1,720,979 research outputs found
Open Science training and education: challenges and difficulties on the researchers' side and in public engagement
No full textOpen Science may become the next scientific revolution, but still lingers in
a pre-paradigmatic phase, characterised by the lack of established
definitions and domains. Certainly, Open Science requires a new vision of
the way to produce and share scientific knowledge, as well as new skills.
Therefore, education plays a crucial role in supporting this cultural change
along the path of science. This is the basic principle inspiring the collection
of essays published in this issue of JCOM, which deals with many subjects
ranging from open access to the public engagement in scientific research,
from open data to the social function of preprint servers for the physicians’
community. These are issues that go along with the targets of the FOSTER
project (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) funded
by the European Union, which has provided interesting food for thought in
order to write this commentary
OpenstarTs: a "lean" approach to ETD publishing
Full text linkIn November 2004, almost all Italian Universities subscribed the Berlin declaration on open access during a seminal workshop promoted by the Italian Conference of Rectors. The University of Trieste accordingly put forward a project aimed at setting up an institutional repository for archiving, storing and preserving electronic theses and dissertations (OpenstarTs).
Theses are to be considered both administrative documents and intellectual works. They are all born digital; therefore they can be digitally archived.
The whole workflow of the submission of theses needs to be redesigned by integrating the schedules already in place while avoiding duplications.
This entails the elimination of paper copies altogether; a godsend, given our dramatic space problems!
Digital archiving through and OAI compliant system enhances the visibility of graduates in the eyes of potential employers as their works are widely and effectively disseminated thanks to interoperability and compliance to the metadata harvesting protocol.
DSpace, an open source software maintained by MIT and HP, which can rely on a lively international federation, was chosen as it fulfilled our requirements and was duly customized to reshape the workflow as follows.
Students (as well as administrative and academic staff) are recognized through their registration numbers via the on campus authentication system (LDAP).
The registrar’s department data warehouse holds all the relevant information on the students’ academic careers. These data are certified and have a legal value, as awards are automatically produced by the system. The data required when submitting theses and dissertations are therefore checked and validated within the registrar’s existing system.
Self-archiving procedures are consequently simplified to a huge extent, and students find the submission interface extremely friendly and usable. They only have to type their registration number and the system retrieves the metadata related to their theses, such as faculty, course, supervisor and tutor names, academic year, and provisional title (which is modifiable). The error probability fall downs to zero.
Students can then focus on providing accurate “semantic” metadata: keywords, abstracts and tables of contents.
The last step is to attach as many files as the chapters of their theses and to specify the permissions on each file. Students are entitled to the intellectual property of theses, as the law protects the form and expression of ideas, not ideas themselves. The theses submitted can therefore have a mixed availability status, according to the will of their authors.
As soon as the students submit their theses, OpenstarTs accordingly notifies it to the registrar’s department data warehouse, and students can relax and prepare until the defence day comes. No need to print out and bind expensive paper copies, let alone queuing up to hand them in! After the successful presentation and defence of theses, metadata are validated and theses enter the repository to all purposes.
In time our institutional repository will be opened up to all the University intellectual production by tailoring the OpenstarTs model to educational and research purposes and needs
Archivi aperti e sapere diffuso: l'esperienza dell'Università di Trieste
No full textL’Università degli Studi di Trieste declina anche in questo modo la cosiddetta
“terza missione”: un impegno costante e concreto a valorizzare e condividere in
rete la conoscenza prodotta al suo interno per “contribuire allo sviluppo e al benessere
della collettività”, nell’accezione più ampia del termine
The SHARD Project: evidence based guidelines for the preservation of historical research data
No full textSHARD was a JISC funded project (2011-2012) uniting the skills of the University of London Computer Centre (ULCC), the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and HistorySpot. It used a qualitative methodology to analyse the data management practices and needs of historical researchers, and developed free online training materials for the preservation of research data. In addition the SHARD team worked with parallel projects in the JISC programme, at London School of Economics (LSE) and Cambridge University, to create a series of FAQs, and the leaflet, “Sending Your Research Material Into The Future”, designed by Malcom Raggett, and reproduced in this poster with an Italian translation by Stefania Arabito
Time to harvest: electronic doctoral theses in Italy
No full textThe Libraries Committee of the Conference of the Rectors of Italian Universities, hence CRUI, has recently approved the Guidelines for archiving doctoral theses in Institutional Repositories. The Guidelines are the first step of an initiative aimed at putting the principles of the Berlin Declaration into effect in Italian Universities. The CRUI Working Group on Open Access has conceived the Guidelines as a toolkit for Italian Universities, i.e. practical and legal advice for managing and disseminating theses via Open Access IRs. This paper will detail the text of the guidelines reporting the main issues addressed by the Working Group. Legal implications have been rated as a top priority, and an embargo period has been required to protect patents and works in publication. Metadata have been defined in accordance with both European recommendations (Knowledge Exchange) and Italian National Libraries.
requirements, in order to implement national and international service
interoperability. Delivery formats for long term preservation have likewise been
judged as a matter of great importance.
This paper will illustrate how CRUI recommendations are affecting Italian
University policies by presenting the results of a survey conducted early this year.
The legal deposit of electronic doctoral theses via OAI-PMH, a parallel project
started in 2007, has recently obtained full support by the Ministry of Cultural
Heritage and has already reached the test phase. This paper will show the potential
impact in terms of enhancing national discovery and provision services
Assessing the effectiveness of a national resource sharing system
No full textPurpose - The purpose of this paper is to report on the surveys, carried out during 2011 and 2013, regarding the functionality of and possible improvements to Italy's nationwide resource sharing service NILDE (Network for Inter-Library Document Exchange).
Design/methodology/approach - The methodology comprises both an analysis of quantitative data about ILL transactions initiated during a 2011 study and a qualitative assessment of the system based on information obtained from the surveys and a SWOT analysis. This proved to be an effective methodology, and a new survey was launched in 2013 to verify whether the choices made and the projects undertaken were in line with user expectations.
Findings - The results turned out to be particularly interesting and a source of hints for planning future improvements.
Originality/value - Italian studies for assessing user satisfaction of library services, based on user surveys, often relate to a single library or a single University. The NILDE survey was delivered nationwide to all the registered users of NILDE. This is the most extensive survey for the number of libraries and the various types of end users involved
Le linee guida per l'accesso aperto alle tesi di dottorato
No full textPur essendo prodotti della ricerca a tutti gli effetti, le tesi di dottorato hanno sempre avuto una scarsa diffusione e un sottoutilizzo derivato dal fatto che risultano consultabili solo presso le biblioteche nazionali centrali di Roma e Firenze, dove l'accesso e la fruibilità sono limitati da una serie di vincoli. Il trattamento delle tesi, inoltre, è risultato essere molto difforme tra le varie realtà universitarie. Accanto a realtà più avanzate dove le tesi sono già disponibili ad accesso aperto attraverso un deposito istituzionale, ci sono realtà nelle quali le tesi vengo raccolte in formato cartaceo. Il gruppo di lavoro CRUI OA si è posto come primo obiettivo la stesura di Linee guida che servissero come punto di riferimento agli Atenei italiani, perché potessero essere adottate soluzioni simili e coerenti. L'articolo illustra i punti fondamentali delle Linee guida per l'accesso aperto alle tesi di dottorato, soffermandosi soprattutto sulle problematiche legate al quadro normativo, ai metadati e ai formati
Time to Harvest: Electronic Doctoral Theses in Italy
Full text linkThe Libraries Committee of the Conference of the Rectors of Italian Universities, hence CRUI, has recently approved the Guidelines for archiving doctoral theses in Institutional Repositories. The Guidelines are the first step of an initiative aimed at putting the principles of the Berlin Declaration into effect in Italian Universities. The CRUI Working Group on Open Access has conceived the Guidelines as a toolkit for Italian Universities, i.e. practical and legal advice for managing and disseminating theses via Open Access IRs.
This paper will detail the text of the guidelines reporting the main issues addressed by the Working Group. Legal implications have been rated as a top priority, and an embargo period has been required to protect patents and works in publication. Metadata have been defined in accordance with both European recommendations (Knowledge Exchange) and Italian National Libraries requirements, in order to implement national and international service interoperability. Delivery formats for long term preservation have likewise been judged as a matter of great importance.
This paper will illustrate how CRUI recommendations are affecting Italian University policies by presenting the results of a survey conducted early this year. The legal deposit of electronic doctoral theses via OAI-PMH, a parallel project started in 2007, has recently obtained full support by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and has already reached the test phase. This paper will show the potential impact in terms of enhancing national discovery and provision services
Le linee guida per l'accesso aperto alle tesi di dottorato
Full text linkEven if PhD thesis are "products of the research", they have always had scarce diffusion and use because they are availale only at the National Libraries of Rome and Florence. The way in which PhD thesis are considered is very different: there are universities that encourage Open Access PhD thesis, while in other universities these theses are still papery.
This article aims to show the main points of the Guidelined for open access PhD thesis, underlining the problems related to the regulatory framework, metadata and formats
FEST: “La comunicazione scientifica nel ventunesimo secolo: Google e oltre”
Full text linkThe overview of a whole-day conference within FEST - science and media fair, Trieste, May 18th, 2007, featuring Alberto Salarelli and Rob Tansley, Alma Swan and Leslie Carr plus Jens Vigen talking about scholarly communication, open access and research impact
- …
