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Weekly News Digest
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September 12, 2019 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.
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Thieme and Area9 Establish a Joint Venture for Medical Education Solutions
Thieme founded a joint venture with Area9, a learning technology specialist. Thieme|Area9 will create “adaptive e-learning solutions for physicians, residents, medical students, and allied health professionals. The products, designed for national and international markets, combine the Thieme Group’s high-quality specialist information with Area9’s innovative learning technology.”According to Thieme’s SVP and Area9’s co-founder, “By combining strong content and innovative technology, the joint venture will develop services that will put it at the forefront of the international education and training market.” For more information, read the press release.
Kudos Pro Maximizes Engagement With and Potential Impact of Research
Kudos introduced Kudos Pro, a toolkit to help research groups, departments, faculties, and institutes create and manage research communication plans for targeting multiple audiences, share information about their research, showcase their research outputs, and track and report on reach and engagement. It supports them through the entire lifecycle of a project.“The focus to date has been on logging and measuring impact,” says Melinda Kenneway, Kudos’ CEO. “There have been no tools or services to help researchers plan and optimize that impact. This is the critical gap that Kudos Pro now fills.” For more information, read the blog post.
Ex Libris Esploro Integrates Altmetric Badges
Ex Libris, a ProQuest company, has integrated Altmetric badges (which provide summaries of online engagement) into the research publication pages of its Esploro solution. With Esploro, universities can capture, manage, and expose faculty members’ output and data from a single platform. This integration will give researchers, institutions, and others additional insight into the attention that each research output gets following publication. They can access the information directly from the institution’s researcher portal pages.For more information, read the press release.
Adam Matthew Rolls Out Ethnomusicology Collection
Adam Matthew published Ethnomusicology: Global Field Recordings, a new digital collection. Produced in collaboration with the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, with additional sources from the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives, it features more than 3,000 hours of recordings from around the world. According to Adam Matthew, “Focusing on the social and cultural study of music, the content within this collection provides a route into the lives of the source communities represented within the recordings, allowing users a unique insight into their musical traditions.”For more information, read the news item.
Digital Science Unveils Report on Reproducibility and Falsifiability in Research
Digital Science published a report, “Making Science Better: Reproducibility, Falsifiability and the Scientific Method,” which addresses the “appropriate documentation and sharing of research data, clear analysis and processes, and the sharing of code,” among other topics. It also “looks at the current state of reproducibility in 2019, as well as the importance of falsifiability in the research process.” Key findings include the following:- All research stakeholders have a responsibility to make their work both reproducible and falsifiable. Reproducible: so that anyone can follow the stated method and reach the same conclusions; and falsifiable: so that the method used can appropriately test the hypothesis.
- While not all research materials need to be accessible due to confidentiality and/or anonymity, achieving adequate transparency is essential to reproducibility.
- The research paper should be a route to test and recreate the research that has been carried out. This is the basis of the scientific method.
- Falsifiability is an integral part of the research process. It adds credibility to research and allows further work to build on solid foundations.
For more information, read the press release.
'Automatic for the People' by Claire Zulkey
Claire Zulkey writes for American Libraries, “Automated and self-service libraries—which have been popular in Europe for years—are gaining a foothold in the US. Will these services eliminate librarian jobs, or are they a cost-effective way to stretch budgets and provide basic services while freeing staff for other work?” Zulkey talks to library staffers at various locations to discover how they’ve been implementing nonstaffed open hours.For more information, read the article.
IMLS Expands Initiative to Bring STEM Learning to Underserved Students
IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) is providing $1.9 million in new funding from the Department of Education to expand an initiative that introduces underserved young people to STEM-related activities. (It was a pilot project in 2014.) According to the press release, “This national project, now expanded both in scope and scale, will equip [seven] children’s museums and science centers with making activities, resources, tools, and training, enabling them to train up to forty 21st Century Community Learning Centers across eight states, with the goal of reaching up to 1,000 students [during the 2019–2020 school year]. A new survey, part of the third-party evaluation, will assess the outcomes of the project, including changes in interest, skills, and behaviors related to STEM and making among youth participants.”For more information, read the press release.
Creative Commons' New Book Complements Its CC Certificate Program
Creative Commons, in collaboration with ALA, will launch a book titled Creative Commons for Educators and Librarians in November 2019 that serves as a print complement to the CC Certificate program. Creative Commons’ official 10-week online training program in open licensing covers copyright law, Creative Commons legal tools, and recommended practices. (Educators and academic librarians can take it as a 1-week in-person boot camp.)For more information, read the blog post.
'Maintaining Connections in a Virtual Library' by Lauren Hays
Lauren Hays writes on Lucidea’s Think Clearly Blog, “Many special libraries continue to provide face-to-face services, allowing for more readily established connections. However, as physical space for libraries is reduced and virtual libraries become increasingly common, the need for virtual services increases. … Librarians need to consider both how to create connections to promote use of the virtual library and to encourage user autonomy when physical and pedagogical barriers are present.”Hays’ tips for “maintain[ing] professional connections when working and interacting virtually with clients” include having quick responses to inquiries, choosing technology formats that meet user needs, and creating self-paced and on-demand training resources. For more information, read the blog post.
WomenCorporateDirectors Lists 10 Trends That Are Important for Corporate Boards
WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD) Foundation states in a press release, “Heading into fall with eyes on 2020, corporate boards should brace for the increasing impact of digital migration, artificial intelligence (AI), and cultural shifts on their companies—and what this means for their role as directors. …” WCD is sharing 10 trends that should be on board agendas:- Increasing need for a “digital trust bank.”
- Persistence of demand for digital currency.
- Stronger need for boards to push management on technology advancement.
- Higher risk of anti-trust liability with AI.
- Rapid leaps in AI functionality creating need for guard rails.
- Broader application of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity.
- Less fear among employees about machine replacement of jobs.
- People risk continues to be as important as technology risk.
- Growing risk around the next level of #MeToo lawsuits.
- Oversight of culture now a permanent part of the board’s brief.
For more information and details about each trend, read the press release.
Send correspondence concerning the Weekly News Digest to NewsBreaks Editor
Brandi Scardilli
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