Information Literacy & Open Access for Physics and Astronomy Graduate StudentsJackie Werner, Science LibrarianGeorgia State Universityjwerner3@gsu.edu

Outline

Background Open Access & SCOAP3

Open Access in Physics & Astronomy Faculty and Open Access Graduate Students and Library Research

Methodology Results Discussion

Introduction

Open Access & SCOAP3

Open Access & SCOAP3

SCOAP3

Sponsoring Committee for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics

High-Energy Physics partnership Negotiated with top ten HEP journals to pay fees to make all

articles green open access 4,280 articles published as green OA in 2014, “comprising the

majority of the high-quality peer-reviewed literature in the field of High-Energy Physics”

OA in Physics & Astronomy

arXiv Founded in 1991 Preprints and OA articles Multiple disciplines Most HEP articles appear on arXiv

OA in Physics & Astronomy

Astrophysics Data System (ADS) Founded in 1992 Abstract database including

arXiv & traditional journals Includes OA and non Digitizes older publications

OA in Physics & Astronomy

INSPIRE-HEP Replaced SPIRES in 2012 Searches arXiv & HEP resources Curated content in HEP Includes OA and non

OA in Physics & Astronomy

CERN Document Server (CDS) Covers all CERN publications Searches arXiv & other HEP

publications Includes OA and non

OA in Physics & Astronomy

Google Scholar Not technically OA, but…

Faculty and Open Access

HEP researchers support open access Scientists are aware of open access Faculty & graduate students recognize what is open access

Graduate Students and Library Research Graduate students turn to faculty advisors and lab group for

literature searches …if they receive instruction at all Are graduate students aware of open access?

My Research

Methodology

Conducted at Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University

Interviewed graduate coordinator for Physics and Astronomy program

Sent survey to all Physics & Astronomy graduate students

Results

Current responses: 1 graduate coordinator interview 16 complete graduate student surveys

0-1 years in program: 4 1-2 years: 3 2-3 years: 3 3-4 years: 3 4+ years: 3

Q8. Have you ever received training or asked for help on how to search for physics articles in graduate school? • No• Yes, in graduate courses• Yes, by advisor• Yes, by a librarian speaking to a group• Yes, but only after asking a professor/librarian• Yes, somewhere else

Information Literacy Instruction – Faculty Graduate students given practice with oral presentation and

published papers Information literacy instruction and practice depends on

graduate advisors No library orientation for graduate students?

Information Literacy Instruction – Graduate Students

None Yes Other0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Information Literacy Instruction – Graduate Students

None Graduate Courses

Advisor Librarian After asking Fellow Students

Other0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Q6. Are you aware of open access (OA)?1. Never heard of it2. Heard the term, but don’t know what it means3. Yes, somewhat aware4. Yes, very aware5. Yes, and I keep up with news and developments in

open access

Open Access – Faculty

Library faculty advisory board spent year educating campus on open access

Official stance open access publication is encouraged, but not required

Students may not know which resources library is paying for

Open Access – Graduate Students

0

2

4

6

8

Open Access – Graduate Students

0-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4+1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

Years in program

Aver

age

Awar

enes

s of O

A (1

-5)

Q9. Have you published a peer-reviewed article while in graduate school?Q10. How many peer-reviewed articles have you published while in graduate school?Q11. How many peer-reviewed articles have you submitted while in graduate school, but are not yet published?Q12. Where is your article(s) currently available?

Publication – Faculty

Some faculty “take it as their responsibility” to have students write papers, others don’t

Publication is not required for graduation

Publication – Graduate Students

Yes

Accepte

d, bu

t not

yet p

ublish

ed

Subm

itted,

but n

ot ye

t acce

pted

No or n

ot ye

t sub

mitted

012345678

Number of Publications

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8Published articles Submitted & accepted articles

Availability of Publications

Subscription journal

OA journal Subject archive University archive Other0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Q5. Are you aware of these resources and do you use them to find physics and/or astronomy articles?1. Never heard of2. Aware of but don’t use/use rarely3. Aware of and use4. Use frequently

Resources Used – Faculty

“Everybody uses [arXiv] without fail.” Many faculty don’t use journals and don’t care about final

publication

Resources Used – Graduate Students

ADS arXiv CDS Google Google Scholar

SPIRES Web of Science

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4Resource Use - Average

Fam

iliarit

y/Us

e of

reso

urce

(1-4

)

Resources Used – Graduate Students

ADS arXiv CDS Google Google Scholar

SPIRES Web of Science

02468

1012141618

Resource Use - Simplified

yes (3-4) n (1-2)

Num

ber o

f res

pond

ents

Resources Used – Graduate Students

0-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4+0.51

1.52

2.53

3.54

4.5Use of arXiv

Years in program

Aver

age

Awar

enes

s & U

se o

f arX

iv (1

-4)

Q13. How do you keep up with new developments and publications in your field?

Keeping Up – Faculty

“Everybody uses [arXiv] without fail.” Faculty get Table of Contents from journals Students mostly use Google Scholar—”as good as any search

engine we pay for” Faculty and students encouraged to keep up in person

(conferences, etc.)

Keeping Up – Graduate Students

Individual Journals

Google Scholar

In-Person arXiv Readcube RSS Doesn't0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Q14. How do you think methods of keeping up with new developments and /or publications in your field will change in the next five years?

Changes in Five Years

No “dramatic changes” Aggregation “Scientific community similar to LinkedIn” Improvements to existing resources “Wider recognition of open access journals”

Takeaways

We don’t know how graduate students do research Open access resources may serve students’ needs …but students don’t know what library resources do Many questions still to ask

References Catalano, A. (2011). Patterns of graduate students' information seeking

behavior: A meta-synthesis of the literature. Journal of Documentation, 69(2): 243-274.

George, C., Bright, A., Hurlbert, T., Linke, E.C., St. Clair, G., & Stein, J. (2006). Scholarly use of information: Graduate students' information seeking behaviour. Information Research, 11(4): paper 272. Retrieved from http://InformationR.net/ir/11-4/paper272.html.

Gentil-Beccot, A., Mele, S., & Brooks, T.C. (2009). Citing and reading behaviours in high-energy physics: How a community stopped worrying about journals and learned to love repositories. Scientometrics, 84(2), 345-355.

Ginsparg, P. (1994). First steps towards electronic research communication. Computers in Physics, 8(2), 390-396.

Hemminger, B.M., Lu, D., Vaughan, K.T.L., Adams, S.J. (2007). Information seeking behavior of academic students. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(14): 2205-2225.

References Jamali, H.R. & Nicholas, D. (2006). Communication and information-seeking

behaviour of research students in physicist and astronomy. ASIST Annual Conference, 3-8 November 2006, Austin, Texas.

Larivière, V., Sugimoto, C. R., Bergeron, P. (2013). In their own image? A comparison of doctoral students' and faculty members' referencing behavior. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(5): 1045-1054.

Park, J. (2007). Motivations for web-based scholarly publishing: Do scientists recognize open availability as an advantage? Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 40(4): 343-369.

Suber, P. (2013). Open Access Overview. Retrieved from http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm (June 22, 2015).

Any Questions?Jackie Werner (jwerner3@gsu.edu)