The Effect of Use and Access on Citations

It has been shown (S. Lawrence, 2001, Nature, 411, 521) that journal articles which have been posted without charge on the internet are more heavily cited than those which have not been. Using data from the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ads.harvard.edu) and from the ArXiv e-print archive at Cornell University (arXiv.org) we examine the causes of this effect.Comment: Accepted for publication in Information Processing & Management, special issue on scientometric

IUScholarWorks, Statistics, and Altmetrics

This talk will focus on new developments regarding statistics and altmetrics in the IUScholarWorks institutional repository. It will cover the technology and policies behind a recently added statistics module, which displays filtered data regarding views and downloads for all items in the repository. Additionally, we will discuss an experimental new feature, the integration of alternative metrics ("altmetrics"; which track social media mentions of scholarship) into the repository display

The Open Research Web: A Preview of the Optimal and the Inevitable

The multiple online research impact metrics we are developing will allow the rich new database , the Research Web, to be navigated, analyzed, mined and evaluated in powerful new ways that were not even conceivable in the paper era – nor even in the online era, until the database and the tools became openly accessible for online use by all: by researchers, research institutions, research funders, teachers, students, and even by the general public that funds the research and for whose benefit it is being conducted: Which research is being used most? By whom? Which research is growing most quickly? In what direction? under whose influence? Which research is showing immediate short-term usefulness, which shows delayed, longer term usefulness, and which has sustained long-lasting impact? Which research and researchers are the most authoritative? Whose research is most using this authoritative research, and whose research is the authoritative research using? Which are the best pointers (“hubs”) to the authoritative research? Is there any way to predict what research will have later citation impact (based on its earlier download impact), so junior researchers can be given resources before their work has had a chance to make itself felt through citations? Can research trends and directions be predicted from the online database? Can text content be used to find and compare related research, for influence, overlap, direction? Can a layman, unfamiliar with the specialized content of a field, be guided to the most relevant and important work? These are just a sample of the new online-age questions that the Open Research Web will begin to answer

A Network of Text, Data and People for the Earth System Sciences

Earth System Science is an outstanding example of a field of research which yields important results especially when conducted in multidisciplinary and global cooperation. The International Polar Year and its expected legacy are used as an example to illustrate this assertion and the financial and intellectual expense invested. It follows that any effort to make more out of the globally distributed – if not fragmented – results and to network the knowledge gained would be valuable indeed. An experimental implementation of such a system, connecting journal articles to datasets, expeditions and researchers involved, is introduced. Some developments necessary to implement comparable and more powerful systems on a global scale are discussed

Customization of digital library of PhD dissertations for citizens

PHD UNS is digital library of PhD dissertations defended at University of Novi Sad. A web page for basic and advanced search has been developed in order to improve discoverability of dissertations stored in the digital library. This paper presents customization of PHD UNS web search pages for citizens out of academy. The customization includes extension of available representation styles and implementation of automatic recommendations of PhD dissertations. Representation styles are extended with textual representation specially designed for non-academic citizens and visual representation based on word clouds. Automatic recommendations are based on collaborative approach built on PhD download history, i.e., performed on the basis of what other ‘similar’ users have found useful. The PHD UNS digital library logs information for each dissertation downloading. Besides basic information about downloaded dissertation, those logs also contain information about client machine which requested downloading. Those logs have been used in order to prove our customization really improve non-academic users’ experience

A multi-dimensional analysis of usage counts, Mendeley readership, and citations for journal and conference papers

This study analyzed 16,799 journal papers and 98,773 conference papers published by IEEE Xplore in 2016 to investigate the relationships among usage counts, Mendeley readership, and citations through descriptive, regression, and mediation analyses. Differences in the relationship among these metrics between journal and conference papers are also studied. Results showed that there is no significant difference between journal and conference papers in the distribution patterns and accumulation rates of the three metrics. However, the correlation coefficients of the interrelationships between the three metrics were lower in conference papers compared to journal papers. Secondly, funding, international collaboration, and open access are positively associated with all three metrics, except for the case of funding on the usage metrics of conference papers. Furthermore, early Mendeley readership is a better predictor of citations than early usage counts and performs better for journal papers. Finally, we reveal that early Mendeley readership partially mediates between early usage counts and citation counts in the journal and conference papers. The main difference is that conference papers rely more on the direct effect of early usage counts on citations. This study contributes to expanding the existing knowledge on the relationships among usage counts, Mendeley readership, and citations in journal and conference papers, providing new insights into the relationship between the three metrics through mediation analysis.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figure

Usage Bibliometrics

Scholarly usage data provides unique opportunities to address the known shortcomings of citation analysis. However, the collection, processing and analysis of usage data remains an area of active research. This article provides a review of the state-of-the-art in usage-based informetric, i.e. the use of usage data to study the scholarly process.Comment: Publisher's PDF (by permission). Publisher web site: books.infotoday.com/asist/arist44.shtm

Performance Measurement for Digital Library Services

Aim of this literature review is to draw a picture of past and current research on performance measurement, as applies to digital library services and, at large, to the digital environment, thus consisted of electronic information services and resources. The review starts with a statement of the topic and a tentative definition of digital library to be used as a comparing model for any attempt to measure its performance. A virtuous cycle of good library management puts users and the provision of quality services to the core of its values. Performance measurement supports this process. Assessment for digital library services is outlined in terms of use, services provided, costs, management tools, added value against the mission and goals of the institution. In the last decade, novelties brought about by the introduction of digital technologies in libraries have caused efforts converge to devise both new objective models of statistical data gathering and sets of sound reliable measures and indicators, apt to gauge performance. Breaking fresh ground has proved not to be an easy task: lack of consistency, of comparable data, and standards, due to the evolutionary state of the matter, have given birth to a number of initiatives and projects, mainly in the United States and the United Kingdom, which are still looking for common grounds of development. Testing is in progress and crucial to get evidence of appropriateness, reliability and comparability of performance indicators. At the same time, a number of researchers are looking beyond mere measurement of use of and access, considered too limitative and moving forward to think out new evaluation techniques and a comprehensive view of the digital library. The issue of impact and outcome assessment, in terms of benefits or changes in knowledge, behaviours and attitudes, users can derive from services and resources with potential long-term effects, is the new frontier

Assessing impact of digital library services. An exploratory study at the University of Camerino

Focus of this dissertation is the assessment of digital library services impact on academic library users. This is an academic work, whose eventual outcome will be used for the improvement of services and evidence-based practice. \ud Research started by reviewing international and Italian literature. It emerged that studies on impact and outcomes measurement of digital library services, as part of a user-centred and solely qualitative evaluation process, are sparse, because of the difficulty of translating qualitative criteria of impact into quantifiable measures and indicators, and partly because the process is very much time-consuming. \ud The aim of this research is to build an evaluation model, focused on impact assessment of digital library services offered to users by the Library System of the University of Camerino, workplace of the researcher, to produce recommendations for the organisation and hints for further research. The prototype-like model will be put to the attention of the local library management as assessment tool to become an eventual future reinforcement to the measurement activity already in place. \ud The study is roughly designed to go through these phases: \ud 1. Italian experts in digital library issues are called to give their opinions on the matter with the intent to devise evidence of impact on users; \ud 2. results are fed to a group of local library practitioners, whose task is to confront data against the context they work in and serve; \ud 3. collected data are, then, discussed in depth with local key-informants to possibly find further insight and finally validity of the model. \ud The research takes the form of an exploratory study. It exploits qualitative methods and techniques originated from the social sciences. \ud The evaluation model resulting from the analysis of data is exposed according to academic users activities and groups. It comprises both qualitative and quantitative measures and indicators and the suggested methods of data collection are in accordance. \ud Recommendations are made to the University Library System about how to start a DLS impact assessment activity

Development of a conceptual graphical user interface framework for the creation of XML metadata for digital archives

This dissertation is motivated by the DFG sponsored Jonas Cohn Archive digitization project at Steinheim-Institut whose aim was to preserve and provide digital access to structured handwritten historical archive material highlighting New Kantian philosophy scattered in the correspondence, diaries and private journals kept by and written to and by Jonas Cohn. The dissertation describes a framework for processing and presenting multi-standard digital archive material. A set of standard markup schema and semantic bibliographic descriptions have been chosen to illustrate the multiple standard and hence semantic heterogeneous digital archiving process. The standards include Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) and Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS). The chosen standards best illustrate the structural contrast between the systematic archive, digitized archive and digitized text standards. Furthermore, combined digital preservation and presentation approaches offer not only the digitized texts but also metadata structured variably sized images of the archive documents enabling virtual visualization. State of the art applications focus solely on either one of the structural areas neglecting the compound idea of a virtual digital archive. The content of this work describes the requirements analysis for managing multi-structured and therefore multi-standard digital archival artefacts in textual and image form. In addition to the architecture and design, an infrastructure suitable for processing, managing and presenting such scholarly archives is sought for recognition as a digital framework useful for the preservation and access to digitized cultural resources. The proposed solution therefore includes the instrumentation of a conglomerate of existing and novel XML technology for transformations based in a centralized application. The archive can then be managed via a client-server application thereby focusing archival activities on structured data collection and information preservation illustrated in the dissertation process by the: • Development of a prototype data model allowing the integration of the relevant markup schema • Implementation of a prototype client server application handling archive processing, management and presentation and based on the data model already mentioned • Development and implementation of a role archive access user interface Furthermore as an infrastructural development serving expert archivists from the humanities, the dissertation explores methods of binding the existing XML metadata creation process to other programming languages. In doing so, one opens further for channels simplifying the metadata creation process by integrating the use of graphical user interfaces. To this end the java programming language, its swing and AWT graphical user interface libraries, associated relational persistency and enterprise client server architecture resemble a suitable environment for integrating XML metadata into main stream computing. Hence the implementation of Java XML Data Binding as part of the metadata creation framework is part and parcel of the proposed solution.Diese Arbeit geht hervor aus dem von der DFG geförderten Projekt zu Digitalisierung des Jonas Cohn Archivs im Steinheim-Institut, dessen Ziel es ist, eine strukturierte Auswahl von Handschriften des Philosophen Jonas Cohns in digitaler Form zu bewahren und den Zugang zu ihnen zu erleichtern. Die Dissertation beschreibt ein Rahmenwerk für die digitale Verarbeitung und Präsentation digitalisierter Archivinhalte und ihrer Metadaten, strukturiert anhand von mehr als einem Beschreibungsstandard. Eine Auswahl von Standard Markup Schemata und bibliographisch semantischen Beschreibungen wurde getroffen, um die Problematik darzustellen, die aus der Berücksichtigung mehrerer Standards und damit aus semantischer Heterogenität des Digitalisierungsprozesses entsteht. Diese Auswahl umfasst unter anderem die Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), Metadata Encoding and Transmission Schema (METS) und Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) als Beispiele für Beschreibungsstandards. Diese Standards sind am besten geeignet, die strukturellen und semantischen Unterschiede zwischen den Standards eines systematisch und semantisch zu digitalisierenden Archivs darzustellen. Zusätzlich verbindet der Ansatz die digitale Bewahrung und Präsentation von digitalisierten Texten und von Metadaten strukturierter Bilder der Archivinhalte. Dies ermöglicht eine virtuelle Präsentation des digitalen Archivs. Eine große Zahl bekannter Digitalisierungsanwendungen folgt nur einer der beiden Strukturierungsziele Bewahrung und Präsentation, wodurch der Ansatz eines vollständig virtuellen digitalen Archivs vernachlässigt wird. Der Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit ist die Beschreibung einer Managementinfrastruktur für die Erfassung und Auszeichnung von Multi-Standard Metadaten für digitale Handschriftensammlungen. Zusätzlich zu der Architektur und dem Design wird nach einer geeigneten Infrastruktur gesucht für die Erfassung, Verarbeitung und die Präsentation wissenschaftlicher Archive als digitales Rahmenwerk für den Zugang zu und die Bewahrung von Kulturbesitz. Die hier vorgeschlagene Lösung sieht deshalb die Nutzung bestehender und neuer XML Technologien vor, verknüpft in einer zentralen Anwendung. So wird im Rahmen der Dissertation die Strukturierung des Archivs mittels einer Client-Server-Anwendung betrieben und die Bewahrungsmaßnahmen als Prozess herausgearbeitet. Die Arbeit verfolgt mehrere Zielsetzungen: • Die Entwicklung eines prototypischen Datenmodells mit der Einbindung relevanter Markup Schemata • Die Implementierung einer prototypischen Client Server Anwendung für die Bearbeitung, Erfassung und Präsentation der Archive anhand des beschriebenen Datenmodells • Die Entwicklung, Implementierung und Bewertung einer Benutzerschnittstelle für die Interaktion mit dem Rahmenwerk anhand einer Expertenevaluation