1. Towards new modes of publishing and information-sharing among researchers at Pitt and internationally
Timothy S. Deliyannides
Director, Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing
and Head, Information Technology
University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
131st RCKC Colloquium, Research Center for Knowledge Communities, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
March 1, 2016
My name is Timothy Deliyannides and I am the Director of the Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing at the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh.
Thank you for inviting me share with you the work that we are doing at the University of Pittsburgh to find new ways to share information as widely as possible.
[ABSTRACT (DO NOT READ):
The Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing (OSCP) at the University of Pittsburgh Library System is engaged in a wide range of activities to support scholarly communication for researchers at Pitt, with special emphasis on promoting open access to research for the global community of scholars. In this talk, an overview of the activities of OSCP will be shown. In particular, the library’s extensive journal publishing program, (publishing via institutional repository), the open access author fee fund, and innovations in measuring the scholarly impact of researchers at Pitt will be described. Additionally, the talk will explore the underlying philosophy and policies behind these activities, and explain the strategic goals of Pitt’s University Library System to demonstrate leadership in scholarly communications, publishing, and information sharing.]

2. A COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM
THE OPEN SHARING OF SCHOLARLY RESEARCH:
A COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM
To begin, I want to give you an overview of the wide range of activities we are engaged in to support the open sharing of research.

3. A Comprehensive Program for OA
Support for Gold Open Access:
Publishing journals, books, ETDs, conference proceedings
Open Access Author Fee Fund; COPE
Support for Green Open Access:
6 global, subject-based repositories
Local institutional repository and OA Policy
Learning and teaching about OA
Measuring and marking research impact
Advocacy and support for our OA partners
Our program is built around support for Open Access to scholarly research. I will not spend much time today to talk about why Open Access is so important. We believe that the open sharing of knowledge is good for the researchers because it promotes their work and helps them get discovered and cited. It is also good for the University, and especially for the library. Free, immediate access to research helps the entire scholarly community to make faster progress, and finally, we believe that Open access benefits the general public, who are many times the people funding the research.
So we take multiple approaches to support Openness:
The term GOLD Open Access refers to formal publishing of articles and books that are immediately free to readers from the start.
The term GREEN Open Access refers to sharing already published materials in online Open Access repositories
We also spend much effort on teaching and learning about Open Access among ourselves as librarians, and with the larger University community.
We work on measuring the success of Open Access using new and innovative measures. I will discuss our use of “altmetrics’ later.
And finally, we think it is important to advocate for Open Access on a larger stage, nationally and internationally.

4. Strategic Goals of the ULS Innovation in Scholarly Communication
Support researchers in
efficient knowledge production
rapid dissemination of new research
open access to scholarly information
Build collaborative partnerships around the world
Improve the production and sharing of scholarly research
Support innovative publishing services
Establish trusted repositories for the research output of the University
This is an excerpt from the University Library System’s strategic goals. We do see our role to help transform scholarly communication and to advance open access as core to our mission.
So our strategic goals emphasize: [READ POINTS ON SLIDE]

5. THE ULS PUBLISHING PROGRAM
OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS AND REPOSITORIES:
THE ULS PUBLISHING PROGRAM
Over the past 15 years, we have built an extensive publishing program. I’d like to tell you how it evolved.

6. Author Self-archiving Repositories (Eprints)
2001 PhilSci Archive
2001 Electronic Theses & Dissertations
2002 Archive of European Integration
2003 Minority Health Archive
2003 Aphasiology Archive
(general Institutional Repository)
2010 Industry Studies Working Papers
I will not say much about our extensive digitization program, except to say that we have digitized over 100,000 digital objects since the 1990’s. But I would like share with you our progress in publishing original scholarly content beginning over 15 years ago. We have been offering subject-based Open Access repositories since Most of these began as collaborative projects with University of Pittsburgh faculty. The audience for several of these archives is not local, but global. For instance, the PhilSci-Archive is widely recognized as the global repository for rapid dissemination of new research in the discipline of Philosophy of Science. Many preprints first deposited there are later published in refereed journals. The Archive of European Integration contains nearly 50,000 documents and is the largest repository of EU documents outside Europe.

7. ULS E-Journal Publishing
Rapid growth to 40 journals since 2007
50 additional journals hosted by Scholarly Exchange
Most are Open Access and electronic-only
Based on PKP Open Journal Systems (OJS)
Editorial teams are located around the world
Six journals have multilingual content
Moving from preprints to fully refereed scholarly e-journals was a natural progression for us. We began publishing e-journals in 2007 and we are now up to 40 titles, with several more under consideration.
Most of our journal publications are Open Access and only available in electronic format. We began working only with editors at the University of Pittsburgh, but now, more than half of our publishing partners are external to the University One of the most rewarding things for us is to work with editorial teams all over the world. We have several publishing partners Latin America and also in the UK, France, India, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and Indonesia.

8. Here, you can see the growth in the number of documents we have published in our journals in repositories over the past 15 years, now reaching 80,000.

9. Repository administration and publishing: two different roles
‘Dissemination’ vs. ‘Publishing’
Author self-archiving vs. editorial control
Institutional promotion vs. unbiased selection
The value proposition:
Service to the institution
Service to the profession
Service to the world
I’d like to reflect for a moment on two different roles that a library might play: on the one hand, the role of Repository Administrator where published information is simply being shared or disseminated, and on the other hand, the role of Publisher, where the library actually participates in the process of knowledge production.
In the role of repository administrator, we simply provide a platform for authors to share their own work. As a publisher, we have a responsibility for making sure the content is subject to editorial control. We need to concern ourselves with quality control, best practices, and academic integrity to a higher degree than in our role as a repository host.
An institutional repository often has the goal of promoting the work of a single University. In contrast, as a publisher, we need to avoid the appearance of bias. So, for example, we require all of the journals that we publish to issue an open call for papers, and we discourage them from promoting the work of any one institution.
Finally, the perception of the value of these different services may differ. Increasing the visibility of the University’s output through the institutional repository is seen as service to the University, but increasing the number of Open Access peer-reviewed scholarly articles can be seen as a service to the entire global research community.

10. Why become a Publisher?
Provide services that scholars understand, need and value
Transform the unsustainable commercial subscription pricing system
Take direct action to support Open Access
Deepen our understanding of scholarly communications issues
Take on new roles more relevant to researchers
So why should a library become a publisher?
Perhaps most importantly, we want to become more relevant to our research faculty and provide services that scholars understand, need and value.
We also want to take direct action to support Open Access because the current unsustainable commercial subscription pricing system is very punishing to libraries.
As we become more involved in publishing, we find that we gain a much better and deeper understanding of scholarly communications issues.
We believe that through rethinking our traditional roles and venturing into these new, non-traditional areas, we feel we can create a future where librarians are essential partners in the research process.

11. Journal publishing goals
Propel scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh
Extend service beyond the home institution
Save ‘at-risk’ journals that lack the infrastructure or expertise to convert to electronic
Incentivize Open Access Publishing worldwide
Our primary responsibility is to our own colleagues at our home institution. We are doing everything we can to increase the visibility and discoverability of research produced at the University of Pittsburgh. But we also feel that we have a larger responsibility to the global research community to help change the current landscape for scholarly publishing. We have tried to reach beyond our own institution and offer service to partners around the world who agree to Open Access for the contents of their journal publications.

12. Journal Publishing Strategies
Maintain quality and academic integrity
Choose partners carefully
Rely on self-sufficient editors
Work smart, not hard
Keep costs low
Here are some of the strategies that we have used to grow our portfolio of journals. Most important is setting standards for quality. Open Access publishing has suffered from unfair criticism that the quality of the research and the editorial process is somehow less than commercial subscription-based publishing. We strive to be a good counterexample to this myth and so quality control is very important to us.
We choose our partners carefully through a selective process.
We also have developed a system that allows us to work efficiently. With a very small staff (around 3 full time employees), we are able to support 40 journal titles, keeping our costs very low.

13. Journal publishing services:
Hardware and software hosting services
Advice on best practices in e-publishing
Web-based training for editorial staff
Graphic design services
ISSN Registration
Assignment of DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers)
Improve discovery through abstracting and indexing
Digital preservation through LOCKSS
Demonstrate impact through alternative metrics
These are the basic services that we provide. [READ POINTS FROM SLIDE] Most of our services relate to one-time start-up activities. We provide initial training for editorial staff using Web conferencing software. After initial training our partners are expected to train their own new staff going forward.

14. Ensuring and Maintaining Quality
Selection criteria
Publications Advisory Board
Advises on major policy decisions
Reviews journal proposals
Ongoing review of editorial practices
Assessment of research impact
To help in our policy development and with our decision-making for new acquisitions, we have formed a Publications Advisory Board. All new proposals are reviewed by the Board. They also advise us on major policy issues. For example, we recently changed our standard author license agreement to use a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, with input and approval from the advisory board.

15. Selection Criteria Original scholarly content
Rigorous blind review process
Open call for papers
Commitment to Open Access for content (CC BY 4.0 License)
Editorial Board of internationally recognized scholars
Adherence to best practices
Each journal is required to submit a formal proposal during as part of our selection process. We apply our selection criteria when we review each proposal. [READ CRITERIA FROM SLIDE]

16. Scholarly Exchange® Hosting Service
Approximately 55 additional Open Access journals
Acquired by the ULS on August 1, 2012
Hosting service only
ULS is NOT the publisher and does not provide publishing services
Less rigorous selection process
In addition to the 40 journals for which the University Library System is the publisher, we also offer a separate hosting service that houses an additional 55 journals. We are NOT the publisher of record for these journals. We do not offer the full range of services, nor do we provide the same level of quality control or the same range of services. The Scholarly Exchange hosting service is an excellent service for journals in low resource settings that do not have the infrastructure to support journal publishing. The cost is very low (free for the first year, and $750 USD per year thereafter). Our clients for this service are located all over the world.

17. At this point I would like to share with you some examples of journals that we publish.
We do offer graphic design services, and here is a quick look at some examples or the designs for different journals to give you an idea of the variation and customization that is possible.
This first journal is published for Pennsylvania State library association. It is one of two library journals that we publish, and we particularly love working with librarians.

18. Excellence in Higher Education is sponsored by a consortium of Universities in Indonesia.

19. The Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy publishes articles in both English and French.

20. This is a title that publishes research articles in an emerging field called telerehabilitation, which is the delivery of rehabilitation services remotely using the Internet.

21. Here is another multilingual journal
Here is another multilingual journal. Biblios is a leading journal in Library and Information Science in Latin America, and publishes in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.

22. Contemporaneity is published by doctoral students in the University of Pittsburgh’s History of Art and Architecture Department.

23. Revista Iberoamericana is a journal of critical analysis for Latin American literature. It is our longest-running journal, with 77 years of back issues dating to 1939.

24. This journal is published in collaboration with an editorial team in Kazakhstan and features articles on public health topics in central Asian countries.

25. And finally, I am very proud of our journal Shashi, which is devoted to Japanese corporate histories, and is co-edited by my colleague at the Unversity of Pittsburgh, Mr. Hiroyuki Good. The software that we use for journal publishing, Open Journal Systems, or OJS, is localized for many languages. Here you can see what the interface looks like in Japanese.

26. Sustaining Our Publishing Program
Since July 1, 2012, we charge fees for services to all new publishing partners
Cost is only $1,000 USD per year
Partial cost recovery only
We incentivize Open Access by subsidizing the costs
Pitt publications receive a 50% discount
When we first started our journal publishing program, we did not charge our publishing partners at all for our publishing services, Beginning in 2012, we charge modest fees for services to all new publishing partners.
The cost is low - only $1,000 USD per year
This represents partial cost recovery only. We subsidize some of the costs from the library’s operating budget. This is a way of encouraging Open Access publishing.
Titles with editors at the University of Pittsburgh receive a 50% discount.

27. Learning and teaching about open access
THE OFFICE OF SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION & PUBLISHING
Learning and teaching about open access
Because change has been so rapid in the area of scholarly communications and publishing, we must invest time and effort into continuous learning and understanding what these changes mean for us in the libraries.

28. Learning and teaching about OA
Pitt Open Access Web site (openaccess.pitt.edu)
Lunch and learn series for liaison librarians
Monthly series of informal talks
24 topics on wide range of Open Access & scholarly communications issues
Inform ourselves and strategize how we can best talk to our patrons about the issues
Outreach to the university community
Faculty and student orientations
Elevator talks
Open Access Week activities
I would like to tell you about some of the multiple approaches we use to learn from each other and to teach others in our community about the open sharing of research.
First, we maintain an Open Access Web site for the University, which becomes very important for us especially in October of each year when we join in the World wide celebration of Open Access Week (the last full week of October each year). I encourage you to have a look at the Web site and see some of the interesting presentations from our Open Access Week last year. In particular, we organized an excellent panel discussion on Open Peer Review, which you can view online.
We recently completed a two-year cycle of monthly lunchtime learning sessions on 24 different topics relating to scholarly communications, including topics like:
new legislation on open access, our Open Access author fee fund, traditional peer review, new innovation in peer review, copyright and fair use, and publishing ethics.
We also spend time on talking with university departments about Open Access, and coaching our subject specialist librarians on how to talk with their faculty about the issues.

29. OSCP Consulting Services
Copyright law
Fair use
Public performance rights
Authors’ rights
Best practices for publishing
Advice on sharing work and demonstrating impact
Academic integrity & publishing ethics
Here are some of the consulting services that we offer to anyone in the university community. We will help faculty, students and staff at the University to advise on:
Copyright
Fair use
Public performance rights
Authors’ rights
Best practices for publishing
Advice on sharing work and demonstrating impact
Academic integrity & publishing ethics

30. THE OPEN ACCESS AUTHOR FEE FUND
SUPPORTING FACULTY IN PUBLISHING VIA OPEN ACCESS
THE OPEN ACCESS AUTHOR FEE FUND
One way are trying to encourage University of Pittsburgh researchers to publish in Open Access journals is through our Open Access Author Fee fund.

31. The Open Access Author Fee Fund
A program that pays publishing fees on behalf of authors at Pitt who wish to publish in Open Access journals
Open to faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, staff & post-doc researchers
BUT:
Only eligible authors are awarded funding
Only eligible journals are covered
Through this program, the library pays publishing fees on behalf of authors at Pitt who wish to publish in Open Access journals.
The program is open to faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, staff & post-doc researchers.
Each time we receive a request, we are very careful about screening the journals for quality.

32. Why do authors need funding for OA publishing?
Open Access journals cannot rely on subscription revenues
Many OA journals are funded through article processing charges (APCs)
APCs are more common in STEM journals
The burden is on the author to find funding (personal funds, grant funds, institutional funding)
Why do we feel this program is necessary?
Because Open Access journals cannot rely on subscription revenues, many Open Access journals are funded through article processing charges (APCs)
Article Processing Charges are more common in STEM journals
The burden is on the author to find funding, which may come from personal funds, grant funds, or institutional funding.

33. What is the library’s role?
Incentivize authors to publish in OA journals
Encourage good choices for OA publishing
Use standards to screen for quality
Support fair business models for OA (no hybrid OA)
Support the efforts of OA publishers
Experiment with a sustainable cost model for OA
Collaborate with other academic libraries to help transform the publishing landscape
At the University of Pittsburgh, we believe that the library has a responsibility to help authors who want to publish in open Access journals. After all, it it the library that struggles to keep up with the multi-million dollar cost of serial subscriptions from commercial publishers. So we want to offer incentives for Open Access publishing.
We also want to make sure these dollars are well spent, so we are careful about screening the journals for quality.
This program has been very successful and is a way for us to help other Open Access publishers and collaborate with other libraries to help transform the publishing landscape.

34. Alternative metrics MEASURING THE IMPACT OF RESEARCH:
I would like to move on to our work with measuring and demonstrating the impact of research at the University of Pittsburgh. We have been using alternative metrics for the last several years to give a more complete picture of how research is being used and shared in ways that go beyond simple citation counts.

35. Measuring scholarly impact
Increasingly, scholars work on the Web
Growing pressure from institutions and funders to demonstrate impact and return on investment
Altmetrics combine traditional impact measures (citation counts) with non-traditional measures:
online references in gray literature
online links to published and unpublished works
measures of impact through social networking
Today, scholars are working more and more on the Web
They face growing pressure from institutions and funders to demonstrate their own impact and return on investment
Alternative metrics, or “Altmetrics” combine traditional impact measures (citation counts) with non-traditional measures such as:
online references in unpublished literature
online links to published and unpublished works
measures of impact through social networking

36. Why Altmetrics? More comprehensive Covers impact of online behavior
Traditional citations PLUS usage, social media
Covers impact of online behavior
scholars increasingly work online
Measures impact immediately
citation counts take years to appear in literature
So how do Altmetrics help demonstrate researcher impact?
First, we’re able to put together a composite picture of many different measures.
Second, we’re able to track and show evidence of online behavior for the first time.
Then, we can also show the impact of formats whose impact has seldom been measured in the past. Here, I’m talking about the content that we all have in our institutional repositories – what we sometimes call grey literature – which might technical reports, conference presentations, or white papers. I have found it very interesting to look at the metrics for electronic theses and dissertations in particular. We’ve haven’t really had a window into this before now.
Finally, altmetrics can show impact immediately as it happens – we don’t need to wait three to five years for citations to appear before we can start to demonstrate interest and uptake in the research.

37. Plum Analytics at Pitt http://plu.mx/pitt
Pitt was PlumX’s first partner (2012)
Integrated with IR, 4 subject repositories and 37 journals
Aggregates dozens of metrics:
Scopus, CrossRef, PubMed
Central, USPTO
Twitter, Facebook
Wikipedia
Mendeley
The particular altmetrics system that we are using at Pitt is called PlumX. This software was developed by a company called Plum Analytics.
In 2012, Pitt became Plum Analytics’ PlumX’s first customer.
We have now integrated PlumX with the institutional repository, with 4 subject repositories, and with 37 peer-reviewed journals.
PlumX brings together dozens of metrics including:
Scopus, CrossRef, PubMed Central, the US Patent and Trademark Office
Twitter, Facebook
Wikipedia
Mendeley

38. I would like to show you what the altmetrics display looks like in our institutional repository.
Here’s an article by team of researchers at Pitt that was published in the journal PloS ONE. You’re looking at the record as it appears in our institutional repository. If you scroll down the abstract page, you’ll see where we’ve embedded the PlumX widget.

39. Each time this page is displayed, the PlumX widget is dynamically generated and shows current information from PlumX. You can see that this particular article is already highly cited by looking at the citation section in orange at the bottom of the PlumX display.
But you can also see many other metrics that show that the article is heavily used and downloaded. 81 Mendeley readers have bookmarked it, and people have tweeted about it and talked about on social media. For most of these metrics, you can drill down and see more detail. So, for instance, the author or any reader for that matter can actually read the text of all the tweets firsthand.

40. We have also incorporated PlumX into our journal publishing program
We have also incorporated PlumX into our journal publishing program. It’s very important to us and to our publishing partners to demonstrate the impact of these publications in every way that we can.
Here’s an example from the journal Pennsylvania Libraries: Research and Practice . We use Open Journal Systems as the platform for our journal publishing program and we’ve imbedded the PlumX widget into all of our OJS journals – in fact, we wrote the plugin that can be used to add PlumX to any OJS journal.
In this example, if you scroll down to the bottom of the abstract page, you see…

41. …the PlumX widget at the bottom of the abstract page
…the PlumX widget at the bottom of the abstract page. This article is about how libraries can use Wikipedia to increase the discoverability of their digital collections – an interesting topic! This article hasn’t been cited yet, but it has gotten some interest in social media.

42. ADVOCACY FOR OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING
SUPPORTING THE OPEN ACCESS MOVEMENT
ADVOCACY FOR OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING
I want to close by talking about the important role that libraries can have in advocating for Open Access publishing on a national and international level.

43. Advocacy for OA publishing
Founding member of the Library Publishing Coalition
Member of Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE)
Major Development Partner for Public Knowledge Project (PKP)
Here are some of the ways that we have become involved:
We are a founding member of the Library Publishing Coalition, a new group of mostly North American libraries which came together to help support each other in our new role as publishers. This organization is now seeking international members, They have an excellent conference each year on publishing in libraries.
We are a member of the Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity (COPE). This is a group of institutions that have implemented an Open Access Author Fee Fund.
We are one of four Major Development Partners for the Public Knowledge Project (PKP). This Canadian organization is the developer of Open Jounrals Systems (or OJS), the worlds premier Open Access publishing software, and the system we use for our publishing program. We contribute one half-time position to software development to help enhance the OJS software.
We are also the first library publisher in North America to join the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). This is an important trade association that helps set standards for Open Access Publishing.
First library publisher in North America to join the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA)

44. Download this presentation here: http://d-scholarship. pitt
Download this presentation here: OSCP Web site:
I thank you very much for coming here today. Please come and look at our Web site, where we describe our services and policies, and list our journal publications. Please write to us at the contact address there if you have questions and would like more information.
Thank you.
Please contact me with questions or comments