Combining Research and Outreach to Explore Current Examples of Digital Scholarly Communication

1. Combining Research and Outreach to Explore Current Examples of Digital Scholarly Communication Presenters: Nancy Maron, Ithaka Strategic Services K. Kirby Smith, Ithaka Strategic Services Karla Hahn, Association of Research Libraries

2. Why a study of new model works?

3. Study Goals • Identify range of examples of new model works • High level overview of the emerging landscape of new model works • Encourage librarians and faculty members to share information and perspectives about the current array of new model works • Support librarians in building relationships and developing outreach programs that advance new kinds of scholarly works.

4. Field Study Phase Key issues: • Framing “new model publications” • Launching conversations • Engaging volunteers

5. Study timeline February Funding March Recruitment & Training Materials April Launch of Data Collection June 15 Close of Data Collection November 10 Report Released

6. Participation Librarians >300 individuals 46 institutions US and Canada Liberal arts colleges to research institutions Faculty 8.2 approached per librarian 1.75 interviewed per librarian

7. Institutional participation • 3 Partner/Pilot testing institutions • 14 additional institutions

8. The experience of talking with faculty

9. “It wasn't until we had a fairly unstructured conversation that many faculty remembered sites they use. Initially several said they didn't use newer modes of scholarly communication, when in fact they did.” Study participant

10. Participant survey (for librarians) 65 responses • 71% volunteers • 29% assigned

11. How participants identified their conversation partner

12. Relationship building

13. What was most valuable? • “It was very valuable to have an opening to discuss the faculty members specific area of research. It gave the faculty member an easy question that they loved talking about to start the conversation and it helped me see ways to collaborate with them in the future.” • “Having a formal structured reason to begin a conversation that encompassed some of these issues. I have been wanting to do this for almost a year, but this study gave me the impetus to actually make meetings and get them done in a short period of time.”

14. “Although I knew of the resource the faculty member discussed, I hadn't looked at every aspect of it. The study forced me to delve further into the resource, which made me better aware of what information could be found through it.”

15. “The conversation as a whole helped me to gain a better understanding of [how] this faculty member does research and how he expects his students to do research.” • “Learning specific ways this faculty member keeps current in her field.” • “Faculty discussing the way they work, moving from literature to lab to data analysis to publishing and discussion, but not always in that order.”

16. “Discussion with the faculty member; his discovery of how much librarians are interested in the way he conducts his research.”

17. “The fact that the Department chair wants the faculty to use the SSRN platform to expose the department and colleges research activities as well as the type of research other institutions were engaged.” • “Learning about both faculty members' positive views on electronic publications as ways to share scholarly and professional research/ideas/news. Although I had previous conversations with both faculty members, my discussions with them about new model publications made me see them as advocates for scholarly communication practices such as open access publishing.”

19. Hundreds of enthusiastic participants, who in turn have access to the faculty on their campuses Instrumental in gathering names of possible resources from the faculty who use them Responsible for vetting the resources recommended by faculty, according to criteria outlined by ARL Responsible for entering the names and information about the resources into a central web-based database Role of the Field Team: Data Gathering

20. Limitations of this approach The samples, both of faculty surveyed and of resources named, were not statistically representative. Difficult to control conditions under which questions were posed to faculty. Some data (for example, on sustainability methods used) is difficult to obtain and verify by direct observation, without further detailed questioning of project leaders.

21. What this study does provide: A scan of the landscape of those digital projects most relevant to the work of ARL librarians Hypotheses about trends regarding the types of digital resources used in different disciplines Examples of digital resources faculty consider innovative

22. Why focus on “original” and “scholarly” resources? ARL wanted to learn more about those resources that were likely to be Original scholarly resources are the focus of traditional collections and services Most similar to types of faculty-led projects seeking library support or advice Most similar to those projects an ARL library would be interested in supporting or creating themselves

23. By the numbers 358 entries in the database 355 entries included resources 240 cited resources we identified as both original and scholarly 206 unique scholarly original resources

24. Analysis based on Assessment of resource entries in database Direct observation of sites named by faculty In-depth interviews with project leaders from 11 sample cases

25. Types of Digital Scholarly Resources (n=206)

26. E-only journals Most frequently cited content type Cited evenly across humanities, social sciences and STM fields Most of those cited are Open Access Some examples of innovation, though some features are slow to gain wide adoption

27. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Experimenting with public peer review Has not had negative impact: journal enjoys high ISI ranking Yet, very little actual public comment takes place

28. JoVE: Journal of Visualized Experiments A journal of “video articles” A for-profit effort, independently supported The first video journal to be accepted by National Library of Medicine

29. Reviews Innovate in terms of speed to publication Benefit from lack of space restriction Rapid and frequent publication encourages users to visit the sites frequently

30. Bryn Mawr Classical Review Publishes a “review a day, every day” Pushes content to subscribers via email list Low admin costs in general, aside from postage to mail books to reviewers

31. Preprint and working paper servers Provide quick access to new work Largest servers are the oldest ones and dominant in their fields: arXiv and SSRN, both cited by multiple faculty members Faculty cited frequent usage of these sites Significance of disciplinary culture in influencing strong growth of these resources

32. PhilSci Archive Followed example of arXiv Serves a well-defined niche: philosophy of science Goal is not to grow beyond the niche, but to serve it well, and not become too focused just on philosophy of physics

33. Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and Annotated Content Broad-ranging projects, often mixing primary documents and scholarly annotation Some reference works benefit from a more decentralized creation of content

34. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online reference work for philosophy ~1,000 entries Encyclopedia articles are volunteered by academics Continuously updated Operates from an endowment

35. Data 41 resources named, mostly in STM fields Faculty cited similar overall usage strategy: “intensely while working on a project, rarely otherwise” Many are grant-supported, some entirely so Some large dynamic projects based on user-contributed data

36. eBird Community data project Amateur-supplied data creates large database for researchers Processes of user training and engaging users to participate Large scale makes sponsorship possible

37. Blogs 15 blogs were cited by faculty, and blogs appeared as an element in 29 other resources as well Appeared across all disciplinary groups Faculty mainly reported daily or weekly usage Not just for chat, but real scholarly discussion Most blogs in this sample did not seem to use any revenue generating model, since hosting costs tend to be low

38. PEA Soup Founders describe the need to aggregate researchers in this niche field from around the US and the world Speed of exchanges allows its members to work through ideas in days, a process that used to take months or years

39. Discussion lists 21 resources named were discussion lists Three-quarters of these were traditional listservs Fourteen are in the humanities Users cited them for allowing them to “keep in touch with everyone, all the time” Not at all a cutting-edge technology, but still very popular

40. H-France Forum Founded in 1991 Goal was to mimic the “types of conversations that occurred around the coffee machine” Restricted access, list moderation, list archiving lend sense of credibility

41. Professional and academic hubs 34 resources in the collection were classified as hubs Larger sites, with many content and communication features, where faculty cited the benefit of the site as being a “one-stop shop.” Often supported by academic societies or professional associations

42. Alzheimer Research Forum Includes original articles and news updates, as well as job notices and announcements User generated content includes a “hypothesis factory” where people can post ideas and comment on others.

43. Findings

44. Discipline trends Presence in nearly all categories, from journals, to data to reference Examples of all content types showed up across a wide range of disciplines, though some trends emerged Multimedia expands

45. Innovation in new and “old” Evidence of ongoing experimentation with revenue models for many projects, while others rely almost entirely on volunteer labor and contributions in kind Older projects show significant innovation; creating legitimacy and building audience takes time Experimentation with revenue models

46. Strong influence of tradition Significance of disciplinary norms Peer review still extremely important Establishing trust and credibility through reputation and quality is vital Evidence of some reluctance of faculty to adopt some innovative features

47. Looking Ahead HOW THIS IS HELPFUL TO ARL LIBRARIANS

48. Sustainability still an issue Many are grant supported Or very inexpensive (blogs, disc lists) in terms of direct costs Even big players with grants for many years are interested in other means of reliable support

49. Visualizing Cultures