P2PU Open Science: Introduction & oa-1: What is Open Access?

The end of the New Librarianship MOOC (which I am delighted to say I get an emailed certificate of completion for as I passed all the tests... admittedly by retaking some of them multiple times but shhhh) coincides nicely with the beginning of my next online quest.

I am taking the P2PU course on Open Science:

This course is a collaborative learning environment meant to introduce the idea of Open Science to young scientists, academics, and makers of all kinds. Open Science is a tricky thing to define, but we've designed this course to share what we know about it; working as a community to make this open resource better. Think of it as a layer on top of the way science is commonly done now. Just better.

Instead of a discussion board our contribution takes the form of writing blog posts as a response to set topics, then sharing them with the other course participants. Here goes...

OA-1: What is Open Access?

Open Access refers to materials, commonly (but not exclusively) journal articles, that are free to all readers at the point of use. This relatively new movement is a change from the old model where research was funded (often by the government via the research councils in the UK) then the findings were published in a journal that was then only available to those individuals or institutions that had a subscription to that journal.

In 2012 the Finch report was published, as discussed in this article from the Guardian. This led to a new policy from RCUK (Research Councils UK) stating that as of April 1st 2013 the findings of all RCUK funded research must be made open access:

"Free and open access to the outputs of publicly-funded research offers significant social and economic benefits as well as aiding the development of new research. The Government, in line with its overarching commitment to transparency and open data, is committed to ensuring that published research findings should be freely accessible. As bodies charged with investing public money in research, the Research Councils take very seriously their responsibilities in making the outputs from this research publicly available – not just to other researchers, but also to potential users in business, charitable and public sectors, and to the general tax-paying public."

There are 2 routes to making articles open access:
Gold open access means that the publisher version of an article is made immediately available with no embargo period in a journal. This can either be in an open access (OA) only journal, or a hybrid journal that contains a mix of subscription and OA articles. Gold OA can require the payment of a fee, an Article Processing Charge (APC), to the journal publisher.
Green open access is where an author publishes in a journal and then deposits a version of the article into a subject or institutional repository. Generally publishers stipulate this has to be a post-print, so it has undergone peer review but does not have the publisher markings or layout. Some publishers impose an embargo period so the article cannot be made open access via the green route immediately.

Both gold and green OA have passionate advocates. If you are interested in finding out more, both views are aired in this Times Higher Education article from 2012.

You may hear the terms 'gratis' and 'libre' used to describe OA. These are additional to the green/gold (repository/journal) distinction: gratis OA refers to the removal of price barriers, whereas libre OA refers to the removal of both price and permissions barriers to allow the easy access and reuse of research.

You will also come across talk of Creative Commons licenses; they feature in the RCUK OA policy. This is from Section 3.7: Licences...

"(i) Where Research Council funds are used to pay the APC for an Open Access paper, we require that the publisher makes the paper freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This is the standard licence used by open access journals, and supports the maximum dissemination and re-use of published papers, whilst protecting the moral rights of authors. It allows others to distribute,remix, manipulate, and build upon a paper, including commercially, as long as they credit the authors for the original paper and do not infringe any copyrights to third-party material included in the paper. The use of CC BY where an APC is paid is also the policy of the Wellcome Trust.
(ii) The CC BY licence opens up possibilities for new areas of research by the re-use of papers, and the content of papers through text and data mining, and for new ways of disseminating research by being able to re-present papers in innovative and potentially value-adding ways. Crucially, the CC BY licence removes any doubt or ambiguity as to what may be done with papers, and allows re-use without having to go back to the publisher to check conditions or ask for specific permissions."

New Librarianship MOOC: Reflections

The course centred around the various parts making up the following mission statement:

The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.

Hmm. I'm not sure that librarians need a mission statement. If anything it should be the library that has the mission statement, then the mission belongs to all members of staff and is available to the community, rather than being a grandiose (maybe even slightly pretentious) statement forced onto the community by the librarian.

The mission statement is a little too buzzwordy for my liking; it took a 4 week MOOC to untangle and explain it all. I like most of what it is saying (although the 'improve society' bit makes me cringe) but not the way it is said.

My other issue with the mission statement is that it is so generic. It applies not only to librarians but also to teachers and parents. Maybe each individual librarian should be asked to design their own mission statement. Or maybe it doesn't need to be articulated at all but is implicit within all librarians who care about doing a good job.

I found the course hard-going at times; I need a better understanding of the philosophy and theories underlying the course (such as conversation theory) to be able to join all the discussion board chats as an equal. I did not make any ground-breaking contributions. I found it a struggle to fit in watching all of the video lectures - podcasts I could have listened to while out running (admittedly only if they were very short), or transcripts I could have read on a lunch break, or with my children constructing Lego armies in the background. I wanted to watch each video in its entirity to make sure I didn't miss anything but sometimes I got to the end with a feeling of frustration that the material could have been covered more concisely.

However, there were times in the videos when I was nodding in agreement, or frowning in thought, or being delighted at hearing the theory demonstrated in a real life example. The enthusiasm, knowledge, articulateness (how's that for an oxymoron?) and level of conversation on the discussion boards was inspiring and it is great that the course participants respect other views even if they do not agree with them. I did not expect such a high degree of contribution to the discussion board topics from Prof Lankes, not only asking questions to initiate threads but joining in debates and asking further questions.

As a library assistant I am disheartened to realise (from reading discussion board comments) how vast some people perceive the skills gap between qualified and non-qualified library staff to be. Maybe this is more the case in public than academic libraries? Or maybe I have ideas above my station.

Am I glad I took this MOOC? Yes, but I'm also glad it has finished which is not such a stunning endorsement. Do I believe in New Librarianship? Yes, in that we should constantly innovate and engage with our communities.

As a Quester (yep, definitely works!) I am continuing my MOOC journey. I have signed up for a course on metadata (Coursera) and one on dinosaur paleobiology (dinosaurs! How could you not?) (Coursera again) and an open science online course (P2PU). Bring it on!

New Librarianship MOOC Week 4: Communities

Week 4 focused on communities and was divided into 4 modules:

Module 1 highlighted the idea that libraries should share rather than lend. Whereas lending is a one way street (allowing people to borrow from a common resource) sharing embraces active contributions from the community (in terms of time, expertise and physical 'stuff', such as sharing their own book collections) - combining resources together to make a richer commons. This came back to examples of libraries as makerspaces (there is a 3 part article on makerspaces from Library Journal here if you want to find out more  - I love it!).

How does this apply to academic libraries? Other than open access via institutional repositories, and future enhancements of the repositories so they are more social and connected I was stymied. So I asked the question on the discussion board and got some great answers:

I also came across this post on Making Things in Academic Libraries on the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) blog. As often with online articles, the comments are as interesting as the post itself.


The second module, ominously titled 'kill the user' was about how best to trap unsuspecting users in the stacks...or it may have been about changing from the term 'user' (which along with 'patron' and 'customer' is very 'us versus them', seeing users as consumers) and the quest for a better term, such as 'member', 'participant' or (cringe) 'prosumer', which is a blend of professional/producer and consumer. I'm not encouraging the adoption of that last one as it sound very management buzzwordy, which will surely broaden the divide between library staff and 'users' when we seek to do the opposite.

I like talk of the 'community' to describe everyone engaging with the library but it is harder to find the perfect term to describe an individual using the library; maybe we could have an international contest to create a new word? How about 'libcomber' (library + community + member)? No? Or we could go with Quester - I would be happy with being a quester.

There were some interesting posts on the discussion board about how users of academic libraries are viewed, some copied below, although everybody agreed that anyone coming into the library would be treated with the same high level of customer service and respect:

The third module covered the deficit model of communities, which I felt applied more to public libraries than academic communities. Librarians should use advocacy (seeing opportunities and giving people skills to reach their aspirations ans enable participation) rather than remediation (trying to fix problems and inadvertently reminding communities of their failings). R. David Lankes explains this far better than I have so I will embed the video below. The module also introduced me to the concept of 'satisficing', a term I had not come across before.

Module 4 provided some criticisms of the New Librarianship approach which was refreshing to see. Although Prof Lankes offers up his theory of new librarianship I think the purpose of this MOOC was to allow us, the Questers (see, it works!) to examine our own thoughts and engage in conversations, to come up with our own theories and models and constantly re-evaluate them rather than to convince us all that he is right.

New Librarianship MOOC, Week 3

Week 3 focused on libraries as institutions. It  involved one evening, a lot of videos and half a tub of ice cream (England was still in the grip of a heat wave then. Things have returned to normal now, grey and drizzly).

Section 1 considered the mission of libraries (as distinct from the mission of librarians): expect more than books. Books are tools in a larger mission. The issue has shifted from the old days of a scarcity of available information to a scarcity of attention. A quote from the ever passionate and enthusiastic R. D. Lankes "I don't want any more. I need to make sense of what's here." The same video included talk of the importance of advocacy as a skill in libraries which makes perfect sense but was phrased in a way that I'd never thought of before (libraries advocate for open access, for data portability, for the idea of lack of censorship etc).

It is a really interesting video, well worth a watch:

 The second video covered library mission statements. A good mission statement should be about promoting knowledge and learning, not about promoting the tools and 'stuff' we use to achieve those aims. The mission is an invitation to the community to make them want to be part of the library. I liked the New York Public Library mission statement:

The mission of The New York Public Library is to inspire lifelong learning, advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities.

The library I work at does not have a mission statement otherwise I would be critiquing it here!

Section 2 was titled Why Libraries? Why are libraries a good thing for communities? The introductory blurb set this out as "This module covers the primary arguments for supporting libraries. From economic stimulus, to learning center, to promoters of democracy, there are many arguments that can be made for the continued support of libraries of all types."

I hesitate to say it because I'm sure it is a reflection of me, not of the content, but I found the videos a bit waffly.  Maybe it was because it all made such sense that I didn't want it explained in great detail, maybe I don't learn well from watching videos or maybe I'd eaten too much ice cream by that point but I would have preferred it if the videos had been condensed into one and really cut to the chase.

Section 3 considered the library as platform: "Instead of thinking of the library as a service, or collection, it is important to think of it as a platform for community innovation. In some cases it can be a digital platform, in others a physical platform, but in all cases it serves as an enabling infrastructure for the community to learn and improve."

Section 4 was on the Grand Challenges of Librarianship: "What is the larger societal aim for library and information science? Do we simply serve our communities without regard for the larger context of citizenship and the expanding information marketplace?" To me this could be summed up in one line: we seek to build a knowledge infrastructure that helps us all.


Discussion boards here I come!

New Librarianship: Community and Innovation

I like a great many of the points made in the New Librarianship MOOC. The 2 key points for me so far are:
1) engage with your community
2) innovate

How about this as a great example of engaging with your community - loaning out cake tins (or pans if you will, as it is in America).

When it comes to leadership and innovation, I read a couple of interesting stories via Twitter in the past week. The Guardian offer 5 top tips on reinventing librarians and this TeachThought post describes how librarians of the future will be kept busy.

The article I liked best though also came from the Guardian - the true value of libraries to communities. The final paragraph says it all.

New Librarianship MOOC Week 2

I'm still not sure how valuable I think this MOOC is. I'm struggling for 2 reasons:

1) I am not a qualified librarian so I don't know how much the content of the course varies from the content of a traditional librarianship course, so I don't have a frame of reference to evaluate it against.

2) So much of the course material seems so...well...obvious! Does anyone else think that?

However, I am enjoying being part of the conversation, I find the practical examples interesting, and I did dream about libraries last night so maybe my brain is processing everything in its own time and will present me with coherent thoughts at some point.

For anyone who hasn't read the course blurb here is the Introduction to New Librarianship video. The course centres around the mission statement discussed 6 minutes 20 seconds into the video:

The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.



In week 1 we looked at the mission of librarians, knowledge creation and means of facilitating knowledge creation.

Week 2 covers communities, improving society, core skills of librarians and the Salzburg curriculum.

Do I agree that the mission of librarians is to improve society? I'm not sure; ask me at the end of the course.

One of the reasons I am doing this course is that I am fortunate enough to work in a small team that I think may possibly have the best job in our academic library, which makes me want to know more and do more. I am a library assistant working to support academic liaison, so not only do I get to communicate directly with our community (mostly undergraduate students but also researchers, academics and members of the public) by helping out with training sessions, answering queries on the loans and enquiries desks, monitoring the Ask a Librarian live chat service,  and answering emails sent to our generic address but I also have the opportunity to be involved in a whole range of other activities too. I am part of the Research Publications activity group, I have an editorial role with ePrints Soton (our institutional repository), I create and edit webpages and I work on our (very much at the developmental stage) blog.

I am on board with the ideas of collaboration, conversation, leadership, innovation and community, all aspects of librarianship I see every day at work. I agree that librarians need to become an integral part of their community, which involves (gasp) leaving the library.

I think that a vital aspect of a successful library (and therefore a successful librarian) is that is has to be dynamic. For example, we are in the process of reinventing our webpages in order to better present and share information (or knowledge?). Our current website is fairly static and text-driven, and any changes that are made are not shown on the live site until the following day. We are moving to using LibGuides which offers a much more exciting and flexible way to display anything we want it to. It reminds me of a blog in that any changes we make go live immediately, and far more library staff will be able to write and edit the pages than previously. We can create videos or presentations and embed them, and reuse content on relevant pages at the touch of a button. It will be easier to use the webpages to reach out to our community as we can also integrate our 'Ask a Librarian' live chat offer onto any page, more easily publicise our Facebook, blog and Twitter pages, have photos of subject librarians (they are real people!) and to more easily ask for feedback or contributions (LibGuides uses a range of different boxes that include specific types for user input). I haven't provided any links because the pages are still being created. But even when they are created they will be constantly updated and improved; change is good. Scary sometimes, but good!

New Librarianship MOOC

So after enthusing about the Ancient Greeks MOOC that I completed earlier in the year I've signed up for another one. This one is called the New Librarianship Master Class and is run by the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, New York.

We're at the end of week 1 and my feelings are mixed. The platform, CourseSites by Blackboard, is not as smooth as Coursera, especially for iPad access. The discussion boards, an integral part of the course, are incredibly slow to load or refresh. I have only contributed a couple of comments, partly because I am in awe of the articulate and well thought out comments from other people on the course, and partly because of technical issues: the iPad flips back to the top of the page when I start typing, meaning I can't see the box I'm typing into!

There is a great level of interaction from the course leader (R. David Lankes) on the discussion boards, both initiating conversations and joining in with threads started by other participants. I also like following the conversations on Twitter using the hashtag #newlib.

The sheer volume of videos to accompany each module is slightly daunting. I did nearly cry when I realised how many videos there were to watch in week 1, which happened to be a very busy week for me. The course leader is enthusiastic and passionate but the Importance of Worldview and Mission of Librarians videos did not inspire me.

I'm glad I persevered though because subsequent videos, focussing on aspects of the mission statement rather than the statement itself, are very interesting, blending theory with practical examples.

I will say more about the content of the course as it progresses. I'm not totally sure what my thoughts are on it at the moment; I am very easily swayed by the arguments of others on the discussion boards. So I read a well phrased comment by X and find myself nodding in agreement, but then I read a counter view by Y and that one also makes total sense. It only happens when I don't have a solid knowledge base (on familiar subjects I can comment at length in a reasoned, rational way using reliable and valid evidence to back up my views - right  Graham??), so my aim by the end of the course is to...Have Formed My Own Opinion! If we relate that back to the course, so far I am the community rather than the librarian...

In other news, my work on identifying true archaeologists has been published, and I have made a cake: