (WLY.N) and Bertelsmann SE & Co’s (BTGGg.F) Penguin Random House an undisclosed amount of money if it loses its appeal.

The order would also permanently block the Archive from lending out copies of the publishers’ books without permission, pending the result of the appeal.

https://tinyurl.com/yc5j2vb8

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Director of Library Systems and Applications Services at University of Wisconsin – Madison

Reporting to the Associate University Librarian for Digital Strategy, the Director of Library Systems and Applications Services manages the work of three of six units that comprise the General Library System’s Library Technology Group. The three units in this director’s portfolio include the Library Software Development Group, the Library Shared Systems and Applications Team, and the Library IT Systems and Infrastructure Team. . . . The director contributes to the development and implementation of strategic plans for enterprise library IT functions, programs, or services, with the aim of utilizing resources effectively to provide sustainable, secure, scalable, and robust library information technology services. The IT Director supervises three IT Managers who oversee the work of 13 technologists across the three units in their portfolio.

https://tinyurl.com/4wy5mfy4

"Record Labels Hit Internet Archive with New $400m+ Copyright Lawsuit"

Record labels including UMG, Capitol and Sony have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States targeting Internet Archive and founder Brewster Kale, among others. Filed in Manhattan federal court late Friday, the complaint alleges infringement of 2,749 works, recorded by deceased artists, including Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby.

https://tinyurl.com/43b4c3w6

| Research Data Publication and Citation Bibliography | Research Data Sharing and Reuse Bibliography | Research Data Curation and Management Bibliography | Digital Scholarship |

Senior Developer & Operations Specialist (Fixed Term) at University of Cambridge

Cambridge University Libraries are currently undertaking an exciting five-year Digital Preservation Programme to establish a new Digital Preservation Service.

Based at the main University Library, an exciting opportunity has come up for a Senior Developer and Operations (DevOps) specialist working on the Digital Preservation Programme. The Programme is a ground-breaking first for the University Library and is transformative, delivering the foundations for the management of digital collections for the future, with ambitious goals to achieve the best user experience and maximise the potential of precious digital collections in a long-term and sustainable way.

https://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/41841/

"CLIR Announces Call for Submissions: Grants for Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards"

The program’s objective is to encourage proposals for the digitization of materials that enrich the public’s understanding of the histories of underrepresented communities, particularly those of people of color and other marginalized populations. These are communities and perspectives that have not received adequate recognition or attention. . . .

CLIR will award grants ranging from $50,000 to $300,000 in the local currency of the recipient organizations. The awarded projects are scheduled to begin on January 1, 2025. . . .

The application process has two stages. The initial application is open to eligible nonprofit collecting organizations located in the United States and Canada. Deadline for submission of proposals is set for 11:59 pm ET on November 1, 2023. During this stage, applicants are encouraged to effectively communicate the significance of the materials and the need for support through this grant. The program’s independent review panel will then select applicants whose initial proposals align closely with the program’s scope and reflect its core values. These selected applicants will be invited to submit a final proposal in early 2024.

https://tinyurl.com/3h9xh32r

Library Software Applications Developer at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill

The Library Software Applications Developer will serve as a technical lead and software developer on large-scale projects supporting the campus Open Access initiatives and the scholarly repository infrastructure. The campus Open Access initiatives and the scholarly repository infrastructure includes the Carolina Digital Repository, digital preservation infrastructure, and systems to support staff workflows related to the research activity of the university. These projects make use of several programming languages, including Ruby and JavaScript, as well as supporting systems, such as indexing platforms, relational databases, and media servers.

https://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/263314

"Data Journals: Where Data Sharing Policy Meets Practice"

Data journals incorporate elements of traditional scholarly communications practices—reviewing for quality and rigor through editorial and peer-review—and the data sharing / open data movement—prioritizing broad dissemination through repositories, sometimes with curation or technical checks. Their goals for dataset review and sharing are recorded in journal-based data policies and operationalized through workflows. In this qualitative, small cohort semi-structured interview study of eight different journals that review and publish research data, we explored (1) journal data policy requirements, (2) data review standards, and (3) implementation of standardized data evaluation workflows. Differences among the journals can be understood by considering editors’ approaches to balancing the interests of varied stakeholders. Assessing data quality for reusability is primarily conditional on fitness for use which points to an important distinction between disciplinary and discipline-agnostic data journals.

https://doi.org/10.17615/nqtz-b568

Assistant Head, Digitization Services Section at Library of Congress

The Digitization Services Section of the Digital Collections Management and Services Division at the Library of Congress is hiring an Assistant Head. The successful candidate will lead a team of digital imaging specialists working to improve access to Library of Congress Collections through digitization and work with colleagues across the Library of Congress to implement the institutions digitization strategy.

https://www.usajobs.gov/job/742495200

"Wayne State Names Paul Bracke Dean of School of Information Sciences and University Libraries"

Paul Bracke has been selected to serve as the next dean of the Wayne State University School of Information Sciences (SIS) and University Libraries. . . . Bracke will join Wayne State on Oct. 16, 2023.

Bracke is currently dean of the Foley Center Library, the primary library for Gonzaga University’s Spokane, Washington, campus, a position he has held since 2016. For the last two years, he has also served as associate provost for the Institute for Research and Interdisciplinary Initiatives. . . .

Bracke was previously an associate dean at the Purdue University Libraries. At Purdue, he provided leadership in technology, digitization, research services and assessment and developed internationally recognized research support services, including data management services and institutional and data repositories. He also directed projects that explored the intersections of digitization and open access publishing and of digitization and scholarly workflows in the social sciences.

https://tinyurl.com/2b5379yc

Systems Librarian at Saint Louis University

The Systems Librarian at Saint Louis University provides leadership and support for the University Libraries & Museums’ systems, software, and technology. The primary role of the Systems Librarian is to manage and provide support for the library services platform/ILS (currently Innovative Interfaces’ Sierra), including scheduling system upgrades, monitoring performance, ensuring system security, implementing data migration, and executing data exchange (70% of position).

https://tinyurl.com/yat5ry5f

"Who Re-Uses Data? A Bibliometric Analysis of Dataset Citations"

Open data is receiving increased attention and support in academic environments, with one justification being that shared data may be re-used in further research. But what evidence exists for such re-use, and what is the relationship between the producers of shared datasets and researchers who use them? Using a sample of data citations from OpenAlex, this study investigates the relationship between creators and citers of datasets at the individual, institutional, and national levels. We find that the vast majority of datasets have no recorded citations, and that most cited datasets only have a single citation. Rates of self-citation by individuals and institutions tend towards the low end of previous findings and vary widely across disciplines. At the country level, the United States is by far the most prominent exporter of re-used datasets, while importation is more evenly distributed. Understanding where and how the sharing of data between researchers, institutions, and countries takes place is essential to developing open research practices.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.04379

Open Hosting Developer at University of Edinburgh

This position will be the dedicated developer for the open journal systems and open monograph press instances we host at the University of Edinburgh for Edinburgh Diamond, and our shared service for the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) and other external partners.

https://tinyurl.com/yt3fdfa7

"The Emergence of Preprints: Comparing Publishing Behaviour in the Global South and the Global North"

Purpose: The recent proliferation of preprints could be a way for researchers worldwide to increase the availability and visibility of their research findings. Against the background of rising publication costs caused by the increasing prevalence of article processing fees, the search for other ways to publish research results besides traditional journal publication may increase. This could be especially true for lower-income countries. Design/methodology/approach: Therefore, we are interested in the experiences and attitudes towards posting and using preprints in the Global South as opposed to the Global North. To explore whether motivations and concerns about posting preprints differ, we adopted a mixed-methods approach, combining a quantitative survey of researchers with focus group interviews. Findings: We found that respondents from the Global South were more likely to agree to adhere to policies and to emphasise that mandates could change publishing behaviour towards open access. They were also more likely to agree posting preprints has a positive impact. Respondents from the Global South and the Global North emphasised the importance of peer-reviewed research for career advancement. Originality: The study has identified a wide range of experiences with and attitudes towards posting preprints among researchers in the Global South and the Global North. To our knowledge, this has hardly been studied before, which is also because preprints only have emerged lately in many disciplines and countries.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.04186

Open Source Program Office Project Program Manager at University of Wisconsin-Madison

UW-Madison’s Data Science Institute is seeking a Project Program Manager to lead the establishment and day-to-day management of an Open Source Program Office (OSPO), a new unit on the UW-Madison campus. Hosted within UW-Madison’s Data Science Institute (DSI) and collaborating with Madison College, the Data Science Hub, and the UW-Madison Libraries, the OSPO will grow a culture of open research and provide support for open practices both on the UW-Madison campus and within the Madison area.

https://tinyurl.com/26s9bkhc

"Metadata Standard for Continuous Preservation, Discovery, and Reuse of Research Data in Repositories by Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Review"

This systematic review synthesised existing research papers that explore the available metadata standards to enable researchers to preserve, discover, and reuse research data in repositories. This review provides a broad overview of certain aspects that must be taken into consideration when creating and assessing metadata standards to enhance research data preservation discoverability and reusability strategies. Research papers on metadata standards, research data preservation, discovery and reuse, and repositories published between January 2003 and April 2023 were reviewed from a total of five databases. The review retrieved 1597 papers, and 13 papers were selected in this review. We revealed 13 research articles that explained the creation and application of metadata standards to enhance preservation, discovery, and reuse of research data in repositories. Among them, eight presented the three main types of metadata, descriptive, structural, and administrative, to enable the preservation of research data in data repositories. We noted limited evidence on how these metadata standards can be used to enhance the discovery and reuse of research data in repositories to enable the preservation, discovery, and reuse of research data in repositories. No reviews indicated specific higher education institutions employing metadata standards for the research data created by their researchers. Repository designs and a lack of expertise and technology know-how were among the challenges identified from the reviewed papers. The review has the potential to influence professional practice and decision-making by stakeholders, including researchers, students, librarians, information communication technologists, data managers, private and public organisations, intermediaries, research institutions, and non-profit organizations.

https://doi.org/10.3390/info14080427

Data Applications Librarian Lecturer at University of Kentucky (Term)

Develop and share expertise on best practices and workflows for data refinement, analysis, visualization, and modeling with an emphasis on open and reproducible practices.

Provide support in the use of software tools or APIs which enable qualitative and/or quantitative data analysis (e.g. REDCap, Python, R, Qualtrics, SAS, SPSS, NVIVO, Stata, MATLAB, etc.). Build proficiency with programming languages to refine and transform data.

Assist researchers working with structured data, data markup, and encoding, with consideration for eventual deposit to repositories.

Offer individual and research team consultations for students, faculty, and researchers across all academic disciplines and colleges. Serve on grant and project teams as appropriate.

https://ukjobs.uky.edu/postings/481260

"AI Can Crack Double Blind Peer Review — Should We Still Use It?"

However, in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, a pressing question arises: can an author’s identity be deduced even from an anonymized paper (in cases where the authors do not advertise their submitted article on social media)?

In a recent article we investigate this very question, by leveraging an artificial intelligence model trained on the largest authorship attribution dataset to date. . . . Focusing purely on well-established researchers with at least a few dozen publications, our work demonstrates that reliable author identification is possible.

https://tinyurl.com/2kbuh7wn