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June/July 2021 Issue 114 Measuring the Interview: Addressing Job searches impact of open Jason Priem, cyber in pandemic access content Our Research security times

Blank canvas? Why open education resources could paint a new future in scholarly communications

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THE DEVELOPMENT AND FUTURE OF BOOK CITATIONS

HISTORY The study of book citation AUTHOR indices is around 10 years old. PERSPECTIVES In our survey of 4,375 book authors, the majority reported THE SPRINGER that citations as the most NATURE STUDY important indicator of a title’s success. 221,688 *See the full results of the survey records in ‘Today’s library & the future of scholarly communications’ 18,791 books KEY FINDINGS 531,557 The majority of books take up to citations Computer science 8 years to reach peak citations Earth and Average number of

Planetary Sciences 73 citations per book Biochemistry, Genetics 2015 Books indexed in Scopus and Molecular Biology 67 by discipline 600000 531,557 total citations Agricultural and 500000

Biological Sciences 50 400000

300000 199,910 Psychology total chapters 50 200000 CONCLUSION 23% 100000 18,791 total titles Where book scientometrics is a 0 Book still relatively new area of study, formats Titles within a series Book series titles more research is needed. Individual books There is also a great deal more to Monographs 77% (standalone books) be known about citations Edited books in a series format usually come with both a greater number of chapters and an overall higher number of themselves, for instance the citations than non-series titles (Torres-Salinas, et al., 2014) intention or function of a citation, whether evidentiary, supportive, or used to refute a piece of research. As we see more books come online, and the art and science of citation analysis further evolves.

Visit go.sn.pub/citations-paper to download the white paper

A102513_SN_Book_Citation_infographic_A4.indd 1 03-May-21 1:41:34 PM No other event in the world o†ers a better opportunity to learn about current issues and trends in library and information science.

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Research Leader: Tim Gillett information Imperfect balance? l June/July 2021 Issue 114

OERs: the future of education? 4 Riding the wave of innovation 18 The pandemic has provided a tantalising Sam Herbert, co-founder of 67 Bricks, casts glimpse of the potential of open educational his eye over the industry – and tells of his No other event in the world o†ers a better opportunity resources. Rebecca Pool asks: will these early love of surfing freely-accessible learning materials become to learn about current issues and trends in library our new normal? Addressing cyber security 20 In recent months Research You could do worse than to follow the advice Information has carried several and information science. Measuring the impact of 10 of an iconic 90s rapper, writes Susie Winter reports calling for a levelling-up OA content of the scholarly communications ‘OA should be the default’ 21 Tim Lloyd considers how open access playing field – and this issue agreements are critical for developing Transition to open access must be made as continues that trend. sustainable open access business models smooth as possible, writes Chris Banks On page 16 we carry an interview Event Highlights with Jason Priem of Our Research, Feature case study 11 How efficient tools showcase 22 a library’s impact who tells of his hopes for a ‘long- Springer Nature reveals a more overdue’ change in academic comprehensive and systematic Many libraries have had to strengthen their publishing and a ‘tilting back’ of digital presence to survive – especially over understanding of books’ role in scholarly the balance towards the needs Memorable and inspiring featured authors More than 200 live and on-demand the last 12 months, writes Cintia Dabes • • knowledge dissemination of academic libraries – and that and celebrity speakers educational sessions Job searches in Covid times 24 the organisation’s product UnSub The hunt for equitable search 12 will ‘begin to turn off the faucet of Manisha Bolina and Heather Staines share We should meet users’ needs, no matter money flowing from universities to who they are, where they are from, or which some insights about looking for scholarly • The Library Marketplace with more than • News You Can Use sessions highlighting communications positions in a pandemic toll-access publishing houses’. language they speak, writes Ashleigh Faith A similar theme is explored in 250 exhibitors, Presentation Stages, new research and advances in libraries Rebecca Pool’s feature on page 4, The future of library search 14 News 26 which explores a growing interest in Swag-A-Palooza, and more Library search tools and services have a A radiance of reports from around the Interactive Discussion Groups scholarly communications industry the development of open education • bright future – if they support users in their resources (OERs) as universities preferred workflows, writes Matthew Hayes • Networking opportunities to share and Suppliers directory 33 increasingly struggle to afford the ebooks and journals required for connect with peers • Access to content for a full year Tilting the balance back 16 towards libraries their students and researchers. Rebecca’s feature shows how, Jason Priem tells of his hopes for a ‘long- increasingly, since the onset of the overdue’ change in academic publishing pandemic, educational organisations are providing materials through open repositories and bespoke online publication platforms. It’s an area View conference sessions and activities in the REGISTER TODAY of the industry that will no doubt provoke much further interest in the Program Scheduler. It’s consistently updated alaannual.org coming months and years. This period of change has led to with new content, so check back often! #alaac21 many new opportunities – some enforced, some as a matter of

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www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo June/July 2021 Research Information 3 Feature: Open education resources

OERs: the future of

education?The pandemic has provided a tantalising glimpse of the potential of open educational resources. Rebecca Pool asks: will these freely-accessible learning materials become our new normal?

When University College London launched providing open educational materials was ‘We’re still in the advocacy stage of UCL Press in 2015, the library services the way to go. OERs and are encouraging lecturers to team wanted the open access university ‘I wouldn’t have said that 12 months ago, use our platform but we’ve had one or press to become the OA publisher of but I’m saying it now,’ he adds. two expressions of interest from other choice for authors, editors and readers Right now, UCL is piloting an open universities that want to join us with around the world. Six years, 180 research access repository, UCL Discovery, for this,’ he said. ‘I don’t know of any other monographs and more than four million its open educational resources, has university in Europe that is building an OER downloads later, the press has, without a established its online publication platform, e-textbook platform.’ doubt, been embraced by many. BOOC (Books as Open Online Content) for Given the current industry row over Paul Ayris, pro-vice provost and director OA ebooks and content, and expects to e-textbook pricing, this can’t come a of UCL Library Services, tells Research start its dedicated e-textbook service in a moment too soon for Ayris. In his words, Information: ‘With only 180 books, we’ve year. Work is underway to explore whether when academics learn how ‘ruinously reached more than 240 countries and this service will have its own dedicated expensive’ e-textbooks are for students, territories across the world... as the UK’s platform or UCL Discovery will disseminate they suddenly become very interested in first fully open access university press, content, with consultants also looking the alternatives. we’ve seen the impact the press has had.’ at the best workflows and OA business ‘This is a critical moment in the Over this time, one of the top 10 models. But whatever the outcome one development of OERs, as we’ve seen in the downloads has been an e-textbook on year from now, Ayris is excited. last 12 months that current models and burns and plastic surgery produced by provision just don’t cut it with students or Deepak Kalaskar, from Medical Sciences universities either,’ he said. ‘Indeed, when at UCL, and director of the MSc course in I took the latest bill for our commercial burns, plastic and reconstructive surgery. “When academics interests with purchasing to the Provost According to Ayris, the book’s 70,000 and Dean’s faculty, they were outraged.’ downloads are proof that e-textbooks and learn how ‘ruinously Like many across the scholarly open educational resources have a clear expensive’ community, David Prosser, executive future at UCL, a point that’s only been director of Research Libraries UK, is underlined by the current pandemic. e-textbooks are for watching OER developments from UCL ‘UCL has now given us funding to students, they and elsewhere with great interest. And produce an e-textbook service,’ he says. in a similar vein to Ayris, he believes the ‘We have 45,000 students at UCL, and suddenly become pandemic has triggered change. when the libraries physically closed and very interested in ‘[Coronavirus] has acted as a real students couldn’t get access to physical catalyst for OERs, especially with many Frannyanne/Shutterstock.com copies... we saw that digital education and alternatives” institutions that, quite frankly, have had

4 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info to muddle through without access to necessary teaching materials through the lockdowns,’ he said. Similarly, Prosser also believes the pandemic has shone a light on e-textbook cost issues, throwing open the door to OA alternatives. As such, he is certain UK library communities are becoming increasingly interested in OERs. ‘The current [e-textbook] pricing models have shown themselves to be so blatantly inadequate that people have had to look elsewhere,’ he asserts. ‘I believe that, in the long term, open educational resources could be one of the most significant solutions here... and RLUK hopes to play a co-ordinating role in bringing interested parties together.’ Still, much needs to be done. In June 2020, SPARC Europe, a Dutch advocate of OA, science, scholarship and education, released the results of its survey, Open Education in European Libraries of Higher Education. It revealed that few libraries reported having the funds, grants or budgets for open educational work, while policies dedicated to OERs were sparse. Other findings included respondents split 50/50 on whether the library should take a lead in advancing OERs in their organisations and that open education was still a relatively new concept in the library. g

www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo Feature: Open education resources

g Importantly, the report also made a series of recommendations on funds, leadership, policy and how to grow resources, including earmarking library budgets and supporting internal OE champions. Prosser agrees that

OERs aren’t yet mainstream in terms Kurt Kleemann/Shutterstock.com of production and use, and reckons resources first need to find their way onto university reading lists. For starters, he advocates a reward system being developed in institutions and departments that recognises the time and effort that an academic spends on creating a high-quality OER. ‘People need kudos and could get a tick against their names that manifests itself against, say, career development – we just don’t have this right now,’ he said. Prosser also points to the need for mechanisms of quality control in OERs. ‘For example, it would be really interesting if scholarly societies could ‘kite-mark’ sets of materials, which could also serve as reward or validation. ‘We’re really lucky in the UK to have some very active and thoughtful societies that may have some ideas here. OERs is an area that the UK library community is increasingly interested in, and it would “Why the OER the tenure and promotion process. We’re be interesting for us, or someone else, to adoption gap seeing movement in this direction but it’s convene a group that is interested in this.’ definitely a steeper hill to climb.’ between the US and Yet, recognition aside, Eastman-Mullins A flying start reckons one of the biggest motivating Across the Atlantic, US colleges are ahead UK? Each nation’s factors for academics is also inspiration. of UK institutions on OER adoption. Myriad education system is ‘Introducing [lecturers] to different open OER repositories exist, including Oasis materials pedagogically is very inspiring,’ from the Commonwealth of Learning, based on very she said. ‘For example, using Underground Merlot, set up by the California State different models” Comics to teach in the humanities can University, and OER Commons, created brighten peoples’ ideas of what their by Californian non-profit organisation, course can be.’ the Institute for the Study of Knowledge on textbooks every year,’ she says. ‘In the Management in Education. Indeed, rising US, deciding between buying a textbook Discovering OERs interest in OERs at the US state level as a or buying food is a real issue for some Still, as more academics turn to OERs, means to make college education more students.’ more issues around discoverability are affordable prompted SPARC to set up a Despite advocacy, numerous OER emerging. As Eastman-Mullins points out, State Policy Tracker that tracks OER policy repositories and early adopters, issues faculty ‘still has a way to go’ to recognise on a weekly basis. exist. For example, an ongoing survey on what resources are available. And then So why the OER adoption gap between OERs from the Babson Survey Research lecturers need specific material – be it a the US and UK? Clearly each nation’s Group recently put faculty awareness at five minute video or relevant book chapter education system is based on very less than 50 per cent. with the necessary copyright – that fits different models. But as Andrea Eastman- Eastman-Mullins believes that many into their existing courses. Mullins, founder and CEO of US-based lecturers may be using OERs in the form ‘I’ve seen studies that say it takes an West End Learning, points out: ‘The UK of open textbooks, videos and other extra 160 hours to prepare for courses has been a little more forward thinking, materials without realising, but like using this kind of digital content, which in terms of recognising teaching and the RLUK’s Prosser she believes incentives, means people give up and revert back to tenure promotion process, so now the US in the form of recognition, are needed to the text book,’ she says. is feeling the pain of student affordability increase the use of OERs. UCL’s Ayris concurs but points out more, which has resulted in more [OER] ‘The OER movement in the US has that the e-textbook material created at advocacy.’ sustained a lot of traction by giving mini- the university and deposited into UCL Indeed, according to Eastman-Mullins, grants or stipends to faculty that are Discovery is primarily aimed at supporting the early adopters of OERs in the US willing to take the time to convert courses its own students, and as such, is driven by have been largely motivated by student to OERs,’ she says. ‘But what would go the UCL curriculum. ‘Dissemination is very affordability. ‘They really see the pain of even further is to recognise the time straightforward through our strong team the average college student paying $1,200 involved [in creating and using OERs] in of subject liaison librarians,’ he said. g

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g However, materials from UCL Press innovation, and other disciplines are going you’re not an expert in,’ she said. ‘So have been indexed on several large- to follow. ‘We make sure, for example, we’ve built recommendations into our scale international platforms including that [an OER] is relevant for a discipline, process... and we’re now thinking of JStor, as well as Google. ‘This is how to copyright is cleared for re-use, and links building impact metrics to the platform.’ make the materials from our international are stable,’ she says. ‘We’ve been testing Eastman-Mullins launched West collaborations available and visible – from this with partner institutions and faculty, End Learning early last year, based our experience with research monographs, and will launch this during summertime.’ in Winston-Salem – a North Carolina this has been hugely successful,’ he said. Eastman-Mullins also believes the city home to six higher education For her part, Eastman-Mullins, with West platform will help with the potential OER institutions – well placed for hands- End Learning, has developed the Syllect quality issues that concern many in on development and collaborations. platform which screens, curates and academia. ‘A lot of the time, quality comes However, what she hadn’t initially matches resources to course topics. A by word of mouth but the challenge comes factored into her business venture was first version covers entrepreneurship and if you’re tapped to teach a course that the college closures that coronavirus would bring, and she feels the pandemic has had its pros and cons. On the downside, some local A growing impact programmes from community colleges or other institutions have stalled, while staff deal with fallout from Covid-19. But on the upside, she believes many lecturers and academics are now ready for ‘something different’. ‘They’re already over the hurdle of teaching differently and as people come back to campus, faculties everywhere know that in many ways, there’s no going back to the way it was,’ she said. “Materials from UCL Press have been indexed on several large-scale international platforms,

Singkham/Shutterstock.com including JStor”

Demand for high-quality good-quality OERs are In a similar vein, CABI educational materials becoming increasingly A&B has also launched its She highlighted how OpenStax, a in developing nations is important in helping people ‘Meet an editor’ series that constrained by sparse get basic information they provides free interviews non-profit Rice University initiative human resources and need to address these with section editors on that publishes peer-reviewed, openly- overwhelming financial issues.’ critical research areas, licensed textbooks that are free pressures – but OERs can While CABI Agriculture and how to get research online, recently received $12.5m from make the difference. Free, and Bioscience publishes published. ‘We really philanthropic organisations, including open and reusable learning OA research on such need to have this global the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. and teaching resources issues, recently it has outreach,’ said Benson. OpenStax’s goal is to ensure no student can help narrow the gap launched free webinars Eventually, the managing ever has to worry about textbook costs between rich and poor, a on how to successfully director is hopeful that a again, and intends to double the size of fact not lost on Philippa publish research. These new kind of open journal its library with the latest raft of grants. Benson, managing editor include detail on the will emerge, where the of CABI Agriculture and Chorus initiative that aims researcher can access an ‘There’s this new awareness coming Bioscience, an OA journal to optimise a publication’s article, click on a figure out of the pandemic,’ says Eastman- from BioMed Central. metadata in CrossRef, data to reach its dataset, Mullins. ‘I really think the OER movement ‘Open educational repository requirements, and then retrieve the will now continue to grow, even though resources are critically and other practices that underlying open data for we’ve had a slight lag in the past year.’ important for researchers increase OA publications’ his or her own work. ‘This And Ayris holds similar aspirations. and educators in low- and visibility. is already happening,’ ‘I’d like to see UCL’s OER and open middle-income countries ‘Many researchers she says. ‘A journal or access e-textbook offering to be widely who have to make difficult [in developing nations] top-level educational appreciated and used by our academic decisions about how to don’t fully understand the resource becomes a spend money,’ she said. importance of information. portal or gateway into an community, and all those that can ‘Climate change is already It’s so important we get this entire ocean of scientific benefit from resources made available having a huge impact on out there, so research is information that anyone can in this way,’ he said. food security, planetary designed with open science draw on and learn about the ‘My hope is that OERs are going to be health and equity, and in mind,’ said Benson. experiences of others.’ part of the new normal.’

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Measuring the impact of OA content Knowing how much effect agreements have is critical for developing sustainable OA business models, writes Tim Lloyd

wide range of industry stakeholders: of functions that support the publishing • Research institutions that are typically workflow, such as service providers like For an increasing number of funders, generating published research. Most KU, consortia like Jisc, and distributors an important ingredient of impact is obviously, we’ve got the traditional like JStor. Last, but not least, the broader the audience. Yet existing analytics library role, which sits at the core of the community that is interested in reading don’t do a good job of understanding Counter reporting use case. Librarians that research – a group often overlooked, how communities are engaging with are already tracking usage of OA but of key importance to funders vested OA content. With it accounting for the content as part of licensed collections, in delivering benefits outside of narrow majority of journal articles published1, and those that also play a role in pure research interests, such as publicly- we need a better understanding of which OA publishing will be equally interested funded institutions. stakeholders rely on OA analytics, and in monitoring that usage. There are also how they want to use them. institutional roles that sit outside the And what metrics are they interested in? To this end, LibLynx and PLOS partnered library and are focused on research While we’re still digesting the results of our last year to develop the next generation of management, such as the senior research, some clear themes emerge. OA analytics. The first step was to engage research officer3. These roles are more Counter metrics are highly valued. While with PLOS stakeholders – institutions, interested in understanding how usage the nature of Counter reports will develop funders, and consortia – to see how they of OA content ties into institutional over time to incorporate OA content, it’s wanted to assess OA publishing’s value. research priorities. clear that the value of consistent, credible, • Publishers that publish OA content. and comparable underlying metrics is The limitations of traditional approaches These can be the same research as important as ever. Institutions want Traditional quantitative metrics, such institutions or dedicated publishing to understand the value they get from as citation analysis or the number of organisations like PLOS. There are their publishing relationships, regardless downloads, provide easily comparable of whether the content is subscription numbers but little depth – was the usage “It’s clear that the or one of the increasing flavours of OA, from the communities targeted, or a bunch and across both the content they pay to of bots and pirates vacuuming up free value of consistent, publish AND the content they consume to content? Altmetrics add a valuable sense credible, comparable support learning and research. of the attention that articles receive, but Understanding your research audience underplay value for communities that don’t underlying metrics is essential. While data privacy rightly engage with media in the same way. is still important” ensures individual anonymity, it’s still Counter reports seem an obvious possible to quantify usage by geography answer, and one libraries are already very and (where IP address matching allows) familiar with, but they are engineered for a development roles that need to by organisational name and category. This very specific use case – helping librarians understand which organisations are can identify new, valuable communities understand and compare usage of paid getting value from OA content to engaging with research that have content to make informed decisions on identify potential future sources of previously been ignored. acquiring content to meet learning and funding, as well as editorial roles that We need to support more diverse use research goals. This traditional Counter want to understand the subjects and cases. OA stakeholders want far more use case rightly focuses on the aggregate topics that are engaging the community. granular detail, in addition to traditional numbers, as the audience is already • Authors of that research. Authors aggregated reporting; visually-rich layouts defined as the subscribing institution. want to understand the impact of the that are easy to consume in addition to But there is no standard for how to research they publish. This information tabular formats, and real-time reporting attribute usage more broadly, or offer can influence their choice of publisher. plus periodic reports. alternative methods of analysing that • Funders that pay for the research to be audience. This does not mean Counter has published. These can be institutional Tim Lloyd is founder no role. Far from it, because ‘metrics are budgets or separate entities, such as and CEO of LibLynx the gold nugget at the heart of Counter’2. Wellcome or the Gates Foundation. Think of Counter metrics as a defined set Funders also want to understand the References of lego bricks we can re-combine to create impact of the research they funded. 1 According to Lens.org data 51 per cent of journal new analytics reporting. Did it reach the communities they articles published in 2020 are available through OA. 2 Jeremy Morse, Director of Publishing Technology, were targeting, or perhaps it also got Michigan Publishing. Who needs OA analytics? engagement from new communities 3 Read Roger Schonfeld’s fascinating December Scholarly Kitchen post to better understand this Back to our partnership with PLOS. Our that they previously weren’t aware of? developing role. research in recent months has identified a Various intermediaries perform a variety

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Books have served as citation half-life sooner than important channels of scholarly humanities and social science communication for generations subjects. Examining citation – however, book citation indices trends by publisher shows they only came on the scene just over often follow disciplinary citation a decade ago. patterns which are aligned to the Evaluating how books are strengths of their portfolio. cited can offer insights into With regards to formats, research impact and quality, as books published in thematic well as into the performance of series often earn a greater ratio various publishing programmes. of citations over their lifetime, In 2019 Springer Nature ran a compared to stand-alone titles. large, market-wide study among Book citation analysis is a book authors. Two thirds of the relatively new area of study and, NeMaria/Shutterstock.com surveyed authors use citation aided by a variety of book citation rates, along with other indicators indices, new opportunities are 2020). Applying these metrics evidentiary, supportive or used such as sales, to measure the arising to understand how books to our dataset produced notable to refute a piece of research. success of their own books. are used in the research life cycle. results in how books are cited • Scholarly books are key tools Among the variety of metrics across fields of study, publishing in research communications available, citations were reported Methods and data formats, and the publishers and progress, where citation as the most important and most Data from Scopus was used themselves. rates are used by researchers, frequently enlisted metric of for this citation study. It offers When we consider the volume publishers and libraries alike book performance. a slightly higher coverage of of citations distributed across the as key indicators of books’ Consequently, Springer Nature the books market than other books in this study, all disciplines success, quality, and/or impact undertook a study of Scopus bibliometric databases. The data have a significant share of highly in and across the disciplines. book citation data and this article was downloaded in October cited titles. More notably, the • Books published in thematic provides a precis version of 2019, covering publication share of low-cited titles, from 0 to series often earn a greater the resulting white paper, The years from 2015 to that date, 9 citations, is significantly lower ratio of citations over their Development and Future of Book to allow enough time for books in this dataset than other studies lifetime, compared to stand- Citations. of all types and disciplines to (e.g., Zhu, et al, 2020). This speaks alone titles. Ludo Waltman, professor of gain citations. To capture and to the importance of the book, in • The overall high share of quantitative science studies cited books highlights the at the Centre for Science and “Springer Nature case study reveals a importance of the book format Technology Studies (CWTS), more comprehensive and more systematic for scientific communications Leiden University, said: ‘The white understanding of the role of books in across disciplines. paper can be seen as a step scholarly knowledge dissemination” • Time to peak citations towards a more comprehensive varies across disciplines, and more systematic highlighting how fast-moving understanding of the role of analyse the complete citation particular in advanced research domains, such as life and books in scholarly knowledge performance of a book as a subjects with specialised physical sciences, reach their dissemination.’ whole, citations to the book, as audiences. Our study suggests citation half-life sooner than For the study Springer Nature well as its component chapters low numbers of citations in such humanities and social science undertook book citation analysis, were combined; this follows the niche areas do not indicate low fields. This emphasises the alongside a survey of book approach described in leading impact or lack of relevance, relevance of the book in authors, to better understand scientometric literature. simply a smaller amount of disciplines beyond HSS. the trends in how books are citations can be earned in smaller • Book citation analysis is a used as vehicles for scholarly Findings fields. relatively new area of study communications. Citation rates The findings of the study largely and, aided by a variety are valued by researchers, mirror trends in published Key takeaways of book citation indices, publishers, and libraries alike as literature in scientometrics and • Book scientometrics is still a new opportunities exist to key indicators of books’ success, related fields – namely that, book relatively new area of study, understand how books are quality, and/or impact. citations take longer to reach and as such, more research is used to further the research Findings reveal that peak their peak when compared to needed and expected. There is life cycle. citations vary across fields of journals. In one study, a majority a great deal more to be known study, and that fast-moving of books took up to eight years about citations themselves, Visit go.sn.pub/citations-paper domains, such as life and to see peak citations, also called for instance the intention or to download the full paper. physical sciences, reach their a citation half-life (Zhu, et al, function of a citation, whether

www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo June/July 2021 Research Information 11 Analysis and news: Discovery

The route to equitable search We should meet users’ needs, no matter who they are, where they are from, or which language they speak, writes Ashleigh Faith

‘instructional materials’ (from Eric, MLA Easy search that promotes search skills International Bibliography), ‘instructional As for presenting a smooth user Should libraries expect users to ‘speak’ resources’ from (GeoRef), ‘instructional experience that helps users hone their library? Or should libraries ‘speak’ user? media’ (from APA PsycInfo), or ‘teaching search skills as they search, a smart library How effective can a library discovery aids and devices’, (from Education discovery service doesn’t have to reinvent service be if users are presented with this Abstracts, Education Source) and so on. the wheel when it comes to its interface. Catch-22: to access knowledge they seek, The next step is to be able to help Recognising that almost all users are they need to know what questions to ask users see how their subject is related already accustomed to searching on (and how), but can’t know what questions to other topics. For instance, ‘Battle of Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, and Google, to ask (nor how) unless they’ve already had the Bulge’ may also go by ‘Ardennes the discovery service can borrow a page some access to that knowledge. Counteroffensive’ as an alternate form. from those sites’ use of personalised The ‘expert’ researcher knows to use a Taking this a step further, the discovery dashboards, sharing options, and discipline-specific vocabulary. But the user system should also be capable of showing recommendation capabilities, thus might type in a query in their language. that ‘Battle of the Bulge’ can be related to meeting users where they already live. Certainly, the lay-user will use their own the 1965 film of the same name via the Regarding features that teach the user words, especially if starting research on subject tags assigned and retrieved in how to ‘fish’, as opposed to just ‘feeding’ a topic they are unfamiliar with. It’s here search. Enhancing connections between them for a day, the ideal library discovery that a traditional discovery service might users’ keywords and the subject tags service can ask users about their intent. be more hindrance than help. If the search increases search effectiveness and makes If a user enters a word like ‘java’, which requires precise, yet unintuitive, keywords for a less daunting search experience. has multiple meanings, the discovery and phrases to find anything meaningful, service can ask if they meant the island, the user might have an unnecessarily “The discovery the programming language, or the frustrating research experience. colloquialism for coffee. Since the discovery service may not service should be Once the user has selected which understand the words entered by the able to ‘think’ in meaning they intended, the discovery user, their keyword search cannot get service can display a visual representation ‘through the front door’ and connect more languages of connections to related subjects. to the content’s preferred terminology. than just English” If the user is searching for Italy, the Since the discovery service may not know discovery service could visually show enough to attempt to search for synonyms the connections to related subjects such or common phrases for the keywords, it Multi-lingual resources as: Italy’s capital ‘Rome’, its geographic can’t offer any ‘side door’ options to the The discovery service should be able to features like the ‘Alps’, or that it has user either. This begs the question: how ‘think’ in more languages than just English ‘Unesco site’ points of interest. to create a discovery service that can and have extensive international content, By presenting this visually, the user can deliver expert-level results in response so anyone can comfortably search in their browse the subject connections. This to non-expert queries? Doing so would own language and engage in extensive, helps them find more meaningful results, providing equitable search to all users. relevant cross-lingual research. Thus, if since adding additional lines of inquiry and While approaches run the gamut, a user enters ‘cat’ in any language, the additional facets of their research topic to four fundamental principles must be discovery service should understand their search helps them frame the context, considered: the idea of ‘cat’ independent of specific and set the depth at which they want to • Smart results languages, and then connect each explore the research material. • Multi-lingual resources individual language’s words for ‘cat’ to Taken together, these four concepts, • Trustworthy content their corresponding concepts, and so on. Smart Results, Multi-lingual Resources, • Easy search that promotes search skills Trustworthy Content, and Easy Search Trustworthy content That Promotes Search Skills, are the Smart results Given that the library has a responsibility main ingredients for Equitable Search. The discovery service must be able to to all users – from novice to experienced And with Equitable Search, a library can comprehend everyday words, synonyms – the discovery service should know how fulfil its mission by finally ‘speaking’ user, and concepts across topics and subjects, to steer clear of predatory journals. But and therefore empowering any user from so that when the user conducts a search, that’s just the beginning. The discovery any background to perform expert level the service expands user queries to cover service should also draw on journals that research. all subject synonyms. For example, if the are indexed in subject-specific resources, user enters ‘learning aids’, the service university presses, and on sources that Ashleigh Faith is the director of EBSCO Information knows that they could be asking for academic libraries tend to use. Services’ platform data and visualisation team

12 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info VIEW . FOR ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: FREE* Searching to Engage: Teaching with the MLA International Bibliography Sign up to watch

Presenters

Tamara F. O’Callaghan Professor, Northern Kentucky University Tamara F. O’Callaghan is a professor of English at Northern Kentucky University where she teaches medieval literature and historical linguistics as well as digital humanities approaches to literature.

Angela Ecklund Thesaurus Editor and Tutorial and Instructional Technology Producer, MLA International Bibliography Angela Ecklund has been the names and works authority editor for the MLA International Bibliography for seven years and produces Hear from two professors who are are using the MLA International Bibliography in tutorials and other educational materials for users of the Bibliography. their teaching of literature to engage students in the research process and to deepen their understanding of the scholarly conversation. Learn about a free, self-grading online mini-course and other free teaching materials created by the Modern Language Farrah Lehman Den Association (MLA) for librarians and faculty who want to help students improve their Associate Index Editor and research skills and appreciate the value of specialised online resources. Instructional Technology Producer, MLA International Bibliography Farrah Lehman Den is an associate index editor for the MLA International Bibliography and produces educational materials for users of the Bibliography.

Sponsored by Dan Connor Associate Editor, MLA International Bibliography & Adjunct Professor at the University of Scranton A multilingual professional with two decades of experience in academic, reference, and trade publishing, Dan Connor joined the MLA as an Research indexer in 2002 and has since played a critical information role in the Bibliography’s evolution.

Moderator

Tim Gillett www.researchinformation.info/webcasts required *Registration Editor, Research Information Analysis and news: Discovery

The future of library search Search tools and services have a bright outlook – if they can support users in their preferred workflows, writes Matthew Hayes

Most students and researchers now begin their discovery process outside the library – on open discovery tools like Google Scholar. A study of patron practices among OhioLink libraries found that six per cent of discovery journeys begin on Krasovitckii/Shutterstock.com Andrew the library’s discovery service, with more than 40 per cent beginning on Google or Google Scholar. This does not mean library search tools and services will become redundant, but it does mean striving to put the library ‘in the life of the user’, by taking services such as library search to ‘where users actually are, rather than where libraries would like them to be’ (Pinfield et al., 2017). It also means recognising the value libraries bring to patrons’ discovery – and amplifying it.

Library search: much more than a search engine Library search encompasses much more than the library search engine. I’d like to suggest three core areas: access, curation and discovery. Despite rapid growth in OA, substantial variation by discipline and region suggests access to paywalled content will remain a concern for libraries and their patrons “There are a number behind the scenes by integrating with over the next few years – it is estimated library systems. that 72 per cent of scholarly publications of sector-wide Libraries have a crucial role to play are not yet OA (Day et al. 2020). Covid, initiatives underway in mediating these initiatives, ensuring and the rapid shift to remote access it questions of user experience, privacy, necessitated, further highlighted the to improve the security and insights are addressed, and cumbersome, time-consuming and often access experience” designing the specific access workflows confusing access workflow users have to that best serve the needs of their users. go through – often giving up or moving to Sci-Hub (Bohannon, 2016). Access others – are working directly with key parts Libraries should not lose sight of workflows remain largely IP and token of the discovery process, such as Google curation of external content based, and both methods have been Scholar, Wikipedia, reading list software Libraries have put increased resources increasingly problematic in times when and learning management systems, to into the development of institutional the library’s psychical availability has been improve access workflows by embedding repositories and other parts of what compromised. Additionally, it is assumed their link resolvers into discovery starting Dempsey calls ‘the inside-out collection’ that the library portal is the starting point points outside the library. Publisher and (2016) – the output of the university’s when, as we have seen, it invariably isn’t. other community stakeholder initiatives, own researchers. Commercial discovery Setting aside the substantial work at the such as GetFTR, are working on the means services have made moves in this space, library to train, guide and support students of authentication itself, proposing new launching new software tools to manage and researchers through the access ways such as federated authentication. the inside-out collection, whether special workflow, there are a number of sector- Then there are browser plug-ins such collections showcases or preprint wide initiatives underway to improve the as Lean Library and Clarivate’s EndNote servers. Efforts are also being made to access experience. The big discovery Click, which improve access workflows embed this institutional content into the services – EBSCO, OCLC, ExLibris and by sitting in the user’s workflow, working workflow. Examples include thesis and

14 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Analysis and news: Discovery

“Can a new stage Such developments would be key Embedding library search in preferred emerge? One where to address the reproducibility issue – user workflows ensuring, for example, that retracted It is possible to chart two stages in the the library goes to papers do not continue to be unknowingly development of the library experience the user” cited and built upon (Schneider, 2020). for patrons. The first was the library as a physical building and curated collection. In Libraries must continue to support the second the library digitised a platform special collection records piped directly quality discovery of resources and services. Both were into Google search results. As less time is I began using Google Scholar for my predicated on the library as a destination, spent managing pay-to-read subscriptions literature review, supported by manually as somewhere a user must go to. and more time managing pay-to-publish tracking references in key texts in my field. Can a new stage emerge from deals, it seems natural that libraries would But, as with other early-stage researchers, the accelerating forces of the Covid shift focus from the former to the latter. I soon moved on to library search, and experience? One where the library, and However, the same market forces other index-based discovery tools like its services, such as library search, goes that have enabled OA to grow (article Web of Science and Scopus, for precision- to the user – in their workflow – allowing processing charges) have also enabled searching and curated browsing. The students and researchers to access library a dramatic rise in predatory publishing. article-level metadata such tools use, services and resources at the point of Estimates track a rise from just under combined with the qualified nature of need? 2,000 predatory journals in 2010 to more the index behind them, are essential for Achieving this practically will require new than 13,000 in 2020 (Linacre, 2020). in-depth research. There is also greater innovations, but it begins with the effort to, Set alongside the broader diffusion exposure to your library’s print collection in the words of Lisa Hinchliffe, Professor of disinformation in the post-truth era, in the library’s own discovery service. But for Information Literacy Services at the information literacy among students need there be such a stark dividing line University of Illinois, ‘operate in the online and researchers is more important than between open search tools such as Google environments where users work’ (Linacre, ever. As patrons continue to favour open Scholar and library discovery services like 2020). Achieving this could both accelerate discovery tools, it will be important that those from EBSCO, ExLibris and OCLC? learning and discovery, and the library’s libraries find ways of taking their curation Lean Library is exploring this by integrating impact. and information literacy expertise to major library discovery services with preferred workflows. Not hosted in a Google Scholar via our browser plug-in, so Matthew Hayes is managing director of detailed library guide on their website, but patrons can see search results side-by- Lean Library and a doctoral researcher at embedded at critical intervention points. side for ease and quality. University College London

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Tilting the balance back towards libraries Jason Priem, of Our Research, tells of his hopes for a ‘long-overdue’ change in academic publishing

Tell us a little about your background Our non-profit mission has remained librarians to cancel multi-million dollar big and qualifications... the same throughout: we build tools to deals. This, in turn, will begin to turn off the I was a middle-school teacher for five help further the progress of open science, faucet of money flowing from universities years, teaching language arts, social because we believe research progress to toll-access publishing houses. In short: studies and media. As a teacher, I started is more efficient and effective when it’s by helping libraries cancel big deals, we to realise how big an influence the Web open. can make toll-access publishing less was going to have on learning and profitable, and accelerate the transition knowledge, so I taught myself to code and In the UK, Jisc has just signed up to your toward universal OA. dove in! Unsub service. Can you explain it? Unsub is designed to do this. It creates I worked on an information science PhD Certainly. Unsub is an analytic dashboard a set of forecasts, customised to a for four years at the University of North that helps academic librarians cancel their given library, that the library can use to Carolina – Chapel Hill. My work there got subscriptions to ‘big deals’. These ‘big understand the impacts of cancellation. me interested in how social media activity deals’ bundle up thousands of toll-access This requires the creation of a usage might open a new window on scholarly journals from a single publisher into a model for a given scenario. The usage impact, leading me to coin the word single, massive subscription. They have model incorporates library-specific data ‘altmetrics’ and co-author an ‘Altmetrics become the central pillar of the entire for citation, faculty authorship, campus Manifesto’. toll-access publishing apparatus, because downloads and pricing information. It As an academic, I learned about they are highly profitable – a single also includes global data on interlibrary the open access and open science deal for a US R1 university is generally loan rates, OA, disciplinary readership movements, and got really excited... I felt several million dollars – and libraries have patterns and many other factors. Libraries like I had to build something to help! increasingly felt ‘locked in’ to these deals can copy, tune and customise this model due to a perceived lack of alternatives. in many ways, creating a reliable and What is the history of Our Research? The growing prevalence of open access objective plan for their future, without Heather [Piwowar, co-founder of Our (OA), however, offers a solution to the toll-access big deals. This post-big-deal Research] and I met one another when I captivity of libraries at the hands of these future is generally quite a bit rosier than peer-reviewed one of her papers; later we big deals. Because much of the content they expected... this, in turn, gives them met in person as part of an open science of the big deal is now available as OA, the confidence to cancel. hackathon. The hackathon ended in the there is now a smoother ‘off-ramp’ to evening, but we went out in the hall of the cancellation than ever before. That is, after What led you to develop the product? hotel and kept working all through the cancellation, faculty can still access a Well, it would be nice to say we came night. I remember being surprised when large percentage of the relevant literature. up with the idea because we were very the hall started getting crowded by waiters Librarians are increasingly aware of this. clever... but I’m afraid that’s not it. In reality, serving breakfast the next morning! However, there has been no way to libraries just kept asking us to build it, and That hackathon project went on to quantify the exact percentage of post- finally we did! become Impactstory Profiles, our first big cancellation access that OA is able to As I mentioned, many libraries are under website. From there, we built Unpaywall, a provide. Although a growing number intense and growing budget pressure free and open index of all the world’s OA libraries have cancelled, the lack of (which the pandemic has not improved). articles. Many libraries asked us to build a hard numbers has made most librarians And for the last 20 years, the balance of subscription analysis tool using Unpaywall unwilling to upset the status quo. power in the relationship between libraries data, so we did. That became Unsub, This presents a compelling opportunity and publisher has tilted ever more toward which launched (as Unpaywall Journals) for us as OA advocates: by helping the publishers. So there is a lot of demand in November 2019. Now, hopefully, we still libraries quantify the alternatives to out there for a tool like Unsub that can help have a lot more history left to write! toll-access publishing, we can empower tilt the balance back toward libraries.

16 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Interview

I’ve written at some length about this elsewhere, and I still hold to most of that. Our goal at Our Research is to accelerate the transition toward universal Open Science. That means we want a world where the default is set to open for all research products, including papers, preprints, datasets, source code, protocols and more. This world isn’t one of openness for its own sake, but one where all these delightful open products of research can be processed, remixed, distributed, summarised, annotated, text-mined and used by an open ecosystem of automated tools. Scholars invented the Web for scholarship. But 25 years later, we still don’t really use it! Or when we do, we use it in simple, unimaginative ways. That’s largely because we just don’t have access to scholarship on the open web – it’s siloed and Balkanised and paywalled by a clumsy swarm of for-profit publishers (as well as, increasingly, for-profit social networks like ResearchGate). ‘We believe for the next five years – it’s kind of like The world of ideas is a singular playing SimCity with a serials collection. one – every idea can be viewed in research progress • Unsub saves time. For most users, it the context of any other idea. The is more efficient takes just hours to set up an Unsub scholarly communication system is the profile; they just upload your Counter humble substrate of this process, the and effective when report, perpetual access status, and infrastructure, the subway where all these it’s open’ price lists. After that, it’s all gravy: ideas and data can ride around and get to Unsub replaces annoying and time- know one another. Let’s make that subway consuming spreadsheet-juggling with as well-connected and cheap and easy- The tool offers three main advantages a simple UI. By lightening the analytics to-use as we possibly can. Today’s world is for libraries over current workflows: workload, Unsub gives institutions the asking a lot from the research community. •  Unsub is more comprehensive. Our ability to take a much deeper look into We owe it to them to build on the best model accounts for the effect of OA their options. We’ve had many users system we can. (green, hybrid, bronze and delayed), tell us that it feels great to walk into Counter downloads, previously- negotiations more prepared and data- Do you have any hobbies or interests purchased backfile, interlibrary loan, informed than they’ve ever been. you want to tell us about? document delivery, faculty citation and It’s now been about 18 months since we I really enjoy what we are doing at Our authorship patterns, journal readership launched, and we’re used by roughly 400 Research... I’m very fortunate that it still decay curves, and then shows how that libraries worldwide, including a lot of the feels like a fun hobby, as well as a job. So I all affects fulfilment rates and costs. It’s most prominent institutions. spend a lot of time on that. I also like to hit just a more complete picture. That’s a credit to our terrific user the gym, play volleyball and jiu jitsu (when • Unsub forecasts the future. Instead community, which has done a lot to spread there’s not a global pandemic on, anyway), of just looking at the current state of the word for us. relax at the beach, play Dungeons & a library’s collection, Unsub uses a Dragons, hang out with friends, and of forecasting model (trained on millions of What are your hopes for the future of course waste time in front of Netflix :) data points) to simulate the future. Users scholarly communications? can experiment to see how their plans That’s a great question, but a tough Interview by will affect costs and fulfilment rates question to answer briefly! In fact, Tim Gillett

www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo June/July 2021 Research Information 17 Interview

Riding the wave of innovation Sam Herbert, co-founder of 67 Bricks, casts his eye over the industry – and tells of his early love of surfing

Tell us a little about your background so important; and that when people are and qualifications… behaving oddly, there is always a good I was born in Iran, where my father was a reason. hydrogeologist, but we moved back to the After graduating, in physics and digital UK when I was two. electronics at Swansea, I worked client- I love sport and was a good all- side, running digital applications at Cancer rounder as a kid; competing at county Research UK, and supplier-side at Digitas, and regional levels at squash, football, PWC and Marketing Net. It was at the latter tennis, badminton. In my late teens, I got where I met Inigo Surguy (67 Bricks co- into surfing and chased waves all around founder), who has the best technical mind I the world – El Salvador, Indonesia, New have ever worked with. We realised we had Zealand. great complementary skills and we started But I’ve always loved tech and gaming; 67 Bricks. I’m intrigued by what you can and can’t do with software. In my mid-teens, I Your company has been going great As the realisation that digital joined an international peer counselling guns in the last few years. transformation wasn’t going away has organisation. It taught me a great deal: Tell us about that… hit, that space has grown and the value how important empathy is; that listening The shift from traditional publisher to we deliver to the client has soared. to people and hearing the back story is digital product company has been a long Building new modern digital platforms and time coming in scholarly publishing. capabilities for Emerald and De Gruyter Our early clients talked to us about how were turning points for the business. the value hidden in their content was going Everyone knows each other, and word of to waste, back in 2007. They could see good work gets about. that a massive shift was coming, in terms of the world going digital, and that simply What is the biggest issue facing the providing access to long-form content scholarly communications industry at was not a sustainable business model. the moment? But nothing happens fast in the sector, It’s two things; organisations deciding and it’s only now, accelerated by Covid-19, where they truly add value in the scholarly that publishers are really starting to eco-system as we move into a digital age, transform away from the traditional and accepting that they need to quicken books and journals business models and their pace when it comes to change. diversify. Lots of the valuable services publishers How do you do that? You go back used to provide are now something that to that valuable raw content and data, anyone with good technology capabilities combine it with your user needs and build can do. new products with it. Luckily, traditional Google Scholar and SciHub have platform vendors have not wanted to work levelled the playing field further. With this with and understand the complexities of value in transition, publishers need to go each publisher’s unique content, data and back to the drawing board. users. This has left a gap for companies But it doesn’t all need to be shiny like 67 Bricks, who aren’t afraid to get into and brand new, sometimes it is about the nitty gritty of specific data challenges. extending the products you already have

18 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Interview

‘I got into surfing How do you see the industry landscape too, and undermines many publishers shifting over the next 10 years? core business models, subscriptions etc. and chased waves Publishers have some soul-searching to The big players such as Wiley and Elsevier all around the world do. I expect to see organisations having won’t disappear for a while yet; but we can to undo a lot of the work and mindset that expect plenty of mergers, acquisitions and – El Salvador, got them to where they are today. They new ventures while they try things out. Indonesia, New need to unpick the past and this traditional There are still opportunities for those mindset, and then use the best of what medium players who are willing to commit Zealand’ makes them valuable to unlock their digital to change; a company like British Medical Parascandola/Shutterstock.com James future. Things like peer review, for example, Journal, with all of that rich healthcare is something really valuable that only the content and user knowledge, can offer or making basic things work better. For publisher can bring. valuable products to users and keep (and example, most publisher’s online search How do you optimise that? We will also grow) their market. But publishers who functions still offer bad user experiences. see some rebranding and restructuring don’t pivot quickly are at risk. This is often because they haven’t really as more publishers become content understood their specific researcher’s technology and product companies. As Any final interesting facts you want to expectations and needs, and where the part of that, the sector is likely to welcome tell us about? actual value lies in the content. They people too, possibly with a non-publishing, I heard an interesting fact about the need to use these insights to develop a more digital background, to shake things automotive sector recently, which is tailored search experience. If you can get up and bring a blast of fresh air. known for its commitment to innovation. that right, imagine the digital products Global sales of electric cars at present publishers could provide with the complex, Are the days of the traditional academic are just 2.6 per cent. But Mercedes-Benz scientific facts and information! publisher numbered? has committed 100 per cent of its R&D As for a change in pace… we live in a If they don’t move and figure out what’s expenditure to electric. Why? It can see digital world now and tech advances fast. valuable to their user now, then yes. where the future is going, and it doesn’t Scholarly has to catch up and stay agile. Revenues for some traditional services are want to be left behind. Users and competitors will continue to flat-lining or reducing – and that cannot disrupt the market and dictate the continue indefinitely without some firms Interview by change if they don’t. going under. OA is having a major impact Tim Gillett

www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo June/July 2021 Research Information 19 Analysis and news

How should we address cyber security? You could do worse than to follow the advice of an iconic 90s rapper, writes Susie Winter

the challenges inherent to securing the caused by sites such as Sci-Hub and research lifecycle. promote new ways of partnership working. The Scholarly Networks Security Initiative Areas identified included the on- Like Dan, Sari pointed to the recent City of (SNSI) brought together an expert panel going relationship building between IT, London Police Intellectual Property Crime at this year’s STM Spring Conference security, libraries, researchers, publishers; Unit (Pipcu) statement warning universities to discuss the threat that cyber crime the tug between security and privacy of the threat from Sci-Hub. is posing to universities and research requirements and ideologies; significant According to Pipcu, Sci-Hub obtains institutions, individuals and the wider outside ‘interests’ in accessing and academic papers through a variety of scholarly ecosystem; the conclusion of disrupting research, and the data that malicious means, such as phishing emails the discussion being neatly summed up by comes out of it; completeness and ease to trick university staff and students to panellist Dan Ayala’s final words: to ‘stop, of use of illicit tools versus approved divulge login credentials. Given this threat, collaborate and listen’. tools, including those used for search and they went advised IT departments to block Often seen or portrayed as a publisher discovery. Dan was clear that as none of the website on their network to mitigate problem (perhaps because of Sci-Hub, the these challenges were in the hands of the security risk. A number of them, The largest pirate website which uses, among information security officers to be able to University of Manchester and University other methods, stolen or shared library solve on their own, working in partnership College London included, have acted on log-on credentials to illegally harvest had to be the way forward. this and issued such warnings. research articles and books), the panel, This theme of collaboration for solutions With publishers and librarians having which consisted of a librarian, a publisher, was brought to life in Syracuse University successfully worked together before, a higher education chief information librarian Juan Denzer’s presentation. for example on Crossref and most security officer and a network security While at Binghamton University Libraries, recently GetFTR, SNSI believes that such provider, exposed how the threat of pirate Juan worked on developing an EZproxy collaboration could reap benefits here too. websites goes far beyond facilitating But to do that, all need to work together illegal access to licenced e-content. “Such wide-ranging to bridge what can be seen as a clash Don Hamparian, from OCLC, explained of priorities. According to the panellists, that when a library customer’s log-in threats make information security officers worry about details are stolen and shared, a lot more being left out of conversations. Librarians than licensed e-content can be accessed. cyber security a are hesitant to speak up in conversations Personal email accounts, personal concern to many about phishing emails, for example, as it is financial information, university research, out of their core area of responsibility. department budgets and confidential audiences across How can this be addressed? Juan’s final information about personnel all become higher education” advice was to encourage librarians to get accessible using these stolen credentials. involved in organisations such as SNSI Tips to mitigate this security risk and with Sari echoing this call to publishers. protect patrons included having (and script to combat breaches from Sci-Hub Dan urged institutions to go from ‘no’ enforcing) password policies, making users. This worked to provide librarians to ‘know’ and help facilitate, rather than security information and education readily with a better, more supported workflow, block – in addition, of course, to ‘stop, available, having secure remote access helping them to identify breaches so collaborate and listen’. options set up for staff, and robust IT and publishers were not required to suspend • SNSI brings together publishers and vendor policies. content access – a benefit, Don explained, institutions to solve cyber-challenges The panel was equally clear that OCLC has now embedded in its latest threatening the integrity of the scientific such wide-ranging threats make cyber version of EZproxy. This new version record and scholarly systems. By working security a matter of concern to many positions librarians as security leaders and sustainably and effectively together, audiences across higher education, provides them with a plethora of new tools we believe we can achieve our shared so it is only via collective action, with and dynamic workflow, which will allow mission – the safety and security of librarians, information security officers and them to detect and disable compromised personal data. Members include large publishers working together, that these credentials in real time. and small publishers, learned societies, threats can be effectively combatted. Working together to find solutions for university presses and others in scholarly However, to do this, a number of what is clearly a collective problem goes communications. Visit www.snsi.info for challenges were identified. Daniel Ayala, a to the heart of what SNSI is seeking to do. more information. strategic information security and privacy Elsevier’s Sari Frances co-chairs SNSI’s consultant and former chief information university relations group, which brings Susie Winter is director of communications and security officer at higher education together publishers, librarians and solution engagement at Springer Nature and co-chairs institutions, provided a useful overview of providers to raise awareness of threats the SNSI communications working group

20 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Analysis and news

‘OA should be the default’ Transition to open access must be made as smooth as possible, writes Chris Banks

In March 157 UK universities started negotiations with Elsevier, the world’s largest academic publisher. In these negotiations, universities, on behalf of fotogestoeber/Shutterstock.com their researchers and students, have two core objectives: to reduce costs to levels they can sustain, and to provide full and immediate open access to UK research. One of the main channels through which the increase in open access (OA) to UK research is being achieved is through transitional OA agreements. Major publishers – such as Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor and Francis Group – already offer such agreements, increasing the amount of research published OA year-on-year, with support from the sector. These agreements now cover more than 50 per cent of UK research output. “The internet ought the difficulty is that, for most, the default to have made it position is effectively a monopolistic Sector mandate acquisition of copyright, to the detriment Jisc is supporting the negotiations and easier for of others and open knowledge. In our has spent the past nine months consulting researchers to negotiations with major publishers, we’re with each of the 157 institutions involved. seeking to move towards paying to make My fellow library directors and I have make their work knowledge as widely and openly available made it clear that the sector wants an available and as possible, rather than hide it behind agreement with Elsevier that supports full paywalls. That’s a far better investment and immediate OA to research, and that discoverable” than paying to put gates around it. reduces expenditure with Elsevier to levels universities can sustain, with a competitive Solving real-world problems cost-per-article. impenetrable walls put round our content. One in five (22 per cent) UK research This isn’t going to be easy to achieve. It is bizarre that our investment goes into articles is published by Elsevier and, in We are a very diverse consortium, shielding content, rather than paying for 2021 alone, total spend with Elsevier is and large-scale, multi-institution that knowledge to be open and free. likely to reach £50m. Yet we estimate less transformative agreements are notoriously than 25 per cent of the articles will be complex. However, we want to make things Covid research effort published OA. These costs put increased easier for our academics, and make the This last year, the global effort to resolve pressure on institutional subscription and transition to OA as smooth as possible. the pandemic as quickly as possible, OA funds. and to further our understanding of the We want to renegotiate the contract Impenetrable walls disease, has relied on openly available with Elsevier, so that more research The internet ought to have made it research. We need shared, accessible funding can be invested in research and easier for researchers to make their work information to make fast progress. But less funding is needed to support full and available and discoverable but, somehow, why is this open approach reserved just immediate open access of research. The huge complexity has been introduced into for Covid? Why not for other diseases, or more that funding goes to continued and these publishing deals. It’s time to unravel global warming, or any other international repeated access to paywalled scholarly these interdependencies to the benefit of issue? If we can make research openly content, the less is available to tackle the more open research. available to the benefit of academic global problems humanity is facing. Elsevier’s current contract has a progress, why not do so for all challenges baseline that is set in historic print spend, facing humanity? Chris Banks is assistant provost and director of library services at Imperial College London. and is entirely irrelevant in this day and The question is, what should we be She is also a member of the UUK/Jisc content age. We’re paying a lot of money to have monetising? With academic publishing, negotiation strategy group

www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo June/July 2021 Research Information 21 Analysis and news: metrics

How efficient tools showcase a library’s impact Many libraries have had to strengthen their digital presence to survive, especially over the last 12 months, writes Cintia Dabes

• Data attributes; • Account reports; and The digital revolution has changed the • Resource access reports. relationship between libraries/librarians and end-users. Challenges libraries and librarians are Part of making libraries accessible and facing effective is to install tools that allow them With all implementation efforts there are to demonstrate and monitor the library’s bound to be some hiccups along the way. impact on its users. Whether reporting is a Firstly, it is best to acknowledge them so monthly, quarterly or annual requirement, you are better prepared to face whatever having clear and consistent metrics offer might happen. clear insight into usage patterns and The OpenAthens team talked to some behaviours. library customers and asked about the OpenAthens’ Reporting API is just challenges they are facing while using or one example. This new feature allows implementing reporting tools for clearer librarians to easily extract their patron- metrics and results. Overall, feedback usage data into existing data visualisation showed that organisations using the software, such as Tableau or Power BI, features find it useful. enhancing their capabilities to make data- However, some librarians had found based decisions for the benefit of their it difficult in getting detailed patron organisations. usage stats on specific data to negotiate The reporting tools help information better deals with publishers, as well as managers and librarians easily gathering specific data to understand demonstrate the value of the library to which subscriptions deliver most value internal stakeholders in a visual format. for money, so that informed decisions on By generating customisable reports on budget allocation could be made. usage and access, these features help OpenAthens is currently working highlight relevant data to the institution through these challenges with customers. and showcase the impact of the library in a “These features help clear, concise way. Leeds Beckett University highlight relevant One organisation that brought on- Key benefits of using a reporting tool for board OpenAthens’ reporting tool to data to the tangible metrics enhance reporting and metric usage institution” A library that invests in a reporting was Leeds Beckett University. Samantha tool will instantly be able to present Heeson, electronic and data services reports with enhanced visual graphics librarian, explained the process that the Library inductions were used as that communicate value with internal organisation had to go through. an opportunity to track the impact on stakeholders in a more effective, Leeds Beckett University has two resource usage for a particular course. As accessible format. This type of highly library sites; one in Leeds city centre the data received from OpenAthens was customised reporting allows librarians and the other at its Headingley campus. The at that stage monthly, the impact of the information managers to focus on specific library has almost 100 staff across the induction was hard to see, as it needed a data that is relevant to their institution. locations, facilitating library services for longer time span. Still, the exercise was There is also the option to integrate more than 19,000 students. The analytics helpful to pull data in an applied scenario. reporting tools with other data analytics development process was iterative, Heeson then shifted her focus to annual software, such as Tableau, for a seamless consisting of several soft launches rather reporting. She was able to produce tables experience with other systems used in the than a main one. The library was initially a and charts showing which resources were organisation. little overwhelmed with the possibilities used, how often, at which part of the year Some of the key benefits for that the data insight brought, and what and how many students were interacting measurement include: they could do with it. with them. The data showed immediate • Customisable reporting; Heeson, therefore, set to work on trends, matching the academic year and • Reports in an easy to digest/visual a proof of concept tying together pattern the university would expect. It format for all stakeholders; OpenAthens and university data using also revealed anomalies that could be • Reports can be scheduled for certain Excel data models and pivots. Her team taken away and investigated. The exercise times/dates; were excited to see the results. also suggested where more promotion

22 Research Information May/June 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Analysis and news: metrics “Library inductions were used as an opportunity to track the impact on resource usage for a particular course”

when they first started using reporting of Leeds Beckett any kind. Reporting was implemented into University ARU’s library because they wanted metrics on basic statistics and resource usage, to see what was and was not being used. Fast forward to today, and ARU now uses OpenAthens reporting API to monitor a variety of library outputs, including the potential to flag misuse of data to librarians. The reporting API tool from OpenAthens that ARU is now using has massively helped the university with student retention. ‘Using the reporting from OpenAthens means we have no concerns – no concerns with the way it works, with the product or with the data it produces. The project to implement OpenAthens reporting API kicked-off in November 2019 and completed in January 2020. We had noticed that students were finding knowledge resources online and we needed to cater for this. ‘The specific benefit of implementing a reporting tool was to save time, as the reporting API meant we did not have to PhilMacDPhoto/Shutterstock.com manually generate reports. It did it for us with specific data the teams can review of certain resources may be needed to instances where they may be wrong – and use to enhance services if needed. improve student interaction. when a certain resource is not essential, Ultimately, the API has enabled ARU A lot of work was undertaken on the but it is one favoured by the students and to automate the feed into our student visualisation of the data to present it in vice versa, for example. dashboard and work with the students an easily digestible format, and clearly ‘The data comes at a level I can work who are not engaged with their course, highlight trends and anomalies so that with, and any problems or queries are or manage resourcing levels through academic support and learning resources dealt with thoroughly and responsively. interrogating the data produced.’ colleagues could better understand My colleagues have also been extremely He continued: ‘We have been using resource usage and student engagement. positive. They have been given insights OpenAthens products for 20 years, if they that they have wanted for a long time didn’t work and provide precise data to Benefits and results – enabling decisions on budgeting and review, we wouldn’t use them, it is as simple Heeson described the positive outcomes effective resource provision to support as that. We get great support when we and important success points for her students based on digestible evidence.’ need it, and it pairs with the great service organisation’s use of OpenAthens data: that is provided by OpenAthens and the ‘As a library, we are very much involved in Anglia Ruskin University reporting tools.’ the discussions on academic support and Another example of an organisation that what academics can do to enhance the has taken advantage of OpenAthens To find out more about OpenAthens’ Reporting user-learning experience from a resource reporting tools to measure engagement API and how it can benefit libraries across perspective. is Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in the globe, you can register for its free-to- ‘With OpenAthens data, we can provide Cambridge. attend webinar on Thursday 10 June at 4pm real evidence on resource usage and Alex Collins, application analyst at at the link below: https://jisc.zoom.us/webinar/ user engagement, not just counts or ARU, explained that the university had register/1916196894686/WN_XoXSGr- anecdotal insight. We’ve been able to been using OpenAthens for a while. The vRqGvQSCywPZefg both corroborate and challenge existing relationship with the OpenAthens team perceptions. Often, the data supports was quite strong, as they had originally Cintia Dabes is a product marketing the perception, but it has also revealed implemented OpenAthens Valet, which is executive at OpenAthens

www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo May/June 2021 Research Information 23 Analysis and news

Job searches

Manishain Covid Bolina and times Heather Staines share some insights about looking for scholarly Uu777/Shutterstock.com communications positions in a pandemic

Manisha: application in I had three virtual interviews was going to turn up in Zoom with my PJs at Digital Science before the job was on, but you catch my drift). I also realised changing things up offered to me. that, though small considerations, they I recall that a few years ago I was actually resulted in increased levels of Towards the end of 2020 I found myself invited to interview for a very prestigious pent up anxiety – not needed when you thinking about a new job. Some people publisher, I remember having to think are going for an interview with your dream would think I was crazy to look for a job about one of the most important issues – employer. All this meant was I was able to during a pandemic – especially when what am I going to wear? I needed to book spend way more time practising my demo I already had one that was amazing. an eyebrow and nail appointment asap! In of dimensions and learning about Digital However, I started to think about the a virtual interview, these were two things I Science. Result! companies I had always had at the back of didn’t really need to think about (not that I I do not live in a publishing hub like my mind that I wanted to work for. Digital Science was one of them, a hub of cutting- edge technology for academia, and a place where innovation happens from a Tip-top tips from the top needs-driven environment. Curiosity drove me to the LinkedIn page, where I saw a role for a dimensions l In your home there is so mug, water bottle, or a cute Close extra windows on product solutions specialist – driving AI much you have control over, pic of your pet or loved one your computer and switch solutions for libraries and the research so use it to your advantage. on your desk. Or how about off unneeded programs office. Perfect! My background with AI Here are a few tips: some aromatherapy oils – this will make sure your discovery tools at Yewno and 10 years diffusing to keep you zen? machine has the power l No travelling to and from it needs to function at its experience selling to libraries globally l would hopefully get me an interview. locations means you have For you instagrammers, best. Turn Slack and emails Now, I have been the interviewer and more control over what time if you have a ring light, this off. and date your interview is. might be good if the light the interviewee and usually it starts with l You can better organise in your room is a bit dim. If Always have phone a short phone call and then one to three your diary and potentially you don’t normally use the numbers handy in case face-to-face interviews. I always liked not interview after a fully- camera function on your your internet fails – but a the phone interview as, being a sales loaded day at work – or not PC, be sure to check how big plus from the pandemic person, the phone has always been a take a day off! the room looks and give it a workarounds, is that ‘comfort zone’. But with the pandemic tidy if you need to. If all else people are now more l in play, all parts of the interview process Have your comfort items fails, see if you can use a understanding around have become virtual. After sending my with you – your favourite suitable background filter. technology failures.

24 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Analysis and news

Oxford, London or Cambridge. This meant “I had three virtual demos. Sure, I was still nervous as I met if I had to go for interviews it would mean a interviews before the C-level management at Digital Science long car ride or train journey. Car journeys but I didn’t have all the other worries on my can be infuriating; either if you get stuck the job was mind, I could just focus on the interview. in traffic, or if you arrive too early and have offered to me” So would I go back to in-person to sit in your car for ages, or go to a pub interviews? Never say never. There is (eeek, no wine!) for revision. This results something about noticing body language, in more anxiety and potentially forgetting minute bathroom visits where I may forget and the ‘chit-chat’ pre- and post-interview, things I definitely know! my way back to the reception waiting area. which I think is rather nice. A day out to The best thing about the virtual Nothing that could lead to more anxiety for London is always a treat, especially when experience of interviews was that I was my interview with my dream employer. you can roll in a lunch or drink with a friend. in my comfort zone; I was in my house Digital Science uses Zoom – brilliant! I know for some, interviews at home can with my favourite cup, my own computer, I don’t have to download any new weird be hard with so many distractions – kids my own space and no technical glitches software, and I was using my own and pets making an appearance, or due to hardware/software not being computer. I also didn’t have to worry about Amazon coming to deliver at an awkward compatible. My feet were not aching from having a USB stick with me, back-ups on a time. But I would encourage people to wearing heels running from platform to cloud or on my phone, just in case I had a embrace the Zoom interview and enjoy platform. Nor was I drenched from the technology meltdown. how much control you have, because it can ‘short walk’ from the station to the offices The truth is, I felt at ease. I didn’t have work in your favour. I’d like to think I would if it was raining. I didn’t have the dreaded people physically looking at me, it actually still have the job even if I had the in-person wait in the reception area, or fear of being felt more like my day job – which at the interview, but I definitely performed better too late or too early. No need for last- moment is Zoom meetings with web without it. That’s my two-pence worth.

industry. (Don’t email 100 people all at time to think about what I wanted to do once, as you won’t be able to schedule and, most importantly, what I didn’t want those calls in a timely manner.) Setting to do. Did I want to stay in the non-profit up catch-up calls can provide structure space or return to commercial ventures? to your day. Take notes on folks your Did I want to remain in scholcomm or take contacts suggest you reach out to, and a detour to another industry? I wouldn’t follow them up. have predicted how much I would like the One benefit from the impact of Covid variety of the projects I was able to work was conferences moving online. I took on. From research interviews to writing to advantage of this shift to attend my business development, I enjoyed meeting Heather: usual meetings (many of which had free people and reconnecting with old friends. registration or reduced prices for those I ultimately decided to stay in when you find unemployed due to the pandemic) and the consulting space, but to join an try some new ones. While it’s harder to established consultancy, Delta Think. yourself out of a job network given the restrictions of many It’s great to be part of a team again, and platforms, it is still possible. I continued to working with the Open Access Data Changing jobs in the middle of an already submit proposals for panels and accept scary time certainly adds additional speaking engagements to remain visible. I “You always need to complexity. The good news is that also kept up writing articles and blog posts companies are continuing to hire, and for the same reason. be working on your I’m noticing an additional willingness to One thing that really helped me was a network, so it will consider employees who live too far away Job Council group started by my friend to be always on site. Like Manisha, I don’t Tommy Doyle, who was also looking for be there when you live in a publishing hub, and I’ve done the a new gig. The weekly meetings included need it” commute into New York city (spoiler: It about a half dozen folks from scholarly wasn’t fun). communications and adjacent industries. Some job changes can be planned, but We shared leads, asked for intros and Analytics Tool ticked the ‘open’ box and let others can’t. Reorgs, pivots and economic talked through options. It was so useful to me start to flex my data skills! Just a few crises can be unwelcome surprises. The bounce ideas of folks and even practice weeks in, I’m already learning a lot. Some lesson I take from this is that you always presentations. I always knew there was a projects go on indefinitely, and other jobs need to be working on your network, so it core group I could turn to for feedback. I are always on the horizon. Every day can will be there when you need to rely on it. highly recommend this process! bring something new. It’s possible to play catch-up, but networks I was fortunate to pick up some I wouldn’t have chosen to do a pandemic are valuable for so many things, not just a consulting during my search – nearly job search, but I’m thrilled with how it job search. all of which resulted via leads from my turned out. Our industry has always been Make a list of the folks you want to talk network. It’s a great way to showcase fluid, and the impact of Covid-19 has to first, then contact people in groups. your strengths and build skills in new changed us in unexpected ways. I hope Let them know that you’d like to have a areas; in my case around data. Not finding that virtual interviews and more openness chat about trends they are seeing in the something permanent right away gave me to remote work are here to stay.

www.researchinformation.info | @researchinfo June/July 2021 Research Information 25 News

Springer Nature and UC Berkeley sign OA books deal

The University of California, Berkeley Library has signed an open access book agreement with Springer Nature. The agreement will cover a broad range of book titles across all disciplines —

from humanities and social sciences to videohouse/Shutterstock.com sciences, technology and mathematics and, starting in 2021 and running for at least three years, will provide open access funding to University of California (UC) Berkeley affiliated authors. The OA book titles will publish under Springer, Palgrave and Apress imprints, with initial publications later this year. This agreement with follows the UC system-wide agreement with Springer Nature last year to enable UC authors to publish research articles OA in more than 2,700 Springer Nature journals. While the transformative deal covers the publication of journal articles, books are delighted to be partnering with UC ‘For the past several years, through are the common or expected publishing Berkeley Library in what is our first ever our Berkeley Research Impact Initiative, format in some disciplines. The need institutional partnership for open access we have covered a significant portion of to account for a variety of scholarly books and our first US agreement for open book processing charges for any open outputs prompted UC Berkeley Library access books. This represents a big step access book our authors publish, but this to sign a new agreement providing direct towards ensuring access to funding for agreement with Springer Nature takes an assistance to book-publishing authors. book authors. even bigger leap forward. The books will be published under a ‘By utilising our experience as the ‘Under this agreement, we will cover CC BY licence and readers around the largest academic book publisher and 100 per cent of standard publishing costs world will have free access to the books expertise in enabling the transition to open for open access books that UC Berkeley via Springer Nature’s content platform access, we look forward to increasing the authors publish with Springer Nature for SpringerLink. impact and reach of book authors at UC at least the next three years. This will help With research showing that OA books Berkeley and their research.’ yield important progress on our journey are downloaded 10 times more often Jo Anne Newyear-Ramirez, UC to advance knowledge, by making more and cited 2.4 times more, the agreement Berkeley Library associate university UC Berkeley-authored books open to the will significantly enhance the visibility, librarian for scholarly resources, said: world. dissemination and impact of important ‘UC Berkeley Library has been working ‘We’re equally thrilled to be pioneers academic research, the publisher says. with publishers to create sustainable and among US academic institutions in Niels Peter Thomas, managing director inclusive paths to open access, for both entering into this type of agreement with for books at Springer Nature, said: ‘We scholarly articles and books. Springer Nature.’

New IOPP policy allows author name changes

IOP Publishing (IOPP) has cases, particularly for trans to privacy is a key tenet, IOPP process. Engaging with the implemented a policy to and non-binary authors, says, with assurance of full research community in the allow authors to change their changing names needs to be confidentiality and the option development of the policy name on previously published approached with discretion to change a name with or helped us understand the research. and sensitivity. without a public notice. There experiences and frustrations The move is part of IOPP’s The policy was developed in is no requirement to disclose that researchers had stated commitment to consultation with the research the reason for the request, previously faced and we have ensuring an open, supportive community, applies to all nor the need to provide name built their feedback into our and inclusive research content published including change proof. approach. environment. It says people journal articles, conference Kim Eggleton, IOPP integrity ‘A big thank you to all those change their name for a variety proceedings and ebooks. It and inclusion manager, said: who took the time to help us of reasons, including but not covers changes to names, ‘We wanted to ensure authors shape our approach. Creating limited to gender identity, pronouns, author photographs could change their name on a more inclusive and equitable marriage, divorce, or a change and contact details. already published research publishing environment is in religion – and that, in many Respecting the authors right without a cumbersome important to us.’

26 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Have an opinion? Now you can share it with the Viewpoints Research Information community available online

How have Libraries and The Modern Language Skills need an upgrade as Archives changed in the Association Releases digital techniques take hold Digital Age? ‘Literary Topics’ Royal Society of Chemistry Springer Nature EBSCO, MLA By Richard Kidd, Head of Chemistry The Digital Age has significantly Data at the Royal Society of The Modern Language Association increased the amount of information Chemistry (MLA) is pleased to announce the that is produced on a daily basis. release of “Literary Topics,” the Our understanding of the universe fifth subject-area module for use in and scientific research are inexorably conjunction with our free teaching linked, of that there is no debate. As we resource Understanding the MLA improve our knowledge in one area, the International Bibliography: A Free Online other inevitably benefits. Course.

Springer Nature Education Best practice for effective Indexed by Experts, MLA Podcast Series searching for literature International Bibliography is Springer Nature reviews a Global Collaboration EBSCO, IFIS Publishing EBSCO, Modern Language Author Insights: The Future of Association Education with Professor Rupert In a webinar with Research Information, Maclean given in November 2019, Rhianna The MLA International Bibliography is Gamble and Carol Hollier of IFIS known around the world for the quality Education and schooling is always a hot presented on the topic of literature of its indexing. Mary Onorato, Director topic, but particularly at the current time reviews in food science. of Bibliographic Information Services during the COVID-19 pandemic, which and Publisher, MLA International has had a profound impact on the ways Bibliography, shares the secrets of its in which education and schooling is success. delivered to learners.

The role of health care The Importance Using the MLA International professionals in a changing of MathSciNet to Bibliography to Guide the sector Mathematicians Research Process Springer Nature EBSCO, Mathematical EBSCO Reviews, MathsSciNet The health care sector is undergoing a In a recent webinar presented by significant change, moving away from Leading subject indexes provide critical Research Information, Angela Ecklund a system of caring for the sick to early information to academic researchers, and Farrah Lehman Den of the Modern intervention, prevention and supporting enabling them to conduct a thorough Language Association (MLA) shared of wellbeing. review of literature with speed and an overview of the free online teaching efficiency. tools developed for use with the MLA International Bibliography. Claire Buck, Professor of English at Wheaton College, also described how she integrates the Bibliography into the curriculum to engage students in the research process.

Research information www.researchinformation.info/viewpoint News

Deal will evaluate UK journal subscriptions

Jisc has announced that it will be using Unsub, an analytics dashboard, to help evaluate journal agreements that UK universities hold with publishers. The dashboard, created in 2019 by not-for-profit software firm Our Research, can forecast different journal subscription scenarios, giving Jisc insight into the costs and benefits of subscription packages for each university and across the consortium. Unsub is used by more than 400 research libraries worldwide, with Cambridge University and Lancaster University the latest UK institutions to subscribe. The partnership will allow Jisc to extend Unsub’s data- driven insights beyond these universities, to encompass the entire UK higher education sector. In doing so, Jisc will join other consortia Unsub users, including CRKN (Canada), CAUL (Australia/ New Zealand) and Lyrasis (US). Caren Milloy, Jisc's director of licensing, said: ‘In this period of Framework to support financial uncertainty, it is essential we support our members in researchers launched by STM

evaluating agreements they A framework that helps online platforms said: ‘The Article Sharing Framework Uu777/Shutterstock.com subscribe to. The new dashboard determine in real time whether journal removes the burden on researchers of enables us to look at the value articles can be legally shared has been having to check compliance, and instead derived across all participating devised by experts at STM. encourages publishers and platforms to members, and assess the The Article Sharing Framework work together to facilitate sharing in ways impact of different collection announced at the STM Spring Conference that are respectful of publisher policies.' models. We are really pleased to will help platforms and publishers comply STM CEO Ian Moss added: 'The Article support members with centrally with new obligations from Europe. Sharing Framework is a great example of co-ordinated data provision, The new EU Copyright Directive, which how we, and our members, support the to provide insights to inform comes into effect in June, requires work of researchers to ensure they are institutional decision-making.’ online content sharing platforms to able to focus on their day jobs of making Jason Priem, co-founder of Our seek permission from publishers when new discoveries, and enjoy a smooth Research, added: ‘We’re thrilled to providing access to content uploaded by workflow in relationship to the sharing of help Jisc continue its tradition of their users, and for publishers to provide content against a background of complex information leadership. This new the information necessary to determine if, legislative changes.’ partnership helps further Unsub’s or under which conditions, the sharing of Todd Carpenter, executive director of goal of supporting libraries in content is permitted. NISO, said: ‘The Article Sharing Framework re-evaluating their big deals, To make complying with this as is built on two existing and adopted giving them the opportunity to easy as possible, STM – working with standards, the NISO Journal Article focus spending in support of the NISO (National Information Standards Versions and the NISO Article License transition to open access.’ Organization) and Crossref – has Indicators Recommended Practices, Jisc says the Unsub dashboard developed an innovative solution, which which should ease the challenges of will streamline workflows and allows platforms to automatically identify implementation. Working collaboratively add data to its ongoing analysis article versions, and their associated across the community, we were able to efforts. Of particular value is sharing permissions. This will allow them find an elegant solution to a complex Unsub’s ability to estimate the to determine in real-time if the uploading problem, without having to build a new extent that OA scholarly articles of an article is allowed. There is no cost infrastructure stack.’ can replace existing subscription associated with using the framework. Resources for integrating with the access. Due to growth of OA, James Milne, chair of the STM board Article Sharing Framework for publishers more than half of newly-published and president of the publications division and platforms are being made available on articles are free to read. of the American Chemical Society, the STM website.

28 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info News

Jisc toolkit helps university presses publish OA Viktoria Kurpas/Shutterstock.com Viktoria Jisc is launching a toolkit that will help new university presses find sustainable ways to publish open access. Funder policies surrounding OA have led to a revival in university presses in the UK and overseas. A 2017 report found in the prior five years, 21 new university presses (NUPs) became operational, and this number may rise to 30 within five years. Graham Stone, subject matter expert on OA monographs at Jisc and co-developer of the toolkit, said: ‘A growing number of universities and academics have set up their own presses in an attempt to take back control and autonomy from the large consisting of university presses from sections and is provided with a CC-BY commercial publishing houses. Liverpool, Stockholm, Westminster, White licence so that the content can be shared, ‘Most of these new presses are faced Rose and University College London, and reused and re-purposed. with the challenge of making open access other experts in the field. Although the Jisc toolkit is initially aimed publishing a reality. Depending on the maturity and size at UK institutions, it draws on international ‘This toolkit will support new and of the press, this toolkit will help existing best practice and case studies making the existing university and library OA NUPs, as well as those planning to launch content applicable to a global audience. publishing ventures, as well as those with or investigate whether to establish a new Support for individual researchers a hybrid model.’ press, to better understand the following who wish to understand more about The toolkit has its roots in the key questions: open access for books is available via 2017 Landscape study of NUPs and • How to get institutional buy-in, and the OAPEN Open Access Books Toolkit, academic-led publishing, Changing understand resource and budget which was developed at the same time

Uu777/Shutterstock.com publishing ecologies. One of the report’s requirements to justify the start-up of a but covers slightly different issues around recommendations was to create a best- press; open access publishing. practice toolkit to assist with the planning • How to achieve sustainability and define The toolkit will be reviewed regularly, and establishment of new university and what it is – e.g., service to researchers and the editorial advisory board will library-led presses publishing OA material. and/or growing prestige; and commission new work in response to It was developed with the input from • How to attract and support authors. changes in the publishing landscape and an international editorial advisory board The toolkit is structured into 11 main user feedback.

European expansion continues for ISSN network

The ISSN International Centre achievement for the ISSN Benedikt Föger, president of the ISSN Network of 92 is moving from strength to Network to welcome Austria of the Hauptverband member countries, and is strength with two national as a new member country des Österreichischen responsible for maintaining centres recently opened. and the Hauptverband des Buchhandels, added: ‘When and publishing the ISSN The 92nd national centre Österreichischen Buchhandels looking at the way the Austrian International Register and its in the ISSN Network opened as a new ISSN Centre’. Booksellers Association associated services available in Austria on 1 April, after the She continued: ‘Our Austrian has professionally operated on the ISSN Portal (portal.issn. launch of the ISSN National colleagues are seasoned the Austrian ISBN Agency org). Centre for Ukraine in mid- professionals who work for years, our association The Austrian Publishers March. closely with publishers and becoming the Austrian ISSN and Booksellers Association The Hauptverband des show great interest in serial National Centre feels almost has been representing the Österreichischen Buchhandels identification activities. predestined. interests of booksellers, (the Austrian Publishers and ‘The ISSN International ‘So I was all the more publishers, delivery Booksellers Association), Centre stands by ISSN pleased to learn that we meet agents, publishing house in Vienna, hosts the ISSN Austria to achieve a smooth all the criteria for joining the representatives and National Centre for Austria. transition for the benefit of ISSN Community.’ antiquarian booksellers at Gaëlle Béquet, director of the publishing, scholarly and Since 1975, the ISSN home and abroad in a non- the ISSN International Centre, library communities of this International Centre (ISSN IC) partisan and objective manner described the move as ‘a great country.’ has co-ordinated the activities since 1859.

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New metric ‘leverages opinions of 8,000 experts’

Faculty Opinions has introduced a metric in the research evaluation landscape, leveraging the opinions of more than 8,000 experts. The Faculty Opinions Score is designed to be an early indicator of an article’s NicoElNino/Shutterstock.com future impact and a mark of research quality. The company describes the implications for researchers, academic institutions and funding bodies as ‘promising’. Tiago Barros, managing director of Faculty Opinions, said: ‘The vision behind Faculty Opinions has always been to offer fairer and more transparent evaluation at article level, and to shift an over-reliance on flawed citation metrics towards greater use of transparent expert opinion. ‘We are delighted to introduce the new Faculty Opinions Score, which combines the predictive power of our of articles that will ultimately be highly other publications in their field. expert recommendations with an article’s cited and have significant impact. ‘The Faculty Opinions Score is derived bibliometric performance.’ Data scientist Matias Rodriguez, who by combining our unique star-rated With more than 20 years’ of opinion, led the development of the Score, said: recommendations on individual articles, comprising more than 230,000 ‘The Faculty Opinions Score assigns a made by world-leading experts, with recommendations shared by Faculty numerical value to research publications in bibliometrics to produce a radically Opinions, the company’s analysis says the biology and medicine, aimed at quantifying new metric in the research evaluation recommendations are a strong predictor their impact and quality compared to landscape.’

Jisc/Taylor & Francis deal 'truly transformative'

Taylor & Francis Group and the goals of research funders UK research excellence and Select journals, on a first- Jisc have signed a three- and Jisc to transform access impact. Beyond this deal, come first-served basis, at year transitional agreement to UK research output, so we are keen to explore ways no cost to the author; combining access and open the impact derived from to work collaboratively with • Reading access to access publishing to Taylor & research can be increased. Jisc to encourage good open subscription content based Francis Group’s portfolio of Researchers will be provided research practices: whether on current holdings; and journals. with frictionless OA publishing that be via a traditional journal • Provision of fully integrated The agreement provides at no cost to them, with a article in front of the paywall, library and author OA participating Jisc members streamlined and optimised through to sharing all research infrastructure to ensure with an OA allowance that workflow. To ensure that the data, methodologies and smooth implementation covers 100 per cent of the deal continues to reflect associated research. This deal and workflow, including the current UK research Taylor researchers’ needs over time, is the first step on that path.’ Taylor & Francis Research & Francis Group has been participating members are Anna Vernon, Jisc’s head of Dashboard, allowing publishing on a subscription invited to sign up for an initial licensing, said: ‘This agreement participating members to basis. three-year period, with an is a vital step towards monitor their institution’s As the largest humanities option to extend by two years. making OA the default for OA output simply and and social sciences (HSS) Annie Callanan, CEO of UK research, and we are very effectively. publisher, publishing 9 per Taylor & Francis, said: 'We pleased to open up publishing Christoph Chesher, chief cent of UK research, the are delighted to be working opportunities to all Taylor & commercial officer at Taylor & deal is particularly important with Jisc and UK universities Francis Group journals. We are Francis, said: ‘The agreement as a route to OA for HSS to advance open research delighted that the agreement is part of Taylor & Francis’ researchers who do not in the UK. This deal provides limits costs to subscription wider commitment to open regularly benefit from the author choice across expenditure only.’ research and will accelerate same funding as their peers the spectrum of journals The deal includes: OA transition in the UK. We in science, technology and published by Taylor & Francis • OA publishing for UK look forward to working with medicine (STM) disciplines. Group, and underscores the authors, up to an agreed Jisc in supporting the needs of The partnership recognises commitment to supporting cap, in Taylor & Francis Open UK researchers.’

30 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info News Capitano Productions Film/Shutterstock.com Capitano Productions

‘Seismic shift’ in research across Menat region

Clarivate has released a report that To put the region’s research contribution collaboration within the region, as well as explores the ‘seismic shift’ of the research into global context, ISI conducted a with the rest of the world will enhance the landscape in 19 countries across the special analysis of Menat research output quality of scientific research, accelerate Middle East, North Africa and Turkey mapped against the United Nations access to new markets and allow the (Menat) region over recent decades. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). financial costs of research to be shared It presents an international success Out of 819 SDG-related topics identified, – more effectively meeting the economic story, with the region’s global share of Menat countries have authored at least and societal challenges the region faces. research output rising from 2 to 8 per cent one paper in 253 topics (31 per cent). For Martin Szomszor, director at the Institute over the last 40 years, and papers from 22 most of the Menat countries, public health for Scientific Information at Clarivate said: million individual researchers identified in and epidemiology is the most frequent ‘The data indicate that Menat research the region between 2008 and 2017. topic for publication, and accounts shows high levels of global collaboration, The latest Global Research Report from for more than a quarter of their SDG- resulting in diverse and high-quality the Institute for Scientific Information related papers. However, there are also output with rising impact. However, (ISI) uses data from the Web of Science visible regional sustainability priorities: regional collaboration remains relatively to demonstrate how Menat research is sustainable economic growth and biogas low and fragmented, and our analysis growing in volume and impact, driven by are hot topics in Turkey, while soil erosion suggests that a collaborative regional increased participation in international is especially strong in Iran. network could improve competitiveness research networks. The increasingly international scope between the region and the rest of the One example is Egypt, which has of the Menat regional research base world, by focusing on shared needs and achieved rising impact at scale, with 60 is seen in its researcher mobility and international priorities.' per cent international collaboration and collaborations. The report analyses Joel Haspel, SVP Strategy for Science a Category Normalised Citation Impact researcher mobility in the region and at Clarivate, added: ‘At Clarivate, we (CNCI) above world average. globally, finding there is a significant know the trusted insights and analytics The report also points to a changing outward flow of talent, with North America we provide will help accelerate the pace regional balance over time; for example and Europe the most popular destinations. of innovation, and our Global Research finding that Iran has surpassed Israel and It draws attention to the opportunity Reports are a key part of that for the Turkey to become the largest research for more local collaboration in the region, international research community. The producer among Menat countries, where domestic mobility is relatively low period of exceptional growth and impact increasing its world share of the Web of and purely domestic papers currently that this report examines is unsurprising, Science literature from 0.2 per cent in account for about 5 per cent of total given the Menat region’s history of deep 2000 to 2.3 per cent in 2019. output. The findings highlight how commitment to knowledge and learning.

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OCLC grant award ‘to help improve library practices’

OCLC has been awarded a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to convene a diverse group of experts, practitioners, and community members to improve descriptive practices, tools, infrastructure and workflows in libraries and archives. In consultation with Shift Collective, a consulting group that helps cultural institutions build stronger communities through lasting engagement, and an advisory group of community F1000 working on ‘digital twin’ leaders, OCLC will: • Convene a conversation of platform launches community stakeholders about how to address systemic issues F1000 is collaborating with two Chinese to provide a communication outlet of of bias and racial equity in its customers to develop open research innovative technologies for technicians, current collection description publishing platforms dedicated to the researchers, scholars and experts, who Pui Lung/Shutterstock.com Tse Lewis infrastructure; research and application of collaborative are engaged in the interdisciplinary • Share with member libraries robots and ‘digital twin’ technologies. Both research field of collaborative robots. the need to build more inclusive will be the world’s first open publishing Collaborative robots, or cobots, are and equitable library collections platforms in their fields, and launch for robots intended to work side-by-side and to provide description submission in July. and in collaboration with humans. These approaches that promote effective The platforms will use F1000’s open machines focus on repetitive tasks, representation and discovery of research publishing model, enabling all such as inspection and picking. They neglected or mis-characterised research outputs to be published OA, help workers focus more on tasks that peoples, events, and experiences; and combine the benefits of pre-printing require problem-solving skills and enable and with mechanisms to assure quality and industries to achieve better efficiency, • Develop a community agenda transparency (invited and open peer flexibility and production capability. in clarifying issues for those who review, archiving and indexing). They Hongxing Wei, professor at Beihang do knowledge work in libraries, also offer researchers an open and University and president of AUBO (Beijing) archives, and museums; identifying transparent peer review process and have Intelligent Science and Technology, priority areas of attention from a mandatory FAIR data policy to provide said: ‘It’s our pleasure to co-operate these institutions; and providing full and easy access to the data underlying with the world leading publisher Taylor valuable guidance. the results. & Francis Group and its partner F1000, OCLC occupies a critical place Managing director Rebecca Lawrence to set up Cobot, the first academic and in the bibliographic ecosystem said: ‘The vision behind F1000 has always technological communication platform in for library technical services and been to develop approaches to scholarly the field of collaborative robots. Cobots global discovery. OCLC staff and publishing that better support the needs are a kind of new versatile robots widely thousands of member libraries of today in communicating new findings, applied in industrial production and social produce and maintain WorldCat, a regardless of output format. We have services. The birth of Cobot will surely comprehensive global network of made significant traction and seen strong promote the scientific research and data about library collections. growth and uptake, especially in Europe technical developments in related fields.’ ‘As a steward of the world’s and the US, but much less so in one of the The scope of the platform includes library data, OCLC has an other most significant markets, China.’ scientific and technical research topics important role to play to help She said collaborating with their first in intelligent robots, AI, human-machine create inclusive descriptions,’ partners in China would ‘build two open collaboration and integration, machine said Mary Sauer-Games, OCLC research publishing platforms that will vision, intelligent sensing and smart vice president for global product help accelerate the reach of innovative materials. management. ‘We are honoured technologies’. ‘By opening up all aspects It will also include the design, to work with community partners of the research from article, to data, to development and testing of collaborative to examine and address obsolete, peer review, these platforms will create a robots and relevant software, as well discriminatory and harmful transparent, open and fair environment for as case studies focused on their wide- language in bibliographic research and innovation to flourish.’ ranging use and applications. The platform descriptions.’ will also feature a variety of article types, The convening is part of an Collaborative robots including method articles, study protocols, eight-month project, Reimagine The contract signed with AUBO (Beijing) software tools, systematic reviews, data Descriptive Workflows. Intelligent Science and Technology aims notes, brief reports and opinion articles.

32 Research Information June/July 2021 @researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info Suppliers’ Directory Suppliers’ Directory

Association for Clarivate Computing Machinery Friars House, 160 Blackfriars Road 1601 Broadway, 10th Floor London SE1 8EZ, United Kingdom New York, NY 10019-7434 +44 2074334000 [email protected] clarivate.com https://libraries.acm.org/acmopen Clarivate™ is a global leader in providing solutions to accelerate the lifecycle of innovation. Our bold mission is to help customers solve some ACM is introducing a new model for Open Access Publication. of the world’s most complex problems by providing actionable information Developed in collaboration with leading academic libraries, ACM and insights that reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing OPEN has the potential to make all new research articles published inventions in the areas of science and intellectual property. We help by ACM accessible without paywalls. customers discover, protect and commercialize their inventions using our Visit https://libraries.acm.org/acmopen for more information. trusted subscription and technology-based solutions coupled with deep domain expertise. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.

Digital Science EBSCO

6 Briset St, Farringdon, 10 Estes St, Ipswich, London EC1M 5NR, UK MA 01938, USA digital-science.com Tel: +44 20 8447 4200 Digital Science is a technology company working to make research more [email protected] efficient. We invest in, nurture and support innovative businesses and www.ebsco.com technologies that make all parts of the research process more open and effective. Our portfolio includes admired brands including Altmetric, CC Research includes data, code and methods, but how do faculty Grant Tracker, Dimensions, Figshare, Gigantum, ReadCube, Symplectic, and researchers discover and use these outputs? How do you IFI Claims, GRID, Overleaf, Ripeta, Scismic and Writefull. Digital Science’s collect and preserve output and keep them with the institution Consultancy group works with organisations around the world to create when researchers leave? new insights based on data to support decision makers. We believe that Code Ocean and protocols.io help the library and researchers together, we can help researchers make a difference. manage, share and discover code, data and methods. Visit digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on Twitter. Learn more at www.ebsco.com

Figshare ISSN 6 Briset St, Farringdon, 45 rue de Turbigo, London EC1M 5NR, UK 75003 PARIS - France http://figshare.com Tel: 00331 44882220 Fax: 00331 40263243 Figshare is a web-based platform to help academic institutions [email protected] manage, disseminate and measure the public attention of all their www.issn.org research outputs. The light-touch and user-friendly approach https://portal.issn.org focuses on four key areas: research data management, reporting and statistics, research data dissemination and administrative control. The ISSN is the international identifier for serials and other Figshare works with institutions globally to help them meet key funder continuing resources, in the electronic and print world. The ISSN recommendations and to provide world-leading tools to support an Register is the worldwide bibliographic database which contains open culture of data sharing and collaboration. Figshare is part of the more than 2,5 million ISSN bibliographic records created and Digital Science portfolio of companies. For more information, updated for the identification of the serials. visit http://figshare.com and follow @figshare on Twitter.

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Register for your free subscription now! researchinformation.info/subscribe *T&C apply. This is a controlled circulation magazine The ISSN Portal offers a suite of essential services to monitor continuing resources from inception to long-term archiving

Browse and download Stay tuned with changes free ISSN Core data in journal ownership Librarians, editors, publishers, content providers, database During their lifetime, journals and continuing resources managers, scholars, students can access free ISSN core may change publisher. ISSN IC participates in NISO Transfer data through the ISSN Portal. They can make the most of Group and manages, the Enhanced Transfer Alerting this comprehensive database to identify print and online Service (ETAS) that allows publishers to share information serials and continuing resources published worldwide. about journal transfers with librarians and researchers.

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> Advanced and expert search options to identify serial world. Find out if your library’s electronic serial collections resources, including those to be published shortly, are at risk of vanishing or if they are properly archived. > Faceted search including subject classification and index coverage > New display features, i.e. timeline, geolocation of publi- cations, title history and title relationships, > ISSN data available for download in a variety of formats including MARC 21, UNIMARC, MARC XML, RDF/XML, RDF turtle, JSON > Alerts to receive regular updates on publications; > API downloads which can be integrated into local workflows > Interface in the 6 official UN languages.

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THE DEVELOPMENT AND FUTURE OF BOOK CITATIONS

HISTORY The study of book citation AUTHOR indices is around 10 years old. PERSPECTIVES In our survey of 4,375 book authors, the majority reported THE SPRINGER that citations as the most NATURE STUDY important indicator of a title’s success. 221,688 *See the full results of the survey records in ‘Today’s library & the future of scholarly communications’ 18,791 books KEY FINDINGS 531,557 The majority of books take up to citations Computer science 8 years to reach peak citations Earth and Average number of

Planetary Sciences 73 citations per book Biochemistry, Genetics 2015 Books indexed in Scopus and Molecular Biology 67 by discipline 600000 531,557 total citations Agricultural and 500000

Biological Sciences 50 400000

300000 199,910 Psychology total chapters 50 200000 CONCLUSION 23% 100000 18,791 total titles Where book scientometrics is a 0 Book still relatively new area of study, formats Titles within a series Book series titles more research is needed. Individual books There is also a great deal more to Monographs 77% (standalone books) be known about citations Edited books in a series format usually come with both a greater number of chapters and an overall higher number of themselves, for instance the citations than non-series titles (Torres-Salinas, et al., 2014) intention or function of a citation, whether evidentiary, supportive, or used to refute a piece of research. As we see more books come online, and the art and science of citation analysis further evolves.

Visit go.sn.pub/citations-paper to download the white paper

A102513_SN_Book_Citation_infographic_A4.indd 1 03-May-21 1:41:34 PM