An update on PIRUS2 and article level usage statistics
The PIRUS2 (Publisher and Insitutional Repository Usage Statistics) project - which I blogged about briefly in September and which is exploring technical, organisational and economic issues in collecting and aggregating article usage statistics from repositories and publishers - has now been underway for a few months.
The project plan is available from the JISC Web site, with further information available from the project Web site. The primary partners in this project are MIMAS, Cranfield University, COUNTER, CrossRef and Oxford University Press - which means that it is well placed to consider the many issues to which the collection, aggregation and use of article level statistics gives rise.
PIRUS2 is not alone in considering these issues and is in contact with the Open Access Statistik and SURFSure projects in Germany and the Netherlands respectively which are also working on collecting article level usage data from repositories. The projects are taking similar technical approaches. One key decision - which is in line with a recommendation of the JISC usage statistics review of 2008 - has been to format log data as OpenURL context objects. One explanation of OpenURL context objects can be found on the SURF Web site. Other standards being used are OAI-PMH and SUSHI for harvesting the usage data.
PIRUS2 continues to the end of 2010.
Sharing citations?
An international workshop in Amsterdam in March, funded by JISC, SURF and DRIVER, discussed work needed to improve interoperability between repositories. Four areas of work were focused upon:
- citation services
- interoperable identification systems
- repository handshaking (interoperable deposit systems), and
- repository organisation (supporting repositories around the world)
There’s more information and an update here:
http://repinf.pbworks.com/
There is also an option to sign up to this wiki / community.
Specifically now, there is a proposal for internationally coordinated work to enable repositories of OA research papers to share the citations therein. This is currently out for public review, and your comments would be most welcome. Please see the proposal here:
http://repinf.pbworks.com/Citation-Services-draft-project-proposal
There are some 15-20 funders of repositories infrastructure around the world (like JISC in the UK) also looking at this proposal, with a view to funding the work it describes.
Thanks
Neil
Economic case for open access
This morning, JISC released the report by John Houghton and Charles Oppenheim on the economic costs and benefits of three different models of scholarly communication – subscription, ‘gold’ open access and self-archiving with overlay services. The findings suggest that there are both considerable cost savings to be made by the HE sector by moving to open access, and significant benefits to the UK economy to be gained by doing so. Both the potential cost savings and the benefits run into hundreds of millions of pounds.
This is obviously important. It’s also important to stress that the research has been robust (we think it’s the most detailed modelling of scholarly communication), conservative (eg, the figures for cost savings and benefits to the UK economy assume that no subscriptions are cancelled), transparent (assumptions are clearly listed, and there is a simplified online model here where you can enter your own data to see the effect) and balanced (each model runs with a 20% return for those operating it).
[Please note the online model is an exe file, so you need to save it locally and run it as an application. It is does require some time to understand, and the notes are worth reading. Even simplified, the modelling is not simple]
There’s an outline of the report here, with links to the full version. Because it’s a complex piece of work, with potentially large implications, we have resisted the temptation to collapse the findings into a two-page summary at the moment, and instead we hope those interested will take the time at least to read the extended summary.
Information Environment (IE) & Virtual Research Environments (VRE) call for proposals: Briefing Day notes/Q & A
On 15th December a briefing day on the Information Environment and e-Research JISC Circular (12/08) was held. The event was held in order to provide an overview of the circular and to give people the opportunity to ask questions. The circular has £11m of JISC funding against it which is quite substantial. The calls in 12/08 focus on: digital repositories for learning and research, virtual research environments, use of text-mining and automatic meta-data generation and digital preservation. So in short the circular is seeking projects that are mainly about the creation, management and sharing of information that is part of the research and learning process in ways that support researchers, learners, teachers and administrators.
Here are the links to the presentations from the Briefing Day:
Policy and bid submission
Automated Metadata and Text-mining- strand A1
Digital Repositories: Start-up, rapid innovation and enhancement - strands A3- A5
Developing e-infrastructure to support research disciplines and digital preservation exemplars - strands A2 and A6
Virtual Research Environments (VRE) - strands B1-B3
Notes of the discussion and questions and answers from the briefing day:
IE and VRE Circular 12/08 15 December Briefing Day questions and answers
For some notes of the whole event as it went along see Andy Powell’s (Eduserv Foundation) live blog.
A few points of context:
JISC has funded projects and services in all of these areas previously. So what is different this time? I would say there are three general issues that underpin the projects sought in this circular:
* reflecting the maturity of digital repositories and other types of ‘e-infrastructure’ this circular is seeking further and improved alignment of these systems with user requirements. An emphasis in the calls is the need to involve/take into account end-users and a bringing together of these ‘e-infrastructure’ systems with research and learning processes.
* both the IE and the VRE strands of activity are about building on previous investment and lessons - so these are not completely new areas of activity. In the case of repository and digital preservation activity for example we’re seeking more repositories, improved repositories and policies, further integration with other systems and in areas such as digital preservation we’re looking for actual implementation of solutions that have previously been developed. However although this circular is generally about implementing areas where there has already been substantial work the projects are about improvement and so will involve new ideas and development.
* recognition that in many cases cross domain teams and skills are required to create, manage, use and develop digital systems, supporting policies and related practices within institutions.
The decision to publish the IE and VRE call strands together was partly a practical one as both funding areas were due to issue circulars at the same time, but there was more to this decision than that. Publishing them together was, I think, essential in terms of showing that information systems should not be developed independently of the requirements of the research process. I think if we’d published the calls separately there would’ve been a danger of perpetuating this often unhelpful division. In particular the projects sought under A2, Developing e-infrastructure to support research disciplines bridge both areas and seek to bring the research process and scholarly communications requirements together with underlying information systems. This particular strand in the IE calls also represents the fact that developing the Information Environment (or e-infrastructure) is not just about managing and disseminating information it is about supporting and improving research (and of course learning and teaching, although the projects called for under A2 focus on research). I think the connections that are emerging between both the IE and VRE programme areas are a good thing and are inevitable to progress.
Institutional and Subject Repositories
This question comes up reasonably often: what is / should be the relation between institutional and subject OA repositories? There are some surprisingly strong views on this question. A JISC report just completed takes a very pragmatic line, simply asking where are the areas of common interest and where can the two types of repository help each other? The SIRIS report identifies a range of ‘drivers’ and ‘enablers’ that could form a shared agenda for collaborative work between institutional and subject repositories. Being a JISC report, the focus is on the UK, but it’s unlikely the issues are very different elsewhere.
Grant Funding Opportunities
An update on funding opportunities …
This month, November 2008, we will be releasing a Call for projects for grant funding. Outline details are on the Grant Funding Roadmap. UK FE/HE institutions are eligible to bid, with some types of projects restricted to HEFCE- and HEFCW- funded institutions, due to funding streams.
We’re finalising the Call at the moment, but you won’t go far wrong if you start thinking about what you want to do in:
- implementing automated metadata and textmining
- starting up repositories for research data, research papers, learning materials
- networking and enhancing repositories
- preservation in relation to repositories
- short technical projects to improve repository services
- connections between services to support particular disciplines
Bidders will have until January to prepare proposals, and succesful projects will be expected to start by 1st April 2009.
For those of you most interested in supporting research, please note there will also be a Call for projects related to Virtual Research Environments.
If learning and teaching resources are of particular interest, in December there will also be a Call for the forthcoming HEA/JISC Open Educational Content programme.
Date for your diary: Monday 15th December will be a Briefing Day for anyone who would like to come and hear about the funding opportunities related to the Information Environment and Virtual Research Environment Calls. It will be in Central London, probably 10-4. Details will be released soon.
If you’re not based in UK FE/HE, you may be interested in the Funding Roadmap for Invitations to Tender. These are open to anyone, so if you think you have expertise relevant to the sort of issues reported on this blog, then tenders are very welcome.
We will announce the Call on this blog as soon as it is released.
Changing library services…and some views on digital repositories.
I have just read the Ithaka report on Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education 2006, Housewright & Schonfeld, published August 25, 2008. I hadn’t intended to spend Sunday morning reading this but a colleague, Dicky Maidment-Otlet, sent me an email about it and it seemed well worth a read.
It sets out an analysis of the most significant findings from some surveys of academic librarians and academics (faculty) mainly focused on scholarly communication and library services. The US based surveys were carried out in 2000, 2003 and 2006 and the changes are reported. Although I would say there are not many surprises in the report, it does help reveal some trends and issues that libraries and those interested in serving learning and research need to get to grips with. The library functions are categorised as 1) purchaser 2) archive 3) gateway and the perceptions of librarians and academics toward these are set out, it tends to focus a little more on the academics views. Some of the main findings and conclusions are:
* The library is generally becoming less visible and the perceived dependency on the library reduced (humanities academics having more dependency than scientists). The report summarises this as ” although librarians may still be providing significant value to their constituency, the value of the brand is decreasing”;
* Academics see the role of the library as a gateway as less important but librarians still think this is a core function; although this is coloured by users accessing resources from other places (e.g. search engines/remotely) so they may not always realise they are accessing a library resource.
* The report says ” Libraries are providing these high growth fields [information provision to scientists] value in the acquisition of resources - for example licensing costly journal collections - but otherwise have been relatively absent from the workflow…”;
* Increased importance on electronic materials for academics and librarians and readiness to cancel print subscriptions or depose of print materials (although again there is a disciplinary difference between humanities, social scientists and scientists, with the scientists being furthest towards the electronic trend and using resources remotely);
* Librarians seeing value in e-books but academics being far less enthusiastic;
* Visibility of research being more important to scholars than open access publishing;
* The case for shared preservation initiatives for journals being made;
* In order to support cross disciplinary and cross institutional research and learning there is a need for “system-wide approaches” and shared standards and protocols.
Overall the report makes the case for the need to better understand user requirements so that relevant services can be provided, and for the ability to change where appropriate to be taken seriously. It also makes the point that: “Deep consideration of how the library community can best serve scientists and preserve scholarly values in the face of a rapidly changing and increasingly commercial ecosystem is needed, both on a local and the system level.” These all appear to be sensible and helpful conclusions that libraries (and organisations like JISC) need to respond to.
I think the changes implied by the report require work at various levels for example these changes might include any of the following: marketing, a different strategic approach to service delivery for different disciplines, tackling changes by working across a range of stakeholders not just libraries and academics, but management and funders too, providing change at a local level but also being prepared to provide what the report calls “system wide” services.
The issues raised in the report are all relevant to the UK academic library sector (the data being from the US will mean some differences) and the Information Environment programmes and other JISC activity. I think the findings mainly support work we’re doing, examples being the LOCKSS pilot, the e-journal archiving registry, work that will follow on from the JISC/SCONUL Library Management Systems study, further user requirements analysis etc. But defining how best to deliver information services is a real challenge and one we need to put a lot of effort into if we are to provide a relevant infrastructure for research and learning. Sometimes aspects of this are about significant longterm change and not about immediate benefits. We need to take a long view with regards to change and impact, whilst also dealing with the here and now and quick wins. Perhaps the report could’ve dealt with these different aspects a little more (although that probably wasn’t the purpose of the report), and it does cover them, in particular it points out that some disciplinary groups are early adopters.
Since a lot of our programme activity has centred on digital repositories over the past five years I thought I’d end on the digital repository section (pages 24-26 in the report). The following statements from the report do in some respects challenge some of ways in which digital repositories are sometimes viewed. Whilst I think none of this is cut and dried and digital repositories can both support the stewardship of resources and more effective scholarly communication (indeed I think repositories are definitely helping improve access to research) I think these points are worth raising and I’d be interested in people’s reactions to them.
“Although a popular topic of discussion is the possibility of repositories to transform scholarly communications, this objective is not widely held by librarians.”
“Faculty interest in objectives for repositories basically matches those of librarians, being interested principally in using them to organise and preserve local material.”
“…we do not foresee institutional repositories yielding a transformative influence on the business side of journal publishing. Other types of digital repositories, especially those for storing images and special collections, are much more likely to continue to grow in importance at all types of institutions.”
Manuel Castells and Open Access
Manuel Castells and Professor John Barrow featured in a recent edition of the Forum programme on the BBC World Service. It was an interesting discussion, touching on Castells’ view of the emerging network organisation and society, and Professor Barrow’s observations on scientific practice in that context. Castells sees ICT as affording advantage to organisational arrangements that are horizontal (rather than bureaucratic), featuring loosely coupled units of highly skilled professionals, using project-oriented relationships with other such units to get work done. It is a picture that many academics will find familiar of course. Professor Barrow cited arXiv as an example of researchers working in this way, contrasting it with the more traditional “institution” of accessing the literature via journals. Might he also have mentioned libraries? This did make me think about Lorcan Dempsey’s ideas of the network effect and gravitational pull on the web, but also of arXiv’s ability to embed itself and provide value in researchers’ everyday workflow, as they work in network organisations. Providing this kind of appropriate infrastructure for other disciplines remains a challenge.
Harvesting usage data?
I was talking with a researcher the other day who said that, despite his institution mandating deposit of research papers in his institutional repository, he didn’t comply - prefering to deposit in an international subject repository. Naturally, I asked him ‘why?’. He said that it was because he wanted each of his papers to be in one, and only one, place on the web, so that he could get accurate download statistics for it. Obviously, we’re aware in the JISC IE team of the various arguments on this topic, and we’ve funded a piece of work to look at the practical ways in which subject and institutional repositories might work together, which could address this issue among others. We’ve also funded various projects on repository statistics, such as ‘Interoperable Repository Statistics’ (which has developed a tool that repository managers can use to analyse and share statistics) and an ongoing small piece of work on harmonising article-level usage data formats. There is also MESUR and other projects in this space.
However, in the real world, it is likely that copies of some research papers are likely to be at various places on the web, and we wondered whether a tool could be built that used fuzzy matching to identify copies that were probably the same paper, some means of querying the servers on which they sat to get download data, and a reliable way of then aggregating that data into some acceptable statistics. Is that an important use case? Is feasible to build something that addresses it?
What’s the relationship (if any) with name authority services (see the JISC pilot Names project) or persistent identifiers (see the JISC Resourcing Identifier Interoperability for Repositories - RIDIR demonstrator)?
Bringing repositories to the attention of university senior managers
There are two new JISC briefing papers on repositories. One is concerned with the benefits of managing and sharing learning objects, the other with managing and sharing research outputs.
JISC and UUK are sending these papers to senior managers in universities next week. The papers should arrive on desks on Monday 16th of June. With any luck, the briefing papers will pique some interest in repositories or at least make sure the concept is familiar to senior managers.
This may represent an opportunity for capitalising on this familiarity or interest with further advocacy directed at senior managers about repository services, policies or projects.
The recipients are likely to be:
- Vice Chancellors,
- DVC Academic,
- DVC Research,
- University Secretary,
- Deans of Schools
Plus some of:
- Records Manager,
- Dean of the Graduate Research School,
- Director of ICT Systems,
- Director of Library& Information Services,
- Director Academic Enterprise,
- Principal Lecturer Pathfinder E-Learning (central post)
The briefing papers can be found on the JISC website:
Learning objects: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/elearningrepositoriesbpv1.aspx
Research: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/researchrepositoriesbpv1.aspx