Information School News

MORPHSS aims to investigate and promote open research practices in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).  The project is designed to create frameworks and guidelines to encourage adoption of open practices in HSS as well contribute to our knowledge of such practices. The three-year, £800,000 project is a collaboration between Cambridge University Library, Cambridge Digital Humanities, Coventry University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Southampton. It is jointly funded by the Research England Development (RED) Fund, the Wellcome Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.  The work to be carried out at Sheffield will be led by Stephen Pinfield, who now has a process in train to recruit a postgraduate research associate to work on the project for the next two years. The Sheffield team will contribute to the project as a whole but will focus for a significant proportion of their time investigating open practices in the Social Sciences, pa...

Professor of Information Services Management Stephen Pinfield has just published a new book,  Achieving Global Open Access - The Need for Scientific, Epistemic and Participatory Openness. The book explores some of the key conditions that are necessary to deliver global Open Access (OA) that is effective and equitable. It is aimed at academics and students engaged in the fields of Library and Information Science, OA or publishing. It can be read online here , and a print version will be published in the coming weeks.

New Book: Open Access in Theory and Practice Professor Stephen Pinfield A new book, By Stephen Pinfield, Simon Wakeling, David Bawden and Lyn Robinson has been published today in hardback and Open Access form.  Professor Stephen Pinfield worked with alum, and former member of staff, Simon Wakeling and colleagues from City, University of London.  Open Access in Theory and Practice investigates the theory-practice relationship in the domain of open access publication and dissemination of research outputs. Drawing on detailed analysis of the literature and current practice in OA, as well as data collected in detailed interviews with practitioners, policymakers, and researchers, the book discusses what constitutes ‘theory’, and how the role of theory is perceived by both theorists and practitioners. Exploring the ways theory and practice have interacted in the development of OA, the authors discuss what this reveals about the nature of the OA phenomenon itself and the theory-...

On 3rd July 2019, the Information School, University of Sheffield, hosted a one-day workshop that started a conversation between Global North and Global South practitioners, researchers and academics about open scholarship in a global context, with Africa as a focus for that discussion. We were also lucky enough to be hosting (courtesy University of Sheffield GCRF QR funding) participants in this debate from Rwanda, a country in the East and Central African region, which has an interesting socio-political context deriving from a checkered colonial past, internal conflict and genocide and language policies implemented to craft a modern political identity. In introducing the debate, the two convenors of the workshop, Pamela Abbott and Andrew Cox, both senior lecturers in the Information school, set out some markers as to why they were interested in this topic. For Pamela, her background as an ICT4D researcher working in African contexts with librarian communities of practice, and her own...

Professor Stephen Pinfield, Dr Simon Wakeling and Professor Peter Willet have had a blog published on the major global publisher blog 'Scholarly Kitchen', summaring a recent article published from the Open-Access Mega-Journals project . You can read the blog post here. The blog discusses article commenting and community reviewing in the context of OAMJs. Scholarly Kitchen, established by the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), is a moderated and independent blog helping to fulfil SSP's mission to 'advance scholarly publishing and communication, and the professional development of its members through education, collaboration, and networking.'

This year I was fortunate enough to receive an Information School bursary to attend LILAC 2019, the information literacy conference, which was held at the University of Nottingham from the 24th to 26th April. As a distance learneing student who is also the sole information professional at a small academic museum library, work can be a bit insular, so I applied for the bursary to connect with the wider information community and learn more about information literacy. I was excited by the rich programme of sessions and the promise of a dynamic set of keynote speakers. I had also heard from previous colleagues how great the conference is for networking and sharing ideas in friendly environment so I was thrilled when I found out I was on my way to LILAC19. I was slightly nervous to attend my first library conference but I needn’t have worried. From the moment I stepped off of the tram at the University of Nottingham, concerned about finding my way to the conference venue, fellow attende...

Andrew Cox and Stephen Pinfield presented two pieces of recent work at the RLUK conference on the 22nd of March. RLUK is the organisation for research libraries in Britain and Ireland. The conference draws a large international audience from research libraries around the world. The conference presentation explored services to support research data management, based on an international survey of librarians. The workshop was for delegates to reflect on the potential meaning of artificial intelligence for academic libraries. It was based on the paper: Cox, A.M. , Pinfield, S. and Rutter, S. (2018) The intelligent library: Thought leaders’ views on the likely impact of artificial intelligence on academic libraries. Library Hi Tech. ( open access version available here ) A video of Andrew and Stephen's talk can be viewed here .

This week Professor Stephen Pinfield is visiting Sun Yat-Sen University in China. Whilst there, Stephen will be giving three lectures on recent research projects in which he has been involved and also discussing research collaboration opportunities. Stephen is hosted by old colleagues Miguel Nunes and Alex Peng, who are both Professors there; Miguel is Dean of the Information School. The three lectures that Stephen is giving on his visit are as follows: Open-Access Mega-Journals and the Future of Scholarly Communication (research conducted with Claire Creaser, Jenny Fry, Valérie Spezi, Simon Wakeling & Peter Willett): Open-access mega-journals (OAMJs) represent an increasingly important part of the scholarly communication landscape. OAMJs, such as PLOS ONE and Nature’s Scientific Reports, are large scale, broad-scope journals that operate an open-access business model, and which employ a novel form of peer review, focusing on scientific ‘soundness’ only and not judgments o...

MA Librarianship student Terry Bassett recently attended the UKSG conference in London. Read on to hear about his experiences. In November I was lucky enough to be chosen to attend the UKSG conference and forum at the very swanky Grange Tower Bridge Hotel in London. The UKSG is a professional group of librarians, publishers and anyone in-between, who work together to promote better academic communications and collaborative research practices. Their website has details of all the work they do and some of the presentations from the events. Attending the conference and forum was a very eye-opening experience. My own background is in public libraries so although I’ve had exposure to HE in my undergraduate degree and the first few weeks of my Masters, I was still quite new to a lot of the concepts being discussed. That said at no point did I feel completely out of my depth; the sheer range of topics discussed meant everyone needed to give at least a quick introduction and that went ...

The ‘Mapping the future of academic libraries’ report commissioned by SCONUL was published on 8 December following a conference in London to discuss its findings. The report was produced by a team from the School: Stephen Pinfield, Andrew Cox and Sophie Rutter. Read the report here The report identifies a complex set of interrelated trends impacting on libraries the significance of which is often in the way they combine. In particular, it identifies five nexuses of trends bringing transformational change: 1. ‘Datafied’ scholarship: research increasingly underpinned by large datasets and digital artefacts, involving open, networked, algorithmically-driven systems 2. Connected learning: new pedagogies supported by technology-enabled flexible learning 3. Service-oriented libraries: libraries shifting their strategic emphasis from collections to services 4. Blurred identities: boundaries between professional groups and services b...

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly has been appointed Associate Editor for Palgrave Communication s, a fully open-access, online journal publishing peer-reviewed academic research across the full spectrum of the humanities and social science. Dr Reilly will be working with colleagues within the Editorial Boards for Communication, Film, Culture & Media, and Political Science and International Relations. Congratulations to Dr Reilly for this new appointment!

My name is Emily Nunn and I am just starting my third year as a PhD student in the Information School. Over the summer, I completed a one-month placement at the British Library, conducting a piece of research for them on open access to scholarly research outside academia. Financial support for the placement was part of my PhD funding from the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), who provide great opportunities for research students to undertake placements with external organisations. I found the placement through social media (which is why I would recommend that PhD students give Twitter a try). Torsten Reimer, the Head of Research Services at the British Library, contacted me after seeing information about my doctoral research, and we worked out a placement that would be beneficial to both of us. The British Library are currently working on exciting new projects to develop their support for open access. As a national library, they have a responsibility to pro...

Professor of Information Services Management, Stephen Pinfield, along with his Co-Investigator, Professor David Bawden (of City University London), have been awarded £182,097 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for the 'Open Access in Theory and Practice' project. The project will investigate the uses of theory in open access research and their relationship with practice. The project will recruit a full-time Research Associate to be based in Sheffield. "We are delighted to have received this funding from the AHRC”, says Stephen. “We believe our project will make an important contribution to current discussions about open access and also about the relationship between theory and practice – both really important issues with wide implications for the role that academic research can play in society." The project will start in the first quarter of 2018 and will last for 18 months.

This Friday, Professor Stephen Pinfield and Research Associate Dr Simon Wakeling will be presenting at the 39th annual Society for Scholarly Publishing Conference in Boston. The SSP is a major international organisation in the field of scholarly communication and publishing. Stephen and Simon will be presenting their work on open-access mega-journals. You can find details on their session here , and on the whole conference, which is running 31st May - 2nd June, here.

Professor Stephen Pinfield is speaking at the Association of STM Publishers conference Frankfurt, Tuesday 18 October 2016. Professor Pinfield's presentation ' Open Access mega journals and the future of scholarly publishing' will provide an update on the AHRC funded research project investigating mega-journals and the future of scholarly communication.  Further information on the STM Frankfurt Conference can be found here.

Professor Stephen Pinfield of the Information School has been interviewed by Library Journal. The interview is part of the publications series on Open Access and includes the following questions: ·        What are the forces that brought open access this far? ·        How is open access being implemented in different ways globally? ·        What are the viable alternatives to green and gold models? ·        Do different discipline-based approaches to open access present a challenge? ·        Do subject or institution repositories make open access materials harder to find? ·        What is the future of the version of record? The interview can be accessed on the Library Journal website   here.

On 29 January 206 the Council of the European University Association (EUA) approved the “ Roadmap on Open Access to Research Publications ”. The Roadmap aims to assist universities in the transition to Open Access (OA) and is the first in a series of initiatives that EUA plans to develop to address the implications of Open Science for European universities. The Roadmap has been drafted in close collaboration with EUA’s Expert Group on Science 2.0/Open Science , a group of 20 experts from 19 countries designated by their respective national rectors’ conferences (NRCs), including the Information School's Professor Stephen Pinfield . The Roadmap on Open Access to Research Publications focuses primarily on the following areas: •    Fostering structured dialogue among all stakeholders; •    Promoting and supporting the adoption of OA policies, infrastructures and initiatives by European universities; •    Encouraging the development ...

Dr Stephen Pinfield ,and other members of the European University Association’s Expert Group on Science 2.0/Open Science are developing a road map to assist European universities in the transition to Open Access (OA). The roadmap will be launched in early 2016.and the initiative will take forward the   EUA’s April 2015 Antwerp Declaration that underlines the importance for universities of pursuing and further developing the opportunities offered by rapid technological change for new ways of working based on the principles of scholarly sharing and academic collaboration. The focus will be on the following main areas: Promoting access and use of research publications and research data); Addressing the related intellectual property rights and copyright policies; Fostering structured dialogue among all relevant stakeholders – including universities, university associations, National Rectors’ Conferences, research funders, libraries, scientific publishers, national...

Ahead of Open Access Week, which starts 19 October 2015, Dr Stephen Pinfield has published research exploring the key challenges of how to make OA work.   The research suggests that the current challenges now focus on how OA can be made to work in practice, having moved away from the discussion of whether it should happen at all. Following large scale analysis of OA discourse from the last five years Stephen identified key issues, particularly in relation to major strands of OA development including repositories and journals. You can read more on Stephen’s recent post on the LSE Impact Blog.

On 25 June, Dr Stephen Pinfield will speak at the LIBER Conference 2015 in London. He will deliver a paper entitled '6.3 'Open' Initiatives in Higher Education Institutions: Towards an Integrated Strategy' with Sheila Corrall from the University of Pittsburgh, and previously the Information School at the University of Sheffield. Open approaches in higher education have evolved from open source software, open access to research, and open courseware, to initiatives concerned with infrastructure and process. Open science typifies this broader conception, but can be interpreted differently by stakeholders. Open developments are gaining impetus from bottom-up movements and top-down forces, but practitioner tactics and institutional policies rarely consider openness holistically, aspiring to similar goals without seeing the benefits of a coordinated strategy. This research aims to describe what an integrated open strategy for a university could look like, addressing bo...