Alma Swan Key Perspectives Ltd Truro, UK

Alma Swan Key Perspectives Ltd Truro, UK

Key Perspectives Ltd

“The mission of our University is the creation, dissemination and curation of knowledge.” Key Perspectives Ltd

 e-research (and ‘big’ research)  Collaborative ‘small’ research  Interdisciplinary research  Web 2.0 outputs becoming a norm  Early examples of institutional solutions Key Perspectives Ltd

 Increasingly the primary output in some fields Key Perspectives Ltd

“The primary access to the latest findings in a growing number of fields is through the Web, then through classic preprints and conferences, and lastly through refereed archival papers”. NSF, 2005 Key Perspectives Ltd

 Increasingly the primary output in some fields  New technologies to exploit them  Data have yet to be properly recognised – and rewarded - as a research output  Are increasingly the focus of attention from research funders Key Perspectives Ltd

 Data-mining  Text-mining  Web 2.0 approaches  ‘Wikiomics’  All these, along with the new research approaches…  … depend upon Open Access Key Perspectives Ltd

 Immediate  Free (to use)  Free (of restrictions)  Access to the peer-reviewed literature (and data)  Not vanity publishing  Not a ‘stick anything up on the Web’ approach  Moving scholarly communication into the Web Age Key Perspectives Ltd

 Use of proxy measures of an individual scholar’s merit is as good as it gets  It is a publisher’s responsibility to disseminate your work  The printed article is the format of record  Other scholars have time to search out what you want them to know Key Perspectives Ltd

 Rich, deep, broad metrics for measuring the contributions of individual scholars  Effective dissemination of your work is now in your hands (at last)  The digital format will be the format of record (is already in many areas)  Unless you routinely publish in Nature or Science, ‘getting it out there’ is up to you Key Perspectives Ltd

 Benefits to researchers themselves  Benefits to institutions  Benefits to national economies  Benefits to science and society Key Perspectives Ltd

 Open Access repositories  Open Access journals ( Key Perspectives Ltd

 Digital collections  Most usually institutional  Sometimes centralised (subject-based)  Interoperable  Form a network across the world  Create a global database of openly- accessible research Key Perspectives Ltd

 Fulfils a university’s mission to engender, encourage and disseminate scholarly work  Complete record of its intellectual effort  Permanent record of all digital output  Research management tool  ‘Marketing’ tool for universities  Provides maximum Web impact for the institution Key Perspectives Ltd

 The means to disseminate their work, free, to the world  Secure storage (for completed work and for work-in-progress)  A location for supporting data that are unpublished  One-input-many outputs (CVs, publications)  Tool for research assessment  Personal marketing tool Key Perspectives Ltd

 Collecting content  ‘Self-archiving’ rate is still low  Overall Open Access rate is 15-20% Key Perspectives Ltd

Range = 36%-200% (Data: Stevan Harnad and co-workers) Key Perspectives Ltd

 Only around 15% of research is Open Access….  ….. so 85% is not  ….. and we are therefore losing 85% of the 50% increase in citations (conservative end of the range) that Open Access brings (= 42.5%) Key Perspectives Ltd

 200X: 2500 articles  Number of citations:  If all had been OA, there would have been (42.5% more) citations, and ….  Since University X invests £200m in research per annum …  …this means lost impact worth £95m to the university in one year Key Perspectives Ltd

The G-Factor (universitymetrics.com) Key Perspectives Ltd

Range = 36%-200% (Data: Stevan Harnad and co-workers) Key Perspectives Ltd

 “Self-archiving in the PhilSci Archive has given instant world-wide visibility to my work. As a result, I was invited to submit papers to refereed international conferences/journals and got them accepted.” Key Perspectives Ltd

N.B. Downloads are a good predictor of eventual citations Key Perspectives Ltd

NIPS Workshop linked to this eprint from its web page Link placed on “Canonical correlation” page in Wikipedia Key Perspectives Ltd

 Greater impact from scientific endeavour  More rapid and more efficient progress of science  Novel information-creation using new and advanced technologies  Better assessment, better monitoring, better management of science Key Perspectives Ltd

 Data-mining  Text-mining (semantic Web technologies)  UK: National Text-Mining Centre  Example: NeuroCommons ( Key Perspectives Ltd

 Who is producing what?  Where is it being published / performed / installed?  How much impact it is having (by measuring citations and other things)?  Where are the upward trends?  Where are the downward trends?  How much collaborative work is being done?  With which other institutions? Key Perspectives Ltd

“My enemy isn’t plagiarism, it’s obscurity” Key Perspectives Ltd

Key Perspectives Ltd

Alma Swan Key Perspectives Ltd Truro, UK UUK Workshop on Research Information and Management London, 5 December 2007 OVERVIEW: The communication and effectiveness of research

Key Perspectives Ltd

 Increasing amount of research output  Increasing formality  Increasing time between submission and publication  Increasing time between the initial finding / idea and the peer community’s response Key Perspectives Ltd The next 300 years

The last forty years  Large-scale disenfranchisement  Persistence of the ‘gentleman’s club’  Heavy reliance on publications (sometimes virtually alone) as a measure of an individual scholar’s worth  Almost total reliance on a proxy metric of quality and impact Key Perspectives Ltd

The Age Of The Web  New Web-based tools for dissemination:  e-journals  but there is usually still a subscription barrier  Institutional / sub-institutional web sites  Inst / department / author pages  But these are suboptimal  blogs and wikis  Institutional digital repositories Key Perspectives Ltd

Institutional repositories  Maximise the visibility of research outputs  Maximise the impact of an institution  Collect and curate ALL the research output  Showcase the institution’s work  Will form the data layer of the future  i2010 Vision  Single Information Space  Provide the locus for measurement, assessment and management (in association with information in the institution’s CRIS) Key Perspectives Ltd

REPOSITORIES and other open content Ingest layer services Search / retrieve Aggregate / display Count / assess Peer review Other value adding Editorial Key Perspectives Ltd

Metrics and rankings  Goodhart’s Law  What to measure?  Be sure that formal outputs will form one focus  Many measures relating to those outputs  Many target / ranking systems to come  Maximising digital visibility will be key Key Perspectives Ltd

The U.Southampton conundrum… Key Perspectives Ltd The G-Factor (universitymetrics.com)

Key Perspectives Ltd

Repositories… “are vital to universities’ economies and to the UK economy as a whole.” Professor J Drummond Bone Past President, Universities UK Key Perspectives Ltd

Universities and our prosperity  Generic ways to create wealth  The Knowledge Triangle: research education innovation Key Perspectives Ltd

OECD’s conclusions “Governments would boost innovation and get a better return on their investment in publicly funded research by making research findings more widely available …. and by doing so they would maximise social returns on public investments.” OECD Report on Scientific Publishing, 2005 Key Perspectives Ltd

Economic impact of Open Access “With the United Kingdom's GERD [Gross Expenditure on Research and Development] at USD 33.7 billion and assuming social returns to R&D of 50%, a 5% increase in access and efficiency [their conservative estimate] would have been worth USD 1.7 billion” Houghton et al, 2006 Key Perspectives Ltd

What is going wrong?  Australian Govt Productivity Commission report on Public Support for Science & Innovation: “lack of effective linkages between research organisations (a.k.a. universities) and firms”  EU Innovation Reports: SMEs find it hard to get access to the basic research information they need to innovate Key Perspectives Ltd

Terence Dolak (SDR Pharmaceuticals) “With a small oncology company … it is imperative that I have access to the literature. But small companies do not have the "deep pockets" necessary... The for-profit journal publishers have effectively barred access to key scientific information except to those who can afford their outrageous fees. Much of the most innovative work is being done at companies like mine that cannot afford to pay $30+ per paper or pay per-search charges in abstracts or journal collections.” Key Perspectives Ltd

EU CIS studies Key Perspectives Ltd

“Institutional sources are less frequently consulted than internal or market sources; and innovative enterprises find cooperation partners more easily among suppliers or customers than in universities or public research institutes.” Key Perspectives Ltd

Open scholarship  Immediate visibility benefits  Immediate impact benefits  Aligns with a university’s core missions  Provides the raw material for measurement and assessment  Provides the shop window to enable collaborations and partnerships Key Perspectives Ltd

Key Perspectives Ltd Thank you for listening