1. Guest Post — Building Pipes and Fixing Leaks: Demystifying and Decoding Scholarly Information Discovery & Interchange
Information discovery and access is often a source of frustration for scholarly information stakeholders. Feeling fed up with the many stumbling blocks in web-scale discovery service tools, some are chasing “new” discovery solutions or super continents of scholarly publishing, even though these new solutions may not improve search or retrieval. Believing that web-scale discovery has passed its heyday, some are focusing on authentication products that bypass paywalls, notes Julie Zhu in his post in the scholarly kitchen blog.
The Blog post says (quote): Wherever researchers start their content discovery, no solution can promise a wonderland where all discovery, linking, authentication and access problems magically disappear. As scholarly communication professionals, they need to demystify and decode the channels of scholarly information discovery and interchange. It may help to imagine these discovery channels as a complex network of content pipelines, connecting various electronic systems, from author research and manuscript submission, to online publishing, syndication, indexing, linking, authentication and much more. Like any plumbing system, these data pipes can leak, break or be blocked in many possible ways........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
2. Factors Influencing Open Access in UK Research Institutions
The Open Access movement has been slowly gaining traction with substantial gains being made in the last 20 years or so. Traditionally, the publication of research in peer-reviewed journals was paid for via subscription to journals – the “pay to read” model. More recently, Open Access has pushed publishers towards a “pay to write” model, notes Suze Kundu in her post in the Digital Science.
The Blog post says (quote): The Open Access publishing choices are varied. From journals where the content is free to read immediately on publication (‘gold’ Open Access), to journals that allow the same content published in the paper to reside in a repository such as arXiv following moderation or peer-review (‘green’ Open Access). Other options include where a journal allows works to initially be accessed by subscribers with an embargo period, after which the work can be accessed by others for free (‘hybrid’ Open Access), among others. Wider access to published work should lead to a greater awareness and understanding of the work being carried out across the world........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
3. Why social science can help us to better understand organisational change in healthcare
Major changes to the way clinical services are organised keep happening, despite a lack of evidence that it improves anything. Health services research often excludes important dimensions, such as politics and emotions, in favour of technical questions of more limited significance. Theoretically-informed research that is critical, and includes a greater diversity of perspectives, can aid understanding of these changes, notes Lorelei Jones, Alec Fraser, and Ellen Stewart in their post in the LSE Impact Blog.
The Blog post says(quote): Ewan Ferlie argues that there has been a decline in social science-based analysis of organisational change in the context of public policy. He attributes this to the rise of new forms of knowledge, such as management consultancy and health services research. He describes health services research as having developed as something akin to a clinical science, focused on evaluating discrete service interventions in terms of clinical and financial outcomes.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read: Here.
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