Digital scholarship

Enhancing Scholarly Publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences

by Andrea Scharnhorst

Jankowski, Nicholas Warren, Scharnhorst, Andrea, Tatum, Clifford and Tatum, Zuorian, Enhancing Scholarly Publications: Developing Hybrid Monographs in the Humanities and Social Sciences (January 10, 2012). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1982380 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1982380

Enhancing publications has a long history but is gaining acceleration as authors and publishers explore electronic... more Enhancing publications has a long history but is gaining acceleration as authors and publishers explore electronic tablets as devices for dissemination and presentation. Enhancement of scholarly publications, in contrast, more often takes place in a Web environment and is coupled with presentation of supplementary materials related to research. The approach to enhancing scholarly publications presented in this article goes a step further and involves the interlinking of the “objects” of a document: datasets, supplementary materials, secondary analyses, and post-publication interventions. This approach connects the user-centricity of Web 2.0 with the Semantic Web. It aims at facilitating long-term content structure through standardized formats intended to improve interoperability between concepts and terms within and across knowledge domains. We explored this conception of enhancement on a small set of books prepared for traditional academic publishers. While the project was primarily an exercise in development, the conclusion section of the article reflects on areas where conceptual and empirical studies could be initiated to complement this new direction in scholarly publishing.

Research practices in transition: investigating the relationship between emerging digital scholarship and open scholarship in higher education settings

by Antonella Esposito

MRes dissertation, submitted in October 2011 in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master of Research in Educational and Social Research, Institute of Education, University of London.

This dissertation reports an interview project focusing on research practices being transformed by current digital... more This dissertation reports an interview project focusing on research practices being transformed by current digital landscape. This theme constitutes an under-researched area in higher education in Italy. This small-scale and exploratory study aims to highlight overlaps, contradictions and mutual influences of traditional and new research practices as currently mediated by personal and infrastructural technologies. In particular, it intends to probe whether and to what extent actual digital scholarship's practices are affecting cultures of sharing in different research fields, prompting emergent approaches such as open publishing, open data, open education and open boundary between academia and society. The study is carried out at the University of Milan and relies on scholars' voices to draw emergent research behaviours and needs of new values, rules, training and support. That said, the study aims to: 1) identify current and emergent digital scholarly practices being undertaken by researchers working in an higher education setting, in different subject areas; 2) explore whether, in which ways and to what extent such research practices in digital environment constitute a “break” against the tradition, and how open approaches in researching and teaching are implied.

The study embeds an open research approach and consists in a series of interviews to 14 senior, young and doctoral researchers selected from different Departments. Convenience and snowball sampling strategies are applied to select informants from four different broad subject areas (Humanities, Social Sciences, Physics, Medicine). Interviews data are analyzed through comparison with previous empirical studies and by examining any implications for emerging modes of knowledge production and distribution, differences in ICTs appropriation in diverse subject areas and related problems of legitimation and motivation in part of individual researchers.

Changing times and art librarians

by Mark Wolffe

Co-authored with Cora Weisenfeld
In Art libraries journal, Vol. 34(2009), No. 4, p. 36-41

Excellent organisational and communication skills, familiarity with available digital technology, and the ability to... more Excellent organisational and communication skills, familiarity with available digital technology, and the ability to anticipate new developments are attributes art librarians require if they are to continue to be respected and valued professionals. Collaboration between museums, knowledge-sharing and merging library collections will cause individual museum libraries to disappear or be transformed into knowledge centres affiliated with museum collections. These will be a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas between researchers and intellectuals who share a common passion. The infrastructure for art-related information will be a digital research environment where the indexing of research material is both unambiguous and exhaustive and integrally available

DLF Aquifer's American Social History Online Enables Easier Searching and Use of Digital Collections

by Katherine Kott

Link is to the full conference proceedings.

This paper describes the methods and tools used in development and evaluation of the American Social History Online... more This paper describes the methods and tools used in development and evaluation of the American Social History Online project. Through its Aquifer initiative, the Digital Library Federation (DLF), with support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has gathered digital material pertaining to American culture and life from a number of distributed collections. The purpose of American Social History Online is to make digital material easier to find and use. Throughout the planning, design, and development processes, keeping the focus on the end user--called the content consumer within the project--has been a key principle. We hope the learning we share from our experience will help benefit others who are developing digital library services.

A STUDY OF TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION BY RESEARCHERS

by Nick Pearce

Fostering an Ecology of Openness: The Role of Social Media in Public Engagement at the Open University, UK

by Nick Pearce

In: Wankel, Charles ed. Teaching Arts and Science with the New Social Media. Cutting-edge Technologies in Higher Education (2011). Co-authored with Linda Wilkes

This chapter illustrates the ways in which The Open University (OU), one of the leading distance learning universities... more This chapter illustrates the ways in which The Open University (OU), one of the leading distance learning universities in the world, uses a range of social media to engage members of the public in learning. The OU has been an early adopter of innovative technologies which enabled public engagement right from its inception, forty years ago, contributing to fulfilling its ethos of social justice. It is this aim, to remove barriers and provide learning materials to a wide audience, including those who may be excluded from other learning institutions, which has been a major strategic driver of recent changes. Today the OU harnesses a range of social media to continue to develop this strategic policy. The OU’s ecology of openness includes a presence on externally developed social media such as YouTube, iTunesU, Facebook and Twitter, which are used as platforms to transfer knowledge and expertise to interested members of the public and encourage academic debate. Alongside these, the OU has also developed its own cutting edge social media platforms, which also allow public engagement. Key OU platforms include OpenLearn, a website which gives free access to a vast range of Open University course materials; and Cloudworks, a site for finding, sharing and discussing learning and teaching ideas, experiences and issues. This chapter explores the achievements of the Open University in using social media to engage with public audiences, as well highlighting the challenges and issues encountered.