Refresh/create your Aspire Reading Lists – new deadline for Semester 1

This is an early reminder to refresh your existing Aspire lists and create any new lists needed for the coming academic year.

The deadline for modules taught in Semester 1 (or taught over both semesters) is: July 31^st (a month later than last year)

The deadline for distance learning modules is: June 30^th

FYI the Semester 2 deadline remains at November 30^th.

Remember: you must add a note for library saying “Please digitise” for any chapter or article that needs digitising, even if has been digitised in the past, or they will not be digitised for 2016-2017. Then re-publish your Aspire list.

New: if your Aspire list has not been (re)published at any time in the 52 weeks prior to the deadline, any digitisations for that list will not be processed for 2016-2017.

New: if your module does not need a reading list e.g. a placement year, you can indicate this in Astra. This will ensure it is not counted when Information Services collates statistics about departmental usage of Aspire.

New: How to manage an Aspire list if the module code is changing

If you have created a draft list in Aspire and you can’t link it to the hierarchy, or you would like some Aspire training or a refresher, or you have a question about this blog: please contact the Academic Engagement librarians: 01970621896 acastaff@aber.ac.uk

May 31st: a new design for Primo and changing routes to electronic information resources

Following consultation with student focus groups, Primo is undergoing a re-design towards a cleaner, more mobile-friendly page with links to major sources and request forms gathered on the yellow page banner and easy-to-find help, advice and training information.

Your Aber collections searches will be across all AU libraries, allowing access to resources you may have not otherwise been aware of. As always it will be possible to refine your results by location after the initial search.

Changing routes to electronic information resources

The link to Databases A-Z will be replaced with a link to E-resources A-Z, an alphabetic list of electronic information resources.

This will be located on the yellow banner next to E-journals@Aber where you can search and browse the AU electronic journal holdings.

N.B. not all the freely available web pages in Databases A-Z will be included in E-Resources A-Z.

Subject-specific electronic information resources will be also be promoted via the Subject information pages.

The “Selected databases” search in Databases A-Z will no longer be available, however the Articles & more search returns results from many thousands of electronic information resources which you can store to your E-Shelf.

If you have one or more sets of databases stored in Databases A-Z, and you want to make a note of them before the Databases A-Z link is replaced, make sure to do so before May 31^st.

If you have any questions about these upcoming changes please contact your subject librarian or acastaff@aber.ac.uk 01970621896.

LERU Statement on Open Access - October 2015

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) released a new statement on open access on 12 October 2015 calls for research funding to be focused on research, rather than to be overly diverted to publishers.  It calls on the European Commission to work with the university and public research sectors, funders, publishers and authors to develop models and solutions for the sustainable support of open access publishing, both by Gold and Green Open Access routes, while allowing for commercial publishers to retain viable returns.  Specifically, the statement calls on the Dutch Presidency of the European Commission from January-June 2016 to bring together all interested parties to develop a way forward acceptable to all parties on an international basis.

The full LERU statement, "Christmas is over. Research funding should go to research, not to publishers!" can be accessed at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/LERU%20Statement%20Moving%20Forwards%20on%20Open%20Access.pdf

Free Altmetric Bookmarklet to Check the Social Media Impact of Research Papers

The free Altmetric Bookmarklet for Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers allows you to view the online shares, mentions and tweets which relate to the academic papers you are viewing on screen with a single click.  Just drag the free "Altmetric It" bookmarklet from the website into your Bookmarks bar in Chrome, Firefox or Safari browser to get the system up and running.

When you are looking at a journal article displaying a DOI number, click on the bookmarklet in your browser bar to see the social media activity for that article.   An example from an article in the British Medical Journal is shown to the left.

Please note that the bookmarklet will only work if there is a DOI displayed on the page and if the journal website you are viewing has Google-friendly metadata embedded within it.  Twitter mentions are only available for papers published since July 2011.

The Altmetric Bookmarklet FAQ can be accessed at: https://help.altmetric.com/support/solutions/articles/6000060977-altmetric-it-bookmarklet-faq 

Steve Smith
Academic Engagement Group

Reviewing of the Efficiency and Limitations of Gold Open Access Markets

A new assessment of the functioning of “pay-to-publish” Gold Open Access markets has been published by JISC (11 Feb 2016) in association with Research Libraries UK, SCONUL and the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA). “Academic Journal Markets: their Limitations and the Consequences for a Transition to Open Access” concludes that the new dedicated open access publishing system, with authors or their institutions paying Article Processing Charges (APCs) to enable immediate open access to all papers in the journal, is functioning reasonably well, with low barriers to entry, high levels of technological development and customers responding well to APC pricing differentials between journals and publishers.

The standards of service provided to authors by the new dedicated Gold Open Access publishers compare well with those provided by the traditional subscription publishers which offer "hybrid" open access options.  The reliability of the openness of individual articles, the range of open access reuse licenses available and the costings of Article Processing Charges levied are all gauged as being better in the dedicated OA market.

The “offset deals” offered by traditional subscription publishers, where the APC charges levied to authors’ institutions are balanced against subscription charges, so that the total overall payments made by universities for publishing in and subscribing to particular journal deals do not rise out of proportion through “double dipping”, are assessed as both “unscalable” and “unsustainable”. The administrative burden which such offsetting systems confer on both publishers and academic institutions are counted as significant and as unnecessarily complicating the OA market structure.

The effect of non-cancellation clauses in subscription publishers' “big deals” in consistently squeezing smaller publishers out of the journals market completely also draws comment, with effects on over-concentration of the academic publishing sector, restriction in the range of journals available, and depletion of funds for undergraduate text purchasing being specifically mentioned.

Despite all these advantages, however, progress towards total open access provision in UK academic journals remains slower than might have been expected, with over 60% of UK research still being behind subscription barriers in 2015 according to the Research Information Network,

potentially leading to lost commercial opportunities and limiting UK academic impact.

Comment is also made regarding the OA-isolation of the UK and the Netherlands being the only countries so far to prioritise the Gold Open Access route, with most other countries and international organisations favouring the Green Open Access route of depositing post-prints or embargoed final versions of papers in institutional or subject repositories.  Academic publishing is very much an international market and if demand for the Gold Open Access market is restricted to just 2-3 countries, its chances of significant world market penetration will remain small and progress slow.

In conclusion, the report recommends several strategies by which the lack of Gold OA market penetration could be addressed, including:

• restricting the extent to which RCUK Open Access grants can be used for publication in hybrid journals,
• development of better journal quality indicators to encourage authors to publish more of their important papers in dedicated Gold OA journals, and
• ensuring that small society publishers are provided with effective mechanisms for staying in the Open Access publishing market.

Comments can be made on Twitter using #OAjournalsmarket

Steve Smith

Academic Engagement Group

Hugh Owen Library

Important: let us know what you need digitised

If your Aspire module reading list(s) contains chapters of books or journal articles that you want to appear in digitised form on BlackBoard you must add the phrase “Please Digitise” in the Note for library field.

The deadlines for adding/updating reading lists are

• Distance Learning: June 30th
• Semester One and modules taught over both semesters: July 31st
• Semester Two: November 30th

To add the Note for library in an existing list:

• Log in to Aspire
• Click My Lists
• Click on the list that you want to edit
• Click the Edit drop down menu and then click Edit list
• For each chapter or article needing digitisation, click Edit notes and importance

In the middle of the box that appears you will see the Note for library field.

• Type: Please digitise
• Click Save

Now republish your list.

Please find here instructions for adding chapters or articles to Aspire reading lists.

If you have any questions please contact the Academic Engagement librarians acastaff@aber.ac.uk / (0197062)1896.