THINK.CHANGE.DO

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Scholarship in evolution discovery and endeavour
THINK.CHANGE.DO

• Alex Byrne
• University Librarian Vice President (Alumni
  Development)
• University of Technology, Sydney
• President
• International Federation of Library Associations
  and Institutions (IFLA)

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2005 an auspicious year

• NDLTD comes to Sydney for ETD2005

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Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote, 1605
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Jules Verne, 1828-1905

• Around the World in Eighty Days
• From the Earth to the Moon
• Journey to the Center of the Earth
• Master of the World
• The Mysterious Island
• The Survivors of the Chancellor
• The Underground City
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea

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Einsteins annus mirabilis, 1905

• "On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the
  production and transformation of light
• Annalen der Physik, 17132-148 (1905)
• "On the motion of small particles suspended in
  liquids at rest required by the molecular-kinetic
  theory of heat
• Annalen der Physik, 17549-560. (1905)
• "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies
• Annalen der Physik. 17891-921. (June 30, 1905)
• "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its
  Energy Content?
• Annalen der Physik, 18639-641. (September 27,
  1905)

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Keeping the record

• Culture
• Imagination
• Research
• Both the expressions themselves and reflections
  on the expressions
• Our particular concern is the scholarly record
  but we cant ignore other forms of expression
  since they are the stuff of research

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The broad scholarly information infrastructure

• Knowledge communities the invisible college
• Traditional printed library resources, archives
  etc
• Journals and ejournals
• Databases - indexes and abstracts
• Information literacy
• Broadband networks
• Middleware enablers
• Repositories

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eResearch

• Big science now extended beyond synchrotrons
  and other large scale equipment
• Supercomputers and parallel processing
• Applying advanced information technologies to
  research eg
• Sharing of primary datasets (NIH USD500K, UKMRC)
• Large datasets and data arrays
• Data mining tools
• Rendering results and visualisation

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Disruptive technologies

• WELL ASSIMILATED
• Internet, email, web

• COMING IN
• Smart phones
• Personal digital assistants (PDAs)
• iPod multimedia devices
• Multimedia
• Microcontent micropayment
• Wikis blogs
• New publishing paradigms

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Behavioural consequences

• New content behaviours
• Internet based communities
• eResearch support
• Public interest in research findings
• Drowning in information
• Google grab
• Selective browsing

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Trends in information dissemination

• Print publishing slowing
• eJournals and eBooks being adopted
• Digital libraries
• Multimedia growing
• Self publishing
• Personal institutional websites
• Institutional disciplinary repositories
• Open access initiatives

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Implications for libraries

• Deliver desired content anytime, anywhere in
  desired form
• 24x7, multi format, multi technology
• Provide multilevel assistance
• Develop contextualised information literacy
• Continue to be trusted source

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Implications for libraries

• Foster communities built on shared knowledge
• Help reclaim scholarly information system
• Move beyond text
• Deliver microcontent in context

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Information inequality

• The Digital Divide recognised by governments,
  WSIS
• Multi factored issue
• Infrastructure bandwidth
• Hardware software
• Skills
• Cost of content
• Structure of scholarly publishing system

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Research and publication cycle

• The established publication cycle dominated by
  the toll journals
• Peer review warrants the quality of articles
  which are published
• Status attached to journal titles
• Delivering recognition rewards to author income
  to publisher

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Scholarly publishing system

• Self reinforcing system
• Research
• Peer review
• Journals
• Databases (especially ISI)
• Research money
• Scholarship
• Research

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Current scholarly publication system - advantages

• Significant levels of expertise and investment
• High levels of quality assurance despite some
  concerns about peer review system
• Advanced services such as Web of Knowledge,
  SciFinder
• Secure systems

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Scholarly chauvinism

• Publications in little understood languages
  ignored
• Insularity in understanding
• Further marginalisation of scholars outside the
  mainstream
• The dominant can be ignorant because of their
  linguistic incompetence.

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The Green Road to OA

• The approach advocated by Harnad and others
• Quality still warranted by peer review but of the
  published articles not necessarily the versions
  in the OA repository
• Author gets greater impact factor increasing
  recognition rewards
• Speed of research cycles enhanced

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The Green Road to OA

• Publisher may get decreased income
• Who maintains quality of records?
• Who ensures preservation and continuing
  useability?

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The Green Road to OA

• When approaching 100 self archiving what
  happens?
• Will libraries be able to justify high budgets to
  maintain subscriptions?

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The Green Road to OA

• If not, publisher income declines and quality
  assurance mechanism (peer review) is in jeopardy.
  
• What then will warrant quality of articles in OA
  repositories?
• Will authors continue to get recognition rewards?

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Outside the monastery and beyond the cult

• The scholarly publication system includes other
  elements including
• Indexing abstracting services
• Discovery tools
• Serves not only the monks but also the postulants
  (research students), the neophytes and the
  visitors

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Outside the monastery and beyond the cult

• Key elements are
• Quality assurance
• Discovery
• Accessibility (aka reading)

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Self archiving scholarly publications system

• Again, what sustains those key (and expensive)
  elements in the system if the revenue base is
  removed?

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The Golden Road to OA

• E (cumenical) publishing
• OAI compliant with DC metadata
• Reforms the system by returning control to the
  academy
• Has been remarkably successful (15 of scholarly
  journals) in a very short time

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The importance of discovery endeavour

• James Cook discovered Aotearoa/New Zealand and
  the east coast of Australia in 1770 aboard the
  Endeavour
• HMS Discovery accompanied his third voyage
• Discovery in research and scholarship works in
  similar fashion to find that which is unknown
  to the searcher, thereby providing a foundation
  for research, finding that which is unknown

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The importance of discovery endeavour

• Discovery enables
• Trandisciplinarity
• Entry by research students and neophytes
• Learning by coursework students and their
  teachers
• Schools
• Business and the general public
• Endeavour enables these goals to be achieved

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Natural selection

• Need for selectivity to navigate ceaseless
  scribblings
• Selectivity is based on
• Metadata
• Peer review

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The importance of peer review

• Not always unbiased
• Favours conformity and can be unreceptive to
  challenges to accepted views
• Those further up the food chain gobble up the
  weak
• BUT this leads to survival of the fittest
• The iconoclastic survives when persistence leads
  to eventual acceptance

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IFLAs concerns

• Historically most high impact scholarly
  literature has been published in northern Europe
  and the United States
• Others benefit because of affinities of language
  or history (Australia, Canada) or efforts to
  participate (Japan)
• Many are virtually excluded from the system

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Exacerbated through commodification

• Control of high impact journals by major
  commercial publishing houses
• Surrender of control and intellectual property by
  scholars
• High costs and continuing price increases for
  libraries

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Access to digital information is limited

• By the availability of reliable and affordable
  information and communication technologies
• To those affiliated with organisations which have
  the money and skills to provide access
• To those who are literate, information literate
  and have a command of the major languages of
  commerce and scholarship
• To those permitted under contractual and other
  bounds imposed by vendors

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Consequences

• Frustration
• Brain drain
• Revenue flows to North
• Research funding immeasurably better in North
• Research from South only validated if published
  in North and usually peer reviewed in North
• Capture of knowledge from South by North

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The criterion the challenges

• If scholarly publishing is to work it must work
  for scholars and researchers and peoples
  across the world
• How can we ensure that our faculty and students
  will have the access they need to the worlds
  scientific, technological and other literature?
• How can we work together to create the conditions
  for successful implementation of digital
  libraries and the preservation of scholarly
  literature and research documentation?

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Open access

• Authors deposit in copies of their works
  institutional or disciplinary repositories (Green
  Road)
• Authors refuse to sign away their intellectual
  property (Creative Commons)

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Open access

• Authors publish in open access journals (Golden
  Road) supported by
• Institutions
• Optional subscription fees
• Author fees
• Publication fee USD500-USD2500 or
• Combination of submission and publication fees of
  about USD175 and USD550 respectively
• Wellcome Trust 2004, Costs and business models in
  scientific research publishing, London,
  http//www.wellcome.ac.uk

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Repositories vs OA journals

• Repositories are a disruptive idea which propose
  a quick ( dirty) fix
• Many repositories established
• Few have achieved critical mass
• Academy sceptical
• Major issues about discovery, sustainability,
  preservation

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Repositories vs OA journals

• Open Access journals offer the hope of long term
  reform of the system
• Perhaps 5 of journal publishing already
• Some high toll journals challenged
• Some OA titles gaining high regard
• Higher impact factors
• Redefining the mainstream
• Major issues about sustainability, preservation

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Open Access Journals

• DOAJ listed 1529 journals in April 2005 - 46
  added in March, including
• Body, Space and Technology - Brunel University,
  Department of Performing Arts - 2000
• Computational and Applied Mathematics - Sociedade
  Brasileira de Matemática Aplicada e Computacional
  - 2003
• Foucault Studies - Queensland University of
  Technology - 2004
• Frankfurter Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft -
  Universität Bern, Institut für Musikwissenschaft
  - 1998

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Open Access Journals

• and
• Indian Journal of Medical Research - Indian
  Council of Medical Research - 2003
• Journal of Plasma and Fusion - Japan Society of
  Plasma Science and Nuclear Fusion Research -
  1984
• Molecular Systems Biology - European Molecular
  Biology Organization, Nature Publishing Group -
  2005
• NZ Journal of Teachers' Work - Massey
  University, New Zealand -2004
• Revista de Ciencia Política - Pontificia
  Universidad Católica de Chile, Instituto de
  Ciencia Política - 2004

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Time of flux

• Academy hesitant but showing signs of being open
  to persuasion
• Financing uncertain toying with author pays and
  other models
• Discovery access inefficient - need OA
  aggregators (eg DOAJ article level access)
• Commercial publishers continue to strengthen
  their positions

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Continuing challenges

• Access for those in developing countries
• Cost issues
• Infrastructure issues
• Developing sustainable business models
• Replacing the value added services offered by the
  commercial publishers but at low cost
• Preservation perpetual accessibility AND
  useability
• Convincing the academy

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Flailing at windmills

• The Green Road to OA has been a very valuable
  disturbing innovation
• But it is not sustainable because it doesnt deal
  effectively with the big issues in scholarly
  publication

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IFLA Statement on Open Access to Scholarly
Literature and Research Documentation

• Acknowledgement and defence of moral rights of
  authors
• Adoption of effective peer review processes to
• Opposition to governmental, commercial or
  institutional censorship
• Protection of to the public domain
• Implementation of measures to overcome
  information inequality
• Support for open access publishing
• Implementation of mechanisms to ensure
  preservation and perpetual availability
• IFLA 2003, IFLA Statement on Open Access to
  Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation,
  The Hague, IFLA, http//www.ifla.org/V/cdoc/open-a
  ccess04.html

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Global challenges

• Intellectual property
• WIPO
• Public domain standing on the shoulders of
  giants
• Information flows and wealth flows
• Special needs eg indigenous peoples
• Trade policy
• WTO
• Multilateral vs bilateral agreements

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Global challenges

• The importance of trust
• Trusted sources authenticity provenance
• Trusted advisors
• Trusted repositories
• One world
• Addressing the digital divide and information
  inequality
• Tackling global problems globally

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The case of ETDs

• Presents a good example of e publication approach
  which maintains quality and begins to address the
  big issues
• Engages emerging scholars and so lays the basis
  for profound improvement of the system
• Provides a test bed for trying systems and
  methods
• Has quality built in because theses are only
  archived after they have been examined and
  accepted and cannot be changed after that

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Continuing challenges

• Preservation
• Continued availability and useability
• Authenticity while promoting W3C accessibility
• Digital rights management
• Discovery
• New areas for standardisation measurement
• Influencing scholarship and practice
• Influencing the decision makers

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New challenges

• Exploring new disruptive technologies
• Going beyond text large datasets,
  visualisation, etc
• New mediums for scholarly discourse
• Changing the dynamics of scholarly practice and
  communication
• Creating new relationships with researchers and
  scholars delivering the infrastructure they
  need
• Large datasets and data arrays
• Supercomputers and parallel processing
• Rendering results and visualisation

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Importance of partnerships

• With faculty
• Among institutions
• With corporate partners
• Adobe
• ProQuest
• Elsevier/Scirus
• Internationally

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ETDs annus mirabilis

• Aim to have all of the major universities in all
  countries with ETD programs
• All programs to be standards based and committed
  to open access
• All recorded theses to be discoverable
• Multilingualism supported
• Varied forms of scholarly expression facilitated
• Long term preservation issues solved
• And then all of this extended to the other
  scholarly domains!

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Thanks!