Public universities are under assault

An unholy alliance is slowly forming between traditionalist defenders of the university as an "ivory tower" and market-obsessed modernisers determined to transform higher education into a consumer good. Both have come to the – mistaken – conclusion that the idea of the public university must be abandoned. For very different reasons, of course.

Measuring Value in Open Access Repositories

Measuring Value in Open Access Repositories

Open access institutional repositories were created to promote access to information, encourage scholarly communication, and demonstrate institutional prestige. While these repositories have been widely adopted, the quality of their contents often fails to represent their institution's scholarly output. Moreover, current research uses measurements of quantity, not quality, to assess their value. In response, this article opens new areas of scholarly inquiry by assessing the quality of contents. This is accomplished through a cross-sectional study of repositories at American colleges and universities across the academic spectrum, using citation indexing to identify an institution's articles and authors of highest impact.

Are You a Press or Are You a Library? An Interview with NYU’s Monica McCormick

This is the first article in a new series, Digital Challenges to Academic Publishing, by guest author Adeline Koh. Each article in this series will feature an interview with an academic publisher, press or journal editor on how their organization is changing in response to the digital world.

Shatzkin: Publishers Should Experiment With E-Book Library Lending

In his new blog post today, Mike Shatzkin suggests that major publishers should experiment with e-book library lending to try to find a profitable way to do it.

The influence of free encyclopedias on science

Since its launch in 2001 Wikipedia has seen incredible growth worldwide, counting more than 21 million articles published in around 280 languages (including nearly 4 million articles in English) in 2012 (1). Wikipedia has grown in size (number of Wikipedia entries/articles have been increasing over time) and is showing high reliability: a recent study (2) of historical entries found 80% accuracy for Wikipedia, compared to 95-96% for other sources. This means that for the entries checked in the study, Wikipedia contain on average only about 15% more errors than other sources including traditionally perceived authoritative sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica. The research found that this difference was negligible. Adding to this Wikipedia’s ease of access and wide coverage of topics explains why for many people it has become the first port of call for instant general knowledge on a variety of subjects.

Insight into scholary e-books today and in the future

From Research Information

Choosing e-books: a perspective from academic libraries

This study focuses directly and in depth on the buying and selection processes and criteria. Insights offered by this study may be of value to publishers, aggregators and librarians.

Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing

From article in  Science 3 February 2012:
Vol. 335 no. 6068 pp. 542-543 : 

Despite their shortcomings (1–4), impact factors continue to be a primary means by which academics “quantify the quality of science” (5). One side effect of impact factors is the incentive they create for editors to coerce authors to add citations to their journal. Coercive self-citation does not refer to the normal citation directions, given during a peer-review process, meant to improve a paper. Coercive self-citation refers to requests that (i) give no indication that the manuscript was lacking in attribution; (ii) make no suggestion as to specific articles, authors, or a body of work requiring review; and (iii) only guide authors to add citations from the editor's journal. This quote from an editor as a condition for publication highlights the problem: “you cite Leukemia [once in 42 references]. Consequently, we kindly ask you to add references of articles published in Leukemia to your present article” (6). Gentler language may be used, but the message is clear: Add citations or risk rejection. 

Providing tools to gauge research productivity

As a subject librarian and expert in cataloging, Niamh Brennan was asked to join the team developing Trinity College Dublin’s Current Research Information System (CRIS). In particular, she was to produce a standards-based approach to describing research outputs and train researchers how to use the new system.

Why race is still needed in UCT admissions

Admission policy of students to the University of Cape Town and other top universities in the country must be vigilantly and diligently discussed.

Should Libraries Fret Over Mischievous Users?

ARL's Brandon Butler responds to a common concern of librarians: the fear of library liability for nefarious uses of copyrighted library collections material by patrons. Butler says, "Put simply, it is almost impossible that you or your library, when acting on the basis of your good faith beliefs about fair use, could be held responsible for the bad acts of your patrons who abuse the access you provide..."

How not to treat patrons

UCT's admissions policy

Social scientists would be hard-pressed to find a better lens into identity, privilege and race in post-apartheid South Africa than the University of Cape Town’s admissions policy debate. One of the many discussion points it has raised is that of a black middle-class yearning to redefine being black.

South African universities have become, wrongly so, some argue, places where issues of inequality, poverty and the redress of decades of apartheid come to a head. In January this year, when Gloria Sekwena, a 47-year-old mother of two, was killed in a stampede of students and parents hoping to gain last-minute admission to the University of Johannesburg, it highlighted again that university education is still viewed by most as the sole route out of poverty toward economic prosperity.

Higher education minister Blade Nzimande said, after the incident, “The problems of applications for admissions are symptomatic of a larger challenge. Universities alone cannot, nor should they, cater for all post-school education. This annual crisis requires that we change the widely held perception by most South Africans that universities are the only acceptable option for post-school studies.”

Student Living Conditions

Many students living in ‘appalling’ conditions – Report

Sharon Dell18 March 2012 Issue No:213
A significant portion of South African students are living in “appalling” conditions, which is jeopardising their academic endeavours and creating health and safety risks. Some are also starving, according to a report on student housing released recently by the Department of Higher Education and Training.

From now on, the Encyclopedia Britannica will only be published online Encyclopedia Britannica ends print, goes digital

Librarians book their places at UCT

A learning curve: Librarians from Johannesburg have chosen to further their studies at UCT as part of a Carnegie-funded project.

Anti-open access bill suffers sudden death

Legislation in the US Congress that would have stopped funding agencies stipulating that research they fund with taxpayer dollars be made publicly available has collapsed. The dramatic development could signal a pivotal shift in scientific publishing.