supporting research dissemination john maccoll european director, rlg partnership james toon eris...

Supporting Research Dissemination

John MacCollEuropean Director, RLG Partnership

James ToonERIS Project ManagerEdinburgh University Library

RLG Partnership Annual Meeting, Chicago, June 2010

Supporting Research Dissemination 2

Context


Minnesota: anthropological approach


Actionable intelligence … Assisted thinking

Analysis and synthesis of the available evidence base

Improved understanding for library management

oclc.org/research/publications/library/2009/2009-02.pdf


accessing

assessing

chaining

disseminating

networking

Interdisciplinary

probing

translating

Humanities

Sciences direct

searching

scanning

co-authoring

coordinating

monitoring

data-sharing

browsing

collecting

re-reading

assembling

consulting

note-taking

Breaking behaviours down by discipline

Adapted from C. Palmer, L. Teffau, C. Pirmann (2009)


RIM: overlapping environments


Meeting researchers’ needs


RIN


Ithaka


UCB


Our joint project with UK Research Information Network: Support for research workflows


New elements to our study

•Focus on dissemination excluding traditional journal and monograph publishing

•Focus on subject librarians/faculty liaisons•Focus on repository support for scholarship


Enhancing Repository Infrastructure in Scotland


Scotland and Open Access


Some history: Scottish Collaboration in Open Access

• History of collaborative activity (i.e. SCURL, SHEDL, SDLC, IRIScotland, ERIS)

• Open Access as a reaction to the ‘scholarly communications crisis

• Open Access meeting 11th October 2004, Royal Society of Edinburgh

• Scottish Declaration on Open Access launched at that meeting (OATS)

• First joint OA project IRIScotland funded by JISC June 2005 and ran until 2008


Scope, aims and objectives

• Development, assessment and engagement of user communities

• Raise issues surrounding the longevity and broader value of research output

• ‘Attending to the demand side’, technologically

• Strategic recommendations, business planning and sustainability


Scottish toes in the water …


A few findings from our work

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adambot/2733161467/


Levels of engagement

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Aware of your IR? Ever used it? Ever used SRs?

Arts &Humanities

Biosciences

Science &Engineering

SocialSciences

• 69.7% (216) of respondents were aware of the existence of a repository

• 44.8% (139) have deposited something in their repository, with 80% finding it either very easy, or easy to do.



Keep on my local PC/Laptop

40%

Copy to a CD/DVD and file offsite

11%

deposit in my institution's repository

15%

Send them to a departmental

administrator to manage/store

7%

Put an approved copy on my personal or

departmental website12%

Deposit in a subject based repository

3%

Put the approved copy of the submission onto a networked drive at my

institution so it is backed up

12%

However on average, only 15% submit to their IR as a matter of course as well as to publishers

15%



Referral to institutional

repository (via search engine

or personal referral)

59%

Direct search using

institutional repository19% (11% own, 8% other)

Never used an institutional repository

22%• Repositories are

being used for research, but very rarely are they used directly.

• Normally via referral (43% via search engine, and 16% referral from colleague


From focus group work (some key points) – open access

• Researchers generally see repositories as being there to support their institutions support for OA

• Personally they are generally supportive of OA, but there are pro’s and con’s and no single convincing argument (and don’t think their should be)

• Researchers have been doing OA – if they wanted to – for years now, by fair means or foul!

• Variation in support across career paths (early career to senior academic)

• The drive to OA can be damaging in some cases


From focus group work (some key points)• The pressure to publish in recognised journals

is significant, and is an administrative and career need (in the UK at least)

• Must have ability to exercise personal control over everything that is in the repository (to provide or revoke access at will)

• Repositories don’t offer anything that the researcher finds sufficiently of value to motivate deposit.

• Library providers are disconnected from the researchers real needs (as far as researchers are concerned)


Long term availability and reuse of research

• Those responsible for service and support are unequipped;

• Low awareness of digital curation and preservation issues, and little to no practical experience

• Policies that do exist are part of corporate initiatives and are often box ticking exercises

• Domain specific guidance for preservation and curation policy tends to sit outside of the institution, indicating issues of leadership and direction


Long term availability and reuse of research• Those responsible for research are unequipped;

• Open access is easy in relation; [insert your term here] curation is hard.

• Potentially huge overhead for the researcher

• Services for preservation and curation support are generally lacking

• ‘We can't stand on the shoulders of giants if we only have access to their knees1’

• Growing support for principle of open scholarship, but requires change in philosophy, not practice.

1. Quote from Vision Learning Blog, may 24th 2010 http://visionlearningcommunity.blogspot.com/2010/05/journal-nature-continues-open-access.html


Indication of the scale of the issuePut the approved copy

of the submission onto a networked drive at my


12%


3%





7%


15%


11%


40%


Indication of the scale of the issuePut the approved copy

of the submission onto a networked drive at my


12%


3%





7%


15%


11%


40%

63%


Research pooling• Not just for assessment, but for effective

strategic management of research

• Genuine desire for full text and bibliographic data for knowledge management (KT really important)

• Have strong backing from their members. Discipline trumps institution.

• Data must be broader than just IR – need to include HR, Finance, Knowledge data, Grant data, Funder data…….

• They know they want data, but they don’t know what they want or how to define it.


A few observations (not conclusions)

• Systems and services not based on user needs

• Repository use often by ‘accident’

• There is no single approach – every institution/discipline/researcher is different

• Its all about me, me, me.

• We can often talk in a foreign language

• We can often not talk at all

• Failure to add value has meant that we had to resort to mandates/requirements – sticks not carrots.


‘What is the future of the repository?’• As it is – are we heading

the way of the Dodo?

• Must gain trust of the users

• Two clear paths – support for knowledge and research, and support for research management

• Institutional repositories are only part of the eco-system of systems servicing the research life cycle

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124372821@N01/167871469


Work with users to gain trust and define direction• Stakeholder communities are identifiable and

similar across Higher Education

• Many varied needs.

• Roles and mission are however not universally well defined in context.

• Lack of internal support means they are often looking outside their institutions for comfort.

• Stakeholder groups want to collaborate and communicate

• Need greater facilitation. Opportunities for national networks


Develop roles and up-skill support services • All through the ERIS exercise, the need for

effective research support has been key

• Need to develop specialist roles to support the research life cycle

• Take a role in helping researchers with the dissemination of knowledge

• Work more closely together with research offices as ‘information specialists’

• Economies of scale in services need to be considered for cost/benefit (unpopular)


Support the dissemination of knowledge• Open access is still a goal, but not *THE* goal of

repositories. Discuss.

• Open scholarship/knowledge revolves around effective curation of ‘data’. Discuss.

• “The coolest thing to do with your data will be thought of by someone else1”

• Being linked and being open is important (open standards esp.)

• How to engage in an open, social world. Participate, collaborate and innovate – not reinvent the wheel.

1. Attributed to Rufus Pollack, via http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/05/xtech_day_3_rufus_pollock_and_.php


Research Information Management Systems

Image reproduced with kind permission of the Universities of Aberdeen and St Andrews


Make change to an objective, outcome based approach.

• Programme of activity to develop enhanced capability over time.

• Investment in enabling activities

• Services for researchers

• Services for strategy and management

• Services for ‘service managers’


The study


Researcher behaviours

• This Working Group will look at the use of repositories – institutional and subject – and other venues where attention is focused by various communities

• It will examine social networking mechanisms for dissemination, considering the spectrum of community services grouped around research activity (including informal community spaces, blogs, blog aggregation services, microblogging, etc )

• Faculty participants will also be asked about tools and services not currently available that they would value, at institutional and at domain levels

• Focus will be on the use of repositories, not the deposit process


Library responses

• How are changing researcher practices being monitored by libraries?

• What does the use of these tools and services imply for libraries (eg in respect of harvesting, curation, bibliometric services and preservation)?

• What new services should libraries provide (eg bibliometric data reports generated from repositories)?

• Is there missing infrastructure that might valuably connect discrete data sources to serve research bibliographic and data curation needs?

• How do libraries support scholarship rather than administration?


U Minnesota: Karen Williams on changing faculty liaison roles (ARL study): from new Position Description Framework

Jim Neal: ‘

Subject Libraria

n 2.0’


Nil desperandum … Hugh Glaser (Computer Scientist, U Southampton); email to JISC-REPOSITORIES, 2 June 2010

‘the pages the School was offering for me by embedding my publication data in the official profile pages was far superior to anything I could make myself’


U Minnesota: Karen Williams on changing faculty liaison roles (ARL study)


Process


RLG-RIM SRD group – Plan/Process (1)

• Identify and define scope of stakeholders and how are they going to contribute to the project

• Establish contact with contributing group

• Write and agree project definition work

• Arrange telcon to sign off approach with stakeholders at end June

• Project Website and social tools to be used for user communication and collaboration

• Set up and make available communication routes

• Set up simple communications plan by end June


RLG-RIM SRD group – Plan/Process (2)• Liaison librarian engagement plan

• Agree data collection method, questions and targets for work by end June

• Prepare materials for project participants

• Prepare datasheets, questions, check-sheets etc for data collection by mid July

• Compiled, ordered data from sources

• Data returned, sorted and ordered by end August

• Mid August partner telcon to discuss progress and push if necessary

• Data analysis

• Review of collated data and order for reporting by end Sept


RLG-RIM SRD group – Plan/Process (3)

• A Final report on the RLG/RIM SRD activity for publication

• First draft out for review by mid Oct.

• Partner telcon at end Oct to sign off report for publication

• Publication due mid November.

• Planning for alternative dissemination routes

• Set activities to promote final report (presentations, blog posts) on ongoing basis

• Closure report, identifying follow on actions including handover and wind-down activities

• Project wind down and hand over to RLG by end November

Discussion!

[email protected]

[email protected]


Next up

4:00Lightning Rounds

Buckingham

supporting research dissemination john maccoll european director, rlg partnership james toon eris...

Documents

research pooling

research workflows

research dissemination25

scotland slide

reporting slide

water slide

sustainability slide

scholarship slide