1. Embracing the digital transformation in publishing-and its impact on authors
What does digital transformation mean for authors? Writers win when their work is published faster, cleaner, with the widest possible reach, and with the longest possible lifespan. Digital transformation optimises the ecosystem to achieve this, notes Steffanie Ness, in her post in The Bookseller Blog.
The blog post says (quote): In a publishing house that has embraced digital transformation, even workflows outside content production can benefit. Marketing and publicity teams use the agile content to leverage the best assets, while also improving campaign execution through automated collaboration. Depending on the content and licensing agreements, materials could be chunked into modules available for repurposing. Tagging for metadata and optimising for semantic search or text mining can make the content easy to discover and, in turn, to use. With a simple search, content could surface as a candidate for anthologies, course packs or other content bundles.......(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
2. How Library Vendors Can Support the Changing Role of Academic Librarians
As academic libraries evolve to meet the changing needs of faculty, researchers and patrons, so has the role of the academic librarian. No longer focusing primarily on collection development and acquisitions, many librarians are becoming more directly involved helping faculty and patrons discover, access, and utilise library resources, thanks to the automated support made available through library services vendors, discusses a post from EBSCOpost Blog.
The blog post says (quote): Colleges and universities are evolving their libraries to keep up with emerging technologies. As the needs of academic libraries change, the academic librarian's role of assisting students and researchers has started to evolve. In some instances, staff attrition or retirement, coupled with shrinking library budgets, resulted in a net loss of a staff member and a re-allocation of duties among the remaining librarians. But in a growing number of institutions, staffing changes are part of a strategic shift of the academic librarian's role, with libraries opting to re-define librarian responsibilities rather than simply redistributing them........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
3. Journal analysis: More than just Impact Factor
Although Journal Impact Factor is perhaps the best-known metric provided by Clarivate Analytics, it is only one of several available indicators for assessing journal performance and influence. In his post in the Clarivate Analytics Blog, Toshifumi Yata uses the benchmarking tool InCites, built on the Web of Science foundation, to highlight other indicators that may be of interest to users.
The blog post says (quote): Graph C indicates the Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) score, which was developed for InCites but does not appear as part of Journal Citation Reports. CNCI is a telling statistic, since it is not affected by the size of the journal but will calculate the accumulation of each individual article while normalising for different fields and publication years. As the graph shows, the #1 journal within the six is Emerging Infectious Diseases. Also, according to the CNCI measure, Clinical Infectious Diseases has seen its influence steadily increase. Graph D conveys a very simple statistic, showing how many articles were indexed from the selected journals from 1998 to 2016. The graph, for example, shows that Clinical Infectious Diseases, aside from an apparent spike in the early 2000s, has largely maintained a consistent output. Meanwhile, the rapid progress of the comparatively new journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, from its founding in 2007, is also evident.........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
4. Guest Post: Do Journal Article Recommendation Features Change Reader Behaviour?
Researchers say journal article recommendations are useful. Do these publisher platform features influence user behaviour? How might they increase discovery and serendipity in the researcher's workflow? Anne Stone, in her guest post in the Scholarly Kitchen Blog, discusses a series of studies providing new evidence of increased reader engagement.
The blog post says (quote): The rapid growth of publisher recommendation tools and participation in services like the TrendMD network demonstrates that publishers are actively exploring growth opportunities for discovery, using recommendations. Kudlow, Cockerill, Toccalino et al. show that the investment in enhancing recommendations on publishers' platforms has a measurable impact on discoverability and user engagement. Gardner and Inger's 2018 report will soon tell us how researchers today are rating the usefulness of publisher platform and recommended articles functionality. Whatever the market tells us, publishers recognise their challenge is to innovate faster as diverse repositories of research expand........(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
5. Student data systems and GovTech apps will increase competition and performance measurement in higher education
Current debates in higher education policy have drawn attention to the significant impacts of marketisation, metrics, and performance management on the sector. In their post in the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog, Ben Williamson argues that a restructuring of the data infrastructure is shaping these HE trends.
The blog post says (quote): As government drives Data Futures to put students at the centre of the system, in 2018 HESA became the Designated Data Body to work with the incoming Office for Students (OfS). Created by BIS as an explicitly pro-competition, pro-student choice, consumer-focused market regulator, the OfS will knit Data Futures tightly into the management of a marketised, performance-driven higher education sector, operationalising the blueprints produced by global consultancies as an architectural vision for HE. Data infrastructures are often rather invisible, acting as technical substrates to other, more visible activities. Data Futures will become visible and productive in practice through a new data platform for data collection, and new data dashboards to analyse the data and communicate results. Technical development of these platforms relies on software vendors.......(unquote)
The full entry can be read Here.
Leave a Reply