Elevating the quality and transparency of library-published open access journals

​Library publishers often straddle the line between journal publisher and journal host, which presents challenges for ensuring that journals meet certain standards for quality and transparency. At Indiana University, we conducted a self-evaluation to determine whether our library-published open access journals were following best practices for scholarly journals. This presentation will discuss the methods and criteria used, and how we developed new tools and approaches to educating journal editors based on our findings

How to Start a Scholarly Journal

In this informal session, representatives from the IU Office of Scholarly Publishing will present an overview of planning and launching a scholarly journal. Topics will include developing an editorial scope and mission, building an editorial board, staffing an office, honing a publication schedule and editorial calendar, developing policies and submission guidelines, preparing a proposal to a publisher, choosing an access model, and selecting editorial tools for managing your journal. Time will be devoted for audience Q&A.IU Office of Scholarly Publishin

How Much Do Monographs Cost? And Why Should We Care?

What does it cost to make a high quality, digital monograph? What may sound like an obvious question turns out to be a very knotty one, driving to the heart of the essence of scholarly publishing today. It is particularly relevant in an environment where the potential of a sustainable open access (OA) business model for monographs is being explored. Two complementary studies funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2015 have explored this question to understand the costs involved in creating and disseminating scholarly books. The team at Ithaka S+R studied the full costs of publishing monographs by gathering cost data on a sample of 382 titles across 20 presses. This process involved working with directors, CFOs, and many operational staff to understand the way staff time and effort contribute to the publishing process. In parallel, a separate project at Michigan and Indiana used a top‐down model to identify those costs related to monograph publishing at the University of Michigan Press and Indiana University Press. This cost study was part of a larger project in which focus groups and interviews were conducted with faculty and administrators to explore institutional openness to a flipped business model where the costs of producing a monograph would be borne by the author’s parent institution. The data from these two projects will help to understand how an OA monograph model could work. The studies also get at issues critical to the future of scholarly publishing: Which activities are critical to the creation of scholarly books? When does authoring end and publishing begin? How great a role do publishers play in not just producing a book, but in asserting its place in the scholarship and in current debates? A flipped model of funding monographs has major implications for publishers, libraries, and faculty, so a deep understanding of such questions is essential for the long‐term health of the scholarly communication ecosystem, especially in the humanities and social sciences

Beware of Predators: How to Avoid Getting Ripped off by Predatory Journal Publishers

Beware the predatory publisher! Predatory publishers exploit the "author pays" model of open access to profit from unsuspecting scholars. They engage in a variety of unethical practices to entice contributors, then charge them for non-existent services. In this workshop, participants will learn about common scams to look out for and how to evaluate the legitimacy of an open access publication

A Study of Direct Author Subvention for Publishing Humanities Books at Two Universities: A Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation by Indiana University and University of Michigan

This report was produced as the main deliverable from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant 41400692, “A Study of Direct Author Subvention for Publishing Humanities Books at Two Universities.” The Indiana University team led by PI Carolyn Walters, consisted of Jason Baird Jackson, Scott Smart, Nick Fitzgerald, Gary Dunham and Shayna Pekala. The University of Michigan team led by PI James Hilton consisted of Paul Courant, Sidonie Smith, Meredith Kahn, Charles Watkinson, Jim Ottaviani, and Aaron McCollough. Lead authorship of the different sections in this report is indicated in the opening paragraphs. Supplemental data to this report is available at http://hdl.handle.net/2022/20358.This white paper presents recommendations about how a system of monographic publication fully funded by subventions from authors’ parent institutions might function, based on research activities supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at Indiana University and the University of Michigan. While the contributors present a strong argument for implementing such an “author subvention” system, they describe a number of challenges and potential unintended consequences. Particular issues discussed include how to determine which publishers would be eligible for support, how best to support untenured faculty, and how to avoid disenfranchising scholars at less well-funded institutions.Andrew W. Mellon Foundatio

Privacy and User Experience in 21st Century Library Discovery

Over the last decade, libraries have taken advantage of emerging technologies to provide new discovery tools to help users find information and resources more efficiently. In the wake of this technological shift in discovery, privacy has become an increasingly prominent and complex issue for libraries. The nature of the web, over which users interact with discovery tools, has substantially diminished the library’s ability to control patron privacy. The emergence of a data economy has led to a new wave of online tracking and surveillance, in which multiple third parties collect and share user data during the discovery process, making it much more difficult, if not impossible, for libraries to protect patron privacy. In addition, users are increasingly starting their searches with web search engines, diminishing the library’s control over privacy even further. While libraries have a legal and ethical responsibility to protect patron privacy, they are simultaneously challenged to meet evolving user needs for discovery. In a world where “search” is synonymous with Google, users increasingly expect their library discovery experience to mimic their experience using web search engines. However, web search engines rely on a drastically different set of privacy standards, as they strive to create tailored, personalized search results based on user data. Libraries are seemingly forced to make a choice between delivering the discovery experience users expect and protecting user privacy. This paper explores the competing interests of privacy and user experience, and proposes possible strategies to address them in the future design of library discovery tools

Microdata in the IR: A Low-Barrier Approach to Enhancing Discovery of Institutional Repository Materials in Google

Georgetown University Library curates a multitude of open access resources in its institutional repository and digital collections portal, DigitalGeorgetown. Over the last several years, the Library has experimented with methods for making these items increasingly visible in search engine search results. This article describes the Library’s low-barrier approach to applying Schema.org vocabulary to its DSpace institutional repository using microdata, as well as the challenges with and strategies used for assessing this work. The effects of the application of Schema.org microdata to DigitalGeorgetown on Google search results were tracked over time using three different metrics, providing new insights about its impact

Privacy and User Experience in 21st Century Library Discovery

Over the last decade, libraries have taken advantage of emerging technologies to provide new discovery tools to help users find information and resources more efficiently. In the wake of this technological shift in discovery, privacy has become an increasingly prominent and complex issue for libraries. The nature of the web, over which users interact with discovery tools, has substantially diminished the library’s ability to control patron privacy. The emergence of a data economy has led to a new wave of online tracking and surveillance, in which multiple third parties collect and share user data during the discovery process, making it much more difficult, if not impossible, for libraries to protect patron privacy. In addition, users are increasingly starting their searches with web search engines, diminishing the library’s control over privacy even further.While libraries have a legal and ethical responsibility to protect patron privacy, they are simultaneously challenged to meet evolving user needs for discovery. In a world where “search” is synonymous with Google, users increasingly expect their library discovery experience to mimic their experience using web search engines. However, web search engines rely on a drastically different set of privacy standards, as they strive to create tailored, personalized search results based on user data. Libraries are seemingly forced to make a choice between delivering the discovery experience users expect and protecting user privacy. This paper explores the competing interests of privacy and user experience, and proposes possible strategies to address them in the future design of library discovery tools

A Study of Direct Author Subvention for Publishing Humanities Books at Two Universities: A Report to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation by Indiana University and University of Michigan

This report was produced as the main deliverable from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Grant 41400692, “A Study of Direct Author Subvention for Publishing Humanities Books at Two Universities.” The Indiana University team led by PI Carolyn Walters, consisted of Jason Baird Jackson, Scott Smart, Nick Fitzgerald, Gary Dunham and Shayna Pekala. The University of Michigan team led by PI James Hilton consisted of Paul Courant, Sidonie Smith, Meredith Kahn, Charles Watkinson, Jim Ottaviani, and Aaron McCollough. Lead authorship of the different sections in this report is indicated in the opening paragraphs.This white paper presents recommendations about how a system of monographic publication fully funded by subventions from authors’ parent institutions might function, based on research activities supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at Indiana University and the University of Michigan. While the contributors present a strong argument for implementing such an “author subvention” system, they describe a number of challenges and potential unintended consequences. Particular issues discussed include how to determine which publishers would be eligible for support, how best to support untenured faculty, and how to avoid disenfranchising scholars at less well-funded institutions.Andrew W. Mellon Foundationhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113671/1/IU Michigan White Paper 09-15-2015.pdfDescription of IU Michigan White Paper 09-15-2015.pdf : White pape