This paper will explore some of the views that were expressed during the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) workshop held in cooperation with the UK's Digital Curation Centre (DCC) in March 2014. The event provided an ideal opportunity to assess librarians' views on the changing research data management landscape and to consider how these changes might affect the role of academic librarians in South Africa. The paper compares these views with experiences garnered through the DCC's work to support universities in the UK.
The management of research data in academic institutions is increasing across most disciplines. In Namibia, the requirement to manage research data, making it available for the purposes of sharing, preservation and to support research findings, has not yet been mandated. At the University of Namibia (UNAM) there is no institutional research data management (RDM) culture, yet RDM may nevertheless be practiced among its researchers. The extent to which these practices have been adopted is, however, not known. This study investigated the extent of RDM adoption by researchers at UNAM. It identifies current or potential challenges in managing research data, and proposes solutions to some of these challenges that could aid the university as it attempts to encourage the adoption of RDM practices. The investigation used Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) theory, with a focus on the innovation-decision process, as a means to establish where UNAM researchers are in the process of adopting RDM practices. The population under study were the UNAM faculty members who conduct research as part of their academic duties. Questionnaires were used to gather quantitative data. The study found that some researchers practice RDM to some extent out of their own free will, but there are many challenges that hinder these practices. Overall, though, there is a lack of interest in RDM as the knowledge of the concept among researchers is relatively low. The study found that most researchers were at the knowledge stage of the innovation-decision process and recommended, among other things, that the university puts effort into creating RDM awareness and encouraging data sharing, and that it moves forward with infrastructure and policy development so that RDM can be fully adopted by the researchers of the institution.
Patterns and methods of scholarly communication have changed with the growth in information technology, particularly the Internet and the social web. The changes have necessitated a broader definition of scholarly communication and the role of social media in the research process. We sought to record the body of work that the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), a research institute at the University of the Western Cape, produced over a 20-year period (1995–2015) – the first two decades of its existence – and to measure its visibility and impact using bibliometrics and altmetrics. A survey was also carried out to investigate to what extent PLAAS researchers knew and used social media in their research practice. Scopus and Google Scholar were used as citation indices and Altmetric.com provided Altmetric scores – a measure of impact through social and mainstream media. The full list of PLAAS outputs showed a composition of 54% grey literature and 46% journal articles and monographs. Given that over half of PLAAS research outputs were in the form of grey literature, and therefore not indexed in traditional bibliometric databases, we suggest that alternative metrics be used in conjunction with bibliometrics, to measure the impact of a body of work on the scholarly domain. Although the bibliometrics in this study were a useful quantitative indicator of the impact of PLAAS research, this study was inconclusive with regard to determining the impact of the research output via altmetrics, partly because not any of the grey literature, nor any author from PLAAS, had a unique identifier, thus making it difficult to track and find quantitative indicators. Nonetheless, the potential benefit for PLAAS of using altmetrics was demonstrated in selected case studies of the output of three PLAAS researchers active on social media platforms.
Metrics analysis of journal content has become an important point for debate and discussion in research and in higher education. The South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science (SAJLIS), a premier journal in the library and information science (LIS) field in South Africa, in its 85-year history, has had multiple editors and many contributing authors and has published over 80 volumes and 160 issues on a diversity of topics reflective of LIS theory, policy and practice. However, how discoverable and accessible has the LIS scholarship carried by the Journal been to its intended readership? SAJLIS transitioned to open access in 2012 and this new format in scholarly communication impacted the Journal significantly. The purpose of this paper is to report on a multiple metrics analysis of discoverability and accessibility of LIS scholarship via SAJLIS from 2012 to 2017. The inquiry takes a quantitative approach within a post-positivist paradigm involving computer-generated numerical data as well as manual data mining for extraction of qualitative elements. In using such a multiple metrics analysis to ascertain the discoverability and accessibility of LIS scholarship via SAJLIS in the period 2012 to 2017, the study employs performance metrics theory to guide the analysis. We highlight performance strengths of SAJLIS in terms of discoverability and accessibility of the scholarship it conveys; identify possible growth areas for strategic planning for the next 5 years; and make recommendations for further study for a more complete picture of performance strengths and areas for improvement.
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