Talk given to the CENDI group in May 2015. Discusses impact, mission and the effective use of the rich data available on the use of research.

1. Re-imagining the State of
Scholarly Communication
New modes of publication and assessment
Cameron Neylon - 7 May 2015 - CENDI
@cameronneylon - http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0068-716X

2. https://www.flickr.com/photos/schnappi/6116266037 CC BY

3. MissionMissionValues

4. Mission AssessmentAssessment

5. Mission AssessmentAssessment

6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/drachmann/327122302 CC-BY-SA

7. More data is the answer!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blprnt/3261815454 CC BY

8. http://www.flickr.com/photos/verzo/8020565592/ CC BY

9. http://www.flickr.com/photos/andrein/372192048/ CC BY-SA

10. More data is the answer?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blprnt/3261815454 CC BY

11. Types of Data
• Citations
!
• Usage
!
• Bookmarks
!
• Conversation
11

12. Citations
• Traditional and valued
!
• Less consistent than most think
– WoS, Scopus, CrossRef, (Europe)PMC
• Track a very specific kind of usage
• Only track a very specific kind of usage
• Accumulate very slowly
12

13. Usage
• Page views, downloads
!
• Measure usage by a wider community
• Measure greater range of use
• Inconsistent between publishers
• Rarely get demographics of viewers
• Difficult to distinguish form of impact on
usage data alone (“funny title” problem)
• Available on publication
13

14. Bookmarks
• Academic and “public” facing sites
– People collecting literature
– Building a library
!
• Measure greater range of use vs cites
• Focus on use by researchers (Mendeley)
• Rely on service providers
• Accumulate quickly
14

15. Conversations/Social Media
• Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, News sites
– Sharing literature within communities
– Conversations about literature
!
• Open to the public (but often actually
driven by/involving researchers)
• Rich demographic information (Twitter)
• Potential bias and detection problems
• Accumulate quickly
15

16. More data is the answer?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blprnt/3261815454 CC BY

17. A story…

18. altmetric.com

21. ...here’s one...

22. 0 20 40 60 80
0
5000
10000
15000
PLOS papers authored by University of Cape Town staff
Usage data from the PLoS journal website (combined HTML views and PDF downloads). Circle size correlates with CrossRef
citation counts. Red circles represent papers with "HIV" in title.
Months
Total Views
Not an obvious outlier...

23. ...but interesting
interactions...

25. This. Is Impact.

26. But telling stories…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jblmmwr/8027451065 CC BY

27. …doesn’t scale
https://www.flickr.com/photos/reuver/10105949326 CC BY

29. Impact

30. Impact
Research
Economic
Cultural
Education
Health
Environment

31. Impact
Research
Economic
Cultural
Education
Health
Environment

32. Research
Economic
Cultural
Education
Health
Environment

33. Research
Economic
Cultural
Education
Health
Environment
Research
Outputs

34. Research
Economic
Cultural
Education
Health
Environment
Research
Outputs

35. Research
Economic
Cultural
Education
Health
Environment
Research
Outputs

36. Research
Research
Outputs

37. Research
Research
Outputs

38. Research

39. Research
Citation

40. Research
Bookmark
Citation

41. Research
Bookmark
Citation
Previous
co-authorship

42. Research
Bookmark
Citation
Previous
co-authorship
Conference
co-attendance
Social media
conversation

53. https://www.flickr.com/photos/see-through-the-eye-of-g/5392290809 CC BY

54. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/3239638494 CC BY

55. https://www.flickr.com/photos/garycycles2/2575676610 CC BY

56. https://www.flickr.com/photos/53487196@N08/5439253136 CC BY

57. https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenny-pics/3239638494 CC BY

59. “Stories that persuade with data”
Anita de Waard

60. “Stories that persuade with data”
Anita de Waard
evidence

61. Scaling through abstraction
https://www.flickr.com/photos/28481088@N00/1169243392 CC BY

62. Building models…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/karen_roe/7616234498 CC BY

63. …testing models
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/4255117217/ CC BY

65. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/4655401891 CC BY

66. http://flickr.com/photos/virtualsugar/316200555/ CC-BY

67. @cameronneylon
cneylon@plos.org
http://cameronneylon.net