iwmw13
Turning Our Attention to
Supporting Research
Amber Thomas
Academic Technology Manager
University of Warwick
http://www.slideshare.net/academictechwarwick/iwmwsupportingresearch
confession
my context
By Scouten (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
is research a blind spot?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2013/jan/10/research-communications-uk-university-websites
UK changes to funding and
evaluation of research
OPEN ACCESS
IMPACT
RESEARCH DATA
research is changing
Amber Thomas. "21st-century Scholarship and Wikipedia". November 2012, Ariadne Issue 70
http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue70/thomas
public engagement
institutional webpages
are not enough
and who helps researchers
with everything else?
open access
remodelling peer review
changes the role of the library
potential for rebirth of university press
so much more is public
broadening of what counts
•
•
•
•
•
research datasets
code
blogs
slidedecks
podcasts and videos
a huge range of formats
on a huge range of platforms
collaboration and
interdisciplinarity
Projects don’t fit in our fixed structures
Projects spread …
• between specialisms
• across departments
• between institutions
• beyond borders
Research happens outside the university
Outputs live outside the university
By Hierarchisches_Datenbankmodell.png:Stern at de.wikipedia derivative
work: Sillyfolkboy (Hierarchisches_Datenbankmodell.png) [GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons
altmetrics
“Altmetrics expand our view of what impact looks like, but also of
what’s making the impact. This matters because expressions of
scholarship are becoming more diverse. Articles are increasingly joined
by:
• The sharing of “raw science” like datasets, code, and experimental
designs
• Semantic publishing or “nanopublication,” where the citeable unit is
an argument or passage rather than entire article.
• Widespread self-publishing via blogging, microblogging, and
comments or annotations on existing work “
Some fundamental questions are being asked that could change
how we manage and evaluate research within universities
http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/
a more social scholarship
academic networks become more visible
a new currency is emerging*
Currency metaphor with a nod to Dave White, Oxford TALL
research footprint monitoring
Collate usage data from where your
research lives and breathes
Back onto your institutional webpages,
through APIs, feeds and widgets
Digital Humanities @ Warwick
Oliver Kanaan, Diving into the Splash CC BY NC http://fav.me/d2wp6h4
emerging themes, 6 months in
visualisation
databases
emerging themes
social media
analytics
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/research/digitalhumanities/
reflections, 6 months in
• reminds me a lot of how e-learning support used to be 510 years ago
• could the fees system change and student satisfaction
agenda have shifted the focus toward teaching?
• researchers are anxious because things are changing so
fast
• hugely political, a spectrum of drivers and a complexity
of response
• neutral stance is that digital scholarship is digital literacy
applied to the new research landscape
implications
for institutional websites
We have to get good at:
• Re-aggregating distributed content analytics
• Using third party specialist platforms: risk management
• Data and databases, throughout the lifecycle
• Preservation and archiving
• Being technology collaborators in complex projects
• Responsive innovation through to service provision
• Admitting we don’t know the answers sometimes!
Thanks!
Amber Thomas
Academic Technology Manager
University of Warwick
amber.thomas @ warwick.ac.uk
@ambrouk