“Instead of fully fledged manuscripts, Octopus and ResearchEquals allow researchers to publish individual units of research — from research questions and hypotheses to code, multimedia and presentations. The concept is called modular publishing, and both sites hope to push academics to think beyond conventional publications as the primary unit of scholarly research by breaking the research cycle into pieces….”
“Many of us probably share the following intuitions: to keep up with the ever-growing amount of literature, researchers have to specialize more and more; this reduces the potentially fruitful exchange between specialist bubbles. And: a growing number of political, economic, and societal decisions are made based on science. However, science gives guidance only; it does not make decisions for us. Given the participatory nature of democratic societies, we all need to understand what science generally – not only science from one’s own field of expertise – actually tells us about climate change, future energy systems, COVID-19, multiresistant bacteria, loss of biodiversity, etc.
But would researchers or stakeholders read the original papers in fields beyond their own expertise? Many wouldn’t – and they’d miss the information. The value of press releases, newspapers, and popular science magazines, on the other hand, is limited . These aim at being comprehensible to broader audiences and, to this end, refrain from presenting the full complexity and limitations of the actual findings.
The conceptual gap between these types of document is usually large. An article that falls within that gap, however, might offer an appropriate balance of simplicity and complexity for researchers with different specializations, policymakers, decision-makers, funders, early career scientists, journalists, educated generalists – in short, for those less likely to read the original research but who have an in-depth interest in the science presented.
I’d therefore like to suggest that this gap is a place in its own right that deserves additional coverage….”
by Simon Bowie
As part of COPIM’s pilot project looking at computational book publishing, we’ve worked on a new technical model and workflow for publishing computational books using a combination of Jupyter Notebook, Quarto, and GitHub Pages. This blogpost outlines the details of this model and further blogposts in this series will examine how we have applied it practically to produce some computational publications.
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“Research outputs are no longer just academic papers and datasets.
Arts performances, conceptual designs, music scores, costumes, models and all other non-traditional research outputs can and should be shared, showcased and tracked.
Join us for this webinar on non-traditional research outputs with Figshare and Altmetric where we will discuss:
Sharing and showcasing non-traditional research outputs in Figshare
How DOIs and robust metadata can ensure these outputs are discoverable and citable
How Altmetric attention data provides a unique insight into the online conversations surrounding these outputs
Sharing real examples from institutions around the world and with product specialists from both Figshare and Altmetric, this webinar will provide an overview of how you can share NTROs and why it’s important….”
“In developing services, our philosophy is “first of a kind, not one of a kind.” A good example is the Fulcrum publishing platform, developed with support from the Mellon Foundation and now self-sustaining. Fulcrum shares an open-source backend with the Deep Blue data repository. That means every type of output is a first-class publication: A Fulcrum-hosted monograph with integrated multimedia gets the same stewardship commitment that Deep Blue applies to health sciences research data. And the creator of a research dataset gets the same rich metrics (e.g., citations, altmetrics, downloads) that we would deliver to a monograph author….
I think we’re at the “so now what” stage of open access (OA). With a critical mass of freely-available, reusable literature and data, what tangible benefits can publishers offer society? And how should publishers format and distribute the outputs of open scholarship to turn free access into valuable access? With this question in mind, we’re doing several things at Michigan: expanding discovery networks (e.g., creating best practices for research data through the Data Curation Network, delivering OA books to public libraries via the Palace project, highlighting quality certification via the DOAB PRISM service), making sure our platforms and content are accessible (staying current with Benetech Certified Global Accessible audits, making monographs available as audiobooks through the Google Text-to-Speech program) and scoping open source integrations with partners that complement Fulcrum’s functionality (working with Mellon and the Big Collection initiative to integrate Fulcrum, Manifold, and Humanities Commons, and integrating Fulcrum repository functionality into the Janeway journals platform).
We’re also focused on how to measure and communicate the greater reach and engagement OA enables. We’re working with Curtin University to refine a publicly-accessible Books Analytics Dashboard and partnering with Jisc and Lyrasis to expand US participation in IRUS repository statistics. The IP Registry is developing a product with us to identify the institutional use of OA books, and we’re supporting the OAeBU project to build a trusted framework for publishers to exchange OA usage metrics. We recorded at least 12 million Total Item Requests in 2022 for Michigan Publishing publications. But that’s a meaningless number unless put in context.
Authors should never be required to pay to publish open works. Let’s try and avoid perpetuating or creating a new inequity of access. The Fund to Mission program, supported by our parent institution and more than 100 libraries, enables this for U-M Press. We also partner with a consortium of over 50 liberal arts colleges to run Lever Press as a truly diamond open-access book publisher. The capacity to do such work is building. I particularly credit Lyrasis Open Programs, the BTAA Big Collection academy-led publishing program, the American Council of Learned Societies Publishing Initiatives, the S2O community of practice, and the Open Access Books Network….
I worry that larger publishers with better resources to handle complexities like transformative agreements are sucking away the resources to support open-access books and journals. Small, independent publishers (barely for-profit, if commercial) face similar challenges to university presses. We must ensure that funder and library policies don’t accidentally erase the bibliodiversity that independent and institutional presses have brought to their regions and disciplines for decades. I am particularly excited by the potential that Path to Open (JSTOR) and the
Abstract: A web-based survey of academic publishers was undertaken in 2021 by a team at Oxford International Centre for Publishing into the state of monograph publication in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. 25 publishing organisations responded, including many of the larger presses, representing approximately 75% of monograph output. Responses to the survey showed that the Covid 19 pandemic has accelerated the existing trend from print to digital dissemination and that Open Access (OA) titles receive substantially greater levels of usage than those published traditionally. Responses also showed that for most publishers OA publication stands at under 25% of output and that fewer than 10% of authors enquire about OA publication options. Continuing problem areas highlighted by respondents were the clearing of rights for OA publication and the standardisation of title and usage metadata. All responding organisations confirmed that they expect to be publishing monographs in ten years’ time, but that they anticipate the format and/or the model will be different, with open access expected to play a key part in the future, perhaps in the context of a mixed economy of OA and ‘toll access’ publication.
“Regarding the future of publishing, we suggest that its current rapid expansion should result in a phase transition, eventually offering new opportunities for research communication. A fast evolution towards data and code sharing, open-access publishing and the widespread use of preprints seems to be just the beginning. Below we outline our view on the paradigm shift in publishing that we think will benefit the scientific community.
First, we can make it easy to track scientific progress and reduce overpublishing by moving to open-ended and stackable publications instead of publishing multiple papers for each research direction. For example, instead of ten papers published on one line of research, a scientist can prepare a single study where each piece (‘chapter’) can be stacked with or inserted into the previous piece. A similar approach is implemented on Github where codes can be updated and expanded; or on Jupyter where the data, analysis and text can be published on a single page (with more chapters being added as the study develops further). Importantly, Jupyter notebooks are free and do not charge for open access as most publishers do, pointing towards a possible solution for reduced publishing fees….”
“n January 5, 2023, the AHA Council approved the Guidelines for Broadening the Definition of Historical Scholarship. In most history departments, “scholarship” has traditionally and primarily encompassed books, journal articles and book chapters, and papers presented at conferences. The weight and significance of each of these vary considerably by institution. The most valued coin of the realm remains not just the book—especially for early and midcareer scholars—but a particular kind of book known only in academia and scholarly publishing as a “monograph.” Yet many other categories of books don’t count: textbooks, official histories, anthologies, translations and critical editions, reference books, and more. These have not been deemed to be “creating new knowledge.” …
The AHA Council has decided that it is time to map a broader terrain of scholarship, with more flexible boundaries. There are many ways to be a historian, many ways to do historical work….
This recommendation and the guidelines that follow rest on four pillars:
A wide range of scholarly historical work can be undertaken in ways consistent with our disciplinary standards and values, from writing briefing papers and op-eds, to testifying in legislatures and courts, participating in the work of regulatory agencies, publishing textbooks and reference books, expanding our media presence across a wide range of platforms, and more.
To support such publicly engaged and/or policy-oriented work, history departments should give it appropriate scholarly credit in personnel decisions. Not doing so diminishes the public impact of historians and cedes to others—observers less steeped in our discipline-specific methods, epistemologies, and standards—the podium from which to shape the historical framing of vital public conversations.
Historians cannot expect decision makers or other potential audiences to appreciate the value of our work if we don’t affirm its value ourselves.
All historical work can be peer-reviewed, whether before or after publication….”
COPIM’s Experimental Publishing group is delighted to announce Experimental Books: Re-imagining Scholarly Publishing, the final conference of COPIM’s Experimental Publishing and Reuse work package including talks, roundtables, and workshops, exploring archival data performances, re-using as re-writing, and computational books. 20 February, 9 March, & 13 March 2023 REGISTER NOW: https://experimentalbooks.pubpub.org/ This three-part conference – including talks, roundtables, and workshops – will discuss alternative publishing options for the humanities by showcasing some of the experiments that are currently taking place in the realm of academic book publishing. It aims to inspire authors, publishers, technology developers and others, to (continue to) speculate on new collaborative futures for open humanities research and publication. It also aims to discuss how these book experiments could sit within more standardised or established workflows for print and online book production, dissemination, and preservation.
Part One: Monday, 20 February 2023
13:00-13:20 (GMT)
Welcome & Conference Outlook
Dr. Janneke Adema (COPIM, Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University)
13:20-14:40
Introducing Computational, Combinatorial, and Data Books
A roundtable conversation with Dr. Janneke Adema (COPIM, Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University), Simon Bowie (COPIM, Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University), Joana Chicau (Creative Computing Institute, University of the Arts London), Prof. Gary Hall (COPIM, Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University), Dr. Kat Jungnickel (Goldsmiths, University of London), Dr. Julien McHardy (COPIM), Dr. Gabriela Méndez Cota (Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, Department of Philosophy), Rebekka Kiesewetter (COPIM, Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Coventry University), Dr. Simon Worthington (Open Science Lab, TIB Hannover)
COPIM’s Experimental Publishing Work Package has worked with authors, designers, developers, providers of open source platforms and tools, and publishers on a series of Pilot Projects that are examining ways to align existing open source software, tools, workflows and infrastructures for experimental publishing with the workflow of open access book publishers. To do so, we have co-developed a set of pilot experimental academic books together with the scholar-led presses Open Humanities Press, Mattering Press, and Open Book Publishers.
This roundtable session serves as a pre-launch for the resulting pilot books Archival Conversations, Ecological Re-writing as Disappropriation. Situated Encounters with the Chernobyl Herbarium, and X-Sketchbook. Joined by many of the involved makers and writers, we will collectively reflect on the journey that lead to these books and, looking forward, looking back, consider what it takes to nurture experimentation in scholarly publishing.
14:40-15:00 Coffee Break
15:00-17:00
Publishing from Collections: Introducing Computational Publishing for Culture
Workshop with Dr. Simon Worthington (Open Science Lab, TIB Hannover)
Computational publishing was developed in the life sciences and STEM subjects to allow publishers and authors to embed executable code, visualisations and advanced media objects alongside conventional text in a document. This hands-on workshop demonstrates one way how humanities scholars might use computational publishing.
During the workshop, we will auto-compile catalogue publications for exhibitions or publication listings from multiple open data sources; and show how such compilations can be published multi-format: web, PDF, ebook, etc. A series of exercises, using Jupyter Notebooks for code and the Quarto platform to wrap up the notebooks for multi-format outputting, will give participants a practical introduction to some of the tools, possibilities and concepts of computational publishing.
Participation in this workshop is limited. Please register HERE.
17:00-17:15 Coffee Break
17:15-18:30
De-schooling rewriting: or the promise of desapropiación
Keynote by Dr. Gabriela Méndez Cota (Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México, Department of Philosophy)
Cristina Rivera Garza’s theory and practice of desapropiación has inspired numerous rewriting experiments in the Mexican context, among them the rewriting of The Chernobyl Herbarium by graduate students and early career researchers in collaboration with COPIM.
“During the pandemic, research communication and progress accelerated through the massively increased posting of preprints. There are over 38,000 preprints in the NIH’s iSearch COVID-19 portfolio covering topics from molecular virology to epidemiology and treatment. Although the increased use of preprints is a positive development, most preprints still take the form of traditional research papers posted shortly before submission to a journal. As a result, preprints generally appear 4 or 5 months prior to journal publication. However, preprints can be used to share research findings at any stage of the research cycle, as they offer much greater flexibility than journals in terms of the length and format of articles that can be posted. Preprints also provide a way for researchers to receive credit for their work, get community feedback, and establish collaborations with researchers who have related interests, without having to wait for publication in a journal.
We believe that it is now time to take a further step towards accelerating research, by substantially expanding the range of work that is shared via preprints. We envisage preprints reporting a wide variety of findings, including early-stage results from a small set of experiments, negative or inconclusive findings that might never be included in a journal article and no doubt much more. Crucially, any such work must still be communicated in a way that other researchers can build on the work, for example by including all relevant data and details of methodology….
We encourage researchers to preprint their research results as their work progresses, including work they may or may not to submit for journal publication. We include below examples of the types of outputs for which preprints can enable dissemination and feedback, but note that this is not an exhaustive list, we hope that additional uses will arise according to the needs of specific communities….”
COPIM’s Experimental Publishing group is delighted to announce Experimental Books: Re-imagining Scholarly Publishing, the final conference of COPIM’s Experimental Publishing and Reuse work package including talks, roundtables, and workshops, exploring archival data performances, re-using as re-writing, and computational books.
20 February, 9 March, & 13 March 2023
REGISTER NOW:
https://experimentalbooks.pubpub.org/
This three-part conference – including talks, roundtables, and workshops – will discuss alternative publishing options for the humanities by showcasing some of the experiments that are currently taking place in the realm of academic book publishing.
It aims to inspire authors, publishers, technology developers and others, to (continue to) speculate on new collaborative futures for open humanities research and publication. It also aims to discuss how these book experiments could sit within more standardised or established workflows for print and online book production, dissemination, and preservation.
Abstract: First off, we acknowledge that digital publishing can take many forms, from standard article or book formats that are enhanced by digital visualizations or interactivity to a variety of less text-centered formats. Likewise, digital projects may enter the world by means of self-publishing (Daniel’s main area of expertise) or through more established academic and commercial publishers (Martha’s main area of expertise). Peer review will shake out differently across these contexts, as will other factors around digital publishing, with each presenting its own challenges and opportunities.
Abstract: Several challenges prevent extracting knowledge from biomedical resources, including data heterogeneity and the difficulty to obtain and collaborate on data and annotations by medical doctors. Therefore, flexibility in their representation and interconnection is required; it is also essential to be able to interact easily with such data. In recent years, semantic tools have been developed: semantic wikis are collections of wiki pages that can be annotated with properties and so combine flexibility and expressiveness, two desirable aspects when modeling databases, especially in the dynamic biomedical domain. However, semantics and collaborative analysis of biomedical data is still an unsolved challenge. The aim of this work is to create a tool for easing the design and the setup of semantic databases and to give the possibility to enrich them with biostatistical applications. As a side effect, this will also make them reproducible, fostering their application by other research groups. A command-line software has been developed for creating all structures required by Semantic MediaWiki. Besides, a way to expose statistical analyses as R Shiny applications in the interface is provided, along with a facility to export Prolog predicates for reasoning with external tools. The developed software allowed to create a set of biomedical databases for the Neuroscience Department of the University of Padova in a more automated way. They can be extended with additional qualitative and statistical analyses of data, including for instance regressions, geographical distribution of diseases, and clustering. The software is released as open source-code and published under the GPL-3 license at https://github.com/mfalda/tsv2swm.
Abstract: The ideal of self-correction in science is not well served by the current culture and system surrounding amendments to published literature. Here we describe our view of how amendments could and should work by drawing on the idea of an author-led version control system. We report a survey (n = 132) that highlights academics’ dissatisfaction with the status quo and their support for such an alternative approach. Authors would include a link in their published manuscripts to an updatable website (e.g. a GitHub repository) that could be disseminated in the event of any amendment. Such a system is already in place for computer code and requires nothing but buy-in from the scientific community—a community that is already evolving towards open science frameworks. This would remove a number of frictions that discourage amendments leading to an improved scientific literature and a healthier academic climate.
“Meta-Psychology publishes theoretical and empirical contributions that advance psychology as a science through critical discourse related to individual articles, research lines, research areas, or psychological science as a field. Important contributions include systematic reviews, meta-analyses, replicability reports, and replication studies. We encourage pre-registered studies and registered reports (i.e., peer-review on the basis of theory, methods, and planned data-analysis, before data has been collected). Manuscripts introducing novel methods are welcome, but also tutorials on established methods that are still poorly understood by psychology researchers. We further welcome papers introducing statistical packages or other software useful for psychology researchers….”