Interim Report: Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication

The Center for Studies in Higher Education, with generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is conducting research to understand the needs and desires of faculty for inprogress scholarly communication (i.e., forms of communication employed as research is being executed) as well as archival publication. In the interest of developing a deeper understanding of how and why scholars do what they do to advance their fields, as well as their careers, our approach focuses in fine-grained analyses of faculty values and behaviors throughout the scholarly communication lifecycle, including sharing, collaborating, publishing, and engaging with the public. Well into our second year, we have posted a draft interim report describing some of our early results and impressions ased on the responses of more than 150 interviewees in the fields of astrophysics, archaeology, biology, economics, history, music, and political science.Our work to date has confirmed the important impact of disciplinary culture and tradition on many scholarly communication habits. These traditions may override the perceived "opportunities" afforded by new technologies, including those falling into the Web 2.0 category. As we have listened to our diverse informants, as well as followed closely the prognostications about the likely future of scholarly communication, we note that it is absolutely imperative to be precise about terms. That includes being clear about what is meant by "open access" publishing (i.e., using preprint or postprint servers for scholarship published in prestigious outlets versus publishing in new, untested open access journals, or the more casual individual posting of working papers, blogs, and other non-peer-reviewed work). Our research suggests that enthusiasm for technology development and adoption should not be conflated with the hard reality of tenure and promotion requirements (including the needs and goals of final archival publication) in highly competitive professional environments

Collaboration in the Semantic Grid: a Basis for e-Learning

The CoAKTinG project aims to advance the state of the art in collaborative mediated spaces for the Semantic Grid. This paper presents an overview of the hypertext and knowledge based tools which have been deployed to augment existing collaborative environments, and the ontology which is used to exchange structure, promote enhanced process tracking, and aid navigation of resources before, after, and while a collaboration occurs. While the primary focus of the project has been supporting e-Science, this paper also explores the similarities and application of CoAKTinG technologies as part of a human-centred design approach to e-Learning

System upgrade: realising the vision for UK education

A report summarising the findings of the TEL programme in the wider context of technology-enhanced learning and offering recommendations for future strategy in the area was launched on 13th June at the House of Lords to a group of policymakers, technologists and practitioners chaired by Lord Knight. The report – a major outcome of the programme – is written by TEL director Professor Richard Noss and a team of experts in various fields of technology-enhanced learning. The report features the programme’s 12 recommendations for using technology-enhanced learning to upgrade UK education

Evaluation of options for a UK electronic thesis service: study report

The British Library (BL), JISC, UK HE institutions and CURL have funded an 18-month project to develop a national framework for the provision, preservation and open access to electronic theses produced in UK HE institutions. The project, called EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service) was developed in response to a competitive tender invitation released by the JISC and proposes a service set up and run by the British Library. The British Library’s current service, the British Thesis Service, offers access to around 180,000 doctoral theses, predominantly from 1970 onwards, though it is estimated that overall some half million theses dating from the 1600s are in existence in the UK. Around 80% of requests are for theses published within the last 13 years and almost all of these exist only in hardcopy. Through this service, theses are acquired ‘on demand’ and delivered on microfilm at a cost of just over £60 to the user (and at this price the service runs at a loss). Whilst this service, coupled with the Index to Theses (Expert Information), enables the location of and access to relatively recent British theses by the determined seeker, no one could argue that the process is optimised. As a result, usage of theses is much lower than it might be and much research is going unnoticed and unused as a result. Conversely, it has been shown that when theses are easy to locate and access, usage is high: at Virginia Tech, a pioneer site in the provision of a formal, systematised ETD (electronic theses and dissertations) service, downloads have been shown to increase over 30-fold when a thesis is available free online and easily located. A national service for the UK that provides discovery and access to theses in electronic form via the Web will increase the utility of doctoral scholarship. A single interface that directs users to theses wherever they are held, and which addresses the issues of intellectual property, permissions, royalties, preservation, discovery, and other matters associated with the public provision of theses in electronic form, will be of great benefit to the scholarly community in the UK and across the world. The EThOS project (Electronic Theses Online Service) was commissioned to develop a model for a workable, sustainable and acceptable national service for the provision of open access to electronic doctoral theses. The EThOS project team have completed the task and UCL Library Services in partnership with Key Perspectives Ltd have been asked to undertake a consultative study to assess the acceptability of the proposed model to the UK higher education community in the context of other potential models. This document reports the results of this consultative study, including a set of recommendations to JISC and other stakeholders for setting up a UK national e-theses service. The stakeholders other than JISC are: The British Library University administrators (registrars) Graduate students and recent PhDs Librarians Institutional repository managers Other e-theses services including: DART-Europe DiVA DissOnline Australasian Digital Theses Theses Canada Networked Digital Library for Theses and Dissertations The EThOS tea

Marketing library services to children and young people

This paper discusses the future of Schools Library Services in the North West region of England based on a research project recently undertaken by the Centre for the Public Library and Information in Society at the University of Sheffield on behalf of MLA North West. The research has revealed somewhat of an identity crisis for Schools Library Services in the region, encouraged by educational policy, changing public library service priorities and subsequent issues surrounding service perceptions, awareness and ownership. The research has revealed a desire within the sector for a more visible alignment of Schools Library Services within the empirical services to children and young people agenda. Particular opportunities exist within the literacy development remit, building upon best practice examples in the region concerning reader development projects and family learning initiatives. Recommendations include the formation of a regional professional network designed to promote a seamless library service to children from early years to young adulthood including staff training, advocacy and proactive service marketing under a strong and identifiable regional brand