Category: Reports and White Papers

State Funding for Higher Education in FY 2009 and FY 2010

The National Conference of State Legislatures has released State Funding for Higher Education in FY 2009 and FY 2010.

Here's an excerpt:

The following information summarizes the findings for FY 2010, including the impact of ARRA [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] funds:

  • Thirty-nine of the 46 reporting states used fiscal stabilization funds to support higher education, resulting in a 2.3 percent increase in year-over-year higher education funding. Without ARRA, funding would have decreased 2.5 percent.
  • Ten states reported increases of more than 5 percent in FY 2010 higher education appropriations.
  • Even with the ARRA money, 23 states reported funding decreases from FY 2009 levels, with eight states reporting drops of more than 5 percent. Hawaii and Idaho reported declines of more than 10 percent.

If You Build It, Will They Come? How Researchers Perceive and Use Web 2.0

The Research Information Network has released If You Build It, Will They Come? How Researchers Perceive and Use Web 2.0.

Here's an excerpt:

Over the past 15 years, the web has transformed the way we seek and use information. In the last 5 years in particular a set of innovative techniques—collectively termed 'web 2.0'—have enabled people to become producers as well as consumers of information.

It has been suggested that these relatively easy-to-use tools, and the behaviours which underpin their use, have enormous potential for scholarly researchers, enabling them to communicate their research and its findings more rapidly, broadly and effectively than ever before.

This report is based on a study commissioned by the Research Information Network to investigate whether such aspirations are being realised. It seeks to improve our currently limited understanding of whether, and if so how, researchers are making use of various web 2.0 tools in the course of their work, the factors that encourage or inhibit adoption, and researchers’ attitudes towards web 2.0 and other forms of communication.

Report on Open Repository Development in Developing and Transition Countries

The eIFL-OA Program has released Report on Open Repository Development in Developing and Transition Countries.

Here's an excerpt:

This study was conducted with the cooperation of eIFL.net, the University of Kansas Libraries, the DRIVER project and Key Perspectives Ltd. The aim was to create an inventory of current digital repository activities in developing and transition countries at both the infrastructure and services level. This is the first attempt to collect such data about digital repository activity in developing and transition countries and we hope this will serve as a useful resource for promoting open access and repository development in these regions.

Institutional Repository Deposit: SWORD v2.0: Deposit Lifecycle

JISC has released SWORD v2.0: Deposit Lifecycle.

Here's an excerpt:

SWORD is a hugely successful JISC project which has kindled repository interoperability and built a community around the software and the problem space. It explicitly deals only with creating new repository resources by package deposit a simple case which is at the root of its success but also its key limitation. This next version of SWORD will push the standard towards supporting full repository deposit lifecycles by using update, retrieve and delete extensions to the specification. This will enable the repository to be integrated into a broader range of systems in the scholarly environment, by supporting an increased range of behaviours and use cases.

User Behaviour Observational Study: Scholarly Digital Use and Information-Seeking Behaviour in Business and Economics

JISC has released User Behaviour Observational Study: Scholarly Digital Use and Information-Seeking Behaviour in Business and Economics.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The report covers the digital usage and information seeking behaviour of tens of thousands of business/economics/management students, researchers and academic staff. The intention was to inform and provide a context for the small-scale but detailed observational and interview studies undertaken by Middlesex University researchers for a JISC funded User Behaviour Observational Study (Business and Economics). Much of the data were mined from CIBER’s Virtual Scholar research programme and has not been previously published in this form. New data was also obtained from the studies CIBER are currently conducting, especially from the JISC national E-book Observatory project and the RIN funded E-journals study. Log data, the main source of information on usage and information seeking, covers a period of more than five years and the questionnaire data represents more than 5000 people so this probably represents the biggest and most comprehensive usage data set ever assembled on the subject. E-books and e-journals are covered and usage at the three JISC User Behaviour Observational Study case study institutions—LSE, Middlesex and Cranfield, are highlighted A whole variety of analyses are featured including: volume and, patterns of use (in terms of visits and page views), dwell time (session and page times), type of content viewed (PDF, abstracts etc), number of pages viewed in a session, methods of navigating towards content, age of material viewed, and number of searches conducted, names of titles used, user’s organization, age and gender, hardcopy v digital preferences, viewing/reading behaviour.

Futures Thinking for Academic Librarians: Higher Education in 2025

The Association of College and Research Libraries has released Futures Thinking for Academic Librarians: Higher Education in 2025.

Here's an excerpt:

This document presents 26 possible scenarios based on an implications assessment of current trends, which may have an impact on all types of academic and research libraries over the next 15 years. The scenarios represent themes relating to academic culture, demographics, distance education, funding, globalization, infrastructure/facilities, libraries, political climate, publishing industry, societal values, students/learning, and technology. They are organized in a “scenario space” visualization tool, reflecting the expert judgment of ACRL members as to their expectations and perceptions about the probability, impact, speed of change, and threat/opportunity potential of each scenario. Finally, the study draws out implications for academic libraries.

The Economics of Copyright and Digitisation: A Report on the Literature and the Need for Further Research

The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy has released The Economics of Copyright and Digitisation: A Report on the Literature and the Need for Further Research.

Here's an excerpt:

The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property Policy (SABIP) has commissioned this report in order to inform its future research agenda. One task is to undertake a critical overview of the theoretical and empirical economic literature on copyright and unauthorised copying. On the basis of this literature, two further aims of this report are to: (1) identify the salient issues for copyright policy in the context of digitisation; and (2) formulate specific research questions that should be addressed in order to inform copyright policy.

The State of Online Video

The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project has released The State of Online Video.

Here's an excerpt:

On the other side of the camera, video creation has now become a notable feature of online life. One in seven adult internet users (14%) have uploaded a video to the internet, almost double the 8% who were uploading video in 2007. Home video is far and away the most popular content posted online, shared by 62% of video uploaders. And uploaders are just as likely to share video on social networking sites like Facebook (52% do this) as they are on more specialized video-sharing sites like YouTube (49% do this).

Yet, while video-sharing is growing in popularity, adult internet users have mixed feelings about how broadly they want to share their own creations. While 31% of uploaders say they “always” place restrictions on who can access their videos, 50% say they “never” restrict access. The remaining 19% fall somewhere in the middle. And while there is almost universal appreciation for the ease with which video-sharing sites allow uploaders to share video with family and friends, a considerable number (35%) also feel they should be more careful about what they post.

The Idea of Order: Transforming Research Collections for 21st Century Scholarship

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released The Idea of Order: Transforming Research Collections for 21st Century Scholarship.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Idea of Order explores the transition from an analog to a digital environment for knowledge access, preservation, and reconstitution, and the implications of this transition for managing research collections. The volume comprises three reports. The first, "Can a New Research Library be All-Digital?" by Lisa Spiro and Geneva Henry, explores the degree to which a new research library can eschew print. The second, "On the Cost of Keeping a Book," by Paul Courant and Matthew "Buzzy" Nielsen, argues that from the perspective of long-term storage, digital surrogates offer a considerable cost savings over print-based libraries. The final report, "Ghostlier Demarcations," examines how well large text databases being created by Google Books and other mass-digitization efforts meet the needs of scholars, and the larger implications of these projects for research, teaching, and publishing.

JISC Project Report: Digitisation Programme: Preservation Study, April 2009

JISC, the Digital Preservation Coalition, Portico, and the University of London Computer Centre have released JISC Project Report: Digitisation Programme: Preservation Study, April 2009.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The digital universe grew by 62% in 2009, but those adding to these resources need to think long term if they want to make best use of their public funding. Clearly stated preservation policies are essential in guaranteeing that researchers in the future will be able to access and use a digital resource, according to a new report funded by JISC. But the responsibility needs to be shared between funders, who must articulate the need for data curation, and universities, who need to implement a preservation policy for each digital collection. . . .

Alastair Dunning, programme manager at JISC, said: "Although our initial goal was to examine our own projects, the recommendations and outcomes are relevant to funders and projects in many different sectors."

Dr William Kilbride, Executive Director of the Digital Preservation Coalition, said: "JISC challenged us to work in fine detail and in broad strokes at the same time. We immersed ourselves in the detail of sixteen different projects with a brief to support these projects and use that experience for a strategic and lasting contribution based on hard empirical evidence."

The results of this work published today contain recommendations for institutions, funders and those assessing funding projects and programmes. The authors anticipate that the template used to survey the projects could also form a useful blueprint for funders and assessors in the future.

Open Access in Italy: Report 2009

SELL (Southern European Libraries Link) has released Open Access in Italy: Report 2009.

Here's an excerpt:

In Italy the OA movement has mainly pursued a "bottom up approach." Librarians, IT professionals, senior researchers, early adopters in individual universities and research centres have been actively involved in promoting awareness on OA issues, in implementing repositories, in planning projects, writing policies, developing tools. Initially, the academic institutional hierarchies failed to take any clear stand on the issue.

No specific national funding has been allocated for open access initiatives and in most cases the implementation of the Open Archive was financed with ordinary budget expenditures.

In a limited number of cases (i.e. University of Cagliari, University of Naples Parthenope, University of Sassari, and University of Trieste) the repositories were successfully funded under Regional spending. To date neither the government nor the Ministry of Education and Research have made any recommendations on this matter or provided any funding. Parliament has made no stand on the issue.

Addressing the Research Data Gap: A Review of Novel Services for Libraries

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has released Addressing the Research Data Gap: A Review of Novel Services for Libraries.

Here's an excerpt:

This document presents the results of a review of novel opportunities for libraries in the area of research data services. The activities were identified through a review of the literature and a scan of projects being undertaken at libraries and other institutions worldwide. For the purpose of this report, research data services have been organized into five distinct areas (although it should be noted that there are significant overlaps between them): awareness and advocacy; support and training; access and discovery; archiving and preservation; and virtual research environments. Each section contains a general description of the area accompanied by a number of examples. The examples are not meant to be comprehensive account of existing projects, but rather to highlight the range of possibilities available.

Shaping the Higher Education Cloud

EDUCAUSE has released Shaping the Higher Education Cloud.

Here's an excerpt:

In February 2010, chief information officers, chief business officers, and industry leaders gathered in Tempe, Arizona, for a two-day EDUCAUSE/NACUBO Cloud Computing Workshop to explore what shape a higher education cloud might take and to identify opportunities and models for partnering together.

One important option is the development of collaborative service offerings among colleges and universities. Yet, substantial challenges raise at least some near-term concerns including risk, security, and governance issues; uncertainty about return on investment and service provider certification; and questions regarding which business and academic activities are best suited for the cloud.

This white paper captures key findings from those two days of exploring, including recommendations for cloud action.

Open Data Study

The Open Society Institute's Transparency and Accountability Initiative has released the Open Data Study.

Here's an excerpt:

There are substantial social and economic gains to be made from opening government data to the public. The combination of geographic, budget, demographic, services, education and other data, publicly available in an open format on the web, promises to improve services as well as create future economic growth.

This approach has been recently pioneered by governments in the United State and the United Kingdom (with the launch of two web portals – www.data.gov and www.data.gov.uk respectively) inspired in part by applications developed by grassroots civil society organisations ranging from bicycle accidents maps to sites breaking down how and where tax money is spent. In the UK, the data.gov.uk initiative was spearheaded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

This research, commissioned by a consortium of funders and NGOs under the umbrella of the Transparency and Accountability Initiative, seeks to explore the feasibility of applying this approach to open data in relevant middle income and developing countries. Its aim is to identify the strategies used in the US and UK contexts with a view to building a set of criteria to guide the selection of pilot countries, which in turn suggests a template strategy to open government data.

WIPO: Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has released Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain.

Here's an excerpt:

Protection of the public domain comprises two steps, as laid down by the [WIPO] Development Agenda: first, identifying the contours of the public domain, thereby helping to assess its value and realm, and, second, considering and promoting the conservation and accessibility of the public domain.

The present study will follow the same direction as it will first assess the scope of the public domain, as defined by copyright laws, history and philosophy, before turning to the issue of its effectiveness and greater availability to the public and society at large. This will lead to the formulation of some recommendations that, by viewing the public domain as material that should receive some positive status and protection, might help to support a robust public domain, as advocated by the Development Agenda.

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Impact on Individuals and Intermediaries

The Australian Digital Alliance has released Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement: Impact on Individuals and Intermediaries.

Here's an excerpt:

ACTA might have a negative impact on individuals as Internet citizens and as consumers of digital technologies because some of its requirements go beyond Australian law. ACTA will facilitate excessive damages payouts by mandating the controversial 'lost sale analysis' for the assessment of damages and encouraging punitive style statutory damages that set arbitrary amounts for infringement. ACTA will also broaden the scope of commercial scale infringement to criminalise purely private acts that occur in the homes of some Australians, and will create a new criminal offence for 'camcording'. ACTA may strengthen existing procedures to lock up copyright material and prevent Australians from accessing or using it in certain legitimate ways.