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Social Reading and eBooks
No full textThe success and mainstreaming of e-books is transforming not only the traditional/Gutenbergian idea of the book but also the previous idea of an e-book as mainly an enriched print book. In the new e-book concept, the nature of a book as an artifact is diminishing and disposition as a networked interface to the knowledge is rising. One of the most important emerging concepts is the social reading, which means reading acts while connected to the other people. Social reading is a new and not very well defined area of reading practices. In addition to the traditional reading together and discussing books person to person, social reading includes a large number of networked functions like sharing and receiving shared information. Research of this new phenomena is almost non existent, yet it is expected to be the next big thing in reading and in e-books. This study provides an overview of the history of social reading of printed books and then defines parallel features in the new digital reading activities. Research material consists of popular e-book software and services. The proposed categorization of social reading is based on content analysis of properties that were found in those services. This report claims that social reading functionalities are manifestations of the social needs that have existed during and even before the paper book; digital time enables re-emerging of some of those features, but in a different manner
Researchers and Open Data ? Attitudes and Culture at Blekinge Institute of Technology
No full textDuring March 2015, the Blekinge Institute of Technology library carried out an interview survey comprising around 36 senior researchers and postdocs mainly in engineering sciences, with the objective to get a picture of how research data is managed at BTH and to find out what the researcher attitudes are to sharing data. The survey showed that most researchers in the study were positive to sharing research data but lacked any experience of making data management plans and had little or no knowledge of data preservation or of sharing open data. Uncertainties about data ownership are also an issue
An Open Access E-journal: How to Find Out Readers\u27 Preferences? The Case of the ?Sciences Eaux & Territoires? Journal
No full textHow may we best evaluate an open access e-journal that is not intended to be cited in rank ?A? scientific journals? In this study, we took the example of a journal that connects research and professionals workers in the environmental sciences. We compared information from downloads with readership surveys. The main finding was that readers remember the best articles from a given issue and classify the issues based on this memory. A clear dichotomy can be observed: some readers are particularly interested in the management of biodiversity and pollution and others reject all that links to it
Lay Summaries for Research Articles: A Citizen Science Approach to Bridge the Gap in Access
No full textThe Patients Participate! project explored the feasibility of a citizen science approach to writing lay summaries for research articles. It involved a range stakeholders: funders of research (medical charities), service providers (the British Library), researchers and patients. Informed by practices within medical charities and the experiences of other citizen science projects, different methods were used to investigate trust, the skills required to produce a good lay summary, and the benefits of citizen science. A literature review into human factors was carried out and platforms for service delivery were analysed. The project was able to synthesise guidelines on participation in citizen science projects and the writing of lay summaries, and to identify challenges. This paper summarises the outcomes and lessons learned
We Should Not Light an Open Access Lamp and then Hide it Under a Bushel!
No full textThe rapid growth of hybrid journals in the last few years has seen an unfortunate side effect: the majority of Open Access (OA) articles published in those journals cannot be recognized as OA beyond the publishers\u27 websites, or by the discovery services used by researchers to access full-text articles. This reality has been demonstrated in the literature and solutions have been proposed. This paper explains the causes behind the problem, examines each of the proposed solutions, discusses the few implementations made with those solutions, and estimates whether the potential benefits merit the efforts required to implement the available solutions. Each of the solutions is analyzed from standardization and pragmatic perspectives. In particular, we critically analyze the solution proposed by NISO (RP-22-2015), and compare it with the solution offered by the JEMO project, which is based on using metadata elements from namespaces and XML schemas already being used by publishers. The contribution presents a number of case studies which show that research published as OA ends up erroneously being labelled as non-OA on the electronic services used by the end-user, when one of the components of the supply and delivery chain for e-journals fails to include OA information in its metadata. Furthermore, the case studies demonstrate that publishers of hybrid journals should not be the only ones being answerable for the problem. In fact, during the study, some publishers were actually not allowed to enable OA identification, at the article level, by key components of the supply chain. In those case studies, we worked with a sample of publishers that implemented the JEMO solution. From those experiences we draw answers to the main question of this presentation: which solution should be used to enable OA discovery from hybrid journals? What becomes apparent is that publishers are prepared and willing to implement any of the available solutions in their publishing workflow. The paper proposes that the simplest option is the best solution to provide standardized means to identify OA at the article level
Finding the Law for Sharing Data in Academia
No full textHow can universities provide good advice about the legal aspects of research data management? At the same time, how can universities prevent that perceived legal risks become barriers to: conducting research, sharing research data, valorisation of research data, and control mechanisms for the purpose of scientific integrity? A Dutch expert group developed a creative approach based on some core ideas3 about regulation in the field of academic research
On Key Bespoke Tools to Support Electronic Academic Document Discovery
No full textPublishing in academic journals and conferences has become faster, and easier with the ability to edit and submit documents electronically. With the increase of publications also come negative effects such as that of information overload and elevated discovery time of relevant resources. An information seeker often wades through several documents in order to find relevant publications having to either select known repositories for their search or utilizing generic search sources which network to several online repositories. Even with the advances in interactive systems, information seekers still carry out a mostly textual search from input to returned results. Several tools have been created by researchers in order to assist the seekers in their visual academic document triage activities but very few have been successfully implemented in actual discovery of electronic publications. With electronic publishing increasing dramatically, we recognize the paramount importance for these tools to be improved and integrated within environments to assist the seekers. In this work, we present an overview of key bespoke tools purpose built for achieving this document selection tasks. Using this work as a reference we hope to encourage structured and novel approaches to creating triage tools and improve the discovery process of electronic academic document publications
Sustainable Software as a Building Block for Open Science
No full textIn the context of Open Science, almost every ?traditional? research activity and output has been affected and transformed by means of web based technology. New forms of research output have emerged, among them software as an important means and method for data driven science. But how can software be treated as scholarly work, and how can it be integrated into a digital research infrastructure? The paper depicts software development related to Open Science and points out some future directions for software to become part of a sustainable research infrastructure
CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES ? Development of a Roadmap for Citizen Researchers in the Age of Digital Culture
No full textThe CIVIC EPISTEMOLOGIES project investigates citizen science and crowdsourcing in the domain of the research in Digital Cultural Heritage and Humanities (DCHH). The ultimate aim is to produce a validated Roadmap indicating the suggested direction that the deployment of services and infrastructures should take, in order to support the participation of citizens in the research processes and the participation of creative industries in the exploitation of digital cultural content. The case of DCHH is particularly relevant because of the major cross-cutting role that the humanities play in European research and innovation, recently acknowledged in a clear way in the Horizon2020 Community Programme for Research and Innovation. Cultural heritage and humanities also represent a subject area in which citizens are particularly active, counting several ? still spread - experiences of their involvement in recording, annotating and cataloguing activities on an individual or group basis, as volunteers and amateurs. The case of broadening e-Infrastructure deployment to support the participation of citizens to DCHH research, even if holding a strong impact potential for social cohesion and job development, is not yet fully explored. The paper discusses about the multidisciplinary approach to citizen science and how this method can contribute to the benefit of many scientific domains, research communities, and technology advancements as well as delivering novel social and economic impact
EKT ePublishing: Developing an open access publishing service for the Greek research community
No full textThe present contribution concerns a case study of open access scholarly publishing in Greece, its history and effect in helping the local researcher community transition from a print-only mode of work to online working environments and in rendering Greek publications and scholarship more relevant to the international scholarly community. The paper elaborates on the goals of the project and the challenges that were encountered and addressed during its implementation. The project, which started in 2007 with the transition of three print journals in the humanities to an online and print format and online working environment, culminated in the development of an online platform that provides access to content and services from a single point in the web, ePublishing.ekt.gr. As part of the National Documentation Centre (EKT)?s services, we systematize and upgrade the journals? policies according to international standards, provide an online working platform and training, digitize and release in open access academic articles (more than 3,000 articles in established journals, published by small, non-profit, academic/scholarly society publishers, so far), provide DOIs, as well as concentrate on electronic books and conference proceedings ? also to include purely online books in the future, starting with a born-digital monograph in a Humanities subject (onlineBook). In a nutshell, we have focused on providing publishers of scientific journals a range of comprehensive services which are constantly updated and improved in the light of the developments in scholarly communication, and which foster the internationalization, visibility, and preservation of research in these fields