Capacity building to boost information and communication skills inside an institute of research

To enhance its visibility, the Library of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) along with the Scientific Communication Unit of the same institution delivered a set of informal online training sessions, or webinars, on their fields of expertise: information retrieval, publication, effective communication, and research evaluation, specifically addressed to internal users. The collaboration was extremely useful in terms of improved knowledge on skills available among the personnel of these two services. It increased trust in the competencies of internal staff and at the same time it contributed to develop awareness of the value of the services rendered. Skills to use available online resources for training were improved as well as ISS staff cohesion favouring the development of new collaborations

"Uniform Requirements" for grey literature: proposal for the adoption of "Nancy style"

The production of a valuable and formally correct document is strictly associated with the existence and application of reference standards that should be commonly used within the community of all the possible authors. In the biomedical field everybody knows what are the Uniform requirements for Manuscript submitted to Biomedical Journals, better known as "Vancouver style". A short story of this "style" will help understanding why we are proposing a "Nancy style" for Grey Literature (GL). Vancouver was the place were a small group of editors of medical journal met in 1978 to reach an agreement for a common format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. Since then, these guidelines, which were initially based on the format of references to be included in the publication, have been developing in scope and also the number of journals using them is widely increasing. Today, the border line between grey and open literature becomes less and less clear in terms of document online availability, therefore it seems particularly important to call the attention of all producers on the necessity to draw up a reference tool for writing and editing GL that now is mainly distributed through the Internet. This is particularly relevant in the absence of a proper ISO standard for the presentation of scientific and technical reports, the best sample of GL, since the valuable but not up-date ISO 5966, produced in 1982, was withdrawn, and not replaced by a new standard. Following the red thread of both the relevant editorial issues contained in the last edition of "Vancouver style" (October 2005, http://www.icmje.org/) and the basic principles of the ISO 5966, a proposal will be presented and discussed to reach an initial consensus on what might lead to the adoption of Uniform requirements for the correct production of institutional reports. This will be particularly useful now that open access is widely shared also by the GL community. The discussion and reflections to reach a consensus should include considerations on: - publishing and editorial issues (quality and copyright, new responsibilities associated with electronic publishing, institutional budget for document production and distribution, correct use of GL by lay people and the general media, etc.); - ethical issues (authorship, editorship, appropriateness of peer review, disclosure of conflict of interest, etc.); - document preparation (items to be included in the title page, abstracts, document structure, tables and figures, references, levels of revision editing, etc.). In this period of metamorphosis of GL, an open question concludes our reflections: Will "Nancy style" contribute to change the traditional grey bug into a colourful butterfly

Awareness and empowerment in document production and distribution as a "must" for open access: Experiences from the "Nancy style" to guarantee quality

With the objective to create major awareness on quality issues in grey literature (GL) creators, users, and policy makers, the following actions were developed: analysis of GL in the changing context; reflections on the development of the "Nancy style" that is the Guidelines for the production of scientific and technical reports, (http://www.glisc.info); comparison between "Nancy style" and ANSI/NISO Z39.18; promotion of the "Nancy style"

La letteratura grigia nella comunicazione scientifica: il "Nancy style" per garantire la qualità editoriale dei rapporti tecnici

Grey literature in scientific communication: “Nancy style” to guarantee editorial quality of technical reports. The first part of this report contains a short outlook of the evolution of the concept of grey literature through the years and presents its role as a quick and informal means for the diffusion of scientific information. The Internet has increased the responsibilities of authors and institutions producing grey literature, therefore they should be aware of both editorial standards and ethical considerations behind a worldwide diffusion of information. This is why the “Guidelines for the production of scientific and technical reports: how to write and distribute grey literature” were produced in 2006 (they are informally known as “Nancy style” from the International Conference on grey Literature held in Nancy in that year). The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS, the National Institute of Health in Italy), as promoter and active participant in their realization, has translated the Guidelines into Italian to better promote their use in Italy. The second part of the report includes the original version of the Guidelines in English and their translation into Italian. The third part includes an example of the application of “Nancy style” in the Instructions to authors of the technical reports edited by the ISS

Tailored health literacy interventions for people with deafness and hearing loss: an ongoing systematic review

Worldwide, deafness and disabling hearing loss (DHL) are estimated to be among the five major causes of disability. Health literacy (HL) is a well- established social determinant of health. DHL people have lower HL and lower health outcomes than non-hearing disabled counterparts. To inform a pilot national-based project on appropriate HL interventions for people with DHL, we aimed to explore scholarly articles through a systematic review

Quality of grey literature in the open access era : Privilege and Responsibility

The privilege recently gained in the dissemination of Grey Literature (GL) through the widespread use of the Internet implies a new level of responsibility for GL authors and issuing organizations. In the past, in fact, only a limited number of copies were produced, generally in-house printed, and the target readers were very well focused and known beforehand. Now in the open access era, greater care should be assured not only to the scientific content of GL, but also to the respect of editorial standards to allow easy readability, understanding and retrieval of the document in the Internet. The differences in the editorial processing of GL documents versus articles published in open literature stress the uncertain borders existing between the two channels of publication. In particular, the different levels of technical editing, applied also to non-officially refereed documents, can be compared to the editorial process followed in conventional literature. The long experience in the production of GL by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the Italian National Institute of Health) allows reflecting on these issues related to GL production, circulation and use. Besides the authors' primary responsibilities, it is important to focus on the educational role of the editorial staff (inside the research institute producing also open literature), actively contributing to guarantee a better quality to all documents issued by the organization.Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa

"Uniform Requirements" for grey literature: proposal for the adoption of "Nancy style"

The production of a valuable and formally correct document is strictly associated with the existence and application of reference standards that should be commonly used within the community of all the possible authors. In the biomedical field everybody knows what are the Uniform requirements for Manuscript submitted to Biomedical Journals, better known as "Vancouver style". A short story of this "style" will help understanding why we are proposing a "Nancy style" for Grey Literature (GL). Vancouver was the place were a small group of editors of medical journal met in 1978 to reach an agreement for a common format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. Since then, these guidelines, which were initially based on the format of references to be included in the publication, have been developing in scope and also the number of journals using them is widely increasing. Today, the borderline between grey and open literature becomes less and less clear in terms of document online availability, therefore it seems particularly important to call the attention of all producers on the necessity to draw up a reference tool for writing and editing GL that now is mainly distributed through the Internet. This is particularly relevant in the absence of a proper ISO standard for the presentation of scientific and technical reports, the best sample of GL, since the valuable but not up-date ISO 5966, produced in 1982, was withdrawn, and not replaced by a new standard. Following the red thread of both the relevant editorial issues contained in the last edition of "Vancouver style" (October 2004, http://www.icmje.org/) and the basic principles of the ISO 5966, a proposal will be presented and discussed to reach an initial consensus on what might lead to the adoption of Uniform requirements for the correct production of institutional reports. This will be particularly useful now that open access is widely shared also by the GL community. The discussion and reflections to reach a consensus should include considerations on: - publishing and editorial issues (quality and copyright, new responsibilities associated with electronic publishing, institutional budget for document production and distribution, correct use of GL by lay people and the general media, etc.); - ethical issues (authorship, editorship, appropriateness of peer review, disclosure of conflict of interest, etc.); - document preparation (items to be included in the title page, abstracts, document structure, tables and figures, references, levels of revision editing, etc.). In this period of metamorphosis of GL, an open question concludes our reflections: Will "Nancy style" contribute to change the traditional grey bug into a colorful butterfly?Includes: Conference preprint, Powerpoint presentation, Abstract and Biographical notes, Pratt student commentaryXAInternationa