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The new role of academic libraries in the changed circumstances: Effective and comprehensive support for researchers

Miro PušnikCentral Technological Library at the University of [email protected]

Zadar, PubMet, September 2014

Centralna tehniška knjižnica Univerze v LjubljaniCentralna tehniška knjižnica Univerze v Ljubljani

Changed circumstances for academic libraries

Academic libraries are changing in response to changes in the learning and research environment .

Technological changes (ICT development, media changes : from print to e, remote access to library services etc.)

Social changes (increasing number of published information and information resources, different needs and behavior of library users, different channels for publishing information, open access to scientific publications etc.)

Business model changes („big deals“ and consortia access to scientific literature, different licensing regimes)

Scholarly scientific communication changes (new policies of funders according to transparency of research work, double dipping“ and APC model, differences and alternative peer review systems, alternative metrics etc.)

New tasks (licensing, managing institutional repositories, RDM, evaluation of research work etc.)



Background

CTK as:

- Academic library covering engineering.

- University library of the University of Ljubljana in the field of engineering, natural sciences.

- Consortia management , organization of e-access to foreign scientific literature.

- Central specialized information center for engineering as a part of the SRA research infrastructure.



Background 1

41 employees, librarians and professionals from the field of engineering and natural sciences.

Annual budget approximately 3,5 mio. EUR.



Landscape of public research infrastructure in Slovenia



- Institutional funding

- Research equipment

- Scientific periodicals

- Scientific monographs

- Scientific conferences

- Foreign scientific literature

- Central specialized information centers

- Universities

- Research institutes

Research organizations in Slovenia

4 universities.

15 national research institutes.

Ca . 100 private (non-profit) research institutes.

Ca. 300 research organization in commercial sector.

> 14.000 registered researchers.



Role of the CTK in facilitating the public research infrastructure in Slovenia

Managing consortia for the e-access to international scientific literature .

Providing access to information resources and tools to support evaluation processes.

Central specialized information center for engineering.

Open publishing information support.

Participation in research projects to improve existing research evaluation systems.



Managing consortia

7 consortia for access to international scientific journals (Science Direct, Wiley Online Library, SpringerLink, ACS, IEEE, JSTOR, IOS Press) + Scopus.

Ca. 50 institutions as consortia members (over 100.000 potential users including students).

We : - Apply for the co-funding of the SRA to ensure budget; - Organize negotiations;- Perform formal procedures of acquisition (tenders etc.).



Managing consortia 1



Year Budget Members Usage Price per article

2006 2.030.706 9 465.522 4,36

2007 2.259.941 10 558.406 4,05

2008 2.619.742 13 625.444 4,19

2009 2.781.941 12 829.576 3,35

2010 3.734.256 22 1.140.633 3,27

2011 3.598.721 71 1.330.321 2,70

2012 3.790.267 56 1.302.580 2,91

2013 3.599.554 36 1.370.553 2,63

Managing consortia 2



Providing access to information resources and tools to support evaluation processes

In collaboration with the SRA we:- Are informed about SRA‘s needs;- Suggest products and organize trials;- Ensure the budget (tenders etc.);- Organize negotiation with providers;- Perform formal procedures of acquisition (tenders etc.).

Reviewer Finder – tool for searching peers based on semantic analyses of applications comparing with SciVerse Scopus.

SciVerse Scopus citation database with APIs to export data in COBISS.



Central specialized information center for engineering

The central specialized research centers (CSICs) were established for all scientific disciplines on the basis of a public tender in 2003. Main tasks are:

- To process, store and communicate specialized information to all users in their respective scientific fields

- To monitor and supervise the compliance of bibliographic units classification with the valid typology of documents/works for bibliography handling in the COBISS system

- Organization of the arbitration in the case of disputed typologies which have been assigned to some of documents/works Zadar, PubMet, September 2014


Workflow of research publication



Bibliographic record to COBISS

Typology, Journal title

APIs

CSICs verification

COBISS ID - EID COBISS ID – WOS UT

Typology of documents /works for bibliography management in COBISS http://home.izum.si/COBISS/bibliografije/Tipologija_eng.pdf



Open publishing and open access information services

Interoperable task force constituted in 2013.

Tasks:- Training and promotion- Dissemination of information about OA - Individual information advising and support during publishing processing - Active participation in OA policy-making on different levels

Further tasks:- Active cooperation with publishers to achieve the best possible conditions (embargo, Gold, Hybrid) according to upcoming national policy- „Orphan“ repository - Organization and operation of the ASC (Article Submission Charger), if needed according to the upcoming national policy- Research data management



Participation in research projects to improve existing research evaluation systems

Experts from the CTK participated in three research projects in the last few years.

Projects were funded through Target Research Programs (TRP) mechanism by the SRA.

TRP is a problem-oriented and targeted research program towards improving Slovenia's competitive capacity,

Relevant membership of the research group:- Researchers from the field- Researchers from other fields - CTK experts- SRA experts



Why academic library experts?

Knowledge of theoretical bases.

Practical experience on using implemented systems to evaluate research work.

Knowledge of bibliographic systems and rules.

Understanding of users needs on daily basis.

Knowledge of using information databases and tools.



Scientometric indicators: peer-review, bibliometric methods and conflict of interests

Research about the role of scientometric indicators in peer-review selection of research project proposals.

An ex-post facto evaluation of three calls for research project proposals in Slovenia (2003, 2005 and 2008) with three different peer-review systems was made:

- 2003 with a peer-review system designed in such a way that conflict of interest was not avoided efficiently, - 2005 with a sound international peer-review system with minimized conflict of interest influence , but a limited number of reviewers- 2008 with a combination of bibliometric measures and a sound international peer review with minimized conflict of interest influence.

Peer-review systems were compared using the same set of bibliometric indicators for all calls for proposals which was calculated on the basis of SICRIS data.



Scientometric indicators: peer-review, bibliometric methods and conflict of interests 1

Important outcomes:

- Firstly, the more sound and objective the used peer-review system is, the more convergent it is with the results given by scientometric indicators. In the last two decision-making systems (2005 and 2008) where conflict of interest was effectively avoided, we have a high percentage (65%) of projects that would have been selected in the call irrespective of the method (solely peer review or bibliometrics)

- In contrast, in the 2003 call there is a significantly smaller percentage (49%) of projects that would have been selected in the call irrespective of the method (solely peer review or bibliometrics)

- On the other hand, scientometric indicators can hardly replace peer review as the ultimate decision-making and support system

More: Južnič, et al. Scientometric indicators: peer-review, bibliometric methods and conflict of interests . Scientometrics, 85 (2010) 429-441



Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of Science in the view of national research evaluation in Slovenia

Aims of research:

- Assess publishing activity and citations received for researchers, registered in SICRIS between 1996 - 2011, indexed in both in SCOPUS and WOS, where linking between SCOPUS, WoS and COBISS were made with systematic authority control managed by COBISS (COBISS ID – EID, COBISS ID – WOS UT)

- Compare and assess the inclusion of documents

- Detect possible differences among the major research fields (scientific disciplines)

- Detect specific characteristics within the major research fields



Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of Science in the view of national research evaluation in Slovenia 1

Difference ~15,4 % Difference ~15,7%





Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of Science in the view of national research evaluation in Slovenia 2

The differences are most obvious in the fields of social sciences, humanities, and engineering & technology, with Scopus returning noticeably more results than Wos in the number of total documents and citations.

Bartol et al. Assessment of research fields in Scopus and Web of Science in the view of national research evaluation in Slovenia. Scientometrics, 98(2013)2, pp 1491-1504



An experience of the inclusion a new methodology in selecting the reviewers for grant applications

Peer review evaluation is a very important part of the decision making process in each annual Call for research projects proposals by the SRA.

Main tool for searching and the selection of reviewers was Elsevier‘s Reviewer Finder: - Semantic search- List of potential reviewers with bibliometric indicators - Possible conflicts of interest

Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) - a general measurement of agreement to represent agreements between two or more raters in a process of evaluation.

Responsiveness of the invited reviewers.



An experience of the inclusion a new methodology in selecting the reviewers for grant applications 1

Positive correlation coefficients were discovered in 46 out of 59 disciplines, which is an almost 15% better result than in the previous call of proposal, where Reviewer finder was not used as extensively.

Responsiveness: Portugal, Finland and Greece over 40%, Italy 39%. The poorest response was from some Scandinavian countries (Sweden and Denmark) and France and Switzerland.

One possible assumption was, that the researchers with higher h-index would more likely refuse the participation in peer evaluation, however our results revealed that in the majority of fields the h-index of a researcher was not a determining factor in the decision to enter a peer review process.

Zadar, PubMet, september 2014


The purpose of our researches

Not only theoretical discussions, but also practical and applicable recommendations to the SRA.

Based on our research, SRA implemented SCOPUS as additional citation database to measure publication and citation activities of Slovene researchers.

Reviewer Finder with internal algorithm for searching reviewers was implemented as a standard procedure to search and to invite international reviewers. It has been used twice so far in two different SRAs calls for proposals.

SRA basic intention: All procedures should be transparent.

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Education

consortia access

research projects

research environment

research organizations

sra research infrastructure

scientific publications

scientific disciplines

information resources