Topic: Research practices

The landscape of scholarly monograph publishing has become increasingly complex, with some business models straddling digital and print realms and others guided by the principles of open access. While the transition towards e-books has prompted numerous publishers to establish proprietary platforms for hosting their content, distribution and aggregation services remain pivotal within this ecosystem.

In response to universities’ strategic need to provide effective data support services to researchers, Ithaka S+R launched the Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support project in February 2023. In the first two phases of the project, participants conducted an inventory of data services on their campus and interviewed researchers about their research data services support needs. Spring 2024 marked the beginning of phase three during which participants will implement innovative strategies to assist researchers in navigating support services…

A recent survey conducted at Bryant University reveals an interesting trend: while students and faculty are increasingly adopting AI chatbots, staff members seem to lag behind. This guest blog post delves into the possible reasons behind this disparity using the 77 faculty, 111 staff, and 224 student responses collected between November 2023 and February 2024.

Over the past several years, Ithaka S+R has conducted several major studies on the scholarly publishing landscape during a time of rapid technological change. There is no better example of how rapid and radical this pace is than generative AI tools, which have moved from the margins to a focal point of scholarly publishing in little more than one year. Last spring, we conducted interviews with publishers, librarians, advocates, analysts, funders, and policymakers as the horizons of possibility and risk…

Ithaka S+R is honored to be partnering with the Library of Congress on a research study to better understand the experiences of people who use the library's collections and resources to conduct research. This mixed methods project includes an online survey followed by interviews of selected researchers. The findings from this study will be used to help inform the Library of Congress’ strategy for supporting the researchers that utilize the library’s collections and resources.

As part of our ongoing project, Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support, we completed a national inventory of research data services offered at higher education institutions across the US and Canada. While conducting the inventory, we observed an uneven approach to the topic of Indigenous research data sovereignty and governance at libraries and other units involved in research support and facilitation. Some schools provided robust information about the imperative for Indigenous groups and scholars to have control over…

Ithaka S+R has been closely tracking the generative AI product landscape through a unique Product Tracking Tool. The Product Tracker includes descriptions of tools marketed towards postsecondary faculty or student users, as well as information about the pricing model, key features, and other relevant detail.

On September 1, 2022, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) opened a new “smart green” campus in Guangzhou, China. Described as “heralding the university of the future” and designed for climate emergencies, this campus represents a significant milestone in HKUST’s strategic vision as it partners with the original HKUST campus located just across the border in Clear Bay, Hong Kong.

AI has driven important advances in biomedical research for some time, spurring drug discovery, improving medical imaging, and facilitating engagements with large datasets in emerging fields like precision medicine. However, recent advances, notably the advent of consumer-friendly generative AI tools, have increased the likelihood that AI-informed research and scholarly communication will be ubiquitous in the near future. Managing this transformation in ways that ensure high-quality, reproducible results and ethical, inclusive research practices is important across academic disciplines, but identifying current…

The scholarly publishing sector is undergoing its second digital transformation. In the first, we saw a massive shift from paper to digital, but otherwise publishing retained many of the characteristics of the print era. In this current second digital transformation, many of these structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs are being revamped in favor of new approaches that bring tremendous opportunities, and also non-trivial risks, to scholarly communication. In a report published today, with funding from…

As the pandemic recedes into memory, scholarly societies find themselves at a crossroads. For the past several years, the decision to hold hybrid or virtual meetings was dictated by outside forces: it is now a matter of choice. Though the virtual meetings of 2020-22 mostly failed to provide the rich social and networking experiences that in-conference meetings provide, they were more accessible to a much wider, and more diverse, community of scholars.

We’re thankful for all the comments the draft report received. We will publish a final revised version in October. A robust and nimble infrastructure is imperative to support the vital work of scholarly communication and effectively and efficiently meet the emerging service needs of different stakeholders. Publishers and other scholarly communication services and providers rely on this shared infrastructure in many key parts of their work, and it forms a foundational part of their technology stack and service…