June 2025 – Page 5 – DigitalKoans

Paywall: “From Data Lifecycle to Research Activity Model: Research Data Management in Data-Intensive Social Sciences and Humanities Research”

Unmet needs in terms of existing infrastructure (e.g. repositories) and services are affecting the research data management practices in data-intensive social sciences and humanities research, where less common tasks include data sharing and reuse. Based on these perceived requirements, an improved version of the Data Documentation Initiative Lifecycle that includes the support needs required for effectively managing data throughout the research process is developed.

https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-12-2024-0959

Digital Research Collections Co-ordinator at University of Glasgow

To manage and maintain efficient, high-quality workflows, processes and procedures for the delivery of the Digital Research Collections service.

To project manage the development of curated digital collections, ensuring processing activities meet project objectives, professional standards, best practice and institutional priorities.

To contribute to Library Collections service delivery; and to the University Library’s overall service planning and continuous improvement.

https://tinyurl.com/mvycxk7n

Paywall: “A Checklist to Publish Collections as Data in GLAM Institutions”

The purpose of this study is to offer a checklist that can be used for both creating and evaluating digital collections, which are also sometimes referred to as data sets as part of the collections as data movement, suitable for computational use.

https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-06-2023-0195

Digital Preservation Archivist at Georgia State University

Establishes and refines policies, procedures, and best practices for the acquisition, long-term preservation and access to permanent digital materials.

Manages and maintains the digital preservation system and Archive It web archiving account.

Collaborates with archivists to identify, capture, and revise web and social media content in accordance with the collection development policy. . . .

Advises faculty archivists, librarians, and content creators on digital content lifecycle issues, strategies for digital content preservation, the use of innovative tools and processes for experimentation and development, and other initiatives related to collections and data.

https://tinyurl.com/dnup6khd

“Maturity Model for Organizational Research Data Management Services”

Developing research data management (RDM) services has become an international trend in response to the movement promoting open science. There is an urgent need to establish support systems for universities and research institutions to strengthen governance. However, the diversity of RDM services and the absence of a universally applicable model create challenges in implementation. To address this, we propose a maturity model for organizational RDM services. By analyzing existing RDM service maturity models, we extract six key dimensions —awareness, data policy, budget, services, user needs, and IT infrastructure—and develop a structured evaluation framework with a five-level rating system. The model is validated through a step-by-step approach: author evaluation, domain evaluation, and practical setting evaluation via a national survey of Japanese institutions. The results demonstrate the model’s applicability across institutions of varying sizes and types, enabling RDM managers to quantitatively assess service maturity and compare progress against national benchmarks. Furthermore, we discuss the potential value and utilization of the framework through two case studies. This study provides an organizational benchmark for RDM services that is applicable to institutions of diverse sizes and natures. It also helps identify issues in the future implementation of organizational RDM services and highlights priority areas for investment.

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2025-018

Library Application Management and Integration Specialist at University of Notre Dame

Among other projects, we are replacing our current Integrated Library System (ILS) and adopting an open-source, cloud-based solution. The LAM & Integration Specialist will be a key player in ensuring that we successfully integrate this new system with other library applications and external campus and vendor systems.

Proactively manage a wide range of core library applications, both patron and staff-facing, such as the Integrated Library System, Discovery, Inventory Management, or Archival Management systems

Automate workflows, configure and upgrade systems, extract data, and generate reports

Manage and configure core library applications from the unit portfolio, such as the Integrated Library System, Discovery, Inventory Management, or Archival Management systems

https://tinyurl.com/2zfu4h54

“Data Sharing Statements: Impact of Journal Policies Across Clinical Research Disciplines”

Background and Aims

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of mortality, with significant investments in research to improve treatment and prevention. Data sharing enhances transparency, reproducibility, and collaboration, yet data sharing statement (DSS) inclusion remains inconsistent. This study evaluates DSS prevalence, content, and influencing factors in high-impact cardiology journals, examines journal policy influence, and assesses data sharing feasibility by contacting authors who indicated data availability.

Methods

A cross-sectional analysis was conducted to assess DSS inclusion in top cardiology, selected general medicine, emergency medicine, and orthopaedic surgery journals. A systematic PubMed search identified clinical studies published from 2020 to 2023. Logistic regression models assessed factors associated with DSS inclusion, while thematic analysis categorized DSS content. Corresponding authors who indicated data availability upon request were contacted to evaluate follow-through.

Results

Among 2941 articles, 1004 (34.14%) included a DSS. Data sharing statement prevalence varied by discipline: cardiology (52%), general medicine (96%), emergency medicine (12%), and orthopedic surgery (14%). Policy enforcement drove DSS inclusion, with post-policy articles significantly more likely to contain a DSS. Funding status, study design, article access, and impact factor also influenced DSS presence. Thematic analysis identified conditional availability and gatekeeping as dominant DSS themes. Of authors who stated data were available upon request, only 31% ultimately provided access.

Conclusions

Data sharing statement inclusion in cardiology research remains inconsistent, with journal policies playing a key role in increasing prevalence. However, real-world data-sharing practices often fall short of stated commitments. Addressing logistical and financial barriers will be essential to improving data availability in cardiology research.

https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehaf359

Librarian, Systems & Discovery at New College of Florida

The position focuses on supporting the effective use of information resources, including electronic resources, and instructional technology in teaching, learning, and research. They primarily support the Natural Science Division. Additionally, this librarian plays a key role in overseeing the discovery tools and library systems, ensuring seamless access to library materials, and providing training to users on navigating these resources.

https://tinyurl.com/vtayba2k

“Paying APCs: 8 Years of an Open Access Fund”

Introduction: The University of Kansas began a pilot subvention fund for article processing charges (APCs) in 2012. In fiscal year 2015 (FY2015), the Open Access Authors Fund (OAAF) shifted from a pilot program to an established program and changed various requirements, the amount of funds available each month, and the review process to ensure that those early in their career had opportunities to publish openly. This article explores the OAAF from its re-conception to the end of FY2022.

Methods: Applicants’ information is stored in a Google Sheet, which was exported to Microsoft Excel. Authors’ emails were replaced with random identifiers for deidentification. Pivot tables were created to support data analysis, and the “COUNT” and “AVERAGE” functions were used to summarize the statistics.

Results: The OAAF received 473 applications and paid 173 awards during this period. Most applications and those earning funding came from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, with researchers at the medical school being the majority. APC fees increased through this 8-year period, causing the number of grants to decrease.

Discussion: Requests for funds to publish openly increased, as did the fees charged by publishers. Graduate students received the largest number of grants and the highest total of awarded funds. Unsurprisingly, STEM fields asked for and received the most funding.

Conclusion: Overall, the fund in its new configuration achieved its goal to provide funding to those assumed to need it most, but, by FY2022, it demonstrates that this model is no longer a desired method for researchers to participate in open access publishing.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18404

Open Publishing Librarian at Texas State University

This position provides leadership and expertise in managing the university’s open publishing platforms, including Open Journal Systems (OJS) and DSpace. The Open Publishing Librarian will support and grow services for hosting open access journals, books, and other forms of digital scholarship. This position plays a key role in ensuring the accessibility, sustainability, and discoverability of open publishing initiatives through platform administration, user support, and project management. In addition, the Open Publishing Librarian will actively engage campus stakeholders to promote open access publishing and provide education around best practices in digital scholarship, licensing, copyright, and accessibility.

https://tinyurl.com/5ytz9yt5

“Landmark Research Project Sheds New Light on the Future of Digital Books”

In May, Project LEND (Library Expansion of Networked Delivery) published two reports, the culmination of two years of research into the potential for expanded lawful use of digital books held by academic and research libraries.

The first is a research paper that reveals a wide range of user research findings, many of which may be helpful to other parts of the higher education ecosystem as well, including for those creating open educational resources (OER) and learning management systems.

The second is a service plan that lays out potential paths forward for academic libraries and content providers to serve user needs better.

https://tinyurl.com/4rt4db5f

PEAK – AI Literacy Project Librarian at University of Oklahoma (Temporary?)

The University of Oklahoma Libraries seeks a curious, dynamic candidate to serve as an AI Literacy Project Librarian to contribute to efforts in supporting research and learning through the ethical, effective use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools. This role will assist with the development of instructional materials, conduct workshops, and collaborate with faculty and campus partners to enhance AI understanding across disciplines. The successful candidate will be passionate about integrating emerging technologies into research and instruction, fostering responsible AI use, and evaluating AI tools for academic applications.

https://tinyurl.com/yhx5aa5m

“Reproducible Preservation of Databases Through Executable Specifications”

We propose a new preservation method for relational data and a corresponding tool. The method involves writing a specification that can later be executed by the tool without user interaction, transforming the input files and databases into an encapsulated package suitable for archiving. Thus, the transformation steps become reproducible, which facilitates automation by reusing the specifications and allows for an iterative process, where for each iteration the specification is extended or adjusted and then executed to check that the result is closer to fulfilling future access requirements.

https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v19i1.922

Principal Software Engineer at Harvard University

The Harvard Library Innovation Lab (LIL) seeks a Principal Software Engineer to help imagine and build innovative software that charts the future of libraries. LIL’s current portfolio extends from Perma.cc, a vital web archiving platform that helps power the legal and educational sectors, to cutting edge experiments in applying large language models to civic knowledge problems, and all sorts of tools and experiments in between.

https://tinyurl.com/5n8aydd3

“Assessing the Performance of 8 AI Chatbots in Bibliographic Reference Retrieval: Grok and Deepseek Outperform ChatGPT, but None Are Fully Accurate”

This study analyzes the performance of eight generative artificial intelligence chatbots — ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, DeepSeek, Gemini, Grok, Le Chat, and Perplexity — in their free versions, in the task of generating academic bibliographic references within the university context. A total of 400 references were evaluated across the five major areas of knowledge (Health, Engineering, Experimental Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities), based on a standardized prompt. Each reference was assessed according to five key components (authorship, year, title, source, and location), along with document type, publication age, and error count. The results show that only 26.5% of the references were fully correct, 33.8% partially correct, and 39.8% were either erroneous or entirely fabricated. Grok and DeepSeek stood out as the only chatbots that did not generate false references, while Copilot, Perplexity, and Claude exhibited the highest hallucination rates. Furthermore, the chatbots showed a greater tendency to generate book references over journal articles, although the latter had a significantly higher fabrication rate. A high degree of overlap was also detected among the sources provided by several models, particularly between DeepSeek, Grok, Gemini, and ChatGPT. These findings reveal structural limitations in current AI models, highlight the risks of uncritical use by students, and underscore the need to strengthen information and critical literacy regarding the use of AI tools in higher education.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18059

Digitization and Data Coordinator at University of Georgia

The Digitization and Data Coordinator is responsible to the Associate University Librarian for Special Collections ( SCL ) for leading collection digitization and collections as data projects, developing metadata and transcription workflows, managing budgets, and assessing collection use. This position provides strategic leadership in planning and implementing sustainable, efficient workflows for digitization, metadata migration, and access to archival materials. Working closely with the Digital Archivist and other colleagues in SCL’s Media and Oral History units and the Libraries’ Discovery and Digital Services unit, the librarian supports system integrations, explores emerging technologies—including AI-based solutions—and leads professional development efforts to enhance collection discovery and access.

https://tinyurl.com/yv3sm2vh

“Diamond Open Access and Open Infrastructures Have Shaped the Canadian Scholarly Journal Landscape Since the Start of the Digital Era”

Scholarly publishing involves multiple stakeholders having various types of interest. In Canada, the implication of universities, the presence of societies and the availability of governmental support for periodicals seem to have contributed to a rather diverse ecosystem of journals. This study presents in detail the current state of these journals, in addition to past trends and transformations during the 20th century and, in particular, the digital era. To this effect, we created a new dataset, including a total of 1265 journals, 943 of which appeared to be active today, specifically focusing on the supporting organizations behind the journals, the types of (open) access, disciplines, geographic origins, languages of publication and hosting platforms and tools. The main overarching traits across Canadian scholarly journals are an important presence of Diamond open access, which has been adopted by 61% of the journals, a predominance of the Social Sciences and Humanities disciplines and a scarce presence of the major commercial publishers. The digital era allowed for the development of open infrastructures, which contributed to the creation of a new generation of journals that massively adopted Diamond open access, often supported by university libraries. However, journal cessation also increased, especially among the recently founded journals. These results provide valuable insights for the design of tailored practices and policies that cater to the needs of different types of periodicals and that consider the evolving practices across the Canadian scholarly journal landscape

https://doi.org/10.5206/cjils-rcsib.v48i1.22207

“A Survey of AI Tools in Library Tech: Accelerating Into and Unlocking Streamlined Enhanced Convenient Empowering Game-Changers”

This article presents the current status of AI tools in library resources and systems, such as those licensed by Clarivate, Elsevier, and EBSCO. It also offers thoughts on the utility of the tools, how they work, their problems, and their context within the offerings of the companies that own them. With this information, library workers will be able to make better informed decisions about which, if any, AI tools to subscribe to, activate, or opt out of in their library resources and systems.

https://tinyurl.com/5xzc9d5d

“How Far Will AI Go to Defend Its Own Survival?”

Recent tests by independent researchers, as well as one major AI developer, have shown that several advanced AI models will act to ensure their self-preservation when they are confronted with the prospect of their own demise — even if it takes sabotaging shutdown commands, blackmailing engineers or copying themselves to external servers without permission.

https://tinyurl.com/bdeawytt

Political Papers Digital Archivist at University of Arkansas (Term)

Under the supervision of the Collections Management and Processing Unit Head, the Political Papers Digital Archivist is responsible for processing born-digital materials in congressional and gubernatorial political papers collections in accordance with professional archival standards and best practices. This project includes arrangement and description of born-digital materials; determining and applying restrictions needed to comply with applicable regulations; migration of files from legacy digital storage media such as CDs and floppy disks; and creation of SIPs for ingest into Special Collections’ digital preservation system, Archivematica.

https://tinyurl.com/mwmp6f3u

“The Role of Online Search Platforms in Scientific Diffusion”

After the launch of Google Scholar older papers experienced an increase in their citations, a finding consistent with a reduction in search costs and introduction of ranking algorithms. I employ this observation to examine how recombination of science takes place in the era of online search platforms. The findings show that as papers become more discoverable, their knowledge is diffused beyond their own broad field. Results are mixed when examining knowledge diffusion within the same field. The results contribute to the ongoing debate of narrowing of science. While there might a general reduction in recombination of knowledge across distant fields over the last decades, online search platforms are not the culprits.

https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24959

Data Services Librarian at University of Nebraska Medical Center

Coordinates and delivers the library’s research services for research data management, data curation, data visualization, data literacy, and open science. Oversees the continued development of a portfolio to support UNMC researchers. . . . Provides instruction, literature search, liaison and outreach librarian services.

https://unmc.peopleadmin.com/postings/92712

“Exploring Faculty Understanding of Scholarly Research Metrics on One Campus: Using a Survey and Analysis to Strengthen Library’s Scholarly Communication Outreach”

Introduction: In recent years, the library has received inquiries from faculty on how departments on campus use scholarly research metrics to measure the impact of publications. The library provides training opportunities for faculty through individual consultations and sessions sponsored by the university’s Office for Faculty Excellence. However, librarians did not know comprehensively and specifically what metrics were being used across departments and disciplines in the university.

Methods: A 14-question survey was emailed between February 2022 and March 2022 to 959 tenured, tenure-track, and fixed-term faculty in non-health science departments at a regional public doctoral institution in the southeast. One hundred and fifty-two responses were collected and analyzed.

Results: Faculty responded from a wide variety of departments and disciplines. The most frequently reported tools used to personally track research impact were Google Scholar and h-Index. Respondents noted that online modules and instruction documents/infographics provided by the library would be most helpful to them.

Discussion: The majority of respondents acknowledged that scholarly metrics reflect at some level the importance of a researcher’s scholarly work. Respondents indicated that the use of these metrics to measure impact was helpful when equitably and transparently applied. Faculty perception of the significant challenge in measuring impact across disciplines was noted.

Conclusion: Guided by survey responses, the library’s Scholarly Communication Department will expand options for consultation and instructional support at different times of the year. Because faculty indicated that they selectively use these metrics in their annual evaluation and tenure and promotion cycles, the library will share resources and support ahead of these deadlines.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.18030