DigitalKoans – Page 20 – What Is the Sound of One E-Print Downloading?

Health Sciences Data Steward at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Health Sciences Data Steward is a position in the Research Data Management Core (RDMC) unit that supports lifecycle research data management and sharing activities in areas of the UNC campus engaged in health sciences research. Reporting to the Assistant Director for Research Data Stewardship, this position develops and deploys resources, services, and training to sustain a unified, campus-wide ecosystem of research data management and sharing infrastructure that supports compliance with funding agency policies and promotes the goals of those policies.

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"A Framework for AI Literacy"

Academic and technologies teams at Barnard College developed an AI literacy framework to provide a conceptual foundation for AI education and programming efforts in higher education institutional contexts.

https://tinyurl.com/3pk44xpx

Paywall: "K-Means Clustering of Dermatology Journals: Comparing the Distribution of ‘Free-to-Publish’ and ‘Pay-to-Publish’ Models"

The study reveals a higher proportion of F2P journals, especially in higher-tier journals, indicating a preference for quality-driven research acceptance. Conversely, a rising proportion of P2P journals in lower tiers suggests potential bias towards the ability to pay. This disparity poses challenges for researchers from less-funded institutions or those early in their careers. The study also finds significant differences in APCs between F2P and P2P journals, with hybrid OA being more common in F2P.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-024-03105-x

Research & Open Scholarship Librarian at University of Sussex

You will provide operational management of the Library’s Open Access publication services, including use of our publishing agreements & funder block grants, deliver training & guidance on Open Access, advocate for our Publications policies, contribute to our REF2029 submission, and be a champion for the wider benefits of Open Research.

You will manage the Institutional Repository (Figshare) and CRIS (Elements) systems and provide guidance & support on deposit and publication management.

You will contribute to the University’s open publishing initiatives including our Open Press, working with colleagues in the Library and beyond to innovate and develop our publishing capacity.

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Director of Technology, Libraries at James Madison University

The Director of Technology manages several teams currently comprised of nine full-time classified staff members and four Administrative & Professional (AP) faculty members. These departments are responsible for the design and development of the JMU Libraries web presences, the administration of the Library Services Platform, the administration of physical and virtual infrastructure and storage housed in both cloud and campus datacenters, and the coordination of help desk support for Library staff.

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Classifying Open Access Business Models

The proliferation of Open Access (OA) business models has been rapid, presenting challenges for stakeholders in academic publishing in communicating and working effectively with one another. This article offers a comprehensive classification system for OA models, categorizing them into five core types (transactional, bundled, cooperative, sponsored, and alternative), each with distinct characteristics and implications for funding, equity, and implementation. This classification aims to clarify the myriad labels and terminologies used, addressing the inconsistencies and gaps in previous attempts to categorize OA models. By providing descriptions and analyses of different business models, the article seeks to enhance transparency around and understanding of OA options, ultimately supporting informed decision-making in the evolving landscape of academic publishing.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11242106

Electronic Resources & Library Systems Librarian at Illinois Wesleyan University

This position serves as the functional expert on all of the library’s software, systems, and e-resources, which are essential to user access and discovery. The successful candidate will also serve as a library liaison to academic programs, with responsibilities for information literacy instruction, collection development, and research consultations.

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"Opening Science to Society: How to Progress Societal Engagement into (Open) Science Policies"

A broad understanding of the aims and objectives of the international open science movement was recently adopted with the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science, expanding the focus of open science to include scientific knowledge, infrastructures, knowledge systems and the open engagement of societal actors. In response, recent discussions on science policy practice are shifting to the implementation of open science via national policy. While policy instruments to support some aspects of open science are well-studied, guidance on the emerging ‘social’ aspects of open science has lagged, prompting UNESCO to generate guidance. In this paper, authors of a UNESCO Open Science Toolkit guidance document on ‘Engaging societal actors in Open Science’ synthesize the scholarly underpinnings behind the guidance document’s recommendations. This work draws upon a targeted search from academic, policy, and grey literature in the fields of open science and community engagement, with a special focus on citizen science, to derive guidance on how to overcome barriers to the uptake of societal engagement approaches. The results present building blocks of what an enabling environment for the open engagement of societal actors could look like, identifying key considerations and reflecting on opportunities and challenges for progressing and evaluating sound open engagement of societal actors into regional & national (open) science policies.

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.231309

Systems & Discovery Librarian at Kenyon College

Reporting to the Director of Collections and Access, the Systems and Discovery Librarian provides support for library systems to enhance users’ ability to identify, retrieve, and use library resources. This role is dedicated to exploring and implementing user-centered library systems and applications, including the library’s web presence (currently BigTree) and its supporting platforms (most notably, the Springshare suite of tools). Along with fellow team members from the Collections & Access department, this role also co-manages the library services platform (Alma) with a particular emphasis on the discovery tool component (Primo VE).

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Generative AI Issues in Scholarly Publishing: "Guest Post: Jagged Edges of Conversational Interfaces Over Scholarly and Professional Content "

The fundamental tension is that unlike web distribution of static content, which has enormous scale advantages due to very low marginal costs, the RAG [Retrieval-Augmented Generation] pattern has high marginal costs (10-1000X) that scale linearly. While token costs remain high, for general scholarly applications outside of specialty practitioners, the central business or product challenge will be how to generate sufficient incremental revenue to offset the vastly higher compute costs to use GenAI technology to generate responses to queries.

https://tinyurl.com/38x432h7

Open Publishing Librarian at University of Houston

This position resides in the Libraries’ Research Services department, which provides infrastructure, programs, and services in support of digital humanities, research visibility and impact, data management, and scholarly publishing activities. Reporting to the Head of Research Services, the Open Publishing Librarian contributes to and helps organize UH Libraries’ expanding publishing program. The successful candidate will manage and promote the UH Institutional Repository, oversee UH’s Vireo Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) management system, lead the Libraries’ open access journal and monograph support, and collaboratively advance other elements of its publishing operations, which span the Open Education Services department, the Teaching and Learning department, the Resource Description and Metadata department, and the Collections Strategies and Services department.

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"The O3 Guidelines: Open Data, Open Code, and Open Infrastructure for Sustainable Curated Scientific Resources"

Here, we introduce the Open Data, Open Code, and Open Infrastructure (O3) Guidelines for the creation and maintenance of curated resources which promote sustainability through a combination of technical workflows, social workflows, and progressive governance models. Together, these support and encourage community-facing curation (Fig. 1). In summary, (1) the technical aspect of O3 necessitates using open data, open code, and open infrastructure. Both data and code are permissively licensed and kept together under public version control. This enables anyone to directly suggest improvements and updates. Further, it recommends using hardware and software infrastructure that supports automation in response to various actions performed by contributors and maintainers. For example, this includes running quality assurance workflows in response to new contributions and the generation of exports in multiple formats in response to running a release workflow. (2) The social aspect of O3 prescribes the composition of training material, curation guidelines, contribution guidelines, and a community code of conduct that encourage and support potential community curators. It requires the use of public tools for suggestions, questions, discussion as well as social workflows for the submission and review of changes. (3) The governance aspect of O3 necessitates the division of responsibilities and authority across multiple institutions, making the resource more robust to fluctuation in funding and personnel, such as when reviewing and applying changes to the data or code. O3 prescribes liberal attribution and acknowledgment of the individuals and institutions, both internal and external to the project, who contribute on a variety of levels such as to data, code, discussion, and funding. More generally, the O3 Guidelines suggest that a minimal governance model be codified and instituted as early as possible in a project’s lifetime.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03406-w

Head of Legal Technology Services at George Washington University

Oversees the integration of library resources and academic technologies, including technology competencies, into the curriculum and learning spaces, including the learning management system. . . .

Coordinates department activities to identify, develop, and promote strategic scholarly communication services and programs; provides outreach, education, and training; identifies and implements best practices in documenting and strengthening access to the Law School’s intellectual output . . . .

Coordinates interdepartmental library efforts to select, implement, maintain, and provide access to electronic resources, including collaboration with law library colleagues, GWU campus libraries, and electronic resource vendors . . .

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"Rethinking Data Management Planning: Introducing Research Output Management Planning (ROMPi) Approach"

Data management plans (DMPs), designed to adhere to Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable (FAIR) principles, were introduced to enhance research data management (RDM) but have encountered challenges in implementation. This essay calls for a paradigm shift by introducing the ‘Research Output Management Planning (ROMPi)’ approach, aiming to integrate traditional research project management practices promoting a holistic perspective of RDM. In its essence, ROMPi reframes the DMP in the conventional project management work breakdown structure in work packages (WPs), with research outputs going through their lifecycle. It also advocates reimagining the concept of data into research outputs, acknowledging a holistic perspective of the research outcomes. We demonstrated that the research project management perspective at the early implementation stage could ultimately align DMP within the research process. ROMPi offers a practical research output management approach, fostering a holistic project-researcher-centric perspective.

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2024-034

Front-End Web Developer at Western Carolina University

The purpose of this position is to assist the Library User Experience Web Developer in carrying out the many responsibilities of the Web Services Unit in making sure that all web presence needs for library operations are kept working and to help create a cohesive and effective web presence. The employee will provide a variety of support responsibility for computer troubleshooting, user applications software in the library and web-based applications of Library’s homepage.

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"Stronger Together: Library-led Open Access Publishing in Scotland"

The purpose of this article is to look at library-led Open Access publishing initiatives across Scotland: particularly the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) Open Hosting Shared Service and Scottish Universities Press (SUP). . . .

In 2018, the University of Edinburgh (UoE) submitted a proposal to SCURL, pitching the creation of a new shared service that would be governed by SCURL and provided by library staff at the University of Edinburgh. The aim of this shared service was to equip member institutions with a hosting solution to fulfil their Open Access publishing activities, with the development time charged to UoE. The fee for the shared service is at cost (currently £1,400 + VAT per year), and everything is reinvested, predominantly covering technical and staffing costs. All members meet four times a year to discuss the direction and growth of the shared service, ensuring it is very much a partnership and not just led by the University of Edinburgh.

The hosting solution is fulfilled by the use of Open Journals System (OJS) and Open Monograph Press (OMP). SCURL partners get their own installation of the required open-source software, and the staff at UoE complete the initial configuration of the site and customisation of the user interface. The fee is charged per installation. So, for example, a user pays one fee for OJS and can set up as many journals as they like. . . .

To finish, the shared service launched with three members and now has eleven, with more on the way. The members are:

Glasgow Caledonian University

Heriot Watt University

Queen Margaret University

Robert Gordon University

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Scottish Universities Press

Society of Antiquaries Scotland

St Andrews University

University of Edinburgh

University of Glasgow

The University of the Highlands and Islands

https://tinyurl.com/2vy7wp94

Head, Preservation Imaging at Yale University

Oversees all aspects of programmatic digital imaging projects and Special Collections patron requests for book and paper-based materials. Prioritizes requests and projects. Researches, develops, documents and implements practices and trends related to scanning and photography, image processing, quality control, accessibility considerations, and best practices for care and handling of fragile or damaged collections materials. Manages, trains and supervises staff, cultivating a team-based approach to the work. Establishes metrics, tracks progress and regularly reports on the unit’s work in support of a resource-informed stewardship model. Coordinates with Head of Media Preservation to align workflows and develop a communication strategy to ensure that units operate in tandem and have a shared understanding of prioritization and capacity. Fosters and sustains relationships with Digital Special Collections & Access (DSCA) to develop processes, coordinate strategies, and harmonize workflows. Collaborates with Library staff, vendors and external project partners, including HathiTrust and Google Books, to investigate, test, and maintain ingest and deposit workflows for digitized materials.

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"The FAIR Assessment Conundrum: Reflections on Tools and Metrics"

Several tools for assessing FAIRness have been developed. Although their purpose is common, they use different assessment techniques, they are designed to work with diverse research products, and they are applied in specific scientific disciplines. It is thus inevitable that they perform the assessment using different metrics. This paper provides an overview of the actual FAIR assessment tools and metrics landscape to highlight the challenges characterising this task. In particular, 20 relevant FAIR assessment tools and 1180 relevant metrics were identified and analysed concerning (i) the tool’s distinguishing aspects and their trends, (ii) the gaps between the metric intents and the FAIR principles, (iii) the discrepancies between the declared intent of the metrics and the actual aspects assessed, including the most recurring issues, (iv) the technologies used or mentioned the most in the assessment metrics. The findings highlight (a) the distinguishing characteristics of the tools and the emergence of trends over time concerning those characteristics, (b) the identification of gaps at both metric and tool levels, (c) discrepancies observed in 345 metrics between their declared intent and the actual aspects assessed, pointing at several recurring issues, and (d) the variety in the technology used for the assessments, the majority of which can be ascribed to linked data solutions. This work also highlights some open issues that FAIR assessment still needs to address.

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2024-033

Library Developer at University at Buffalo

The University at Buffalo Libraries are seeking a skilled Library Developer to implement, customize, and enhance digital asset management systems and software solutions within the library environment. This position will play a crucial role in ensuring system quality assurance, identifying defects, and exploring integration opportunities for enhanced functionality. Collaboration and communication skills are essential, as you will work closely with cross-functional teams to align system goals with library objectives and provide regular updates on system progress and enhancements.

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Paywall: "Does Research Funding, Open Access Availability, and Collaboration in Research Influence Citation Impact? An Analysis of Neurotechnology Research"

The United States Department of Health and Human Services remains at the top by contributing funding to 7.46% of research papers in the field of Neurotechnology research. Statistical tests confirmed significant correlations between research funding, collaboration, and research availability mode with citation impact. Positive correlations were identified between research funding and collaboration, while open access availability showed a negative correlation with citation impact.

https://doi.org/10.1080/15424065.2024.2350377

Digital Asset Management System Coordinator at University of Texas at Austin

As a part of the Preservation & Digital Stewardship unit, this position provides management and oversight of the Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) and affiliated public-facing discovery interfaces for UT Libraries, including policy and workflow development, training, and metadata support.

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2024 State of Open Infrastructure Report

In this inaugural report, we dive deep into the characteristics of open infrastructure powering research and scholarship and what (we believe) sets them apart from their competitors. We take a closer look at the governing bodies and decision-makers behind the technologies your community relies on. We share the latest data and analysis of over US$415M in grant funding powering open infrastructures and research surrounding them, and bring you the latest infrastructure and policy developments in regions such as Latin America, Africa, and the European Union. We highlight success stories and the key trends in the adoption of open infrastructure. We share the latest on trends we’re tracking, such as the global movement towards Diamond Open Access and the underlying infrastructure needs, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the intersection with open research, and "digital sovereignty" and its impact on research across borders.

https://tinyurl.com/ycxs547k

Digital Collections Librarian/Archivist at Loyola University New Orleans

The Digital Collections Librarian/Archivist will be responsible for developing and maintaining digital collections, and participating in the day-to-day work of Special Collections & Archives, including providing reference services and research support, as well as teaching with SCA collections and in the Loyola First Year Seminar program.

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"Data Competency for Academic Librarians: Evaluating Present Trends and Future Prospects"

This paper reports an investigation into the perception of academic librarians on data competency in their daily roles across various library departments in the United States and Canada. . . . The findings reveal a complex engagement pattern with data tasks, with librarians in data-specific roles dedicating a considerable portion of their work to these activities, while the majority engage less frequently, indicating that data tasks are a minor part of their overall responsibilities. . . . Our study identifies a crucial need for improved competencies in data management and collection development. . . Additionally, our findings reveal a critical gap between academic libraries’ demand for data skills and the content coverage in MLIS programs, emphasizing the need for curriculum updates to prepare librarians for the evolving information landscape.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2024.102897

Electronic Resources Metadata Librarian at MIT

Responsibilities include creating and editing metadata for e-serials, e-books, databases, and datasets in both MARC and non-MARC formats; maintaining collections; managing batch record imports; supervising two staff members; coordinating metadata production; fostering communication and building collaborative relationships within the library; staying updated on metadata trends and standards; developing training materials; advising on metadata policies; contributing to system-wide initiatives; and supporting the library’s vision of accessible knowledge through innovative metadata management.

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