Scholarly Communication

"Nothing about Us without Us: the Roles of Diverse Stakeholders in Scientific Publishing"

Publisher codes of ethics, and how they are enforced, should occupy a larger part of the discourse around scientific ethics and, in turn, influence where scientists choose to publish. The current editorial policies of many major scientific journals describe how journals enforce the code of ethics for scientists, not the rules that govern the publishing process itself. Why should scientists ask their journals to publish an editorial policy akin to a newsroom operations ethics policy (https://www.washingtonpost.com/policies-and-standards/)? Publishers play a pivotal role in filtering stories. Through their definitions and weighting of significance/impact/novelty, scientific editors select the stories that get sent out for peer review, pick the peer reviewers, and arbitrate the peer review process. In addition, while scientific institutions are responsible for adjudicating charges of scientific misconduct, journals are responsible for managing retractions. Thus, journals determine who gets published (and when) and set the pace of retractions. In other words, they play multiple roles in scientific governance. Finally, biased publishing outcomes—where a group is underrepresented in the pool of published authors relative to the pool of eligible authors—have been documented at the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) (1) and other journals. . . .

In the face of biased publishing outcomes, what should we expect of our publishers? Research is often conducted using money from federally funded grants. The publication fees we pay, if not taken from federal grant funding, are in some way supported by it. As a consequence, we can expect that publishers will meet their responsibility, not just to us, but also to the taxpayers of ensuring fairness in what gets reported. If publishers were to make transparent the principles that guide their decisions, then scientists could use these new policies (and accountability for them) to determine where to publish, rather than using impact factor as a single guiding light.

Paywall: "What Is Data Stewardship? Towards a Comprehensive Understanding;"

Data stewardship is a term that is understood in heterogenous ways. . . . Following on from these different understandings and from recent developments to include ever more stakeholders in data stewardship, we propose a comprehensive understanding of data stewardship. According to this comprehensive understanding, data stewardship includes responsibilities towards all pertinent stakeholders and to equally consider and respect their legitimate rights and interests in order to build and maintain an efficient, trusted and fair data ecosystem. We also point out some of the practical challenges implied in such a comprehensive understanding.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbi.2023.104337

"Transparency in Conducting and Reporting Research: A Survey of Authors, Reviewers, and Editors across Scholarly Disciplines"

Calls have been made for improving transparency in conducting and reporting research, improving work climates, and preventing detrimental research practices. To assess attitudes and practices regarding these topics, we sent a survey to authors, reviewers, and editors. We received 3,659 (4.9%) responses out of 74,749 delivered emails. We found no significant differences between authors’, reviewers’, and editors’ attitudes towards transparency in conducting and reporting research, or towards their perceptions of work climates. Undeserved authorship was perceived by all groups as the most prevalent detrimental research practice, while fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and not citing prior relevant research, were seen as more prevalent by editors than authors or reviewers. Overall, 20% of respondents admitted sacrificing the quality of their publications for quantity, and 14% reported that funders interfered in their study design or reporting. While survey respondents came from 126 different countries, due to the survey’s overall low response rate our results might not necessarily be generalizable. Nevertheless, results indicate that greater involvement of all stakeholders is needed to align actual practices with current recommendations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270054

"ChatGPT and a New Academic Reality: Artificial Intelligence-Written Research Papers and the Ethics of the Large Language Models in Scholarly Publishing"

The history and principles behind ChatGPT and similar models are discussed. This technology is then discussed in relation to its potential impact on academia and scholarly research and publishing. ChatGPT is seen as a potential model for the automated preparation of essays and other types of scholarly manuscripts. Potential ethical issues that could arise with the emergence of large language models like GPT-3. . . and its usage by academics and researchers, are discussed and situated within the context of broader advancements in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing for research and scholarly publishing.

https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24750

Systems and Web Services Librarian at Wright State University

Reporting to the Head of Library Technology Services, the Systems and Web Services Librarian provides management and coordination of the University Libraries’ web presence including the website, catalog, and other end-user platforms, and maintains library web services interfaces to ensure usability, accessibility, and brand consistency.. . . The Systems and Web Services Librarian is responsible for the Libraries’ authentication systems, working with vendors and the Computing and Telecommunications department to ensure uninterrupted access to licensed library electronic resources.

https://jobs.wright.edu/postings/18148

Digital Library Manager at London School of Economics and Political Science

The post-holder is responsible for initiating and implementing digital service developments, actively seeking opportunities for collaborative partnerships with researchers and external organisations and creatively delivering new ways to make digital collections available. This work involves close liaison with Library collections specialists, researchers, colleagues in service divisions in the School and external suppliers. The post-holder will particularly work closely with the Collections Management team who are responsible for delivering on-site digitisation and digital preservation. As well as managing the operational digital library service, the postholder will manage development projects, often supported by external funding.

bit.ly/3J2RMnI

"Measuring the Concept of PID Literacy: User Perceptions and Understanding of Persistent Identifiers in Support of Open Scholarly Infrastructure"

The increasing centrality of persistent identifiers (PIDs) to scholarly ecosystems and the contribution they can make to the burgeoning ‘PID graph’ has the potential to transform scholarship. Despite their importance as originators of PID data, little is known about researchers’ awareness and understanding of PIDs, or their efficacy in using them. In this article we report on the results of an online interactive test designed to elicit exploratory data about researcher awareness and understanding of PIDs. This instrument was designed to explore recognition of PIDs and the extent to which researchers correctly apply PIDs within digital scholarly ecosystems, as well as measure researchers’ perceptions of PIDs. Our results reveal irregular patterns of PID understanding and certainty across all participants, though statistically significant disciplinary and academic job role differences were observed in some instances. Uncertainty and confusion were found to exist in relation to dominant schemes such as ORCID and DOIs, even when contextualized within real-world examples. We also show researchers’ perceptions of PIDs to be generally positive but that disciplinary differences can be noted, as well as higher levels of aversion to PIDs in specific use cases and negative perceptions where PIDs are measured on an ‘activity’ semantic dimension. This work therefore contributes to our understanding of academics’ ‘PID literacy’ and should inform those designing PID-centric scholarly infrastructures, that a significant need for training and outreach to active researchers remains necessary.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.07367

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"Mastodon over Mammon — Towards Publicly Owned Scholarly Knowledge"

Twitter is in turmoil and the scholarly community on the platform is once again starting to migrate. As with the early internet, scholarly organizations are at the forefront of developing and implementing a decentralized alternative to Twitter, Mastodon. Both historically and conceptually, this is not a new situation for the scholarly community. Historically, scholars were forced to leave social media platform FriendFeed after it was bought by Facebook in 2006. Conceptually, the problems associated with public scholarly discourse subjected to the whims of corporate owners are not unlike those of scholarly journals owned by monopolistic corporations: in both cases the perils associated with a public good in private hands are palpable. For both short form (Twitter/Mastodon) and longer form (journals) scholarly discourse, decentralized solutions exist, some of which are already enjoying some institutional support. Here we argue that scholarly organizations, in particular learned societies, are now facing a golden opportunity to rethink their hesitations towards such alternatives and support the migration of the scholarly community from Twitter to Mastodon by hosting Mastodon instances. Demonstrating that the scholarly community is capable of creating a truly public square for scholarly discourse, impervious to private takeover, might renew confidence and inspire the community to focus on analogous solutions for the remaining scholarly record —encompassing text, data and code —to safeguard all publicly owned scholarly knowledge.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7643817

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Digital Public Library of America: "Palace Marketplace to Offer More Than 200,000 New Titles By Independent Authors"

Digital Public Library of America is pleased to announce the launch of a new independent author catalog in Palace Marketplace. Palace Marketplace now offers more than 1.2 million ebooks and audiobooks from all of the quot;Big 5" publishers, Amazon Publishing, Audible, hundreds of mid-sized and independent publishers, and independent authors. . . .Beginning on February 16, 2023, Palace Marketplace will offer more than 200,000 titles from Smashwords and Draft2Digital. At launch, all of these titles will be available with a perpetual one-at-a-time license, often at less than $10 per title, with more licensing options to be made available in the coming months. As an additional service to libraries, the DPLA Curation Corps of librarians will be preparing selections of recommended titles to help libraries quickly and easily identify titles appropriate for their collections.

bit.ly/3jI8sHd

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"Research Productivity Among Scholarly Communication Librarians"

Introduction: A growing number of academic libraries have specialized their support for scholarly communication by creating new positions or by expanding units with a focus on providing relevant services. This study was undertaken to explore the extent to which librarians with scholarly communication responsibilities produce research and scholarship, their motivations for doing so, the nature of that productivity, and the perceived impact of that activity on their professional responsibilities. Methods: The authors administered a survey of librarians who identified as having their primary job responsibilities in scholarly communication. Results: Almost all study participants produced their own scholarly work. However, a high percentage indicated that they received no relevant training in their library degree programs, and the majority experienced imposter syndrome pertaining to their own scholarship. Although most respondents were motivated to produce research by institutional expectations for promotion and tenure, greater percentages were driven by personal or professional interests. In addition, participants indicated a strong correlation between producing their own scholarship and their ability to effectively carry out their professional responsibilities. Discussion: There may be an emerging convention for scholarly communication librarianship, i.e., one that includes open education services. Findings suggest a need for scholarly communication training to be more prominent in library degree programs. They also point to the utility of making research production a job requirement, regardless of institutional expectations for professional advancement. Conclusion: The authors argue for adjustments in library education curricula and the inclusion of research production in the portfolios of scholarly communication librarians. Future research directions are proposed.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.15621

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"Digital Commons to Hyku: An Institutional Repository Migration at a Small Liberal Arts University"

Introduction: Pacific University Libraries has had an institutional repository since 2009, when it selected Digital Commons to host a collection of theses and dissertations. Since then, the scope of the services has grown to include publishing open access journals as well as housing the books published by Pacific University Press—a library-born, hybrid, open access press. As our needs have changed, and with Elsevier’s acquisition of bepress in 2017, the University migrated from bepress’ Digital Commons platform to an open source Hyku platform hosted by Ubiquity Repositories. Description of Program: As the first academic institution working with Ubiquity Repositories on migration and implementation, we were involved in the process of data extraction, normalization, mapping, ingest, and validation. Lessons Learned: We learned the importance of having a mutual understanding of a platform’s goals, data structure and mapping, and standards in implementation decisions. Next Steps: As higher education continues to adapt to the changes brought by COVID-19, it has never seemed more important to utilize platforms that share the values of libraries worldwide. We hope that migrating to an open source platform will be a step toward more open scholarship, despite the current challenges and resource scarcity brought about by the pandemic.

https://doi.org/10.31274/jlsc.12916

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Electronic Resources Librarian at Western Kentucky University

The Electronic Resources Librarian is part of the newly merged Department of Technical Services and Special Collections and is a key contributor to the work required in the life cycle of WKU’s licensed scholarly electronic resources, ensuring ongoing access through existing and newly envisioned technologies in support of teaching, learning, and research. This position will assist in the daily tasks associated with acquiring and managing electronic resources and contribute to efforts to create efficiencies and improve service to library users.

https://cutt.ly/g1PGPuI

Systems and Discovery Librarian at SUNY Brockport

The person in this role plays the lead role in supporting, assessing, enhancing, and connecting the library systems that form the backbone of the library’s digital infrastructure. The successful candidate will collaborate with colleagues to improve the user experience of the library’s public facing systems, implement new systems and services, and enhance and improve internal library workflows.

https://cutt.ly/zM2tIzD

Open Source "Academic Tracker: Software for Tracking and Reporting Publications Associated with Authors and Grants"

In recent years, United States federal funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have implemented public access policies to make research supported by funding from these federal agencies freely available to the public. Enforcement is primarily through annual and final reports submitted to these funding agencies, where all peer-reviewed publications must be registered through the appropriate mechanism as required by the specific federal funding agency. Unreported and/or incorrectly reported papers can result in delayed acceptance of annual and final reports and even funding delays for current and new research grants. So, it’s important to make sure every peer-reviewed publication is reported properly and in a timely manner. For large collaborative research efforts, the tracking and proper registration of peer-reviewed publications along with generation of accurate annual and final reports can create a large administrative burden. With large collaborative teams, it is easy for these administrative tasks to be overlooked, forgotten, or lost in the shuffle. In order to help with this reporting burden, we have developed the Academic Tracker software package, implemented in the Python 3 programming language and supporting Linux, Windows, and Mac operating systems. Academic Tracker helps with publication tracking and reporting by comprehensively searching major peer-reviewed publication tracking web portals, including PubMed, Crossref, ORCID, and Google Scholar, given a list of authors. Academic Tracker provides highly customizable reporting templates so information about the resulting publications is easily transformed into appropriate formats for tracking and reporting purposes. The source code and extensive documentation is hosted on GitHub (https://moseleybioinformaticslab.github.io/academic_tracker/) and is also available on the Python Package Index (https://pypi.org/project/academic_tracker) for easy installation.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277834

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"Is Mastodon Private and Secure? Let’s Take a Look"

For basic security, instances will employ transport-layer encryption, keeping your connection to the server you’ve chosen private. This will keep your communications safe from local eavesdroppers using your same WiFi connection, but it does not protect your communications, including your direct messages, from the server or instance you’ve chosen—or, if you’re messaging someone from a different instance, the server they’ve chosen. This includes the moderators and administrators of those instances, as well. Just like Twitter or Instagram, your posts and direct messages are accessible by those running the services. But unlike Twitter or Instagram, you have the choice in what server or instance you trust with your communications. . . . Two-factor authentication with an app or security key is available on Mastodon instances, giving users an extra security check to log on. The software also offers robust privacy controls: allowing users to set up automatic deletion of old posts, set personalized keyword filters, approve followers, and hide your social graph (the list of your followers and those you follow). Unfortunately, there is no analogue to making your account "private. . . . Mastodon users can mute, block, or report other users. Muting and blocking works just as you’d expect: it’s a list associated with your account that just stops the content of that user from appearing in your feed and prevents them from reaching out to you, respectively."

https://cutt.ly/mMZIEtS

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"Requiem for a Tweet — Is There a Future for the Academic Social Capital Held on the Platform?"

The mechanisms through which this network status can be exchanged into academic advantage are not straightforward, but any academic who has achieved a degree of popularity online can attest to the direct and indirect advantages which this has brought to their career.. . . What if that capital is now worthless? It’s a strange position that has the potential to leave academics clinging on to their Twitter accounts long after the beneficial impact of the platform has evaporated in a mushroom cloud of moving fast and breaking things. The collapse of Twitter would be a significant event within higher education, analogous to (though not on the same scale as) citational rankings being reset overnight.

https://cutt.ly/VMZmyaA

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"Who Writes Scholarly Code?"

This paper presents original research about the behaviours, histories, demographics, and motivations of scholars who code, specifically how they interact with version control systems locally and on the Web. By understanding patrons through multiple lenses—daily productivity habits, motivations, and scholarly needs—librarians and archivists can tailor services for software management, curation, and long-term reuse, raising the possibility for long-term reproducibility of a multitude of scholarship.

http://www.ijdc.net/article/view/839

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"Finding Your Way in Academic Librarianship: Introducing the Scholarly Communication Notebook"

The SCN (https://www.oercommons.org/hubs/SCN) is an extension of an earlier, related, effort to create an open textbook about scholarly communication librarianship. That book, Scholarly Communication Librarianship and Open Knowledge, is forthcoming from ACRL in 2023. . . . Even if openly licensed, a book remains a relatively static resource. Scholarly communication is not static at all. Far from it, as many will attest and recognize through hard-won experience. Our contribution is the SCN, an online collection of contributed, modular, open content scoped to scholarly communication topics, which might complement the book or find use independent of it.

https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.83.10.444

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"Guest Post – Wikipedia’s Citations Are Influencing Scholars and Publishers"

A well-written Wikipedia page will cite scholarly publications with links to the articles in those citations that can be accessed immediately by users. At the 2019 Charleston Conference keynote, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle claimed that 6% of Wikipedia readers click on a link in the footnotes (although another study found that it was more like 0.03%). In 2016, Wikipedia was the 6th-largest referrer for DOIs, with half of referrals successfully authenticating to access the article. External links on Wikipedia produce an estimated 7 million dollars of revenue per month. Given that Wikipedia is such a popular website, it’s unsurprising that academic publishers are actively pursuing ways to promote their work on Wikipedia.

https://cutt.ly/tNIZJtG

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Emerging Technologies Librarian at University of Houston Clear Lake

The Emerging Technologies Librarian is responsible for maintaining, troubleshooting, and training users on technology and equipment; developing training materials; coordinating outreach activities; providing group/individual consultations; and working in collaboration with technologists and content experts to develop and host tutorials, workshops, and instruction sessions. Serves as the library resource for planning, development, troubleshooting, and coordination of digital tools, software and other library technology. Staffs, trains, and supervises student workers for area’s hours of operation.

https://cutt.ly/gNxeTC9

"eLife Ends Accept/Reject Decisions Following Peer Review"

eLife is pleased to announce a major change in editorial practice. Building on its 2021 shift to exclusively reviewing preprints, the organisation is ending the practice of making accept/reject decisions following peer review.

From January 31, 2023, eLife will instead publish every paper it reviews as a Reviewed Preprint, a new type of research output that combines the manuscript with eLife’s detailed peer reviews and a concise assessment of the significance of the findings and quality of the evidence.

https://cutt.ly/2B9tiCx

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"Google Scholar – Platforming the Scholarly Economy"

Google Scholar has become an important player in the scholarly economy. Whereas typical academic publishers sell bibliometrics, analytics and ranking products, Alphabet, through Google Scholar, provides “free” tools for academic search and scholarly evaluation that have made it central to academic practice. Leveraging political imperatives for open access publishing, Google Scholar has managed to intermediate data flows between researchers, research managers and repositories, and built its system of citation counting into a unit of value that coordinates the scholarly economy. At the same time, Google Scholar’s user-friendly but opaque tools undermine certain academic norms, especially around academic autonomy and the academy’s capacity to understand how it evaluates itself.

https://doi.org/10.14763/2022.3.1671

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