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Topic: Scholarly communication

Blog Post
October 18, 2021

The Future of Scholarly Meetings

Announcing a New Cohort Project Funded by the Sloan Foundation

The COVID-19 pandemic forced scholarly societies to reimagine one of their signal offerings: academic conferences. In response, societies experimented  with virtual and hybrid meeting formats on a scale that was difficult to imagine before March 2020. Societies have emerged from these experiments with an equal measure of worry and cautious optimism about the potential of these new forums to replace or supplement the traditional annual meeting.  With generous funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ithaka…
Research Report
October 18, 2021

COVID-19 and the Future of the Annual Meeting

In February 2020, the Biogen conference in Boston, Massachusetts, became one of the first superspreader events in the United States—one now linked to perhaps 300,000 cases of COVID-19. By mid-March, in-person conferences, a staple of scholarly communication and community, came to an abrupt halt. For the many professional societies for whom a conference is a core offering, the necessity of charting a new path for their annual meeting was among the most difficult organizational challenges created by the pandemic. As…
Past Event
October 20, 2021

Oya Y. Rieger at iPRES2021

On October 20, Rieger will join other panelists to provide insights from on implementations of current preservation tools and to consider the opportunities in deploying and integrating these tools with local digital content management processes. Please see abstract below: Abstract As cultural heritage organizations seek solutions, open source, community-based, and commercial digital preservation systems and tools have proliferated. Nevertheless, given the magnitude of digital content and the requirements of specific file formats, institutions struggle to integrate disparate tools and…
Past Event
October 29, 2021

Danielle Cooper Moderates Panel on Open Access Publishing

On Thursday Oct 29, Danielle Cooper is moderating a panel discussion on open access publishing for SUNY.
Past Event
October 14, 2021

Roger Schonfeld at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2020

On October 14, Roger Schonfeld will interview ResearchGate’s three founders and its present CEO during a masterclass at Frankfurter Buchmesse 2020. See below for abstract: In this MasterClass, Ijad Madisch, cofounder and CEO of ResearchGate, will be interviewed by Roger Schonfeld, Program Director of Libraries, Scholarly Communication, and Museums for Ithaka S+R. The conversation will cover a broad range of topics around ResearchGate’s development to date and its current strategy; in particular ResearchGate’s new approach to working with scholarly publishers…
Past Event
October 7, 2021

New Directions in Scholarly Publishing

Roger Schonfeld presents during Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) virtual panel

On October 7, Roger Schonfeld will join other panelists to discuss new funding opportunities for researchers and librarians. The panel will discuss how “how authors— especially early career authors—are required to navigate this new funding landscape, how librarians must consider new mandates and requirements from funding agencies while supporting the interests and needs of researchers within their respective institutions, and how funding as we know it is dynamically changing the landscape of academic research.” For more information, please visit this…
Past Event
November 3, 2021

Roger Schonfeld at 2021 Charleston Library Conference

On November 3, Roger Schonfeld will discuss with other other panelists how to design library services that reach library users outside of library-preferred workflows  For more information, please visit this link. Abstract “How do libraries add value for patrons increasingly working outside library-preferred workflows (e.g. searching via Google Scholar), and accessing the library’s collection off-campus? This is a question of profound relevance to all library stakeholders – librarians, publishers, and patrons alike – and one that must be addressed…
Past Event
October 19, 2021

Technology, Trust, Together: Common Challenges and Opportunities for Today’s Digital Scholarly Communication Ecosystem

Roger Schonfeld at the STM Autumn Conference 2021

On Tuesday, October 19, Roger Schonfeld is taking part in a panel discussion at the STM Autumn Conference 2021. For more information and to register for this virtual conference, please visit the STM website. About the panel: Digital technology is pervasive in how research is conducted, how research teams collaborate, and how research output is disseminated. This has brought many improvements and new opportunities, for example enabling more efficient ways of (remote) working and giving researchers the ability to…
Blog Post
August 4, 2021

New Questionnaire for the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey 2021 Now Available

We’re excited to announce that we have now finalized updates for the 2021 edition of the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey, which we will be fielding nationally and with a number of college and university partners this fall. As with previous cycles of the survey, the instrument will explore the research, teaching, and publishing practices and perspectives of scholars at four-year colleges and universities. We have also expanded several areas of coverage within the questionnaire to cover instructional support services,…
Blog Post
July 14, 2021

Why Survey Testing is Essential

Preparing to Field the US Faculty Survey 2021

Ithaka S+R is gearing up for our eighth launch of the US Faculty Survey this fall. This national survey has yielded longitudinal data on scholarly research and teaching behaviors across a variety of institutional and disciplinary contexts on a triennial basis since 2000. To maximize the value of this initiative for higher education leaders, scholarly societies, academic libraries, and publishers who have come to rely on these data, especially in light of the…
Past Event
September 17, 2021

Roger Schonfeld at ALPSP 2021

On September 17, Roger Schonfeld will present on “Scholarly Communications, Evolution or Revolution,” during ALPSP’s virtual conference. Roger will be joined by panelists to discuss how scholarly publishing is changing and what is the outlook for books and journals. For more information, please follow this link. About the session The pandemic has accelerated the use of preprint servers and advanced the open science movement. At the same time, we are seeking continuous growth in research output globally and burden…
Past Event
August 19, 2021

What’s the Big Deal? How Researchers Are Navigating Changes to Journal Access

Oya Y. Rieger and Danielle Cooper Present at ASERL

In a webinar for ASERL on August 19 at 2:00 pm (EDT), Oya Y. Rieger and Danielle Cooper will present their findings on researcher behavior and perceptions on strategic decision-making about Big Deal journal subscriptions. For more information and to register, please follow this link. The abstract is available below. Abstract The dominant mode by which research libraries have provided maximum journal access as broadly and efficiently as possible—subscription bundles or “Big Deals”— is giving way to new…
Past Event
July 28, 2021

Roger Schonfeld Moderates Panel at Charleston In Between

Clarivate Acquires ProQuest

On Wednesday, July 28, at 10:30 am, Roger Schonfeld is moderating a virtual panel on Clarivate’s acquisition of ProQuest (for more about the acquisition, please see Roger’s post on The Scholarly Kitchen).  The panel includes the following speakers: Claudio Aspesi, Consultant, SPARC Michael Clarke, Managing Partner, Clarke & Esposito Gwen Evans, Vice President, Global Library Relations, Elsevier Dracine Hodges, Associate University Librarian for Technical Services, Duke University James Phimister, Managing Director, Market Development, Analytics, and Customer Insights, NEJM Group/New…
Blog Post
June 22, 2021

New Report: What’s the Big Deal? 

How Researchers Are Navigating Changes to Journal Access

Since 1996, the “Big Deal” has enabled academic libraries of all sizes to license bundled access to a publisher’s journal at a significant discount off the list prices. Over the years, as Big Deal spending has come to occupy a greater and greater share of materials budgets, libraries have come to question the value of their Big Deal subscriptions, with some opting to cancel or significantly alter their existing arrangements. Today we are thrilled to announce a…
Blog Post
June 22, 2021

Cancelling the Big Deal Project Spotlight

An Interview with Freie Universität Berlin with contributions from Dominik Hagel, Franziska Harnisch, Mario Kowalak, and Cosima Wagner

As university budgets face considerable strain and new models for providing open access to scholarly communication proliferate, academic libraries are increasingly pursuing alternatives to the “Big Deal” journal subscription model, including cancellation. But how are these strategies affecting researchers and what do they make of them? Over the past year Ithaka S+R has been studying the impact of Big Deal cancellations on its users in partnership with 11 academic libraries. Previous research has focused primarily on…
Research Report
June 22, 2021

What’s the Big Deal?

How Researchers Are Navigating Changes to Journal Access

The dominant mode by which research libraries have provided maximum journal access as cheaply as possible—subscription bundles or “Big Deals”—is giving way to new approaches. This transition is taking place through a combination of negotiations, activism, business modeling, user needs research, and decision support, among other factors. To support these processes, Ithaka S+R partnered with 11 academic libraries to understand researcher perceptions to help inform their ongoing strategic decision making about Big Deal journal subscriptions.
Blog Post
May 13, 2021

Announcing the Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey 2021

This fall, we are looking forward to fielding our triennial US Faculty Survey. This will be the eighth cycle of this long-standing research initiative through which we examine faculty research and teaching perspectives and practices across a variety of institutional and disciplinary contexts. Through this ongoing work, we have now mapped for over two decades the evolving attitudes and behaviors of scholars on a range of topics, including the discovery and access of scholarship, research dissemination and preservation, instructional methods…
Blog Post
April 15, 2021

Three Questions for Kara Bledsoe

On April 1, Kara Bledsoe joined Ithaka S+R’s Libraries, Scholarly Communication, and Museums team. In this interview, she reflects on what brought her to Ithaka S+R and what she hopes to accomplish through her work with us. What attracted you to Ithaka S+R? My background is in management consulting for cultural organizations. I drafted strategic plans, facilitated visioning workshops, and evaluated clients’ operations to help them optimize the balance between market forces and their missions. Most of the research…
Past Event
April 13, 2021

Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper, and Kurtis Tanaka at ACRL 2021

Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper, and Kurtis Tanaka will present  on-demand programs during the 2021 ACRL Virtual Conference. For more information on their individual sessions, please visit this link. Oya Y. Rieger, Danielle Cooper will discuss the impacts of Big Deal cancellations on patrons. Please see the abstract below: “No deal, no problem? The Impacts of Big Deal Cancellations on Patrons” Libraries are increasingly questioning the value of their Big Deal subscriptions, leading to a number of prominent cancellations…
Blog Post
March 8, 2021

Three Questions for Ithaka S+R’s Newest Analysts

In January, we welcomed three new analysts to our team. In this interview, they reflect on what brought them to Ithaka S+R and what they hope to accomplish through their work with us. What attracted you to Ithaka S+R?  Darnell Epps: I found the work around college in prison to be quite appealing, especially the goal of advancing educational equity through technology. Although I would later matriculate and graduate from Cornell University, the first…