shifting ground: scholarly communication in geography
DESCRIPTION
Joint presentation by me, Data/Liaison Librarian Heather Whipple and Collections Librarian Ian Gibson for the Canadian Association of Geographers' meeting during Congress 2014.TRANSCRIPT
Shifting Ground: Understanding Scholarly Communication in
Geography
Heather Whipple, Data/Liaison LibrarianElizabeth Yates, Liaison/Scholarly Communication Librarian
Ian Gibson, Collections Librarian
May 28, 2014 ~ CAG @ Congress
Free to use or share with attribution
Today’s outcomes
You will recall:• Strategies for finding & sharing scholarly information
sources• Characteristics of changes in scholarly publishing,
including Open Access• Important publishing platforms for geography• Strategies for evaluating a journal• Characteristics of traditional and new forms of
measuring research impact
Finding geographical research
• Geographers research everything, everywhere: no single research database can keep up• Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar• Other specialized disciplinary databases with overlap• Use advanced search options to limit by subject,
keyword• For example: geograph*
Finding geographical research
• Google Scholar• If you are affiliated with a university, make sure your library is linked to
your profile for easy access to subscription content• Set up citation export preferences• Set up alerts (also available for journals & databases)
• Access when you’re between affiliations• Public library databases• Alumni access to ILL• Author websites & research repositories• academia.edu & researchgate.net
Sharing your research
• Make sure YOUR WORK can be found
• ORCID & ResearcherID
• Publishing and Getting Read. 2013 (RGS)
• Ballamingie, Patricia, and Susan Tudin. 2013. "Publishing graduate student research in geography: the fundamentals." Journal Of Geography In Higher Education 37, no. 2: 304-314.
Sharing your research
• Research Data Management• Best practices for preserving your data over the long term• Plan for the future• Plan for sharing• Plan for reuse• Plan for protection of vulnerable or proprietary content• Increasingly expected as part of funding applications
Publishing then
Publishing now• Open, online journals
• Digital academic presses
• Online repositories
• Funding agency policies supporting OA
• Greater support for author rights
• Free, immediate online access to scholarly research• No end-user fees• Usually greater freedom for re-use
Open Access = greater impact
Open Access Citation effect:• Open Access articles are cited significantly more
than non-OA articles
Article downloads:• Open Access articles are downloaded significantly
more than non-OA articles
Open Access = more rights
Morrison, H. (2014). Dramatic Growth of Open Access: December 31, 2013: first open source edition.
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/
Growth of OA publishing
How does OA work?
Publishing is not free!
Costs are covered by means such as:• Article processing fees• Advertising• Sponsorship by a scholarly society• Researcher memberships
Repositories
Image: 'Dolmabahçe Palace...' http://www.flickr.com/photos/37134982@N00/1266859025Found on flickrcc.net
• Online archives of scholarly content• Subject-based or
institutional e.g. Brock Digital Repository• Search global
repositories via:opendoar.org
Open Access in Geography
• DOAJ• 572 titles for geograph* anywhere• 118 titles for Geography (general) by subject
• PLOS One• Acme• Cities and the Environment (CATE)• OA journals for other related disciplines• DOAR
• 43 disciplinary repositories for Geography and Regional Studies• your best option might fall under another subject category
How do you evaluate a journal?
a. My advisor recommended itb. It has a high Impact Factorc. I found it on Google Scholard. It looks prettye. The editor emailed me and asked me to send in an article – it will only cost $500 to publish!
Some guidelines
Source: Brock Library (2014) Guidelines for evaluating a journal. http://brocku.ca/library/services-lib/faculty/guidelines-for-evaluating-a-journal-publisher
• Check aims, cope & subject coverage• Are its policies on peer review, open access,
copyright, etc., publicly available?• Do you recognize researchers in your field?• Where is it indexed?• Does it have an Impact Factor or alternative metrics?• Does it appear on a “watch” list e.g. Beall’s list
of predatory publishers? scholarlyoa.com/2014/01/02/list-of-predatory-publishers-2014/
• If it charges fees, are they clearly explained?
Journal Impact Factor
Citations = citations in the current year to articles published in the past two yearsCitable articles = number of articles published in the past two years
E.g.
1. If articles published in your journal in 2010-2011 were cited 50 times in 2012
2. And your journal published a total 100 articles in 2010-2011
3. Your journal’s impact factor is: 50/100 = .5
Problems with Impact Factor
• A quantification of quality• Only pertains to journals, not people• Only counts journals indexed in
Web of Science (geography?)• Can be easily gamed
Image: 'choking' http://www.flickr.com/photos/36613169@N00/299060326
Found on flickrcc.net
Individual metric: H-Index
H = n papers that have been cited at least n times
• reflects both the number of publications and the number of citations per publication• based on a list of publications ranked in descending
order by the times cited
E.g.
• if I have an H-index of 2, that means I have written two papers that have been cited at least twice
Issues:• rewards prolific authors, long careers• doesn’t reward groundbreaking ideas
and papers that get a lot of citations• only relevant for fields that focus on
articles, articles, articles
There is no perfect metric
Declaration on Research AssessmentGeneral Recommendation
1. Do not use journal-based metrics, such as Journal Impact Factors, as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles, to assess an individual scientist's contributions, or in hiring, promotion, or funding decisions.http://am.ascb.org/dora/
Alternative Metrics
• For articles• For
individuals• For
institutions
Broader scope:-”real world” AND academic impact-articles AND code AND blog posts AND reports, etc.-beyond use to how and why -focus away from journal and onto article, individual
Article Level Metrics: PLoS
• Metrics for each article publically displayed• Categories: Viewed, Cited, Saved, Discussed, and
Recommended• PLoS metrics software openly available
• http://www.plosone.org/article/metrics/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030366
Individual metrics: Impact Story
• https://impactstory.org/• Works best with permanent identifier eg ORCID or
ResearcherID• Open source project aggregating multiple outputs >
DOIs, URLs, software, slides, etc.• metrics sorted by engagement type and audience
Institutional metrics: Plum Analytics
• 5 categories of metrics: usage, captures, mentions, social media & citations• Multiple outputs including articles, books, videos,
presentations, datasets, etc.
• E.g. of institutional use > The Smithsonian https://plu.mx/g/smithsonian/
Use with caution
http://mikuru.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/under-construction.gif
Copyright: What is it? Why does it matter?
• a form of intellectual property• takes effect the moment a work is “fixed”
(doesn’t apply to ideas, facts)• applies to all genres – books, periodicals,
charts, software, films, music, works of art• Protects your rights as a creator:• to reproduce, publish, alter, sell, etc. the work• copyright infringement > is unauthorized
copying or use of a work
What can you do?
No. 1 > Read your copyright agreements!
• research your publication options• negotiate more copy-rights• use Creative Commons licensing --
creativecommons.org• publish with an Open Access platform
White clouds in the deep blue, by backtrust; from stock.xchng
Summing up
• Scholarly publishing is in transition• We have the ability to discover vast quantities of
information• We have the ability to share vast quantities of
information• Some publishers are nervous about what this might
mean• You have opportunities to decide how you want to
engage with this changing realm• You have opportunities & responsibilities to understand
how your work is measured, contained, and promoted.
Thank you
Presentation slides ~ http://www.slideshare.net/ElizabethYates
Presentation links ~ http://bit.ly/CAG2014sc
Heather Whipple ~ [email protected] Yates ~ [email protected]
Thanks to Ian Gibson for metrics & altmetrics content