shifting ground: scholarly communication in geography

Shifting Ground: Understanding Scholarly Communication in

Geography

Heather Whipple, Data/Liaison LibrarianElizabeth Yates, Liaison/Scholarly Communication Librarian

Ian Gibson, Collections Librarian

May 28, 2014 ~ CAG @ Congress

Free to use or share with attribution

Today’s outcomes

You will recall:• Strategies for finding & sharing scholarly information

sources• Characteristics of changes in scholarly publishing,

including Open Access• Important publishing platforms for geography• Strategies for evaluating a journal• Characteristics of traditional and new forms of

measuring research impact

Finding geographical research

• Geographers research everything, everywhere: no single research database can keep up• Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar• Other specialized disciplinary databases with overlap• Use advanced search options to limit by subject,

keyword• For example: geograph*

Finding geographical research

• Google Scholar• If you are affiliated with a university, make sure your library is linked to

your profile for easy access to subscription content• Set up citation export preferences• Set up alerts (also available for journals & databases)

• Access when you’re between affiliations• Public library databases• Alumni access to ILL• Author websites & research repositories• academia.edu & researchgate.net

Sharing your research

• Make sure YOUR WORK can be found

• ORCID & ResearcherID

• Publishing and Getting Read. 2013 (RGS)

• Ballamingie, Patricia, and Susan Tudin. 2013. "Publishing graduate student research in geography: the fundamentals." Journal Of Geography In Higher Education 37, no. 2: 304-314.

Sharing your research

• Research Data Management• Best practices for preserving your data over the long term• Plan for the future• Plan for sharing• Plan for reuse• Plan for protection of vulnerable or proprietary content• Increasingly expected as part of funding applications

Publishing then

Publishing now• Open, online journals

• Digital academic presses

• Online repositories

• Funding agency policies supporting OA

• Greater support for author rights

• Free, immediate online access to scholarly research• No end-user fees• Usually greater freedom for re-use

Open Access = greater impact

Open Access Citation effect:• Open Access articles are cited significantly more

than non-OA articles

Article downloads:• Open Access articles are downloaded significantly

more than non-OA articles

Open Access = more rights

Morrison, H. (2014). Dramatic Growth of Open Access: December 31, 2013: first open source edition.

http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/

Growth of OA publishing

OA Policies: global growth

http://roarmap.eprints.org/

How does OA work?

Publishing is not free!

Costs are covered by means such as:• Article processing fees• Advertising• Sponsorship by a scholarly society• Researcher memberships

Repositories

Image: 'Dolmabahçe Palace...' http://www.flickr.com/photos/37134982@N00/1266859025Found on flickrcc.net

• Online archives of scholarly content• Subject-based or

institutional e.g. Brock Digital Repository• Search global

repositories via:opendoar.org

Open Access in Geography

• DOAJ• 572 titles for geograph* anywhere• 118 titles for Geography (general) by subject

• PLOS One• Acme• Cities and the Environment (CATE)• OA journals for other related disciplines• DOAR

• 43 disciplinary repositories for Geography and Regional Studies• your best option might fall under another subject category

How do you evaluate a journal?

a. My advisor recommended itb. It has a high Impact Factorc. I found it on Google Scholard. It looks prettye. The editor emailed me and asked me to send in an article – it will only cost $500 to publish!

Some guidelines

Source: Brock Library (2014) Guidelines for evaluating a journal. http://brocku.ca/library/services-lib/faculty/guidelines-for-evaluating-a-journal-publisher

• Check aims, cope & subject coverage• Are its policies on peer review, open access,

copyright, etc., publicly available?• Do you recognize researchers in your field?• Where is it indexed?• Does it have an Impact Factor or alternative metrics?• Does it appear on a “watch” list e.g. Beall’s list

of predatory publishers? scholarlyoa.com/2014/01/02/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/

• If it charges fees, are they clearly explained?

Journal Impact Factor

Citations = citations in the current year to articles published in the past two yearsCitable articles = number of articles published in the past two years

E.g.

1. If articles published in your journal in 2010-2011 were cited 50 times in 2012

2. And your journal published a total 100 articles in 2010-2011

3. Your journal’s impact factor is: 50/100 = .5

Problems with Impact Factor

• A quantification of quality• Only pertains to journals, not people• Only counts journals indexed in

Web of Science (geography?)• Can be easily gamed

Image: 'choking' http://www.flickr.com/photos/36613169@N00/299060326

Found on flickrcc.net

Individual metric: H-Index

H = n papers that have been cited at least n times

• reflects both the number of publications and the number of citations per publication• based on a list of publications ranked in descending

order by the times cited

E.g.

• if I have an H-index of 2, that means I have written two papers that have been cited at least twice

Issues:• rewards prolific authors, long careers• doesn’t reward groundbreaking ideas

and papers that get a lot of citations• only relevant for fields that focus on

articles, articles, articles

There is no perfect metric

Declaration on Research AssessmentGeneral Recommendation

1. Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist's contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.http://am.ascb.org/dora/

Alternative Metrics

• For articles• For

individuals• For

institutions

Broader scope:-”real world” AND academic impact-articles AND code AND blog posts AND reports, etc.-beyond use to how and why -focus away from journal and onto article, individual

Article Level Metrics: PLoS

• Metrics for each article publically displayed• Categories: Viewed, Cited, Saved, Discussed, and

Recommended• PLoS metrics software openly available

• http://www.plosone.org/article/metrics/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030366

Individual metrics: Impact Story

• https://impactstory.org/• Works best with permanent identifier eg ORCID or

ResearcherID• Open source project aggregating multiple outputs >

DOIs, URLs, software, slides, etc.• metrics sorted by engagement type and audience

Institutional metrics: Plum Analytics

• 5 categories of metrics: usage, captures, mentions, social media & citations• Multiple outputs including articles, books, videos,

presentations, datasets, etc.

• E.g. of institutional use > The Smithsonian https://plu.mx/g/smithsonian/

Use with caution

http://mikuru.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/under-construction.gif

Copyright: What is it? Why does it matter?

• a form of intellectual property• takes effect the moment a work is “fixed”

(doesn’t apply to ideas, facts)• applies to all genres – books, periodicals,

charts, software, films, music, works of art• Protects your rights as a creator:• to reproduce, publish, alter, sell, etc. the work• copyright infringement > is unauthorized

copying or use of a work

What can you do?

No. 1 > Read your copyright agreements!

• research your publication options• negotiate more copy-rights• use Creative Commons licensing --

creativecommons.org• publish with an Open Access platform

White clouds in the deep blue, by backtrust; from stock.xchng

Summing up

• Scholarly publishing is in transition• We have the ability to discover vast quantities of

information• We have the ability to share vast quantities of

information• Some publishers are nervous about what this might

mean• You have opportunities to decide how you want to

engage with this changing realm• You have opportunities & responsibilities to understand

how your work is measured, contained, and promoted.

Thank you

Presentation slides ~ http://www.slideshare.net/ElizabethYates

Presentation links ~ http://bit.ly/CAG2014sc

Heather Whipple ~ hwhipple@brocku.caElizabeth Yates ~ eyates@brocku.ca

Thanks to Ian Gibson for metrics & altmetrics content