Global Trends
in Scholarly Communication
Colin Steele, Emeritus Fellow
Structure of the Talk
 Overview : Strategic ICT frameworks for
information provision in the twenty-first
century
 How do we define the digital campus?
 UK / US inputs April - May 2005
 Teaching and Learning and Research issues
 Scholarly communication futures and digital
information structures
Dr Evan Arthur: DEST. APSR May
2005
 $5b expended annually by the Government
on R&D
 Government increasingly convinced high
quality research results depend on
appropriate infrastructure –
 including datasets, data outputs, disparate
data holdings and getting better access to
highly processed data and articles
Dr Evan Arthur 2
 Issues for scholarly publishing: costs of
access and new methods of publishing
 scholarly impacts before form of publication
 role of institutional and discipline
repositories and how to populate them
 are the players talking to each other, eg
librarians and grid people?
 (what about scholars and the Academies?)
Dr Evan Arthur 3
 “The digital revolution is disaggregating the
traditional process of publishing” but
 Maybe better to state it has the potential to?
 Since large sectors of the academic community
seem unaware of issues ?
 Scholars separated from economics of scholarly
communication and “driven” by RQF frameworks
and publishing conservatism ?
Oxford Internet Institute
 “Few scholars of information studies to look to
help” ( Professor William Dutton)
 Increasingly complex issues over data mining,
archiving, data curation, search engines, etc
 Need to mesh research activities and
collaborations with communication technologies
 Seamless access for user-driven information
seeking
 Digital scholarly communications lines blurred
The World is Flat
 What are the global digital challenges?:
 Acceleration of print to digital and then
selectively back to print output
 Greater specificity and personalisation and
ease and speed of access
 Increasing user expectations of “free”
material
 Flat rather than vertical ICT structures needed
Columbia University
Information Services Organization
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES
CENTER FOR NEW MEDIA
TEACHING AND LEARNING
DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE
VENTURES
OFFICE OF IT
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
ACADEMIC INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING
INITIATIVES
COPYRIGHT
ADVISORY OFFICE
OFFICE OF IT
POLICY AND PLANNING
Current E Landscapes
 Publishers Communication Group, Global
Electronic Collection Trends in Academic Libraries:
 “84% of respondents reported their institution
cancelled print when e-content available”
 Access at the desktop by most scholars Increasing
reliance by scholars on library subs and/or personal
networks via email, RSS, etc
 Research libraries: “one foot on the dock and one in
the dinghy”! MIT Libraries 2004 Annual Report
Library as Place?
 Information and Learning Commons
Professor Diana Oblinger, ‘Educating the Net
Generation’ http://www.educause.edu/content.
 The changing nature of the library as place
 ‘Libraries occupy prime spots on campus –
but are they the best place to store millions of
books, given the new roles of libraries’ (Jim
Neal CIO Columbia University)
Library Space: Museum or Mall?
“Paper content is being moved offsite to make room for things like
cafes and information commons,
but what stays and what goes? We
do not have good tools for these
decisions.”
OCLC
“The idea of the
balanced—but
unread—
collection is
disappearing.”
Strategic Issues for Columbia
University include:
 Distributed electronic access to content,
tools and services
 High quality physical and electronic spaces
 Innovative applications of technology to
support teaching and research
 High quality infrastructure integrated into the
academic fabric of the university
Alicia Wise CEO UKPLS
 Key strategic challenge for information
professionals is “that many involved in
shaping the future of e-Learning do not see
the relevance of content nor services”
 Rebranding needed to transform “library”
and “published” content into “learning tools”
 IT enables but does not drive pedagogy
E-learning Futures
 Better evaluation, training and reward systems to
create more “engaged “ learning and learning
spaces - Columbia CNMTL experience
 Future use of online simulations, wireless
technologies and reusable content objects
 (Kim and Bonk ‘The future of workplace e-learning”
in Handbook of Blended Learning
http://www.publicationshare.com/c083_bonk_future.
pdf )
E Frameworks
 JISC DEST e-framework 12 July 2005
 “Breakdown monolith VLE’s into core components
–authentication, authorisation, course management,
assessment, marketing, tracking and content
management” www.e-framework.org
 “Learning is the issue - e is simply a mechanism”
(Hawkins and Oblinger. Educause Review
July/August 2005)
The Google Generation-Chips
With Everything
 “Uni isn’t what uni was: it’s a case now of
going to lectures and tutorials and buggering
off to McDonalds to cook chips” Ian Dobson,
Senior Research Fellow, Monash University
 What do the “chip generation” think, want
and do? –not necessarily the same things!
 Impact on students and staff of Google,
Google Scholar and Google Print
Science Publishing Trends
 The rise and rise of science serial publishing
multinationals – science publishing fastest
growing media sub sector in past fifteen years
 Elsevier huge expansion 1970 to 2005 plus
 2004 gross profit over one billion pounds
 Trends now the same in SS and Humanities
 Impact on book votes - annual rise 2006 - 5 % pa
Elsevier, 8% Blackwell- “certainty for libraries”!
Extant journal titles, 1665-2001
Source: Elsevier Science
15000
Data from Ulrich ’s International
Periodicals Directory on CD-ROM
Summer 2001 Edition
10000
5000
0
1665
1765
1865
1965
James O’Donnell
 Provost of Georgetown University: the
journal is a seventeenth century device,
tweaked by the nineteenth, extended
consistently in the twentieth at greater and
greater cost and now hopped up on network
amphetamines!
 If starting afresh would be dynamic, digital
with open peer review
Cutting The Scholarly Mustard?
 Caroline Michel (Harper Press) March 3, 2005:
“Guardian World Book Day Forum”
 “Mr Colman said that he made his fortune not
from the mustard people ate, but from the
mustard that remained on the side of the
plate when the meal was finished”
 Comparison here with most academic
articles relatively little read, little used and
little needed except for RQF’s ?
Academic Dross?
 30% of titles from Big Deal publishers
account for 80% of articles downloaded
(Gatten and Sanville, D-Lib magazine)
 “Simon Mays-Smith (Credit Suisse First
Boston) “Does More Access Mean Less
Library?” (UKSG April 2005) –
 most useage from relatively few high cost
journals - NESLI 2005 stats
Fighting Over The Academic Body.
Librarians and Publishers
Elsevier Research : Author
Priorities: Michael Mabe
2=
1
6
QUALITY
&
SPEED
5
7
8
4
2=
Data from 36,188 Authors;
0= unimportant
10= very important
Reward Systems: The Key To
Scholarly Change
 RAEs and University League Tables still the “fatal
attraction” ( Professor A J van Raan - Leiden )
 Issues arising from UK RAE and OZ RQF’s
 Peer review can disadvantage new disciplines,
applied and interdisciplinary research New CHASS metrics August 2005
 How do you measure a multidimensional ”research
library in a box”… as follows?
Professor Edward Ayers Virginia
New Forms Of Historical Dialogue?
Role and Function of
Institutional Repositories
 IR’s preserve and make available globally
institutional digital assets - new models of
scholarship (Abby Smith Director CLIR)
 Repositories will be increasingly important for
institutional scholarship frameworks
 IR’s intersect digital libraries, e -research,
teaching and learning, courseware, records
management, preservation and RQF issues
Institutional Repositories
 University of California CDL : “source of
knowledge that should be shared with
society” … (Catherine Candee)
 1.2 million downloads California E
Scholarship in less than 2 years – 98 per cent
outside the institution
 Dutch “Cream of Science” deposit - 41,000
pubs by top 206 researchers- website
overloaded on first day-0.5 million hits
APSR
ARROW Project
Open Access Issues
 http://eprints.unimelb.edu.au/. Melbourne
 Terminologies often confusing, eg “Author
Pays, Open Access, and Institutional
Repository”
 81 % of UK researchers would comply with
employer or funder mandate to deposit
copies in IR’s - further 14% reluctantly. (Alma
Swan- Key Perspectives May 2005)
The Worm Turns?
 Ayris (UKSG 2005): University College
London faculty mandates, links to Research
Office and citations etc
 UCL Embryonic principle of cost recovery of
academic time for commercial publications?
 Public good campus input- library and IT
infrastructure
 Public good campus output - Press and I.R
Campus Budget Changes?
 What about the hidden costs in terms of
campus infrastructure and time of the
academic community in editorial board
activities, refereeing, etc for the major
international STM publishers?
 Sally Morris ”The True Costs of Scholarly
Journal Publishing” April 2005 –
us$100,000 per article if all costs
considered
New Strategies on Campus?
 “Presidents, Provosts, Deans, Scholars,
Librarians and Technologists together must find
ways within the larger academic community for
their institutions to work together to realise the
extraordinary economies of scale that are
possible” to effect “new modes of ongoing
operation”
 Managing Digital Assets, Donald Waters,
http://www.clir.org/activities/registration/feb05_s
pkrnotes/waters.htm
Monograph Trends
 Books will be deconstructed in the digital ageGoogle Print, Amazon within the Book
 Books and chapters metadata and full text
searchable - increasing commercial slices eg
OUP
 Print runs decline dramatically from 3,000 plus
copies per monograph in the 1960s to less than
300 by 2004 ( British Academy May 2005)
 Professor J. B. Thompson ‘Books in the Digital
Age’ Polity 2005- role of MUP?
POD and BACK TO THE FUTURE
- STARBUCKS?
New University E Presses
ANU E Press Downloads 2005
 Still early days, but figures impressive for
downloads in 2005 of 14 reprint academic titles
 PDF complete book and chapter downloads55,000 to date
 Eg Oskar Spate ‘Spanish Lake’ 10,045 pdf’s
 Book is physical symbol of tenure so who cares
re global access? Professor Blaise Cronin
“Mickey Mouse and Milton”April 2004
US AAUP and SSP June 2005
 “Authors want their content free online with
chapters available in digital reserves for
student use BUT
 Also want royalty advances, hardcopy
production and at the end of the day ‘why
have you sold so few copies of my book’ “
 Books replicate serials in scholarly dialogue
disengagement?
Richard Gedye: OUP –
Knowledge Functions









Funding it
Doing it
Validating it
Distributing it
Marketing it
Discovering it
Reading it
Preserving it
Citing it
FUNDER
AUTHOR
INTERMEDIARY
INTERMEDIARY
INTERMEDIARY
INTERMEDIARY
READER
INTERMEDIARY
READER/INTERMEDIARY
US Faculty Senate Resolutions
2005
 Many resolutions from US universities March to May
2005 as a result of the ‘serial crisis’
 Equates to Pearl Harbour? Came to the war late, but
can’t win the (serial) war without them !
 US resolutions: All focus on the principle of Open
Access to enhance institutional scholarly research
 New models of scholarly publishing consistent with
standards of peer review and scholarly excellence
AND acceptance by RQF’S in OZ
Open access increases impact
 Citation rates for OA articles are up to five times greater
Key Perspectives Ltd
PNAS:Open Access Uptake
Diane Sullenberger, ALPSP 8 April 2005
PNAS Subject
Classification
Genetics
Neuroscience
Microbiology
Chemistry
Statistics
% Articles
Open Access
21%
19%
18%
8%
0%
Australian ARIIC Framework
 Australian government encouragement of institutional
knowledge frameworks
 Australian Research Information Infrastructure
Committee OA framework:
 Building the infrastructure, such as IR’s , that will
advance open access
 Raising awareness of the principles and practice of
open access publishing within Australian research
institutions
GO8 VC’S Statement 2004
 Information if it is to achieve maximum benefit for
society must be readily available
 New business models are required to ensure that
scholarly publishing is cost effective
 But what was the collective impact of these on G08
academic communities?
 Little attention to dissemination of results of
research - Birdsall Canadian recommendations
Russell Group June 2005
 Publicly-funded research should be publicly
available. (nb over 90% of UK university research is
publicly funded - Wellcome Trust )
 The current system of scholarly publishing does not
always work in the best interests of the research
community.
 Institutions to support the development of I.R’s and
actively encourage their researchers to deposit their
work in them.
RCUK June 28 statement
 “The UK Research Councils argue that
technology offers new possibilities to
communicate the results of research,
 through developments in electronic
publishing such as open access journals and
e-print repositories”
RCUK 2
 “Ideas and knowledge derived from publicly-funded
research must be made available and accessible for
public use, interrogation, and scrutiny, as widely,
rapidly and effectively as practicable.
 The models and mechanisms for publication and
access to research results must be both efficient
and cost-effective in the use of public funds.”
Possible Futures
 Improve the current models
 What is the SC future? Might it be
completely different?
 Reform, revolution or the third way?
 Seen in evolution of RCUK policy
 Is it possible to model a transitional path for
Australia ?
Issues Summary
•
•
•
Research data is diverse and increasing
Repository collections are thus dynamic
Technical challenges include:
interoperability, persistence, provenance,
resource discovery and infrastructure
• Embedding in workflow is critical: scholarly
communications, research practice, elearning. Structure diagrams follow:
Scholarly Interaction and
Integrated Student/UCLA
Instrumentation
Collaborative Tools:
-Whiteboards
-Discussion
-Calendar
-Search
Computational
Resources
Grid
-Clusters
-Supercomputers
Instructor
People:
SAKAI
Researcher
Oracle Portal Pilot
-Directories
-Bios
-Relationships
Access
Portals
Datasets
My.UCLA
Repositories:
-White Papers
-Publications
-Documents
Dspace
Student
Public
Rights & Roles, Affiliations, Relationship to
Resource (Authentication, Shibboleth…)
Limited
Private
Working Area:
-Project Descriptions
-Drafts
-Annotation
lab books
PDAs
campus portal
learning management systems
exhibitions
course material
text book
personal collections
reading
lists
user environments
resource environment
library
Virtual
reference
Institutional repository
Aggregations
Digital collections
E-reserve
Catalog
Cataloging
ILL
Licensed
collections
Conclusion
 Need shared campus understandings of
emerging scholarly communication and
information frameworks
 And the ICT architecture that is needed to
support e-resources
 Need to develop such integrated information
frameworks on campus otherwise…
“Google” bypasses the Library?
Thank You For Your Interest
Scholar with His Books (1671)
Gerbrand van den Eechhout (1621-1674)