Tuesday, August 5, 2014

CDL and CrossRef agreement to benefit EZID’s library publisher clients

Today, August 5, 2014, California Digital Library and CrossRef announced an agreement that opens a route for the library publishers served by CDL’s EZID service (ezid.cdlib.org) to participate in the scholarly communications hub created by CrossRef. EZID’s non-profit publishing clients will be able to submit CrossRef metadata via EZID and then take advantage of CrossRef’s services, including search and discovery, persistent linking, tracking of funding and licensing information, text and data mining, and more. Read the full press release here: http://www.crossref.org/01company/pr/news080514.html

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

DMPToolv2 released: online tool for effective data management plans

Data Management Planning Tool More Responsive to Researchers’ Needs

The University of California and several partners have released a new version of a free tool that helps researchers and their institutions create effective data management plans required by the federal government. 

The DMPTool v2 aids researchers with this critical component of research practice required by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF). Under the 2013 Office of Science and Technology Policy directive, this requirement will expand to nearly all federal agencies within the next year.

With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, DMPTool project partners built a tool that guides researchers in creating plans that meet an array of funder requirements and provides embedded assistance and suggestions for successfully completing the plan. Partners creating the second version of the tool include the California Digital Library’s UC Curation Center (UC3), the University of Virginia Library, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Purdue Libraries, the Smithsonian Institution and DataONE.

“This innovative technology was created by a talented group of colleagues working together,” said Patricia Cruse, Director of UC3. “This highlights the importance of collaboration in the success of complex projects such as this.”

DMPTool v2 was built in response to users’ requests for an array of new features, including increased functionality for plan creators and administrators. Plan creators can now collaborate with colleagues, get institution-specific help and easily share their plans publicly or within their institution. Institutional administrators can easily customize their plans with local branding, templates and assistance tailored to the institutions.

“I'm looking forward to the increased functionality of the latest version of the DMPTool, which will help researchers at my university win more grants,” said Stephanie Wright, data services coordinator for the University of Washington Libraries.  “I’ll also use it to strengthen the relationship with our university’s Office of Sponsored Programs, and advance our conversations on institutional data management policies.”


Use of the DMPTool has grown to 115 institutions that have configured their campus single sign-on or customized the technology for their users. Participating organizations are located across 40 states and the District of Columbia, with California leading nationally with 20 participating organizations.

This press release was issued by UC’s Press Room, June 3, 2014:

Friday, May 30, 2014

Metrics, Identifiers, & Profiles - UC Office of Scholarly Communications

"How should scholarly communications be evaluated? Because scholars’ work varies so widely, it’s impossible to find quantitative measurements that work equally well for everyone, but more and more tools are being developed to provide a broader picture of a work’s relevance and importance in its field and beyond."

Metrics

"Scholars have long been evaluated based on how many publications they have, and which journals or presses they publish with. Sometimes these journals are ranked or scored with systems like Impact Factors, Eigenfactors, and other journal ranking systems."

Data Citation Formats - online guide

http://datapub.cdlib.org/datacitation/

Helpful information on basic data citation, citing dynamic data, deep data citation, and various discipline specific citation.

Prepared by John Krause, UC Curation Center, California Digital Library,University of California 

Article: Data publication consensus and controversies - 2014

Kratz J and Strasser C (2014) Data publication consensus and controversies [v1; ref status: approved with reservations 1, http://f1000r.es/3ag] F1000Research 2014, 3:94 (doi: 10.12688/f1000research.4264)

Abstract


The movement to bring datasets into the scholarly record as first class research products (validated, preserved, cited, and credited) has been inching forward for some time, but now the pace is quickening. As data publication venues proliferate, significant debate continues over formats, processes, and terminology. Here, we present an overview of data publication initiatives underway and the current conversation, highlighting points of consensus and issues still in contention. Data publication implementations differ in a variety of factors, including the kind of documentation, the location of the documentation relative to the data, and how the data is validated. Publishers may present the data as supplemental material to a journal article, with a descriptive “data paper,” or independently. Complicating the situation, different initiatives and communities use the same terms to refer distinct but overlapping concepts. For instance, the term “published” means that the data is publicly available and citable to virtually everyone, but it may or may not imply that the data has been peer-reviewed. In turn, what is meant by data peer review is far from defined; standards and processes encompass the full range employed in reviewing the literature, plus some novel variations. Basic data citation is a point of consensus, but the general agreement on the core elements of a dataset citation frays if the data is dynamic or part of a larger set. Even as data publication is being defined, some are looking past publication to other metaphors, notably “data as software,” for solutions to the more stubborn problems.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

New OA journal 'Scientific Data' from Nature

Scientific Data


"Scientific Data is an open-access, online-only publication for descriptions of scientifically valuable datasets, and exists to help you publish, discover and reuse research data.

Scientific Data’s main article-type is the Data Descriptor: peer-reviewed, scientific publications that provide an in-depth look at research datasets.

Data Descriptors are a combination of traditional scientific publication content and structured information curated in-house, and are designed to maximize reuse and enable searching, linking and data mining.

Each is peer-reviewed under the supervision of our Editorial Board.

Data Descriptors include detailed descriptions of the methods used to collect the data and technical analyses supporting the quality of the measurements, but do not contain tests of new scientific hypotheses, extensive analyses aimed at providing new scientific insights, or descriptions of fundamentally new scientific methods.

Hosted on nature.com — the home of over 80 journals published by Nature Publishing Group and the destination for millions of scientists globally every month — Data Descriptors are disseminated to the widest possible audience through a programme of continuous online publication.


All accepted Data Descriptors will be published, under an open-access licence selected by the authors, on payment of an article-processing charge (APC) that also includes the data-record curation process."

Scientific Data 1, Article number: 140010 ​doi:10.1038/sdata.2014.10

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Beyond Bibliometrics - new book from MIT Press

Harnessing Multidimensional Indicators of Scholarly Impact

Beyond Bibliometrics

Harnessing Multidimensional Indicators of Scholarly Impact

Overview

Bibliometrics has moved well beyond the mere tracking of bibliographic citations. The web enables new ways to measure scholarly productivity and impact, making available tools and data that can reveal patterns of intellectual activity and impact that were previously invisible: mentions, acknowledgments, endorsements, downloads, recommendations, blog posts, tweets. This book describes recent theoretical and practical advances in metrics-based research, examining a variety of alternative metrics—or “altmetrics"—while also considering the ethical and cultural consequences of relying on metrics to assess the quality of scholarship.
Once the domain of information scientists and mathematicians, bibliometrics is now a fast-growing, multidisciplinary field that ranges from webometrics to scientometrics to influmetrics. The contributors to Beyond Bibliometrics discuss the changing environment of scholarly publishing, the effects of open access and Web 2.0 on genres of discourse, novel analytic methods, and the emergence of next-generation metrics in a performance-conscious age.
Contributors
Mayur Amin, Judit Bar-Ilan, Johann Bauer, Lutz Bornmann, Benjamin F. Bowman, Kevin W. Boyack, Blaise Cronin, Ronald Day, Nicola De Bellis, Jonathan Furner, Yves Gingras, Stefanie Haustein, Edwin Henneken, Peter A. Hook, Judith Kamalski, Richard Klavans, Kayvan Kousha, Michael Kurtz, Mark Largent, Julia Lane, Vincent Larivière, Loet Leydesdorff, Werner Marx, Katherine W. McCain, Margit Palzenberger, Andrew Plume, Jason Priem, Rebecca Rosen, Hermann Schier, Hadas Shema, Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Mike Thelwall, Daril Vilhena, Jevin West, Paul Wouters

About the Editors

Blaise Cronin is Rudy Professor of Information Science at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author of The Hand of Science: Academic Writing and Its Rewards.
Cassidy R. Sugimoto is Assistant Professor in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Bloomington.

Monday, May 19, 2014

SPARC Kickoff Webinar for Open Access Week 2014

SPARC webinar on Monday, May 19th,  to help kickoff your planning for this year's International Open Access Week 2014. The webcast featured a panel of experts who have organized successful Open Access Week events in years past. Each described their approach to celebrating the week, give advice on ensuring a successful event, and outline any challenges that other organizers might prepare for. While Open Access Week is five months away (October 21-26, 2014), beginning to make arrangements now can ensure a smooth planning process and provide the foundation for successful events to meaningfully advance the conversation around Open Access on your campus.

The expert panelists included:
Marianne Reed, University of Kansas: Marianne has helped spearhead many years of successful Open Access Week programs at the University of Kansas on behalf of the Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright, targeting students and faculty. The events have even included a presentation by their local Congressperson, Representative Kevin Yoder, on the topic of Open Access.

Daniel Mutonga, Medical Students' Association of Kenya (MSAKE):
As the former president of the Medical Students' Association of Kenya, Daniel led the organization's extremely successful Open Access Week campaign in 2012 which hosted events at medical schools across the country and, in one week, educated a signficant portion of Kenya's medical students about Open Access.

Anneliese Taylor, University of California, San Francisco:
As Assistant Director for Scholarly Communications & Collections, Anneliese has helped lead UCSF's participation in Open Access Week with events that put the issue into local context and support the successful implementaiton of the system-wide open access policy at UCSF.

See more details and the archive of the webinar and related resources

Friday, May 16, 2014

ASCE targeting faculty posting copies of their own work - 16 May 2014

General info (May 16, 2014)
Specific case re: the University of California system (March 13, 2014)

Avoiding a DMCA takedown notice

For any UC authors worried about receiving such a takedown notice, here are the tips we provided when we heard about the Elsevier notices some campuses were receiving last year:
  • Post the correct version of your article.  Usually the author’s final version – after peer review but before the publisher formats it in the journal layout – is allowed for self-archiving, and this is the version the open access policy supports.  Relatively few publishers allow authors to post the published version of their article.
  • UC faculty adopted an Open Access Policy on July 24, 2013. If you’re dealing with an article published after the policy passed – and if your journal does not ask you for a waiver or embargo – you are expected to post your article in UC’s eScholarship Repository and can make it available anywhere else you like. Make sure to use the author’s final version (see above).
  • For articles not covered by the policy, read what you signed. You can also check the journal’s policy page, or the SHERPA/RoMEO database of journal policies. Often you can post the author’s final version, but you may need to wait until a year or two after publication.
  • Compare the policies of different journals in your field. If you have multiple publishing options, opt for the ones that give you more control over your work, and not those that are going to send legal notices to your university. The University of California will keep this page updated with information about publishers that have agreed to respect authors’ rights, and how publishers are responding to the UC Open Access Policy.
  • Get help understanding your options. UC Libraries staff are available to answer your questions.
More details from the UC Office of Schoalrly Communications website

University Presses Under Fire - Scott Sherman. The Nation - May 26, 2014

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

UCI Libraries: Open California Tour - SPARC presentation on Open Educational Resources

Open California Tour:  Friday, May 16th

Raising the Impact of Research, Scholarship and Education Through Openness

Technology is enabling research and discovery in new and exciting ways and is expanding our ability to share knowledge and educate in new and expanding ways.  New models to share and educate include Open Access, which allows for free, immediate online availability of research publications to any reader and with full reuse rights, and Open Educational Resources, which make textbooks and teaching materials free for anyone to edit, adapt, and share.  With the UC Open Access policy and one of the largest group of world-class research scholars in the world, the University of California system is positioned to be a global leader in shaping and directing these new models to expand access to knowledge, accelerate research and learning, and reduce financial pressures.

As part of a week-long tour of California universities, two prominent experts on Open Access and Open Educational Resources, Nicole Allen and Nick Shockey from SPARC, will visit UC Irvine on Friday, May 16, 2014. Their talk will focus on how openness can accelerate scholarship, benefit researchers, and improve education—including specific recommendations for how members of the campus community can get involved.
Presentation, including Q&A session, will be held:
Date:  Friday, May 16, 2014
Time:  10:00 – 11:00 AM
Location:  Langson Library, Caroline A. Laudati Meeting Room (5th Floor)    [map & visitor parking]

Followed by an informal discussion:
Date:  Friday, May 16, 2014
Time:  11:00 – 12:00 PM
Location:  Langson Library, Room 110 (first floor)  [map & visitor parking]   [Langson Library map]

For more information & updates:  http://www.lib.uci.edu//features/spotlights/sparc-op-ed.html

Presentations on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/txtbks

Questions?  Contact Mitchell Brown  |  949-824-9732  |   mcbrown@uci.edu


Sponsored by UC Irvine Library

Video: E-Textbook Initiatives in Libraries and IT Organizations

A new video of a project briefing session from CNI's spring 2014 meeting is now available:
Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
Spring 2014 Membership Meeting
March 31 - April 1, 2014
St. Louis, Missouri
http://www.cni.org/mm/spring-2014/

E-Textbook Initiatives in Libraries and IT Organizations (37:31)
Glenda Morgan & Milind Basole (UIUC), Pat Reid (Purdue), and Todd Grappone (UCLA)


Video of the presentation is now online at http://youtu.be/VY_Y8Z5MaH4 and http://vimeo.com/91958807

Session Description:
A lot of attention has recently been paid to library publishing initiatives around scholarly works and research. Less attention however has been given to work that is happening in both libraries and information technology (IT) organizations around publishing of e-textbooks and other instructional resources. These materials take a number of different formats: some are open, some involve copyrighted material, they use a number of different technical platforms with a number of different affordances. This panel illustrates some of the variety of different initiatives occurring around the country on e-textbook publishing in libraries and IT. The presentation highlights the available opportunities and the progress being made as well as the challenges. Despite these challenges the session includes an argument for an increased role of both libraries and IT organizations in publication of original instructional materials in the form of e-textbooks.

Look for more announcements soon on videos of other sessions from the spring 2014 CNI meeting. To see all videos available from CNI, visit CNI's video channels on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/cnivideo) and Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/channels/cni).                                             

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

AGU makes journal content more accessible

American Geophysical Union (AGU) has taken two major steps forward in making Earth and space science research more accessible to scientists and the public:
  • Beginning 1 May 2014, access to all AGU journal content and Eos from 1997 to content published 24 months ago will be made freely available. This change will apply to all articles and supplementary materials from journals that are not already open access, and it currently represents more than 80,000 articles and issues of Eos. Additional content will continue to become open every month, on a 24-month rolling cycle.
  • AGU has joined the innovative Access to Research initiative through its publishing partner, Wiley. This program provides patrons of U.K. public libraries instant online access to journal content from 1997 to the present at the library.
In addition to these new initiatives, AGU offers Green Open Access after six months that allows the author's copy to be placed in a repository, and we now have three fully open access journals - JAMES, Earth's Future, and the recently announced Earth and Space Science, which will publish its first articles later this year.
Please see further details in the press release.

AGU Website

AGU galvanizes a community of Earth and space scientists that collaboratively advances and communicates science and its power to ensure a sustainable future.

AGU Science Policy Conference: 16-18 June Abstract Deadline: 30 April Early Registration Deadline: 21 May

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

ARLIS/NA Launches new E-Publication

On April 15th, 2014, the Art Libraries Society of North America launched the first issue of its newest publication, the Multimedia & Technology Reviews, an e-publication made freely available on the ARLIS/NA website.

The Multimedia & Technology Reviews (M&T Reviews) targets projects, products, events, and issues within the broad realm of multimedia and technology as they pertain to arts scholarship, research, and librarianship. While assessing current products and projects, these reviews are also designed to engage readers in a conversation about how technologies and multimedia are being or can be deployed within our profession and by our constituents. The issues are published bi-monthly, alternating with the publication schedule of the ARLIS/NA Reviews.

M&T Reviews is managed by co-editors Hannah Bennett, Elizabeth Schaub, and Emilee Mathews, who also serves as the appointed liaison to the ARLIS/NA Reference and Information Services Section (RISS) to ensure that an area of the M&T Reviews directly reflects the sorts of tools and resources of interest the RISS membership. Reviews are written by volunteer reviewers, elected by the M&T Reviews co-editors.  One does not need to be a member of ARLIS/NA or a professional librarian in order to get involved with this publication. Those interested in volunteering to review are encouraged to read over the publication’s policies and guidelines.


Issues are published on the Multimedia & Technology Reviews website within the ARLIS/NA’s organizational website.  

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Digital Humanitites, text encoding, and librarians article

Facilitating Communities of Practice in Digital Humanities: Librarian Collaborations for Research and Training in Text Encoding.

Harriett E. Green
The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, Vol. 84, No. 2 (April 2014), pp. 219-234
Article DOI: 10.1086/675332
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/675332

It includes brief descriptions of how eight libraries used TEI.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

DOAJ launches new application form

Today [March 20, 2014], after an extended period of consultation and development, DOAJ launched a new and much extended form for journals wishing to be included in the DOAJ.

 Read the press release and access the form here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dr3jnOygvuDlONSBv8lho4McQsEPFd0a5gtxjCmKd9k/edit?usp=sharing

 The form has been structured to collect upfront from the publishers as many quality indicators as possible about the journal. These indicators will be assessed as part of a journal's application. The form also introduces the DOAJ Seal, a mark of approval that shows how a journal strives towards Best Practice.

Friday, March 14, 2014

UC Irvine School of Education professors named inaugural editors of new open-access journal

March 2014

 The American Educational Research Association has named Greg Duncan, Mark Warschauer and Jacquelynne Eccles (pictured left to right) as the inaugural editors of AERA Open, a new open-access journal. Warschauer, professor of education and informatics and associate dean of UC Irvine’s School of Education, will serve as editor-in-chief of the publication, with UC Irvine Distinguished Professors of education Duncan and Eccles as co-editors. AERA Open is among only a few open-access journals being produced by social and behavioral science associations. Warschauer, Duncan and Eccles were selected after an extensive nomination and application process. “Education research is a field that seeks to study and lead in innovation and learning,” said AERA executive director Felice J. Levine. “Who could hope for anything more than the Warschauer-Duncan-Eccles team as inaugural editors?” The journal will publish important cumulative and incremental research and aims to serve as a forum for innovation, new inquiry and ideas, interdisciplinary bridge building, and work that fosters the connection of research to policy and practice. It will begin receiving manuscripts on July 1, the start of the new editors’ four-year terms.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Launch of Open Access Workflows for Academic Librarians (OAWAL)


Given the rapid expansion of open access content both by commercial entities and academic institutions, Graham Stone, University of Huddersfield and Jill Emery, Portland State University have created a wiki/blog encapsulating the major building blocks of open access management in the academic library setting.

 The intention of OAWAL is that it will be an openly accessible wiki/blog site for librarians working on the management of open access content. We hope that librarians can build on OAWAL to create context sensitive workflows at their given institutions. We are crowdsourcing feedback from the scholarly communication community currently working with open access management to see if these concept overviews are of value and if there are others that should be included.

You can find OAWAL at: https://library3.hud.ac.uk/blogs/oawal/

You can submit feedback to this project via the comments sections of the blog or directly via email to Graham Stone (G.Stone at hud.ac.uk) or Jill Emery (Jill.Emery at gmail.com).

We also encourage anyone who has existing workflows in place to share these with us in order to help build a repository of OA management examples. Graham Stone and Jill Emery will  be hosting roundtable discussions on this project at ER&L, if attending please join us for this discussion: Introducing OAWAL:crowdsourcing best practices for open access workflows in academiclibraries. In: Electronic Resources & Libraries 2014, 16-19 March 2014, AT&T Conference Center Austin, Texas.


Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Updated Univ. of California website puts answers to copyright questions at your fingertips

An updated and revised UC Copyright Website was quietly launched in mid-February and has been publicly announced on the UCnet website at: http://ucnet.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/2014/03/updated-website-puts-answers-to-copyright-questions-at-your-fingertips.html .  This revised site will be very helpful in working with faculty on the subject of copyright.

The new look and feel is aligned with the UCnet “brand,” and has clearer navigation and a more welcoming and accessible format than the previous version, which was 10 years old. The pages were edited for clarity and web-based reading, and to help users get to the information they need.  Based on comments from around the UC community, more information will be added to the site in the near future, including help with interpreting UC’s Copyright Ownership Policy.  Other changes and additions can easily be made with the new format and new content management system.


The site is the responsibility of the Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee (SLASIAC) and its Standing Subcommittee on Copyright Policy.  

Monday, March 3, 2014

University of California awards contract to Symplectic for the implementation of a publication harvesting system to support UC’s Open Access Policy

The California Digital Library (CDL), in conjunction with University of California campus partners, has chosen Symplectic as the vendor to implement a publication harvesting system in support of the UC Open Access Policy, passed by the Academic Senate in July 2013. 

Symplectic’s flagship product, Elements, will form the basis of a research information management system intended to simplify participation in UC’s OA Policy by providing an efficient method for faculty to deposit their research into eScholarship, UC’s institutional repository. This system holds great promise for dramatically increasing the rate of deposit of faculty publications in accordance with the policy.

With a robust set of features that address the specific requirements of the UC OA Policy and the needs of UC authors, Elements will closely monitor publication sources, including public and licensed publication indexes, for any new materials published by UC authors. Once a new publication is detected in the indexes, the system will collect as much information about that publication as possible and contact the author(s) by email for confirmation and manuscript upload. Author-approved publications will then be automatically submitted to eScholarship, where they will be openly available to the public.

Symplectic, a UK-based developer of integrated research information management systems, was chosen after an exhaustive RFP process, conducted by members of the CDL team and representatives from the three pilot campuses: UC Irvine, UCLA, and UCSF.  The publication harvesting system will launch in June 2014, and will serve the three pilot campuses. Contingent on funding and review by the Academic Senate, the system will be extended in June 2015 to cover the remaining UC campuses.

Further developments in the implementation of this harvesting system can be tracked by visiting the Open Access Policy Implementation (OAPI) wiki or subscribing to the OAPI mailing list.


To learn more about the UC Open Access Policy or to contact us with questions, visit the Office of Scholarly Communication site.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Does your library need a digital humanities center? Essay from OCLC Research

Digital Humanities: Options for research libraries covered in new essay


The digital humanities (DH) are attracting considerable attention and funding at the same time that this nascent field strives for an identity. Some research libraries are committing significant resources to creating DH centers. But questions about whether such an investment is warranted persist across the cultural heritage community. More »

Friday, February 7, 2014

Mythbuster: U.S. Digital dissertations not required for Library of Congress under Mandatory Deposit rules

[Reprinted from posting to ETD-L discussion group on January 31, 2014]

The question of mandatory deposit for U.S. dissertations seems to cause confusion because there are various myths percolating about (1) whether dissertations MUST go to the Library of Congress to comply with the Mandatory Deposit rule in US Copyright law and (2) How to get dissertations to the Library of Congress. With the aim of dispelling myths, an analysis of the question was posted to this blog at http://sites.tdl.org/fuse/?cat=13.

The upshot is that the all-digital dissertations do not need to go to the Library of Congress at this time. That is because their rules specifically exempt dissertations that exist only in digital format.
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