Alma Swan Key Perspectives Ltd Truro, UK

Alma Swan

Key Perspectives Ltd

Truro, UK

UUK Workshop on Research Information and ManagementLondon, 5 December 2007

OVERVIEW:The communication and

effectiveness of research


Increasing amount of research output

Increasing formality Increasing time between submission

and publication Increasing time between the initial

finding / idea and the peer community’s response


The next 300 years

The last forty years

Large-scale disenfranchisement Persistence of the ‘gentleman’s club’ Heavy reliance on publications

(sometimes virtually alone) as a measure of an individual scholar’s worth

Almost total reliance on a proxy metric of quality and impact


The Age Of The Web New Web-based tools for dissemination: e-journals

but there is usually still a subscription barrier

Institutional / sub-institutional web sitesInst / department / author pagesBut these are suboptimalblogs and wikis

Institutional digital repositories


Institutional repositories Maximise the visibility of research outputs Maximise the impact of an institution Collect and curate ALL the research output Showcase the institution’s work Will form the data layer of the future

i2010 Vision Single Information Space

Provide the locus for measurement, assessment and management (in association with information in the institution’s CRIS)


REPOSITORIESand other open content

Ingest layer services

Search / retrieve

Aggregate / display

Count / assess Peer review

Other value adding

Editorial


Metrics and rankings

Goodhart’s Law What to measure? Be sure that formal outputs will form one

focus Many measures relating to those outputs Many target / ranking systems to come Maximising digital visibility will be key


The U.Southampton conundrum…


The G-Factor (universitymetrics.com)


Repositories… “are vital to universities’ economies and to the UK economy as a whole.”

Professor J Drummond BonePast President, Universities UK


Universities and our prosperity Generic ways to create wealth The Knowledge Triangle:

• research • education • innovation


OECD’s conclusions

“Governments would boost innovation and get a better return on their investment in publicly funded research by making research findings more widely available …. and by doing so they would maximise social returns on public investments.”OECD Report on Scientific Publishing, 2005


Economic impact of Open Access“With the United Kingdom's GERD [Gross Expenditure on Research and Development] at USD 33.7 billion and assuming social returns to R&D of 50%, a 5% increase in access and efficiency [their conservative estimate] would have been worth USD 1.7 billion”

Houghton et al, 2006Key Perspectives Ltd

What is going wrong? Australian Govt Productivity Commission

report on Public Support for Science & Innovation: “lack of effective linkages between research organisations (a.k.a. universities) and firms”

EU Innovation Reports: SMEs find it hard to get access to the basic research information they need to innovate


Terence Dolak (SDR Pharmaceuticals)

“With a small oncology company … it is imperative that I have access to the literature.

But small companies do not have the "deep pockets" necessary... The for-profit journal publishers have effectively barred access to key scientific information except to those who can afford their outrageous fees.

Much of the most innovative work is being done at companies like mine that cannot afford to pay $30+ per paper or pay per-search charges in abstracts or journal collections.”


EU CIS studies



“Institutional sources are less frequently consulted than internal or market sources; and innovative enterprises find cooperation partners more easily among suppliers or customers than in universities or public research institutes.”


Open scholarship

Immediate visibility benefits Immediate impact benefits Aligns with a university’s core missions Provides the raw material for measurement

and assessment Provides the shop window to enable

collaborations and partnerships


[email protected]

www.keyperspectives.co.uk/


Thank you for listening

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Alma Swan Key Perspectives Ltd Truro, UK