Keynotes – JCDL 2017

Building Knowledge to Scale in the Context of Open Social Scholarship: A Humanist’s Perspective

admin — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:24:17 +0000

Describing academic production up to early last century, literary theorist Northrop Frye observed of what he called the Wissenschaft period, one of building knowledge via dynamic systematic research, that its “imaginative model was the assembly line, to which each scholar ‘contributed’ something [to] an indefinitely expanding body of knowledge” (Northrop Frye [1991]. “Literary and Mechanical Models”). Reflecting on tendencies in the mid- to latter stages of last century, William Winder has noted that “Amassing knowledge is relatively simple … [but] organizing, retrieving, and understanding the interrelations of the information is another matter” — encouraging us to imagine the challenge of our information age, a neo-Wissenschaft period perhaps, as one that “brings with it … issues of retrieval and reuse” and requiring us “to be just as efficient at retrieving the information we produce as we are at stockpiling it” (William Winder [1997]. “Texpert Systems.”). Today, as we revisit issues related to the production, accumulation, organization, retrieval, and navigation of knowledge, we typically do so with attention to contemporary technologies that have worked to redefine roles associated with these issues, introducing new imaginative models for academic knowledge production and engagement.

My talk builds on this foundation and considers ways in which open social scholarship’s framing of these elements, and beyond, encourage building knowledge to scale in a Humanistic context and others. Open social scholarship involves creating and disseminating research and research technologies to a broad audience of specialists and active non-specialists in ways that are accessible and significant. As a concept, it has grown from roots in open access and open scholarship movements, the digital humanities’ methodological commons and community of practice, contemporary online practices, and public facing “citizen scholarship” to include i) developing, sharing, and implementing research in ways that consider the needs and interests of both academic specialists and communities beyond academia; ii) providing opportunities to co-create, interact with, and experience openly-available cultural data; iii) exploring, developing, and making public tools and technologies under open licenses to promote wide access, education, use, and repurposing; and iv) enabling productive dialogue between academics and non-academics.

Guerrilla Activist, Cognitive Evangelist or Truth Team? Exploring Next Generation Data Roles

admin — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:21:41 +0000

In her Opening Keynote, Liz Lyon will begin by presenting a short personal retrospective of the data successes and achievements of the last decade, citing examples from both policy and practice. She will examine where we are now as a reality check, in order to understand what research data services and data roles are currently established and operational. Liz will then explore a number of emerging or next generation data zones, drawing on recent media headlines, technological developments and societal concerns – these will include addressing data at risk, thinking beyond data analytics and promoting transparency and trust in open science. A suite of next gen data roles will be presented, which seek to expand our understanding of data science in the broadest sense, but also to raise questions for data practitioners, faculty scholars and the wider public. The talk will close with a look at some of the challenges and opportunities for data and information professionals in this brave new data world.

The interplay of preprints and journal articles in High-Energy Physics: a data-driven study.

admin — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 19:17:20 +0000

Preprints have shaped scholarly communication in High-Energy Physics since more than half a century. Pioneering preprint servers and community-driven digital libraries created a unique ecosystem for information discovery and access in the discipline (as well as in Astronomy and, to some extent, branches of Economics and the Social Sciences). These infrastructures have long coexisted with academic journals, serving distinct needs in the spectrum from dissemination to certification. Recently some academic journals entirely ‘flipped’ to Open Access, modifying some of those roles. We report on the results of two data-driven studies to assess this coexistence, and complementarity.

First, leveraging information from the INSPIREHEP.net platform, we analyzed millions of citations to and from preprints and journal articles to study the effect of early availability of scientific information in citation patterns in the discipline.

Second, with the gracious help of arXiv.org and leading scholarly publishers, we compared downloads statistics to assess access patterns for ‘fresh’ and ‘archival’ material and how Open Access modifies researchers’ practices.

Those findings are particularly relevant in the current scenario of renewed attention to preprints as a medium for scholarly communication.