e-Content Management and Strategies

Dr. H. K. KaulDirector, DELNET

Developing Library Network

The enormous growth of e-content

The digital content has greater advantage

The e-content has impacted the acquisition of content, processing of documents, access to e-resources, services to users and archiving

Users have become more informed

Delivering of packaged, best and relevant content necessary

eContent Sources and Strategies Web Resources

The web resources that we access through the search engines The Hidden Web Librarians will have to remain learning the advances taking place Conduct research and innovate Adopt latest technologies The copyright concerns

eJournals

Hosted by Commercial Publishers and Aggregators

Online access to open source e-journals.

Non-open-source e-journals

Print on demand Back files of all journals need to get digitized The consortia managers will have to negotiate The reliability of archiving back files of journals by publishers

eBooks

Access to eBooks is impacted by hardware manufacturers, software producers digital market places, aggregators, vendors and others who handle e-content

The Digital Content and Libraries Working Group (DCWG) recommends:

Inclusion of all titles Enduring rights Integration

The eBook Strategy Working Group of the University of Guelph Library observes:

Keep a watch on the e-book market and identify the new business models regularly

Prefer a model with unlimited simultaneous user access

Avoid accepting, as far as possible, digital rights management (DRM) restrictions

Get accurate and detailed MARC records with e-books

Prefer to have collaboration on collection development of e-books

A checklist of licensing requirements be prepared

Archiving of e-book content be explored

The eBook Strategy Working Group (Contd.)

Acquisition of e-books should be demand driven Gaps in essential e-book resources be identified and acquired in due course of time Open access e-books need to be selected for future use. Collaborate with library networks like DELNET in getting the best open access resources Interlibrary Loan (ILL) facility should be got introduced in the e-book license agreement Short term loan options be discussed with vendors to avoid unnecessary subscriptions to large packages.

E-book hardware also needs to be looked into.

A range of platforms and e-book creating software such as Adobe Frame Maker, Adobe. Page Maker, Adobe Design, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat Capture etc. The report of the Ebook Strategy Working recommendations: Information about new platforms and changes in the existing ones be regularly monitored and reviewed Downloadable PDF format be preferred Availability of discovery features with seamless access be preferred Navigation tools within ebook ecosystem for users and library staff be created or

selected with the packages.

Digital Textbook Adoption CBSE textbooks from class I to class XII are available from NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) and can be downloaded, printed and used by students free of charge. Flipbooks

The multimedia and ICT applications are being used in developing more advanced interactive e-books called flipbooks.

Open Access Content Web. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) increased by over 21,000 in the first quarter of 2014

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) added 293 open access monographs in the same quarter for an 18% growth rate (annual equivalent 72%) and a total of 1,912 books as of March 31, 2014

Open Access Initiatives The Budapest Open Access Initiative

Open access content is available either free of charge or with some additional usage rights. The authors contribute to open access either by self archiving which is called ‘green’ open access and by publishing in an open access journals which is called ‘gold’ open access.

Open Access Initiatives Contd.

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) which advocates the promotion of a new open access paradigm as per the following guidelines:

Encouraging our researchers/grant recipients to publish their work according to the principles of the open access paradigm.

Encouraging the holders of cultural heritage to support open access by providing their resources on the Internet.

Open Access Initiatives Contd. Developing means and ways to evaluate open access contributions and online-journals in order to maintain the standards of quality assurance and good scientific practice.

Advocating that open access publication be recognized in promotion and tenure evaluation.

Advocating the intrinsic merit of contributions to an open access infrastructure by software tool development, content provision, metadata creation, or the publication of individual articles.”

Government Policies All content and data created with public funding

Governmental agencies and institutions creating and using content should participate in international efforts on OA

Policies be framed to invite teaching and research community to publish in open access Journals while maintaining standards through peer-reviewing

Government Policies (contd.)

Publicity be given to public rights to open access.

Support Green and Gold open access initiatives of authors.

Support be given for infrastructure and institutional repository development.

National strategies for long term preservation of open access content be framed.

Institutions and Libraries Associate research staff with library professionals for selecting quality content.

Discovery and aggregation of appropriate content be achieved through Library Networks

Train library professionals to handle technical issues concerning interoperability, Open Archives Initiative, Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) compliance, metadata creation etc.

Long term preservation strategies for open access content

Institutional Repositories The Creative Commons (CC-CA) issues licenses to attach them to their contributions. UNESCO has come out with the guidelines for comparing institutional repository software, keeping in view the major platforms that present software for this purpose. The five software mostly adopted for developing IRs such as Digital Commons, Dspace, Eprints, Fedora, and Islandora have been compared.

e-Content Strategies by the Universities

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst Libraries follow the following strategies:

A Digital Strategies Group is established and the Goup provides direction and offers strategic planning. The Group also coordinates the digital activities.

The University has established Working Groups for looking into metadata creation, digital creation and preservation and data management.

e-Content Strategies by the Universities Contd.

University of California, Riverside campus has adopted, among various strategies, the following strategies for digital content: Curate digital research data in order to preserve and disseminate the unique

research findings of UCR faculty and students with the world and to enable new forms of academic inquiry and discovery through creative and dynamic use and reuse of the digital assets of the university.

Curate distinctive collections of purchased, licensed, and unique content supporting diverse research and teaching initiatives on campus

Support researchers in developing and producing new knowledge products.

University of Virginia Library The University has established different units to look into:

Acquisitions Services that work for acquiring resources from different parts of the world Cataloguing and metadata services that help in accessing that content

Digitization services, that digitise important and rare collections

Digital stewardship services that include long-time preservation and curation of digital collections.

Online Educational Content The creation of online content for students by various commercial and professional bodies is proliferating. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCS) Established in 2012, MOOC offers unlimited free access to content on a large number of courses on the web. The content is offered through text, readings, videos, interactive discussions etc.

Khan Academy Established in 2006, Khan Academy offers free world-class content on thousands of topics in all disciplines through lectures, video tutorials etc. TED – Talks To Listen To TED offers short powerful talks on a large number of topics in more than 100 languages. Slideshare SlideShare offers slide hosting service and one can upload presentations in PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote or OpenDocument formats. Millions of users every month use the website.

Iseek A search engine for students, teachers and administrators that offers editor-reviewed content. TeachThought Offers content from more than one hundred search engines for academic research. Also offers meta search on a variety of databases and archives including books and journals on Science, Math & Technology, Social Science, History, Business and Economics, Reference etc.

Academic Search Complete Designed by Ebsco offers detailed coverage on key areas of academic study in peer-reviewed journals, full-text periodicals, reports and books. Gale Virtual Reference Library Offers access to thousands of e-books on most of the subjects. The reference works are authoritative in nature and access is available 24/7.

PsycNET of American Psychological Association Offers full text databases of books, reviews, journals, articles, gray literature on Psychology, all having easy search, advanced search, citation finder etc. facilities. Health Finder Offers quick guides to healthy living, personalized health advice, etc. on all topics concerning health issues. Infomine Offers scholarly Internet resource collections on all disciplines. Established by the University of California.

The Impact of Online Education on Libraries: The IFLA Point of View

The IFLA Trend Report Riding the Waves or Caught in the Tide? – Navigating the Evolving Information Environment predicts:

Substantial demand for intermediaries Role of library professionals

There will also be:

Seamless access to educational resources Automated machine translation will change the way we communicate with each other Researchers and users will be able to read in their own language any book, article, online blog etc.

e-Content Archiving

Appraisal and Selection

e-Content harvested from the web sources needs to be evaluated.

The evaluation of e-Content has to go through various processes.

Evaluating the Web Content

Evaluate the Intention of the Web site

WHY was the Web site created?

What purpose does the site serve? Information, entertainment, profit?

What does the author get out of it? A laugh, a job, joy?

What does the purpose tell you about the reliability of the information?

What OPINION does this site represent?

What point is emphasized by the web site? Is it reasonable?

Is the tone reasonably objective or fanatical?

What is conspicuously missing (if anything)? Do you see logical errors or issues that have been avoided for no apparent reason?

Evaluate the Relevance of the Site

How old is the web site or page?

Can you tell when the page was posted to the web?

Have the authors ever changed the content?

Does it matter?

Does timeliness matter to the subject of your paper or project?

Evaluate the Reliability of the Site

WHO created the site?

Can you tell? Does anyone claim authorship?

Who do the authors work for? What are their credentials?

Have you ever heard of them? Name recognition is important.

How GOOD is the Information?

How does the information fit in with what you already know?

Have the authors edited the page for spelling and grammar?

How much does the web site rely on graphics to distract you from the text?

How Well Documented is the Work?

Can you find a bibliography? Do the sources seem scholarly?

Do the links work?

Do the links seem to be scholarly?

Sharing e-Content

e-Content and Copyright

Management of e-content will not be complete without the management of copyright fees to copyright holders.

Conclusion Librarians will have to remain learning the advances taking place, conduct research and innovate or adopt latest technologies to use deep web resources. Keep a watch on the e-book market and identify the new business models

regularly.

Archiving of ebook content in libraries should be explored There is a great need for educational institutions and libraries to get associated with publishers in developing advanced text books which could be much more useful for students.

Conclusion (contd.)

Librarians can use open source and customised software to convert PDF based ebooks into flipbooks.

Encourage researchers/grant recipients to publish their work according to the principles of the open access paradigm.

Develop means and ways to evaluate open access contributions and online-journals in order to maintain the standards of quality assurance and good scientific practice. National strategies for long term preservation of open access content be framed.

Conclusion (contd.)

Institutional repositories can greatly help in making knowledge accessible to users and general public without any barriers.

Curate digital research data in order to preserve and disseminate the unique research findings.

Guidelines be adopted for selecting quality e-content.

For getting necessary and sufficient quality content sharing of e-content and networking of libraries be promoted.