Scholarly Communication Commons^™

Eighteen Blind Library Users’ Experiences With Library Websites And Search Tools In U.S. Academic Libraries: A Qualitative Study, Adina Mulliken

Publications and Research

Telephone interviews were conducted with 18 blind academic library users around the U.S. about their experiences using their library and its website. The study uses the perspective that blind users’ insights are fundamental. A common theme was that navigating a webpage is time consuming on the first visit. Issues identified include the need for “databases” to be defined on the homepage, accessibly coded search boxes, logical heading structure, and several problems to be resolved on result pages. Variations in needs depending on users’ screen reader expertise were also raised. Suggestions for libraries to address these issues are offered.

From Research Aesthetics To Habits Of Mind: Student Publishing As A Core Competency, Bebe S. Chang

Staff Presentations, Proceedings, Lectures, and Symposia

Student open access publishing offers a useful avenue for academic information literacy in preparation for real-world experiences. Worthwhile drivers of connected learning, digital research and institutional repositories are practical ecosystems for conveying the complexities of the economics and ethics of information creation, access, and use. Drawing on essential concepts, NSUWorks exemplifies a dynamic tool for learners’ engagement with the research lifecycle and for fostering dispositions of critical thinking, reading, and composing for success and professional development.

Open Educational Resources And Research Data Management: A Very Brief Overview, Adrian K. Ho

Library Presentations

This is a brief overview of open educational resources and research data management. It also addresses the increasing importance of these services in academic and research libraries.

The Sociological And Humanistic Problem Of ‘Fake News,’ As It Applies To All Subjects, Including Scientific Research And Theories In The Public Sphere, Andrée Rathemacher, Amanda Izenstark

Technical Services Faculty Presentations

The main file available here contains the notes taken by student note-taker Kaleigh Miech during the Café Salon Discussion “The Sociological and Humanistic Problem of ‘Fake News,’ As It Applies to All Subjects, Including Scientific Research and Theories in the Public Sphere.” The discussion took place on January 17, 2019 as part of the University of Rhode Island 11th Annual Academic Summit. It was facilitated by Profs. Andrée Rathemacher and Amanda Izenstark.

Supplemental files include:

• An opening introduction prepared by the facilitators
• The official 11th Annual Academic Summit Program
• Café Salon Facilitator Guide

Why We Publish Where We Do: Faculty Publishing Values And Their Relationship To Review, Promotion And Tenure Expectations, Meredith T. Niles, Lesley A. Schimanski, Erin Christy Mckiernan, Juan P. Alperin

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

Using an online survey of academics at 55 randomly selected institutions across the US and Canada, we explore priorities for publishing decisions and their perceived importance within review, promotion, and tenure (RPT). We find that respondents most value journal readership, while they believe their peers most value prestige and related metrics such as impact factor when submitting their work for publication. Respondents indicated that total number of publications, number of publications per year, and journal name recognition were the most valued factors in RPT. Older and tenured respondents (most likely to serve on RPT committees) were less likely to value …

Making Outreach The Library’S Mission, April Miller

Faculty Articles & Research

University and community outreach is an important part of library services, which fosters cohesiveness while involving adequate community support. This paper examines how outreach has become an important part of the library’s mission. Many outreach examples include the partnering of libraries with university departments, offices, and organizations. Other examples include university libraries partnering with community groups, museums, and non-profits. Currently outreach projects are carried out across all libraries, however, a greater emphasis is placed on the recent outreach accomplished at Southwestern Oklahoma State University Libraries.

Center For Teaching & Learning + Scott Memorial Library: Academic Year 2017/2018, Elizabeth D'Angel

Annual Reports & Administrative Documents

Contents:

• About Us
• Staff Highlights
• From the Archives
• Milestones
• Metrics
• Programs & Exhibits

Panel Discussion: Provost's Open Educational Resource (Oer) Fellows, Billie Franchini, Lenore Horowitz, Marcus Adams, Jeremy Feldblyum, Matthew Ingram

Open Access Day

While the adoption of open educational resources (OERs) in the undergraduate curriculum has the evident benefit of reducing cost to the student, thinking deeply about OER adoption reveals numerous questions: can OERs match the quality of traditional textbooks and other commercial educational resources? Are there problems associated with the current textbook landscape that OERs can solve? And how easily can OERs be integrated into classrooms with established modes of instruction? Each of the Provost’s OER Fellows will discuss briefly some of the most important conclusions from the current OER research literature and discuss these in the context of SUNY Albany …

Making Local Knowledge Visible: The Case Of The University For Business And Technology In Kosovo, Anita Mirijamdotter, Mary M. Somerville, Sadef Salavati, Edmond Hajrizi

University Libraries Librarian and Staff Articles and Papers

A vision to further national development through higher education now informs planning for the University for Business and Technology Knowledge Center. At its essence, the Center aims to make local knowledge visible through furthering discovery of and access to research content produced by academic students and university professors on institutional, local and international levels. This paper reports on conceptual exploration of this institutional idea during spring semester 2017 in a graduate course on systems thinking and methodology. Using active learning pedagogy to improve local situations, an international teaching team facilitated student and stakeholder engagement in participatory design activities using soft …

Open Textbook Project, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

An overview of an open educational resource textbook project administered from the University Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Images of some of the textbook authors are included.

Remembrance Of Things Past, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

An overview of faculty development leave taken January 2018 through June 2018, University Libraries, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The Effectiveness Of Journals As Arbiters Of Scientific Impact, C. E. Timothy Paine, Charles W. Fox

Entomology Faculty Publications

Academic publishers purport to be arbiters of knowledge, aiming to publish studies that advance the frontiers of their research domain. Yet the effectiveness of journal editors at identifying novel and important research is generally unknown, in part because of the confidential nature of the editorial and peer review process. Using questionnaires, we evaluated the degree to which journals are effective arbiters of scientific impact on the domain of Ecology, quantified by three key criteria. First, journals discriminated against low‐impact manuscripts: The probability of rejection increased as the number of citations gained by the published paper decreased. Second, journals were more …

Software Of The Oppressed: Reprogramming The Invisible Discipline, Erin R. Glass

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation offers a critical analysis of software practices within the university and the ways they contribute to a broader status quo of software use, development, and imagination. Through analyzing the history of software practices used in the production and circulation of student and scholarly writing, I argue that this overarching software status quo has oppressive qualities in that it supports the production of passive users, or users who are unable to collectively understand and transform software code for their own interests. I also argue that the university inadvertently normalizes and strengthens the software status quo through what I call …

Stop Limiting Your Audience! The Benefits And Challenges Of Open Access Publishing, Daniel Verbit, Megan Fuller, Niny Z. Rao

Thomas Jefferson University Faculty Days

Outline

• Who is Choosing Open Access Publishing and Why?
• An Open Access Case Study?
• The Downside of Open Access Publishing
• Hints and Tips When Considering Open Access Publishing
• Conclusions and Important Take-Aways

Final Portfolio - Sparc Open Education Leadership Program, 2017-18, Christopher A. Barnes

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Final portfolio of work completed for the SPARC Open Education Leadership Program, 2017-18, including the Capstone Project Final Report, the Community Resource entitled “Piloting Faculty OER Grant Programs: A Practical Guide for Librarians,” and the blog Opening Up Liberal Arts Colleges (linked). “Piloting Faculty OER Grant Programs" is also available separately in The Cupola.

Migratory Patterns In Irs: Contentdm, Digital Commons And Flying The Coop, Michele Gibney, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker, Elizabeth Chance

Digital Initiatives Symposium

What is the importance of institutional history and special collections in a digital environment? Should these pieces of history have their own digital platform or be merged with the institutional repository? What role do repositories play in the institutional environment? What impact do digital historical collections have on the stakeholder contingent as well as the global community? The speakers will discuss the rationale behind migrating collections from CONTENTdm to institutional repositories (all using bepress’s Digital Commons platform). Reasons range from subscription costs to file format concerns to increased search optimization. The migratory act will be covered in terms of method …

Ted-Style Talk: Flying Blind: Creating A Library Orcid Integration Pilot, A.L. Carson, Matthew Murray

Digital Initiatives Symposium

As part of the UNLV Libraries’ goal to determine an appropriate level of engagement with ORCID, our pre-pilot investigated the feasibility of a Libraries-led service to populate faculty ORCID profiles with citations for scholarly works, allowing UNLV to better track and promote their research. This project sought to test the requirements and scalability of using currently-available data to populate researcher profiles via the ORCID API, gauging the benefits against the cost in Library resources. We performed a field survey of similar institutions using ORCID, engaged with Libraries faculty for volunteers to create dummy profiles in the ORCID testing environment, and …

The Oer Project @Shu: 5 Factors Driving Institutional Change, Jaya Kannan, Zachariah Claybaugh

Librarian Publications

Sacred Heart University’s OER initiative has seen positive results in its first stage of planning and implementation. Five factors have been driving change – tactical planning, collaborative networking, awareness building, impact measurement, and pedagogy focus. Using evidence-based examples, we share strategies for cost-savings, increased access, and enhanced pedagogical practices.

Balances Of Power Between Ip Creators: Ethical Issues In Scholarly Communication, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker

Library Presentations, Posters, and Audiovisual Materials

Scholarly communications often values free access above all else, but what happens when that drive for openness conflicts with ethical issues of consent and ownership? In this CARL IG Showcase panel, members of SCORE (Scholarly Communication and Open Resources for Education) will discuss some of the thorny issues of ethics and scholarly communication, including: consent (particularly among diverse communities outside of the institution) and digital collections, students as information creators / library as publisher, and decolonizing who we consider scholars and what we consider scholarship. This panel will feature speakers who will share current discussions and personal stories on issues …

Creating Transformative Connections With Graduate Students Using A Social Capital Framework, Mary J. Markland, Hannah Gascho Rempel

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Graduate school is a transformative time for many students. It is also a time when they are part of an elite community of learners. For some students, this is an exciting adventure that allows them to explore new ideas and more fully express themselves. However, many graduate students also experience feelings of anxiety, frustration, and exclusion because they don’t feel like they really belong to this academic community. Graduate students sometimes struggle with how to navigate the new social norms, hierarchies, and structures built on many years of accumulated, implicit knowledge. These socially-based struggles frequently lead to lower levels of …

Becoming A Competent Graduate Librarian, Wendy Doucette

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

As I enter my fourth year as a graduate librarian (and my 10^th year of academic librarianship and my 29^th year of teaching), I’m struck by how my approach to graduate students continues to shift. To my surprise, every academic year has brought a new revelation concerning what our students don’t know and do need, which necessitates a corresponding revision of service on my part. Although “competence” is a relative term, I feel strongly that the needs of our graduate students—and the skills necessary for us as providers to fulfill these requirements—are similar to those at other institutions …

Impediments, Partners, And Proposals: Preparing Graduate Students To Start Their Thesis And Dissertation Proposals, Erin M. O'Toole

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

The proposed presentation will share the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries’ experience of creating and refashioning workshops to prepare graduate students to write their dissertation or thesis proposals. Concurrently, it will challenge attendees to consider the impediments graduate students may face at their own institutions and possible partnerships and services to enable students to complete their proposals. Highlights of the presentation will be collaboration with UNT teaching faculty and the Graduate School, the structure and content of the workshops, and the evolution of the workshops in response to student evaluations.

The Library Research Support Services Department (LRSS) works closely …

Panel: Serving Different Populations, Nastasha E. Johnson, Samantha Walsh, Moushumi Chakraborty, Mandy Havert, Roman Koshykar

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Meeting the needs of graduate students systematically and intentionally can be a daunting strategic initiative. The students’ interests, expertise, and career objectives can vary greatly. Understanding and addressing gaps in their knowledge can an insurmountable obstacle, seemingly, as well. Politically there may be silos to contend and barriers to perception of “what libraries can do.” We would like to propose a panel discussion where different institutions discuss the wins and losses of reaching different graduate populations. The objective of the panel discussion is to openly share the strategies that have worked for different populations, as well as strategies that can …

Supporting Scholars In Training: A User Needs Survey Of A Graduate Study Space, Juliet T. Rumble, Adelia B. Grabowsky

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

A separate study area reserved for faculty and graduate students was established at Auburn University’s Draughon Library in 2008, but, for many years, there was no formal effort to study the use of the space. In 2016, recognizing that the needs of these user groups differ in significant respects from those of undergraduates, the presenters developed a questionnaire to gather information on the faculty and graduate students using the area and the adequacy of the space to support their work practices. For two weeks in the summer and four weeks in the fall of 2016, users visiting the area were …

Cultivating Cultural Intelligence For Serving International Students, Wendy Doucette, Mandy Havert, Kyunghye Kim

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

We are proposing a 50-minute panel.

Presenters: Dr. Wendy Doucette, East Tennessee State University; Ms. Mandy Havert, University of Notre Dame; Dr. Kyung Kim, Florida State University

The number of international graduate students continues to rise at American universities nationwide. While academic librarians wish to serve this student population effectively, few of us have received formal training or meaningful exposure to this sector of our student populace. This panel will provide first-person experiences from academic librarians who are actively engaging with and researching international students. Acknowledging and encouraging cultural diversity fosters the awareness of building inclusivity into graduate programming. Rather …

Using Citation Analysis To Develop A Strategic Plan For A Campus-Wide Scholarly Communication Initiative, Scott Lancaster

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

As scholarly communication continues its digitally driven shift away from a publishing model rooted in print culture, it is essential that the academic library maintain its impact by keeping in step with rapidly changing expectations and practices. As future faculty, today’s graduate students must learn the skills to carefully evaluate publishers, consider copyright in a digital environment, use information ethically and responsibly, and avoid unscrupulous vendors and publishers who prey on those who must “publish or perish.” While they develop knowledge in their respective fields, they cannot afford to be unaware of both the opportunities and pitfalls of modern scholarly …

Indispensable: A Library’S One Stone Strategy To Improve Graduate Student Research Skills, Meet Faculty Research Demands And Contribute To Graduate Student Retention, Michelle Lang

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

At Pace University and other master and doctoral universities and colleges, Graduate Students are not usually among the systematically targeted. In the fall of 2016, I undertook to specifically target Graduate Assistants (GA’s) working for faculty in research assistantships. Securing an academic assistantship is a coveted and competitive endeavor, but if the GA does not have the required research skills they can be out after only one semester. While being aware of university retention goals and the gap between GA research skills and faculty research demands, I started a pilot project of creating GA research workshops based on the specific …

Not Just Degree-Seekers: Graduate Students As Scholarly Contributors, Roxanne Shirazi, Jill Cirasella

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Most graduate students are required to produce theses and dissertations that make an original contribution to the field of study. This requirement informs how students and faculty approach graduate research, but colleges and universities often treat the culminating works merely as student records, not scholarly contributions encompassing original research. Librarians, however, are uniquely situated to treat graduate students as emerging participants in the scholarly communication ecosystem and to help them prepare their culminating works for an outside audience. Librarians have the expertise to advise students during the submission process with questions regarding copyright, licensing, fair use, and author’s rights, as …

The Research Savvy Librarians: Boot Camp For Teaching Literature Reviews To Graduate Students, Kyung Kim, Abby Scheel, Kelly Grove

Transforming Libraries for Graduate Students

Writing literature reviews is among the most common assignments for graduate work, and a requirement for all theses and dissertations. Students find this often a complex and even overwhelming process as the graduate students need to identify and get eligible literature on the topic, read and evaluate literature, and take notes about trends, patterns, and the latest development of the scholarship on the topic. Writing literature reviews involves a number of skill sets from the students, but practical guidance on each step in the process is often not provided by professors. Librarians have helped the students to search databases and …

Lesley University Library Newsletter, Vol. 2(2), Office Of The Dean Of The Library, Hedi Benaicha, Jonah Lee Santiago, Micki Harrington, Zack Wray, Rachel Fernandez, Philip M. Siblo-Landsman, Abby Mancini, Marie Wasnock, Samantha Quiñon Snair, Jamie Glass, Alexis Dhembe, Robyn Ferrero, Tyahra Angus

Library Newsletter

The Spring 2018 Lesley University Library Newsletter is an overview of developments that have taken place in the library since the Fall 2017 semester. It reports on success stories, gives insight into personal accounts of library resources, and new developments to enhance the quality of services.

The newsletter begins with an overview by Dean Hedi BenAicha and is followed with contributions from many of the staff members of the library. This includes Sam Quiñon's article, "Attention Faculty: what Lesley Librarians Actually Do," which indicates how the library field has changed and how important it is for librarians to engage in …