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Topic: Research practices

Blog Post
March 20, 2024

The Library of Congress Research Experience Survey Is Open

Frances Benjamin Johnston. Students in the Reading Room of the Library of Congress. 1899. https://jstor.org/stable/community.14642721. Ithaka S+R is honored to be partnering with the Library of Congress on a research study to better understand the experiences of people who use the library’s collections and resources to conduct research. This mixed methods project includes an online survey followed by interviews of selected researchers. The findings from this study will be used to help inform the Library of Congress’…
Blog Post
March 14, 2024

An Emerging Framework for Data Services for Indigenous Data

As part of our ongoing project, Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support, we completed a national inventory of research data services offered at higher education institutions across the US and Canada. While conducting the inventory, we observed an uneven approach to the topic of Indigenous research data sovereignty and governance at libraries and other units involved in research support and facilitation. Some schools provided robust information about the imperative for Indigenous groups and scholars to have control over…
Past Event
March 9, 2024

The Reality of Artificiality: Artificial Intelligence and the Academe

Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Conference

At the Northeast Modern Language Association Annual Conference in Boston, Claire Baytas will participate in a roundtable to discuss the impact of generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, on teaching and learning, sharing insights from Ithaka S+R’s GenAI Product Tracker and a recent issue brief on the product landscape of generative AI in higher education. Other panelists include Teresa Lobalsamo, Peggy Bloomer, Maria Dikcis, Joshua Marsh, and Summer Cardarelli. Explore the full conference schedule to learn more…
Blog Post
March 7, 2024

Keeping Up with the Educational Market for Generative AI Tools

Announcing Ithaka S+R’s Product Tracking Tool

Ithaka S+R has been closely tracking the generative AI product landscape through a unique Product Tracking Tool. The Product Tracker includes descriptions of tools marketed towards postsecondary faculty or student users, as well as information about the pricing model, key features, and other relevant detail.
Issue Brief
March 7, 2024

Generative AI in Higher Education

The Product Landscape

Generative AI has quickly gained a significant foothold in academia, and is now used widely for teaching, learning, and research purposes. New products are appearing so rapidly that just keeping up with them is difficult, and understanding the value of individual products in a now-crowded marketplace is a major challenge for end users and for university CIOs, IT departments, and others involved in decision making about which products will be supported and/or licensed for campus users.
Blog Post
February 29, 2024

Crossing Boundaries

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Twin Campuses and International Collaboration

On September 1, 2022, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) opened a new “smart green” campus in Guangzhou, China. Described as “heralding the university of the future” and designed for climate emergencies, this campus represents a significant milestone in HKUST’s strategic vision as it partners with the original HKUST campus located just across the border in Clear Bay, Hong Kong.
Blog Post
February 8, 2024

Biomedical Research and Generative AI

Announcing an International Survey

AI has driven important advances in biomedical research for some time, spurring drug discovery, improving medical imaging, and facilitating engagements with large datasets in emerging fields like precision medicine. However, recent advances, notably the advent of consumer-friendly generative AI tools, have increased the likelihood that AI-informed research and scholarly communication will be ubiquitous in the near future. Managing this transformation in ways that ensure high-quality, reproducible results and ethical, inclusive research practices is important across academic disciplines, but identifying current…
Blog Post
January 29, 2024

Shared Infrastructure for the Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing

The scholarly publishing sector is undergoing its second digital transformation. In the first, we saw a massive shift from paper to digital, but otherwise publishing retained many of the characteristics of the print era. In this current second digital transformation, many of these structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs are being revamped in favor of new approaches that bring tremendous opportunities, and also non-trivial risks, to scholarly communication. In a report published today, with funding from…
Research Report
January 29, 2024

The Second Digital Transformation of Scholarly Publishing

Strategic Context and Shared Infrastructure

The scholarly publishing sector is undergoing its second digital transformation. The first saw a massive shift from paper to digital, but otherwise publishing retained many of the characteristics of the print era. In this current second digital transformation, many of the structures, workflows, incentives, and outputs that characterized the print era are being revamped in favor of new approaches that bring tremendous opportunities, and also non-trivial risks, to scholarly communication. It is our objective with this paper to examine the…
Past Event
December 11, 2023

The Research Data Support Landscape

Findings from a National Inventory of University Services

Research universities often offer a range of support services to researchers who conduct data-intensive research, though these services are often so dispersed that neither researchers nor administrators fully understand what services are offered and how to access them. The national distribution of research data support services is even more opaque. At the CNI Fall 2023 Membership Meeting on December 11 at 5:20-6:10 pm ET, Dylan Ruediger will participate in a lightning session on “The Research Data…
Blog Post
August 15, 2023

The Future of Annual Meetings and Scholarly Societies

New Report from Ithaka S+R and JSTOR Labs

As the pandemic recedes into memory, scholarly societies find themselves at a crossroads. For the past several years, the decision to hold hybrid or virtual meetings was dictated by outside forces: it is now a matter of choice. Though the virtual meetings of 2020-22 mostly failed to provide the rich social and networking experiences that in-conference meetings provide, they were more accessible to a much wider, and more diverse, community of scholars.
Research Report
August 15, 2023

Of Meetings and Members

The Interconnected Future of Conferences and Scholarly Societies

As the pandemic recedes into memory, societies find themselves at a crossroads. For several years, the decision to hold hybrid or virtual meetings was dictated by outside forces: it has now become a question of societies’ priorities, mission, and values. It is too early to tell whether the virtual meetings of 2020-22 were anomalies, but a casual observer might reasonably describe the “new normal” as nearly identical to the old one. A closer view suggests a more nuanced picture.
Blog Post
July 17, 2023

Draft Report for Community Input

Shared Infrastructure for Scholarly Communication

We’re thankful for all the comments the draft report received. We will publish a final revised version in October. A robust and nimble infrastructure is imperative to support the vital work of scholarly communication and effectively and efficiently meet the emerging service needs of different stakeholders. Publishers and other scholarly communication services and providers rely on this shared infrastructure in many key parts of their work, and it forms a foundational part of their technology stack and service…
Past Event
July 12, 2023

What’s Next for Generative AI in Higher Education?

AACRAO Technology & Transfer Virtual Summit

Over the past year, AI has transformed from a specialized tool into an easy to use mass market product. The speed of this transformation has left many colleges and universities playing catch up as generative AI touches every aspect of higher education, including their core missions of educating students and supporting academic research. In a rapidly evolving landscape, how can universities make strategic decisions about when and how AI can support student learning and faculty research? Ithaka S+R is…
Blog Post
June 15, 2023

Made by Hand

The Case for Manual Data Collection in an Era of Automation

When designing a research study a key consideration is which research method—or methods—will yield the best insights. Here at Ithaka S+R we conduct applied research related to the education and cultural heritage sectors, and so we aim to collect evidence that can be used for immediate social benefit, such as towards improving policies and programs within institutions. Today we describe a method we regularly employ: manually collecting data from public facing websites. The information we can find through public websites…
Blog Post
June 1, 2023

Coordinating Research Data Services

Key Barriers and Questions

This spring, 107 librarians, administrators, and staff from the 29 universities participating in Ithaka S+R’s Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support project began to identify barriers to streamlining their research data support services. The project’s first two meetings brought together representatives from university units involved in supporting academic researchers: librarians, senior administrators, research officers, and research computing staff. Working primarily in small groups roughly divided by professional capacity, participants described the ways that different university units—and different institutional…
Blog Post
May 24, 2023

Making AI Generative for Higher Education

Announcing the Partners for a New Multi-Year Research Project

The ability of computers to create content is advancing rapidly, spurring an investment arms race within the technology sector. As new products like ChatGPT and Midjourney turn AI into a part of daily life, universities are facing decisions about how students, instructors, and researchers can best engage with these new tools. This fall, as part of a two-year research project, Ithaka S+R is convening a select group of universities committed to making AI generative for their campus community. Today we…
Blog Post
April 25, 2023

Reflecting on Restricted Access to a Chinese Research Lifeline

The rising geopolitical tensions between the United States and China are prompting both nations to restrict exports of technologies with military applications or in areas with significant economic value. Increasingly, these restrictions are calling international commitments to the open sharing of academic research into question. Last month, the Chinese government announced new restrictions on international access to the most important academic database in China, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure Database (CNKI) (中国知网). For researchers in the US the CNKI is…
Research Report
April 24, 2023

Common Scholarly Communication Infrastructure Landscape Review

Scholarly communication is the process through which research products and outputs (such as articles, audiovisual materials, data, code, and research methods) are created, assessed, improved, shared, disseminated, and preserved in a variety of modes including through formal and informal publications, conferences, and other academic networking methods. Shared infrastructure is a key enabler for delivering the services that authors and readers need. It is composed of standards, platforms, technologies, policies, and the communities that enable and support them.
Past Event
April 12, 2023

The Nelson Memo… Now What?

The US OSTP’s Nelson Memo, which requires immediate public access to federally funded research papers, sent a shockwave across the scholarly communications landscape. Now that the first policy implementations of the memo are out, what impacts will it have on different stakeholders in our community? A panel of publishers and librarians, including Ithaka S+R’s Roger Schonfeld alongside Colette Bean, Angel Cochran, Steven Inchcoombe, and Barbara Rockenbach, will reflect on how they plan to support researchers and what these changes mean…