Month: July 2022

Multimodal digital monographs: a report

Brown University and Emory University, both participants in the Mellon Foundation’s Digital Monographs Initiative (DMI), held a virtual summit in April, 2021 to examine 8 projects funded by Mellon as case studies of a reimagined monograph. Last month they issued a report, “Multimodal Digital Monographs: Content, Collaboration, Community” that brings together the purpose of the project and an examination of ways forward to make digital scholarly publishing more inclusive and accessible, based on presentations of case studies of 8 open access multimodal digital monographs looking at:

  • author considerations,
  • acquisitions considerations,
  • production considerations, and
  • post-production considerations.

The Expanding Pathways section summarizes lessons from each of the 8 projects, such as the interplay of text and multimedia, ethical implications of humanities research, powerful outcomes of university press and university collaborations, and the communication and collegiality demanded by iterative/collaborative publishing workflows. It also examines the beginnings of and the challenges ahead of developing digital scholarship that is accessible equitable, inclusive and intersectional.

“We need to keep putting pressure on what it means for humanities scholarship to be open, to be digital, to be public.”

The report never defines “multimodal” and it is itself a combination of flat text and still image. But browsing through 4 of the 8 projects that have been published, one experiences some of the ways it is manifested. Text is augmented by still and animated image, audio, video and interactive maps. The topics covered by the projects, from Black religious politics to feral Anthropocene ecosystems and sacred vernacular songbooks, among others, showcase an inclusive and intersectional approach to digital scholarship. As I Remember It: Teachings (Ɂəms tɑɁɑw) from the Life of a Sliammon Elder sets expectations for engagement with the digital monograph by presenting its “Protocol for Being a Respectful Guest” upon entry. Multimodal Digital Monographs exhibits a community approach to digital scholarship by bringing together and representing practitioners from many roles. The report is a worthy contribution to the discipline.

Europe’s Retain Project to strengthen rights to knowledge

SPARC Europe announced that it has been selected by the Knowledge Rights 21 program to review and reform author rights retention and open licensing policies in Europe. Goals of the Retain Project are to:

  • simplify the rights retention procedures,
  • encourage the adoption of open licenses, and
  • better empower authors so that they and their fellow researchers, teachers and students can further benefit from the research they share.

The Retain Project will evaluate existing institution, funder and publisher policies and produce an action plan and materials to help institutions and authors retain their publication rights. The project begins July 1st, 2023.

ORCID data is FAIR data

ORCID: Keeping Up with FAIR Momentum details how the ORCID registry aligns with and advances the FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) for optimizing research output exchange. While most commonly associated with data, the FAIR principles apply more broadly to any digital asset, such as the myriad work types, funding sources, education & qualifications, peer review activity, distinctions, etc. included in an ORCID record; the metadata that describes that asset; and the research infrastructure that enables the collection, storage or exchange of data or metadata.

Each of the FAIR principles has three (accessible, interoperable, reusable) or four (findable) expressions and this post elaborates how ORCID manifests each one of them. From unique and persistent identifiers, to integration with standards and structured protocols, registration and indexing, open licenses and shared governance, ORCID works hand-in-glove with FAIR. Furthermore, ORCID provides critical infrastructure for research and scholarly data exchange, and organizations and individuals who use ORCID are also putting the FAIR principles into practice.

Retracted “Zombie” papers live on

“Zombie papers just won’t die. Retracted papers by notorious fraudster still cited years on” in Science covers Alison Avenell’s research on journal articles that cite retracted research, and the failure of journals to update the article to notify readers that cited works have been retracted. Avenell uses the research of the Japanese nutritionist researcher, Yoshihiro Sato, as a case study. Twenty-seven of Sato’s papers were retracted in 2015, and Sato’s flawed findings were cited in 88 papers published between 2003 and 2020. A year after Avenell contacted the authors, and some editors, of 86 of these papers, only 8 had posted notices or letters that they cited retracted research. Her study on retraction notices was consistent with findings from the 1990’s. While some authors using retracted research stated their findings were not altered by it, others were, and the implications for patient care were potentially serious. Furthermore, trust in scientific research is undermined when errors are not acknowledged. There are some encouraging indications that more citation databases are providing references when a work is included in Retraction Watch’s public database.

PRW 2022 – Research integrity: creating and supporting trust in research

PRW2022 logo

Following a participatory selection process, Peer Review Week has announced the 2022 theme, “Research Integrity: Creating and supporting trust in research.” In an interview on Scholarly Kitchen, the committee co-chairs Danielle Padula (Head of Marketing and Community Development at Scholastica) and Jayashree Rajagopalan (Senior Manager of Global Community Engagement at CACTUS) discuss the meaning of research integrity and the role peer review has to play. Padula defines research integrity as “conducting research in a transparent, rigorous, and ethical manner that can be verified to the full extent possible, enabling others to have confidence in the methods and findings.”

Peer review is the start of a verification process which is built upon by the works of other scholars. Trust in the peer review process depends on transparent standards, policies and practices, and it relies on editors, authors and reviewers working together to disseminate credible, vetted information. The people involved need to do their parts in ethical ways, with attention to potential bias and/or conflicts of interest. The co-chairs both emphasize that peer review is not perfect or the end game in verifying research, but it is a critical piece of the process.