SEAD Virtual Archive: Building a Federation of Institutional Repositories for Long Term Data Preservation

Major research universities are grappling with their response to the deluge of scientific data emerging through research by their faculty. Many are looking to their libraries and the institutional repository as a solution. Scientific data introduces substantial challenges that the document-based institutional repository may not be suited to deal with. The Sustainable Environment - Actionable Data (SEAD) Virtual Archive specifically addresses the challenges of “long tail” scientific data. In this paper, we propose requirements, policy and architecture to support not only the preservation of scientific data today using institutional repositories, but also its rich access and use into the future

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Research Communicators

The emergence of Web 2.0 and simultaneously Library 2.0 platforms has helped the library and information professionals to outreach to new audiences beyond their physical boundaries. In a globalized society, information becomes very useful resource for socio-economic empowerment of marginalized communities, economic prosperity of common citizens, and knowledge enrichment of liberated minds. Scholarly information becomes both developmental and functional for researchers working towards advancement of knowledge. We must recognize a relay of information flow and information ecology while pursuing scholarly research. Published scholarly literatures we consult that help us in creation of new knowledge. Similarly, our published scholarly works should be outreached to future researchers for regeneration of next dimension of knowledge. Fortunately, present day research communicators have many freely available personalized digital tools to outreach to globalized research audiences having similar research interests. These tools and techniques, already adopted by many researchers in different subject areas across the world, should be enthusiastically utilized by LIS researchers in South Asia for global dissemination of their scholarly research works. This newly found enthusiasm will soon become integral part of the positive habits and cultural practices of research communicators in LIS domain.Comment: Book Chapter. In Gautam Maity et. al. (Eds.), Charaibeti: Golden Jubilee Commemorative Volume (pp. 356-365). Kolkata, India: Department of Library and Information Science, Jadavpur University, 2014. ISBN: 978-81-929886-0-

Practices of research data curation in institutional repositories: A qualitative view from repository staff

The importance of managing research data has been emphasized by the government, funding agencies, and scholarly communities. Increased access to research data increases the impact and efficiency of scientific activities and funding. Thus, many research institutions have established or plan to establish research data curation services as part of their Institutional Repositories (IRs). However, in order to design effective research data curation services in IRs, and to build active research data providers and user communities around those IRs, it is essential to study current data curation practices and provide rich descriptions of the sociotechnical factors and relationships shaping those practices. Based on 13 interviews with 15 IR staff members from 13 large research universities in the United States, this paper provides a rich, qualitative description of research data curation and use practices in IRs. In particular, the paper identifies data curation and use activities in IRs, as well as their structures, roles played, skills needed, contradictions and problems present, solutions sought, and workarounds applied. The paper can inform the development of best practice guides, infrastructure and service templates, as well as education in research data curation in Library and Information Science (LIS) schools

Open Science in the Programme EXCELES: Otevřený přístup v programu EXCELES

Prezentace ze semináře, jehož cílem bylo představit požadavky na otevřenost výsledků a dat v programu EXCELES a možnosti metodické podpory projektům ve spolupráci s NTK.Presentation from a seminar. The aim of the seminar was to present the requirements for openness of results and data in EXCELES programme and methodological support for projects in cooperation with NTK

Altmetrics for the Information Professional: A Primer

Altmetrics, or alternative citation metrics, provide researchers and scholars with new ways to track influence across a wide range of media and platforms. From deciding what to read based on tweets, to enhancing scholarship with collaboration, altmetrics will exert more and more influence on the scholarly landscape. Awareness of altmetric tools, and the ways in which they can be used, will position information professionals at the forefront of this exciting new era in knowledge dissemination and assessment. As social media plays an ever increasing role in the communication of scholarship, the authors will discuss how altmetrics can be a valuable addition to the information professional’s tool kit. Beginning with a review of simple readership tools, and continuing with an overview of complex aggregator programs, the most promising and/or mature products will be described. Some of the many uses of altmetric data will be discussed, including the advantages of participating in large, diverse interest groups, informal reviews of formal documents, and the rapid (and arguably more complete) measure of research impact. The authors will further demonstrate how to use altmetrics to complement and enhance existing methods to provide readership advisory services for ourselves and our patrons, facilitate knowledge sharing, indicate effectiveness, and supply evidence for promotion and tenure