ACRL 2015… from BFW

Leave a reply

0328151603

 

ACRL2015 in Portland was an exciting whirlwind of learning and chaos for me –  and I was super happy to drive a few hours north than fly across county for the conference 🙂

 

As part of the coordinating committee –  co-chair of the Innovations committee  – we were in charge of running the “fun” stuff such as the unCon, yoga, smoothie bikes, BigFoot, battledecks, 1st timer bingo, conference reads, lounge, lunch/food trucks, etc.

2015-03-26 07.52.222015-03-27-09-11-05smoothie bikes

 

 

 

 

IMG951517[2]I also had a blast presenting with an amazing group of librarians on a panel early Thursday morning – Keep it Green: Leading Sustainable and Successful Online Teams.  These are librarians I have worked with virtually and successfully within ACRL committees – all of them were also on Innovations.  We are hoping to present this panel talk again in a virtual format maybe through LLAMA or other venues as it was well received am I believe useful to many who are running online committee and groups.

I attended a number of other sessions, hit or miss at times (some poor speakers or not useful choices for me) but I always try to find at least one takeaway for any session.  One session slot had 3 different panels discussing student workers, advisory teams and using students in renovating a library, and a poster on empowering student workers all offered some ideas. Turning student library jobs into high impact practices talk shared ideas on setting up student workers with specific real world skills, connections to their courses, reflection time, and methods to connect with their  other student workers. By including students in this process the students could better use this library position in interviews and future employment. These librarians connected with other departments on campus who hired lots of students to share ideas, tips and co-training. The student advisory talk showed how the connection of student with the dean/director of the library really showed them how valuable their input was – but be sure not to include your student workers as they have a more biased view of the library.  If organized well, the advisory team could be a real boost to the students for their resume and skill set. The last speaker covered the design-model-build using students in an architecture department, to help assess, plan and design an outdoor sculpture area by the library. Working with students on real world projects  – wow great idea!  Though I have a feeling the Valley Library has already implemented a number of these ideas already so I hear…

I also attended a number of space planning, makerspaces, ethnographic workshops and UX sessions. I have read a lot about these concepts and done some of this work in past jobs so there wasn’t too much new information but always some takeaways. In the UX for the people talk, the biggest concept I took with me was “rethink when you have to say no to a user.”  The space planning/redesign session learned about new spaces such as teen booths or data diners created in little nooks, reservable and the 5×5 rule for weeding (is the item used less than 5 times, over 5 years and at least 5 in our consortium own it). Oh and the horticulture students creating a healthy snack option – an apple vending machine!  In the cognitive mapping session I found out about cartodb.com and floorplanner.com as tools for mapping. Interesting takeaway from their sharing was how our most heavily traffic areas of the library contained the most low identification items according to the students (items such as new books, librarian offices, journals, print materials in general).  The makerspaces session (pdf) included usingLegos in your library. Megan Lotts has some creative and inexpensive ways to bring creative and critical thinking skills to the library without buying a 3d printer and being high tech. There was also a session that shared survey results on academic libraries and resources lists (though the conference I ran on academic libraries and making missed his list 🙁

I enjoyed the lightening round sharing on Sustainability Across the Academic Library – there were a lot of panelist and a lot of ideas to follow up on from Charney’s  7 part sustainability action plan for her library, and Tanners Seed Lending Library tips. Most of this panel’s discussion is found in the book Focus on Educating for Sustainability: Toolkit for Academic Libraries by Jankowska.  And the BOF lunch with SustainRT folks is always refreshing!

On saturday I concluded with session on responsive web design (we already do that here  at the Valley Library, I now know!),  survey of our users (feeling questions and how do you use your time in the library were key), and applying  Universal Design and Accessibility to your website (design principles such as hierarchy, chunking, color, accessibility and layering were discussed)

Beyond that I enjoyed visiting the many posters, including some of our own, hanging with the ACRL bigwigs at the Chairs reception, and excitement over the next ACRL in my hometown of Baltimore in 2017!

0326151023ACRLstaff0328151113

34th Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience

Leave a reply

This was the third Annual conference I have attended, and my last as ACRL Liaison to the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, the sponsoring group.  This year’s conference was held in downtown Dallas, Texas.

This was the best coffee I found.  It was very good.

Iron sculptures depicting a herd of Texas long-horned cattle being driven across a creek bed

Cattle drive art in Pioneer Plaza, next to the conference hotel

I facilitated a discussion on the new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education on the last day of the conference, but I forgot to take a picture of the room.  In small groups, we focused on designing course and class activities.

Here’s the handout summarizing the Framework (PDF on Google Drive)

Group 1’s Daily Show activity.

Group 2’s first-year seminar focused syllabus investigation activity.

Group 3’s 21 Questions activity.

The conference never has a specific theme limiting the scope of the presentations, so there’s a wide range of talks, posters, workshops and discussions focusing on all kinds of issues of interest to those who work with first-year students.  The attendees are teachers, students, student affairs professionals, program administrators, institutional administrators and more.  Some sessions are designated as research-focused, while others synthesize information on rising trends.  A few things I took away from this conference:

  • Common Reading Programs are still a very important part of the first-year experience on many campuses. There is a significant publisher presence on the vendor floor at the FYE conference, and it’s clear that these programs have become a major industry. There were Common Reading sessions in every timeslot – some examining program logistics, and others focused on effective ways to build supplementary programs around the common book. I did not attend many of these sessions, but it is also clear that there is still not a lot of assessment data about the impact of these programs.
  • Peer Leaders and peer-to-peer learning is a major theme. There were sessions on training, recruiting and working with peer leaders in a variety of contexts (including one from librarians at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, who brought some of their peer leaders as co-presenters).
  • Financial literacy is an increasingly important topic. Always a part of the conversation, there were more standalone sessions on this topic than I remember before. In addition, there were more products and services on the vendor floor focused on this area.   Given that this was also a priority for ACRL in recent years, there is an interesting point of convergence there.
  • Many of the sessions continue to be focused on the logistics of creating, implementing and running specific programs: orientations, seminars, bridge programs, etc. There are always a significant population of FYE administrators who attend this conference, and a noticeable group of faculty members recently tasked with building FYE programs.
  • First-year study abroad programs continue to grow. There are a few schools with long-established programs, but many of the programs presenting here were created in the last few years. There were no library-specific examples of these, but in out of session conversations I met multiple librarians who have partnered with FYE trips abroad. Here’s some sample programs:
  • There is also a sizable group of faculty who teach in FYE programs who attend this conference and as a result, there are always sessions focused on pedagogy and teaching practice. Two of the sessions I attended illustrate the diversity of approaches you can find in these sessions:
  • I had worried that the library and information literacy sessions would be down this year because of ACRL, but that was not the case. There were a variety of sessions focused on information literacy and inquiry. Librarians talked about their collaborations with First-Year Seminars and Common Reading programs and new student orientations. They discussed student publishing and Open Textbook projects. Attendees learned about Kansas State’s library-created Alternate Reality Game, and the University of Toronto’s Personal Librarian program.

AAAS Annual Meeting 2015

Leave a reply

By Laurel Kristick

February 12-16, 2015

San Jose California

Summary:

This was an excellent conference for librarians interested in science, communication, policy, education and related issues. The theme of the meeting was Innovations, Information, and Imaging. The sessions I attended were focused on research integrity, diversity in STEM, outreach and engagement, and science communication. I was able to attend three sessions where OSU faculty were speaking or moderating: Francis Chan (Integrative Biology), Paul Farber (History), Anita Guerrini (History). There were also a number of sessions that I would have liked to attend but conflicted with other sessions.

Key Takeaways:

  • Outreach and engagement are important for academics and other researchers. If you want involvement from others there are 3 models from citizen science: contributory (citizens contribute data), collaborative (citizens take part in planning or analyzing), Co-created (2-way learning process between scientists and citizens)
  • In scientific outreach and communication, the LIVA strategy can help with addressing the biases of the audience: LIVA = Leverage scientific credibility and Involve the audience in Visualizing scientific evidence and making sense of an illustrative Analogy.
  • Research Misconduct is a systemic issue, not just a few bad apples, and organizational change and mentoring may be needed to fix systemic problems (SIDENOTE: on the flight home, I was readingMistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), which reflects many of the ideas I heard at the conference about research integrity)
  • The “leaking pipeline” analogy related to diversity in STEM education is flawed as it only considers the path from doctoral student to full professor in a research university; need to include alternative career paths (policy, science communication, liberal arts schools, community college, industry) – are the graduates utilizing their education and experience; are they doing what they want

Further Reading

Books:

Articles:

Websites:

The 40th annual conference of the International Association of Aquatic and Marine Science Libraries and Information Centers was hosted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in Noumea, New Caledonia. (September 14-18, 2014). That is a long ways from Newport and I got there via New Zealand.

The SPC was founded in 1947 to assist the Pacific Island Region stabilize after WWII. It works across many sectors to achieve economic growth, sustainable natural resource management and utilization, and healthy human and social development. Members include the 22 island states and territories plus four of the original founders – New Zealand, USA, France and Australia. The headquarters has a lovely meeting hall that is shaped like an upside-down canoe.  We met here and the picture below gives you an idea of the grandeur of the setting.

For a more detailed daily description of the conference, my colleague, Kris Anderson from the University of Hawaii, blogged the meeting. She has a readable and enjoyable style that gives you a flavor for the meeting.

Here are a few of the things I learned or impressed me the most.

  • The Pacific Islands Region is vast – 5000 km x 10000km.  There are over 9000 islands.  Travel is difficult with few island to island flights.  1% of the islands have reliable internet connections.  13 of the 22 capitals of the state and territories have cabled connections; the rest are via satellite.  This makes communication challenging and delivery of information formidable.
  • SPC has the Fisheries, Aquaculture and Marine Ecosystems (FAME) Digital Library.  The Pacific Islands Marine Portal (PIMRIS) adds records from the region to the Aquatic Science and Fisheries Abstracts and the Aquatic Commons.  The resources are impressive and unique but both organizations are challenged by staff turnover (when people are trained in IT they tend to move on from the libraries), inconsistent internet access, very limited budgets and professional capacity. Collaboration is not just nice – it’s essential.
  • Conservation of the ocean is part of the DNA of Pacific Islanders.
  • Library Box offers a possible solution to limited internet access and inconsistent electricity.  Steve Watkins from CSUMB demonstrated this digital distribution tool that uses a solar powered, battery operated portable wireless router to serve out content.  In this case, he downloaded the contents of Aquatic Commons on the flash drive.  Two of the devices are now being tested at IAMSLIC member institutions in the Pacific Islands Region.
  • The Vietnam Institute of Oceanography finally has plans to set up a rare book room to protect its valuable collection from the vagaries of high humidity and temperature.  The staff has started digitizing items in the collection to save them from continued use in the labs by staff needing taxonomic verification. The Institute has digitized the complete HMS Discovery Reports.
  • Daryl Superio from SEAFDEC in the Philippines headed an excellent session on disaster planning.  His presentation of library preparedness and response to Hurricane Yolanda highlighted the level of complacency we all fall victim to.  Kris Anderson distributed a very useful Pocket Response Plan template – fill it out and carry it with you.  She also had the tip of having your emergencies supplies in a rolling garbage can so you can take the tarps to the spot needed.

Of course there was more shared and learned.  Part of what makes this particular library association and its gatherings so intriguing is the mix of people and cultures.  We are bound by an interest in providing access to information.  How we do is shaped by where we are and who we serve.  The challenges are shared – communication, professional development, budgets, recalcitrant management, leaking buildings, confusing standards and more.  IAMSLIC moves its annual conference to a different region every year so those in the region have a better chance of attending and working together.  That was the case in Noumea.  We have members from 95 countries; 12 of those countries were represented this year including 8 from the Pacific Islands. This is the first time since 2006 that many of the librarians in marine libraries in the Pacific have had a chance to talk, exchange ideas and just get to know each other better.

Besides the days we spend inside listening and asking questions, we had fun as well.  This included a cool train ride around Noumea,

 

a visit to the beautiful Tjibaou Cultural Center

and a 40th birthday party for IAMSLIC. 

Accommodations were great.  I shared a two bedroom apartment for the week for about the price of one night in Chicago.  Here’s the view from our balcony that looked onto Lemon Bay.

What did I contribute?  I presented the results of a membership survey that will help us steer a course for our association.  Working in an international group gives you a much deeper perspective on what libraries mean to communities of scientists, students, managers and more.  When I picked up my rental car in Portland on returning home, the agent praised US libraries.  He was from Turkey and had just finished his business degree; he thought it was just miraculous that we could materials from any where and that we would.  At OSU, I’m fortunate to be able to contribute to my library community and be part of the conversation across the waters.

Leadership Lincoln 2013-2014

1 Reply

Traveling Lincoln County
by Judy Mullen
August 15, 2014

The most mind-boggling and interesting day I experienced as a participant in the 2013-2014 Leadership Lincoln Program was the day our class met at the Georgia Pacific mill in Toledo. The immense power and size of it mesmerized me–a steam-billowing colossus with its own bevy of boxcars and trucks clustered before it like miniature toys. My classmates and I donned protective glasses before descending into the belly of the whale. This place had a palpable force; I sensed a great aliveness to the enterprise, as though the mill were breathing. My colleague, who grew up in Toledo, told me that as a child she thought of the mill as a great cat crouching near the edge of town.

The mill is owned by the Koch brothers, employs 400 workers and is the fifth largest employer in Lincoln County. It manufactures a product called “container board” which is shipped out in rolls and is later transformed into boxes. The mill pumps four million dollars in wages and benefits into the miniscule town of Toledo (3500 residents) and eventually those dollars disperse across our county. My county, the one I’ve lived in for twenty years but about which, I discovered, I knew little. Now I know something about this mill.  It expands my sense of my county and my place in it.  I learned something.  But what has this got to do with Leadership?  And with OSU Libraries?

Georgia Pacific Mill

Georgia Pacific paper mill, Toledo Oregon
Photographer: Roger Hart / Date taken: May 1960
Oregon Digital: Unique Digital Collections from OSU and UO Libraries
http://oregondigital.org/u?/lchsa,478

“Leadership and Learning are indispensable to each other.”  -John F. Kennedy

What is Leadership Lincoln?
The Leadership Lincoln program has trained over 600 Lincoln County residents over the last twenty-two years. It’s a program that survives because it is vital, interesting, useful. Here’s the way I’d describe it: Twenty-seven county residents from all walks of life trekked around together, one day a month for ten months, traversing the county from stem to stern. We attended class in a different location each month, including a grocery store, the performing arts center, the recreation center, the Angell Job Corps campus, two Oregon Coast Community College sites, the Casino’s hotel, NOAA’s Marine Operation Center, the Georgia Pacific Mill and a hospital.

We met those who are leading the county and asked them how they were doing it. It was a chance to ask what the problems were and what was needed to do the job– to ask what is and isn’t working. These leaders displayed a panoramic view of differing yet effective leadership styles. The topics ranged broadly: education, media, communications, healthcare, human resources, business climate, law enforcement, the legal system, government and what the notion of “quality of life” in our county might actually mean. Whew! See how all-encompassing this was?

What I learned…

“Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.” -General Colin Powell

I had lunch with a cop, the county’s D.A., a business instructor at the community college, and cooks from the hospital and the jail. These were unusual lunch partners for me. I learned that cops have to study in an ongoing manner, that the D.A. has a body bag in her trunk, that those developing small business in our county are interested in 3-d printers, and that the food is excellent at both the hospital and jail. I learned that we have twelve county parks and that there were twenty-seven different tribes on the Siletz reservation in the 1850’s. What I am trying to say here is that this whole thing was turning out to be fascinating.

But more importantly, I learned that my classmates and the leaders to whom we spoke had common concerns about our county; poverty, unemployment, hunger. Everyone thinks about how to make more jobs here, and about how to make sure our educational system does not falter, about how to keep the environment healthy and how to stay safe. I was thunderstruck to learn there are a staggering number of children in our county who are homeless. So we have work to do in this county.

But we saw many rays of light, too, and many programs at work addressing real needs: Homeless Connect (a program which provides direct help to the homeless), Habitat for Humanity, training at the Angell Job Corps site in the trades (like carpentry, masonry, plumbing), a new health education building going up at the hospital, a commitment by the county to develop Newport as a hub for ocean related industry, and programs for seniors and veterans through RSVP. And there are many more. But we found that communication and collaboration between these groups was difficult and that more connection among them is needed.

“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” -Peter Drucker

The model for this class is like a double-helix; one strand offers a variety of local venues to visit and learn about–replete with leaders in action. But the other strand introduced us to the concepts and skills embedded in leadership. Dr. John Baker cleverly and often humorously sprinkled this information throughout our class meetings, using real examples born from his own experience. So I learned about places in my county, but I also pondered the rudiments of leadership and management. The two strands twisted neatly together and I think it was a brilliant framework for this class.

There is no one style of leadership. What exactly makes a good leader is illusive. But leaders are not born, they can be made by practicing skills. Personal qualities of leaders that often get reiterated include: honesty, focus, passion, good communication skills, ability to simplify, good listener, confident, energetic, intelligent, fearless, vision, persistent. There are many other qualities and really no way to nail down a formula.

It’s easier, however, to recognize a skill set which leaders practice and use: keep the mission first; keep everyone focused on the goals, provide training, talk like an adult (not like a parent or a child), hold others accountable, keep a positive outlook and maintain positive relationships, provide structure, understand the costs to organization and to staff, lead by example, be flexible, lead with conviction, be decisive. This list is a tall order for anyone; it takes some practice.

How did Leadership Lincoln change me?
What will I do with this information? Looking at the broad sweep of my county and seeing its needs made me want to do something to help, however small. Our class planned to support the Fall 2014 Project Homeless Connect, so I have volunteered. This class inspires its students to commit an act of public service. And maybe, to do it again and again.

How does my experience with Lincoln Leadership serve the library?
-Guin Library gained exposure in this county; twenty-seven classmates now know more about it and what it can offer them. They will take that information back to their agencies and workplaces.
-Guin Library will host a Leadership Lincoln class on site next spring.
-OSU Libraries & Press will collaborate with the community college on a 3-d printer seminar.
-Class networking brought new patrons to Guin Library from our own neighborhood; we were able to supply resources about tsunami preparedness to the nearby motorhome park.
-I am better at referrals now; I can point patrons to local groups and agencies.
I was reaffirmed in the belief that everyone has something to contribute, and that acts of public service accumulate into worthwhile change.

I am grateful that OSU Libraries and Press supported my attendance; I want to say thank you and to say that I genuinely looked forward to each monthly class. I believe attending and working with the Leadership Lincoln group reflected the Library’s core values; it put into action the collaboration, service, civililty and diversity we uphold.

Library Instruction West – Presentation post

Leave a reply

Here’s the details of the talk Hannah and I gave at Library Instruction West last week.  It was another fabulous conference – I’m not sure why LIW is always my favorite of the instruction conferences, but it is.

(Cross posted from my blog)

ETD Symposium – July 23-25, 2014 Leicester, UK

1 Reply

ETD Symposium Notes
July 23-25, 2014
Leicester, UK

Kevin Schurer Keynote

He’s the VC for Research at the University of Leicester and formerly ran the UK thesis union catalog called Ethos–http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do;jsessionid=91158AD5613E0FD5ADC18541C9EF4CE3.

Schurer is a a big proponent of OA, as everyone seems to be in Europe, not just librarians, but he was very critical of the benefits of OA as described in the Research Councils of the UK Open Access Policy–http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/openaccess/. Two of the benefits as described by the UK government: 1. Create benefits for economic growth, 2. Increase public understanding of research. Basically says that there is no evidence to back up the claim that open access benefits business or the general public. Suggested that the general public is not intelligent enough to understand published research and wouldn’t expect them to bother trying. Suggests that OA is good, but that public access is not a primary benefit. The public would be better served by authors creating a “dumbed down” (my words) version of articles. Something he is in fact doing for an article that he just sent to a major science journal (guessing PLOS).

Schurer said the principal benefits of open access are in text mining to make research discoveries. Also mentioned value of metadata interoperability, presumably to enable better discovery of academic scholarship. Mentioned the value of OA for better internal auditing of research. Says open data is the holy grail for open and that when data is more open, more scientific discoveries can be made and big problems solved.

Gabrielle Michaelek (Carnegie Mellon) talked about managing ETDs with associated complex digital objects. CMU uses Digital Commons (BePress) which she says is not robust enough to handle anything but PDFs. Also mentioned there is no support for ORCIDs or DOIs in Digital Commons (surprising), so can’t use Digital Commons as a repository for supplemental data. They use ArchivalWare for research data, although they aren’t capturing much at this point. It supports multiple formats and metadata schemes (especially important for data).

Implications of managing ETD supplemental data:
• changes to workflows
• will probably require different set of personnel to those currently working with ETDs
• will require close relation between ETD staff and data management staff

Sees the first wave of capturing research data and making it more widely available. The next wave will be to enable better access and interoperability of it through linked data.

Discussion of transforming ETDs as PDFs into machine actionable objects like XML. PDFs are limited in what you can do with them.

Presentation about ETD download statistics. 56% of all downloads were ETDs, and ETDs represent only 10% of total repository holdings at Lignan University in Hong Kong. Found that 60% of their usage came from Google. Some referals from the catalog and a small percentage from Summon.

Several presentations about national thesis catalogs. Many other countries (Brazil, Peru, UK, France, Czech) either have a national catalog of their nation’s theses or are building one. The closest thing to a U.S. catalog of dissertations is ProQuest, but as more and more libraries drop ProQuest, it is less comprehensive. There is nothing in the US for theses. The NDLTD union catalog harvests metadata from repositories around the world but doesn’t include bibliographic data for T/Ds that are not open access.

Peter Murray-Rust presented about making ETDs more useful. The UK is close to requiring deposit of ODF documents (I think this is Open PDF?). Claims it is easy to make PDFs less accessible for purposes of making money. Great quote: “Publishers forbid access to 99.9% of the world, research that is largely paid for by taxpayers, created and peer-reviewed by us for free.”

“Science is communicated in 19C ways”. Not taking advantage of 21st Century techonologies. Says there needs to be a move toward open notebook science where lab notebooks are openly available. Elsevier is already looking for ways that it can control open data in order to make money from it. Says that they acquired Mendeley to acquire its user data and to destroy or coopt an open science icon that threatens its business model.

New ways for theses:

  • Content mining is now legal in the UK, as long as content is readable (open or not, and regardless of licenses associated with it).
  • Has developed contentmine.org. Pulling in open content for text/data/content mining purposes.
  • Generating machine-readable xml from PDFs. Converting text and image tables to spreadsheet and xml.
  • Extracting nuggets of machine-readable information from previously unformatted PDF text.
  • Open content mining of facts from research.

Theses in the U.K. (Sara Gould—British Library)
RIOXX Metadata Profile v.2 which includes guidelines for capturing grant number information to be released soon. We need to check to be sure we are capturing this information in prescribed way. Suggested that thesis identifiers be established. Provide match key and reduce duplication in union catalogs and databases, allow for easier citation, citability, and reduce link rot. Working on automated assignment of LCSH using text mining and heuristics. One advantage of union catalogs is that you can text mine within them.

PIRUS, which aimed to consolidate usage statistics for articles from publishers and repositories, didn’t move forward because publishers weren’t interested in participating. IRUS-UK is moving forward. Intention is to produce reliable usage stats for items in British repositories. IRUS processes raw usage stats, removes robots and “bad” robots that don’t announce who they are (good robots like google announce who they are so they can be easily removed), runs through Counter to remove further stats, and returns the stats cleaned up.

This is work that individual libraries are doing at differing degrees of success. Small piece of code is added to repository that sends the stats to irus server for cleanup. Publishers use Counter to get reliable usage stats, and pay a lot of money for the service. Libraries could do the same but it is extremely expensive. This is needed for all libraries. Lots of potential.

www.irus.mimas.ac.uk/news

Testing feasibility of devising set of algorithms to identify and filter robots and unusual activity.

Developed a portal that provides statistics for all participating repositories. Allows to compare usage at different institutions.

Texas A&M and a British programmer presented about ORCID. Texas A&M creates ORCIDs for all graduate students. Requires them to verify. 21% do so. They have a great libguide that explains ORCIDs that we could borrow from. Discussion about whether ORCID should be used as portal of research publications or primarily as identification creation tool. There are a plethora of portals out there, such as ResearchGate, We need to explain to faculty what these are and their differences.

NISO Virtual Conference: Transforming Assessment: Alternative Metrics (June 18, 2014)

Leave a reply

Submitted by Michael Boock

Research funding is decreasing and is more competitive. Funders are interested in being able to demonstrate the impact of their funding. Looking for evidence–more metrics to provide a bigger picture of impact of research. NSF is beginning to evaluate researchers based on non-conventional products of research such as youtube videos about the research as well as articles that result from research. Altmetrics can capture the use of these outputs. Alt metrics can also capture other things that are involved in the research process. Metrics that might better indicate community engagement and student learning.

Altmetrics–new kinds of measures that allow us to better understand full range of research impacts. The study and use of article-level scholarly impact measures based on activity in online tools and environments. Easier and easier to get this information because it is available online: downloading of datasets on figshare and dryad, mentions in wikipedia, mention on blogs, twitter, Facebook; mainstream media; comments, reviews and recommendations at PLOS, PeerJ, F1000 and other publisher sites; Mendeley.

Different sources of alt metrics data: Altmetrics.com, SCOPUS, PLOS, etc. All data sources are subject to error and bias.

Important to contextualize any metrics (bibliometrics, article level metrics such as downloads): slideshare.net/paulwouters1/issi2013-wg-pw. Use as evidence in a larger story. Numbers that provide some evidence of research impact.

Going to be possible to get aggregations of metrics at institutional level, individual faculty level, department level, research group level, ad hoc group level. Also at project level, could pull metrics for any research outputs resulting from a particular project. Institutional level metrics could enable universities to benchmark research impact against peers.

Can use Impactstory to determine the degree of open access of publications resulting from a grant.

Can’t distinguish between positive and negative comments, but that’s true with citation analysis too.

—————————-
Snowball Metrics

A collaboration between universities in the UK and Elsevier to measure research across the full range of research activities. Includes metrics relating to research inputs, research processes and research outputs that support institutional strategic
decision making through benchmarking. The metrics are:
• Defined and agreed by higher education institutions themselves
• Aspire to become global standards and cover the entire spectrum of research activities
• Tested methodologies are freely available and can be generated by any organization
• Can be generated independent of data source.
—————————-

Library can provide services related to research impact through institutional repositories. Hui has hired an intern to investigate options for providing alt metrics for items in ScholarsArchive@OSU. Plum Analytics, Altmetrics.com and other companies are providing alt metrics data associated with resources in IRs. Can use these tools to capture number of downloads, mentions, social media shares, tweets, likes; citations via PubMed and SCOPUS, etc.

Alt metrics create a feedback loop for researchers that provides information about research impacts over time and in different ways.

Should new assessment librarian have research impact and evaluation responsibilities? CDSS/Assessment Librarian could provide workshop on strategies for enhancing and tracking research impact including alt metrics.

Important for librarians to stay up to date on funding/reporting requirements and understand the motivations of stakeholders.

Citations give incomplete evidence of impact because they are limited to author’s perspectives, and 3-5 years are needed before you can begin to measure impact based on citations.

There is a need for stronger evidence, including qualitative evidence, to demonstrate value/meaningfulness of alt metrics. More research needed. Which stats are the same? Which metrics make a difference? Bar/Line/Chart? Does it matter?

—————————-
Publisher Perspectives on Using Altmetrics

PLOS has been harvesting and publishing alt metrics data since 2009. Provide page views from PMC and PLOS platforms, cumulative views over time and comparison with other articles in subject area. Provide most bookmarked filter on journal search page. PLOS and ELife provide info about downloads and bookmark metrics in article browse displays, search results and RSS feeds.

PLOS has an ALM reporting tool for researchers, institutions and funders to generate ALM reports that aggregate and customize ALM. More information: http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/

Public Knowledge Project (Open Journal Systems) began providing ALM a couple months ago. Our OJS instance doesn’t yet make this data available as part of our OJS publishing services.