Category Archives: Issues & Opportunities

Citizen Science Webinar – June 10

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Those of you interested in Citizen Science – register for the webinar on 10 June “Citizen Science At Universities: Trends, Guidelines and Recommendations”. To attend the webinar, please, register here.

ABOUT THE WEBINAR: 

A number of European recommendations – including the League of European Research Universities (LERU)’s advice paper “Citizen Science at Universities: Trends, Guidelines and Recommendations” – highlight the importance of creating a single point of contact for citizen science within the institution.

In this webinar, organised by LIBER`s Citizen Science Working Group, four speakers will share what they are doing to devise just the right solution through a three-fold approach: 

  • Current trends within Citizen Science at universities; 
  • A template for a Citizen Science Single Contact Point which your institution could start developing;
  • A snapshot of the forthcoming Research Librarian’s Guide to Citizen Science and the possible roles research libraries could adopt to move the citizen science activities forward.

Examples of UC San Diego Citizen Science Programs, Initiatives, and Resources

Graphic of Citizen Science Projects by Topic, CCBY 2.0 by Sepulte. Based on 2015 data.

For UC San Diego researchers and citizen scientists interested in collecting, curating, preserving, and communicating the data you produce – contact the UC San Diego Library Scholarly Communications and Research Data Curation Program.

OASPA Call for Rapid Reviewers

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Please review the message and Open Letter of Intent below, share this information widely amongst your scholarly communications networks, and, if appropriate, consider signing up as a rapid reviewer here.
– Bernie Folan, OASPA, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

CC-BY 2.0 #WOCinTech Chat- 40 #flickr https://flic.kr/p/Fv3zVg

OASPA has today posted an announcement on our blog about the launch of a new initiative which sees scholarly publishers working together to maximize the efficiency of peer review, ensuring that key work related to COVID-19 is reviewed and published as quickly and openly as possible.
The group of publishers and scholarly communications organizations — initially comprising eLife, Hindawi, PeerJ, PLOS, Royal Society, F1000 Research, FAIRsharing, Outbreak Science, and PREreview — is taking a collaborative approach to speed up the review process while ensuring rigor and reproducibility remain paramount and has issued an Open Letter of Intent with calls to reviewers, editors, authors, and publishers in the research community. 

The initiative is asking for volunteer reviewers with suitable expertise relevant to COVID-19, from all career stages and disciplines, to add their names to a “rapid reviewer list“. By doing so, these reviewers will be committing to rapid reviewing times, and upfront agreement that their reviews and identity can be shared among participating publishers and journals if submissions get rerouted for any reason.

Additionally, the group is asking all potential reviewers, whether they sign up to the rapid reviewer list or not, to help identify and highlight important and crucial COVID-19 preprints as early as possible, to optimize the limited time of expert reviewers who are subsequently invited to review the most important and promising research by a journal/platform. 

Textbook merger and student pushback

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The U.S. PIRG group, consumer and antitrust groups, and SPARC are submitting letters to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to protest the merger of Cengage and McGraw-Hill, two of the largest textbook publishers.

When Cengage and McGraw Hill announced the merger, the companies claimed it would promote affordability by increasing the use of access codes — where students pay to submit homework online, and automatically bill students for materials. However, due to the lack of other options, the combined company would be able to effectively lock students into paying to submit homework, and eliminate the used book market. 

U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups, and partners submit letters to DOJ opposing Cengage -McGraw Hill merger. July 29, 2019

At UC San Diego, the LMS has been replaced with Canvas, a system embedded with Cengage, and Wiley, among other systems and products. The Wiley name might be familiar as one of the major journal publishers but the company has been moving into product development engaging the entire research lifecycle as we’ve seen with another high-profile publisher. (ongoing data collection of the rent-seeking and financialization of the academic publishing industry.)

It is worth libraries being conscious of the growing role of Edtech in the schools, colleges and universities that they serve. IFLA has produced this briefing to outline the key ethical and security concerns for libraries to consider, and suggest some ways for libraries to promote responsible and ethical use of Edtech.

Educational Technologies and Student Data – Briefing for Libraries, (July 31, 2019) International federation of Library associations and institutions, FAIFE (Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression) https://www.ifla.org/publications/node/92339

Contact us if you’d like to develop courses that include #OER and affordable course materials to ensure all of your students have access to the educational materials that you assign. Don’t add to the cost burden that students face! This campus is in a high cost housing area and we have high numbers of transfer students and low-income students. OER have been shown to lead to #studentsuccess #retention.

Make Textbooks Affordable – UCSD PIRG campaign

Social sciences focus in scholarly communication

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Where are the social sciences on the scholarly communications continuum?

In the blog post, “If you use social media then you are not working” – How do social scientists perceive altmetrics and online forms of scholarly communication?, based on the authors’ (@stl90 , @Isabella83,c@warfair) co-written article, “When You Use Social Media You Are Not Working”: Barriers for the Use of Metrics in Social Sciences, the authors voiced concern that social scientists are missing opportunities to directly engage in the public discourse due to discipline culture.

Meanwhile, MIT visiting scholar and sociologist, Philip N Cohen, wrote a primer for Scholarly Communication in Sociology that “will offer useful guidance for your career – to help you succeed in a competitive, opaque, inefficient system with little accountability. Knowing how the scholarly communication system works will help you navigate it successfully for your career ends. However, I also aspire to help you see the bigger picture in your career, and become an engaged citizen within this system so that we may work together to improve it.”

Female Rock Climber
Female Rock Climber by Eric Foltz on flickr

More OA Pathways: The Elsevier Chapter

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Collecting and updating the public news about Elsevier negotiations and possible exit, with a University of California focus.

Key Resources:

  1. Update on the UC’s Negotiations with Academic Journal Publishers and Potential Impacts in January 2019

  2. UC and Elsevier FAQ:  https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/publisher-negotiations/journal-negotiations-faqs/
  3. UC alternative access information:  https://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/open-access-at-uc/publisher-negotiations/alternative-access-to-articles/
  4. UC San Diego alternative access information:  https://ucsd.libguides.com/elsevier

2018-12-30

UC IS LEADING THE FIGHT FOR OPEN ACCESS TO RESEARCH, OpEd by UC San Diego’s faculty member, Eric Bakovic on December 30, 2018 in the The Mercury News (San Jose, CA) Authors: Eric Bakovic, Christopher M. Kelty and Karen Ottemann . UCSD access to OpEd through database subscriptions.

2018-12-30 International alignment across open access initiatives, funders and research organisations for a complete and immediate open access

There is an “urgent need to accelerate the transition to open access.” This post lists scholarly communications initiatives and developments regarding Elsevier led by the University of California.

2018-12-20 Elsevier willing to compensate editors to prevent them from ‘flipping’

“With Plan S rapidly approaching the editorial boards of some journals are considering leaving the paywalled journals at major publishing houses and ‘flip’ their journal to open access. To prevent editors from leaving, Elsevier now appears to be willing to pay editors considerable yearly amounts to stay on.”

2018-12-19 Max Planck Digital Library to discontinue the Society’s Elsevier subscription

“The Max Planck Society, one of the world’s largest research performing organizations, counting 14,000 scientists who publish 12K new research articles a year—around 1500 of which in Elsevier journals, has mandated the Max Planck Digital Library to discontinue the Society’s Elsevier subscription when the current agreement expires on December 31, 2018.

With this move the Society joins nearly 200 universities and research institutions in Germany who have already cancelled their individual agreements with Elsevier and affirmed their support of the national-level Projekt DEAL negotiations seeking transformative agreements as a strategy to drive large scale transition of scholarly publishing to open access.

As no sustainable offer meeting DEAL’s fundamental criteria for transformation has been forthcoming, negotiations are suspended and Elsevier cut off access last July. Despite the immediate implication of lack of access to new Elsevier content from January 1, 2019, the Max Planck Society’s researchers and highest level administration provided their full support in the decision. “DEAL is fully in line with the objectives of the OA2020 Initiative, which is strongly supported by the Max Planck Society,” emphasized MPS President Martin Stratmann.” Read the full press release here– Max Planck Digital Library

2018-12-19 UC San Diego post  Update on the UC’s Negotiations with Academic Journal Publishers and Potential Impacts in January 2019

CC-BY-NC 4.0 Allegra Swift. 2018

UC Libraries Journal Negotiations: FAQs

2018-12-12  In Talks With Elsevier, UCLA Reaches for a Novel Bargaining Chip: Its Faculty  – Faculty asked to suspend peer review.

2018-12-07 In UC’s battle with the world’s largest scientific publisher, the future of information is at stake. By Michael Hiltzik

Potential Changes to UC’s Relationship with Elsevier in January 2019 (2018-11-28)
Potential Changes to University of California’s Relationship with Elsevier in January 2019

OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians

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Looking forward to reading this #OER guide! Especially the chapters on intersections of #scholcomm and #infolit, and social justice.

Wesolek, Andrew; Lashley, Jonathan; and Langley, Anne, “OER: A Field Guide for Academic Librarians” (2018). Pacific University Press. 3.
https://commons.pacificu.edu/pup/3

Description

We intend this book to act as a guide writ large for would-be champions of OER, that anyone—called to action by the example set by our chapter authors—might serve as guides themselves. The following chapters tap into the deep experience of practitioners who represent a meaningful cross section of higher education institutions in North America. It is our hope that the examples and discussions presented by our authors will facilitate connections among practitioners, foster the development of best practices for OER adoption and creation, and more importantly, lay a foundation for novel, educational excellence.

Also useful for advocacy is the SPARC page on successful OER adoption models by academic libraries.

Plan S

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A group of 10 European research funders, supported by the European Commission and the European Research Council released plans to mandate a move to full, immediate Open Access for all of their funded research articles by January 1, 2020. Citing the detrimental effects of paywalls on the progress of science, a new document, “Plan S,” calls for “research publications that are generated through research grants to be made fully and immediately open, and not monetized in any way.” SPARC announcement

2019-01-24 UPDATE 

Harvard Library and MIT Libraries provide recommendations for Plan S implementation

By MIT Libraries on January 16, 2019 in Scholarly communication

Why Society and Not-For-Profit Journals Are Worth Preserving: Better Economic and Continuing Value for the Community (2018-12-06) and related by Martin Paul Eve, How Learned Societies Could Flip to Open Access, With No Author-Facing Charges, Using a Consortial Model, (2018-01-21). also cyber.harvard.edu/hoap/Societies_and_Open_Access_Research 

Plan S: “China Backs Bold Plan to Tear Down Journal Paywalls” (2018-12-05)

“Plan S: Impact on Society Publishers” Scholarly Kitchen (2018-12-05)

Towards a Plan S gap analysis? (2) Gold open access journals in WoS and DOAJ (2018-12-05) Follows Towards a Plan S gap analysis? (1) Open access potential across disciplines (2018-12-05)

Peter Suber: Thoughts on Plan S First see the plan itself: cOAlition S: Making Open Access a Reality by 2020

Martin Eve: Dial S for Strategy

Danny Kingsley: Relax everyone, Plan S is just the beginning of the discussion and Most Plan S principles are not contentious (2018-09-12)

Own work; Shaw, Henry: “Alphabets & Numbers of the Middle Ages” (1845) FROM THE GOLDEN BIBLE, printed at Augsburg[1] https://archive.org/details/handbookofmediae00shawrich

The Week in Review 2018-07-13

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Oppose an Amendment to Decrease Funding for NEH!

Late last night [July 17, 2018], the House began consideration of the Grothman amendment, which would cut the budget of the NEH by 15% or nearly $23 million.

This afternoon [July 18, 2018], the House of Representatives will consider an amendment to the FY 2019 Interior Appropriations bill that would cut the budget of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) by 15% or nearly $23 million.

If we can defeat this amendment, the House will then proceed with a vote on an Interior Appropriations bill that will increase the NEH’s budget by $2 million.

Call or write your Representative to oppose this amendment. Learn more about the amendment to reduce NEH funding here.

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LPForum2018 slides, videos, & reflections. Bonus: LPForum2019 news

Shared by Matt Ruen, Grand Valley State University and Chair of LPF Program Committee

This year’s Library Publishing Forum (May 21-23, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities) was a huge success, with:

Enormous thanks are due to our hosts, our sponsors, the Library Publishing Coalition Program Committee (listed below), and the library publishing community for making this our best Library Publishing Forum ever!

Slides and Recordings Available

Presenter slides and recordings from our video livestream are now available on the Forum program page and on the preconference page.

Reflections

We invited a number of community members to write reflections on the Forum and/or the preconference, and had a great response! Check out the following posts on the LPC Blog:

Still to come: reflections from the 2017-19 LPC Fellows and the LPC-AUPresses Cross-Pollination Award recipients. Keep an eye on the LPC Blog and our Twitter account!

2019 Library Publishing Forum

Join us May 8-10, 2019, in Vancouver, British Columbia for the 2019 Library Publishing Forum! Our first Forum in Canada, it will be hosted by LPC member institution Simon Fraser University at their Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver.

2020 Library Publishing Forum

Interested in hosting the Forum on your campus? Check out our call for proposals, open through August 31, 2018.

About the Library Publishing Forum

The Library Publishing Forum is an annual conference bringing together representatives from libraries engaged in (or considering) publishing initiatives to define and address major questions and challenges; to identify and document collaborative opportunities; and to strengthen and promote this community of practice. The Forum includes representatives from a broad, international spectrum of academic library backgrounds, as well as groups that collaborate with libraries to publish scholarly works, including publishing vendors, university presses, and scholars. The Forum is sponsored by the Library Publishing Coalition, but you do not need to be a member of the LPC to attend.

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International Journal of Open Educational Resources (IJOER) will be freely accessible via our upcoming website, with article submissions available through an online portal. We are very excited to contribute to the OER movement with our new journal.

Call for Proposals and to recruit Editorial Board Members

Initial goals are to:
-build an Editorial Board made up of international leaders in OER
-solicit article submissions for our upcoming fall 2018 issue.

A brief description of the International Journal of Open Education Resources (IJOER)

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The following notice was sent by Carmen MItchell, Scholarly Communication Librarian at California State University San Marcos

Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication (JLSC) seeks a Reviews Co-Editor to continue and expand a program of reviewing scholarship, platforms and tools, and programs and courses whose subject matter is directly connected to the publication scope of JLSC. The Reviews Co-Editor will serve a four-year term (2018-2022), staggered with the other Co-Editor, Carmen Mitchell, Scholarly Communication Librarian at California State University, San Marcos (2017-2021).

Call for applications by August 17, 2018 for JLSC Reviews Co-Editor

JLSC is currently accepting applications for a Reviews Co-Editor to continue and expand a program of reviewing scholarship, platforms and tools, and programs and courses  whose subject matter is directly connected to the publication scope of JLSC. See “More Announcements” for the full call.

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HOME FRONT

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Open Access Week is shaping up at the UC San Diego Library

 

 

 

The UCs are “Championing Change in Journal Negotiations”

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Major journal negotiations are slated for 2019 and the UC system is entering these negotiations guided by the principles and goals outlined in the “Call to Action.”

The goal of The Call is to responsibly transition funding for journal subscriptions toward funding for open dissemination. In coming months, it is important to have productive conversations and gather input from UC faculty, students, and researchers.

The Call to Action is now live on the University of California’s Systemwide Library and Scholarly Information Advisory Committee (SLASIAC) site. Ivy Anderson, the Director of Collection Development and Management Program at the California Digital Library (CDL), puts The Call into context in her enlightening blog post “Championing Change in Journal Negotiations.”

It has become increasingly clear that the problem of rising journal costs in the context of a widespread movement toward open access can only be addressed by tackling the subscription system itself.

Many peer institutions and consortia in Europe and elsewhere are actively pursuing this goal by committing to a transition to immediate open access publication as an alternative to subscriptions.  From the global OA2020 initiative with more than 100 signatories in 35 countries, to Projekt DEAL in Germany, and “No Deal No Review” in Finland, a global movement is gathering to address the unsustainability and restrictive nature of subscription-based journal publication by withdrawing library support for subscriptions and redirecting financial investments toward sustainable open access.

In support of the UCs’ distinctive mission to serve society and translate research into knowledge and innovations that positively impact California, the nation, and the world, stakeholders in new knowledge production are invited to weigh in on this initiative to change the course of the scholarly communication system to better serve the users and creators of scholarship and research.

 SLASIAC, UCOLASC, and the UC Council of University Librarians seek to engage the entire UC academic community, and indeed all stakeholders in the scholarly communication enterprise, in this journey of transformation.

We look forward to continuing to discuss these ideas with UC faculty, students, and researchers in the months ahead. We also hope that this call will promote further dialogue within the broader academic and scholarly publishing communities about how we can work together in partnership to achieve a more sustainable, inclusive, and open scholarly communication system that increases the positive impact of valuable research information throughout the world.

Supporting Documents:

 

Peter Suber comments on “COPYRIGHT IN THE HEALTH SCIENCES LITERATURE: A NARRATIVE REVIEW”

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“Abigail Goben and Alison Doubleday had the good idea to do a literature review on how scholars in health sciences discuss copyright. Overall the diagnosis is grim” – Peter Suber

This is consistent with what I have been experiencing across the disciplines here at UC San Diego..

“Most articles entirely ignore the idea of the public domain and provide rampant misinformation when mentioning fair use, open access, and Creative Commons licensing….

[A]ttribution and plagiarism are often conflated with copyright misappropriation; none of the articles that were examined addressed either the remixing or sharing cultures driven by current technology…

Noticeably absent were case studies outlining how copyright and fair use topics are addressed in specific circumstances or at specific institutions, as well as research studies investigating outcomes related to educational and training initiatives.”

Abigail Goben, Alison F. Doubleday

ABSTRACT

Health science educators, researchers, and clinicians are regularly faced with challenges surrounding copyright and fair use. However, little is known about how copyright is addressed in the professional literature. In order to identify themes and gaps, the authors undertook a narrative review of articles published in health sciences literature between 2000-2016. Only 154 articles were identified on the topic, which attempted to address areas of concern for educators, researchers, and clinicians across all health science disciplines. Overarching issues were identified including prevalence of misinformation or misunderstandings, particularly around fair use, and the continued need for authoritative copyright education and definition of best practices.