Library Publishing Curriculum Textbook

In the original, modular curriculum (2018) on which this textbook is based, each unit of the Library Publishing Curriculum contained an instructor’s guide, narrative, a slideshow with talking notes, bibliographies, supplemental material, and activities for use in a physical or virtual classroom for workshops and courses. This textbook version, produced in 2021, adapts the original narrative as the primary content (with very little additional editing) and incorporates the bibliographies, appendices, and images from the slideshow into a linear reading and learning experience for use by librarians or students learning on their own or as part of a classroom learning experience. The LPC hopes others use and extend this CC-BY version into even more learning opportunities to help create a more equitable publishing ecosystem

Art tweets: a content analysis of social media activity among six top art museums in the U.S.A.

This study presents a content analysis of Twitter posts tagged with one of six institutions to establish uses and gratifications with this medium and the art museum industry. Due to industry norms, copyright law, museums traditionally do not permit photography and therefore may limit the advancement of their mission through misuse of the social media. This study establishes a baseline by seeking to understand how museums and individual account holders engage on Twitter within the art museum space as well as begin to unearth whether museums are misusing this media outlet and limiting their potential to educate the public while providing access to objects and information entrusted with their institution

Getting the best out of data for small monograph presses: A case study of UCL press

Digital developments in scholarly publishing are giving rise to new data sources with the potential to provide insight into how OA monographs are being used and to support strategic decision-making by publishers. However, small OA monograph publishers face practical challenges in identifying relevant data, as well as in capturing, managing and interpreting it. This case study of UCL Press reports on a collaborative research project that sought to address some of these challenges. The project involved UCL Press, Knowledge Unlatched Research and the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University in Australia (CCAT). Our goal was to identify the extent to which data that can be easily accessed by a small OA monograph press can be combined with low-cost tools for its analysis in order to provide useful insight into development and strategy; and to identify practical steps that can be taken by small OA monograph publishers to ensure that they are making the most of the data that they have access to

An Assessment of Impact Metrics’ Potential as Research Indicators Based on Their Perception, Usage, and Dependencies from External Science Communication

The demand for practicable methods for quantitative assessments of scientific products’ relevance has risen considerably over the past decades. As a consequence, research and commercial providers of scholarly data developed a wide variety of impact indicators, ranging from citation-based to so-called altmetrics. This highly heterogeneous family of indicators is based on the principle of measuring interactions with scientific publications that are observable online, and covers for instance mentions of publications in social and journalistic media, in literature management software, or in policy documents. The various metrics' theoretical validity as impact indicators is debated constantly, as questions regarding what it is that different metrics measure or express in many facets remain unanswered. This thesis makes two central contributions towards answering these questions. Its first part systematically assesses the status quo of various metrics’ perception and usage by researchers. This assessment serves to determine the significance of metrics in academic daily routines, as well as to identify relevant perceived problems concerning their usage. The challenges identified this way are in later sections of the thesis opposed with concrete measures to be taken during the development of future research metrics and their infrastructure to effectively solve common criticisms regarding current metrics and their use. Proceeding from the first part’s user studies, this thesis’ second part examines the relationship between research metrics and external science communication. It this way addresses a wide research gap with considerable potential implications for metrics’ validity as indicators for quality - the question to which degree these metrics are merely the result of promotion, which respective research publications receive

The metric tide: report of the independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management

This report presents the findings and recommendations of the Independent Review of the Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. The review was chaired by Professor James Wilsdon, supported by an independent and multidisciplinary group of experts in scientometrics, research funding, research policy, publishing, university management and administration. This review has gone beyond earlier studies to take a deeper look at potential uses and limitations of research metrics and indicators. It has explored the use of metrics across different disciplines, and assessed their potential contribution to the development of research excellence and impact. It has analysed their role in processes of research assessment, including the next cycle of the Research Excellence Framework (REF). It has considered the changing ways in which universities are using quantitative indicators in their management systems, and the growing power of league tables and rankings. And it has considered the negative or unintended effects of metrics on various aspects of research culture. The report starts by tracing the history of metrics in research management and assessment, in the UK and internationally. It looks at the applicability of metrics within different research cultures, compares the peer review system with metric-based alternatives, and considers what balance might be struck between the two. It charts the development of research management systems within institutions, and examines the effects of the growing use of quantitative indicators on different aspects of research culture, including performance management, equality, diversity, interdisciplinarity, and the ‘gaming’ of assessment systems. The review looks at how different funders are using quantitative indicators, and considers their potential role in research and innovation policy. Finally, it examines the role that metrics played in REF2014, and outlines scenarios for their contribution to future exercises

Facebook for Professors: Academia.edu and the Converging Logics of Social Media and Academic Self-Branding

Given widespread labor-market precarity, contemporary workers—especially those in the media and creative industries—are increasingly called upon to brand themselves. As universities become progressively more market-driven, academics are experiencing a parallel pressure to engage in self-promotional practices. Academia.edu, a paper-sharing social network that has been informally dubbed “Facebook for academics,” has grown rapidly by adopting many of the conventions of popular social-media sites. This paper argues that the widespread uptake of Academia.edu both reflects and amplifies the self-branding imperatives that many academics experience. Drawing on the Academia.edu’s corporate history, design decisions, and marketing communications, we analyze two overlapping facets of Academia.edu: (1) the site’s business model; (2) its social affordances. We contend that the company, like mainstream social networks, harnesses the content and immaterial labor of users under the guise of “sharing.” In addition, the site’s fixation on analytics reinforces a culture of incessant self-monitoring, one already encouraged by university policies to measure quantifiable impact. We conclude by identifying the stakes for academic life, when entrepreneurial and self-promotional demands brush up against the university's knowledge-making ideals