NISO Plus Research Articles

An overview of the 2023 NISO Plus Conference: Global conversations/global connections

This paper offers an overview of some of the highlights of the 2023 NISO Plus Annual Conference that was held virtually from February 14–February 16, 2023. This was the fourth such conference and the third to be held in a completely virtual format due to the global impact of COVID-19. These conferences have resulted from the merger of NISO and the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) in June 2019, replacing the NFAIS Annual Conferences and offering a new, more interactive format. As with prior years, there was no general topical theme (although the importance of metadata was a common thread throughout), but there were topics of interest for everyone working in the information ecosystem - from the practical subjects of standards, archiving, digital preservation, Open Science, and Open Access. With speakers and attendees from around the world and across multiple time zones and continents, it truly was a global conversation!

NISO's Content Profile/Linked Document standard: A research communication format for today’s scholarly ecosystem

This paper is based upon the author’s presentation at the 2023 NISO Plus Conference in which he discussed the purpose and importance of the NISO Content Profile/Linked Document standard. The need for the standard is obvious: users demand the delivery of contextualized, targeted content delivered as a natural part of their workflow and publishers aspire to produce machine-actionable FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) materials, but many publishing workflows are focused on articles, often published after research is concluded. This standard is an application of HTML5 and JSON-LD to create semantic relationships between data elements in scholarly publishing workflows and express machine actionable content, to ease reuse and interchange of scholarly research information. The format description defines a set of rules that outline the minimal characteristics of documents (Linked Documents) that conform to the standard and a mechanism to define more detailed Content Profiles that extend and refine the rules for specific use cases.

Decolonizing standards

This paper is based upon the Miles Conrad Lecture presented by Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble at the 2023 NISO Plus conference on February 15, 2023. Through her writing, Speaking, and advocacy, Dr. Noble has drawn attention to the extensive biases and embedded racism that exist in many technologies that are used not only in scholarly research, but also increasingly in the wider community as well. This awareness has led to the beginnings of change in some areas of technology. Dr. Noble stresses that there is much work to be done do moving forward, but hopefully all those in the information community can collaborate to advance the banner of inclusivity in technological applications, particularly as it relates to information search and discovery.

Moving from piecemeal to systematic: Reprioritizing how academic libraries approach research information management

This paper is based on a lightening talk given at the 2023 NISO Plus conference. The authors explore how research information management (RIM) workflows at universities are increasingly intersecting with library workflows, particularly regarding compliance with federal funding and preservation of the institution’s scholarly record. This paper outlines one academic library’s plan to shift from thinking about library-supported RIM services as a piecemeal approach to a more systematic approach that prioritizes open infrastructure. Though in its early stages of implementation, the authors seek to examine current RIM systems and services at their institution, expand on the current findings of U.S. activities brought forth in reports produced by OCLC and Lyrasis, and to identify local opportunities for library-supported RIM tools/services that are open and transparent. Specifically, this paper emphasizes the implementation and adoption of persistent identifiers, such as ORCID, but discussion will also cover other RIM systems and services.

The use of blockchain technology in the scientific research workflow

This paper is based upon a lightening talk that was given on February 14, 2023 at the 2023 NISO Plus conference. The presentation described the research for the creation of a white paper on the use of blockchain technology along the scientific research workflow that will be released in early 2024 by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). What the three-year study found is that the technology is indeed being used in almost all the steps in the scientific research workflow - from hypothesis development through to publication - by commercial organizations as well as by non-profits and across all market sectors, even governments. For example, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) uses blockchain technology in a pilot program, the Grant-recipient Digital Dossier (GDD), to manage their grant program more efficiently. As of July 2021, GDD had reduced the time required to complete grant assessment tasks from four-plus-hours to a fifteen-minute process. This paper briefly summarizes the findings, discusses the pros/cons of the technology, and provides a glimpse of how the technology is impacting the future of scientific research.

A tiny library with a million volumes: Open-source resource sharing with fulfillment interlibrary loan (ILL)

his paper is based upon a lightning talk given at the NISO Plus conference on February 14, 2023 and it describes interlibrary Loan syste4m, Fulfillment, developed by the Equinox Open Library Initiative. A thriving resource-sharing consortium allows libraries to offer broader and deeper opportunities for individual learning and greater community equity. It unlocks access to additional copies beyond what an owning library has available, along with a broad range of content owned within the network, which provides a diverse collection for library users. Providing access to such a rich network of resources is the goal of Fulfillment, an open-source resource sharing system which breaks down barriers to sharing collections.

Unanticipating metadata: Metadata in the ages of the internet and AI

This article is based upon the open plenary talk given at the NISO Plus Conference on February 14, 2023. David Weinberger, an American author, technologist, and speaker, explores the effect of the Internet and AI on metadata. He discusses how traditional metadata has had to anticipate the uses to which it will be put, who will use it, how users will navigate it, how it will be encoded, and how much metadata is enough. He asserts that the Internet has changed that because it encourages the adoption of the strategy of unanticipation.

An overview of the 2022 NISO plus conference: Global conversations/Global Connections

This paper offers an overview of some of the highlights of the 2022 NISO Plus Annual Conference that was held virtually from February 15 - February 18, 2022. This was the third such conference and the second to be held in a completely virtual format due to the Pandemic. These conferences have resulted from the merger of NISO and the National Federation of Abstracting and Information Services (NFAIS) in June 2019, replacing the NFAIS Annual Conferences and offering a new, more interactive format. As with last year, there was no general topical theme, but there were topics of interest for everyone working in the information ecosystem - from the practical subjects of standards and metadata quality to preprints, Wikidata, archiving and digital preservation, Open Science and Open Access, and ultimately Globalization of the Information Infrastructure, the Metaverse, and Visions of the Future. With speakers and attendees from around the world and across multiple time zones and continents, it truly was a global conversation!

The role of the information community in ensuring that information is authoritative: Strategies from NISO Plus 2022

This article reports on a NISO Plus 2022 session that addressed what can be done to safeguard the integrity of the scholarly content being created, disseminated, and used. How much responsibility does the information community have in ensuring that the content we provide is authoritative? Preprints are a great way to make early research results available, but it is not always clear that those results are not yet thoroughly vetted. Peer review – a key element of scholarly publication – can help, but is far from foolproof. Retractions are another important tool, but most retracted research is still all too readily available. What can and should we be doing to safeguard the integrity of the content being created, disseminated, and used?

Supporting Open Science with frictionless publication workflows: The Tree of Life project at Wellcome Open Research

This paper is based on a presentation delivered as part of the NISO Plus 2022 panel discussion titled “Open Science: catch phrase, or a better way of doing research?” that focused on the workflows of Open Science and opportunities for collaboration by stakeholders including publishers, repository infrastructure providers, and the wider research community. While the aims and outputs of Open Science are well-defined, this paper explores the workflows that are necessary to support the production of “open scientific knowledge”, as defined by UNESCO. Producing research outputs as open scientific knowledge is an activity that is undertaken alongside traditional research practices and must be planned for from the beginning of the research process. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities associated with Open Science workflows, focusing on an innovative new automated publishing pipeline on the Wellcome Open Research publishing platform.

An Overview of the 2021 NISO Plus Conference: Global connections and global conversations

This paper offers an overview of the highlights of the 2021 NISO Plus Annual Conference that was held virtually from February 22–February 25, 2021. This was the second NISO Plus annual conference. The first one was held in 2020 and replaced what would have been the 62nd Annual NFAIS conference, but with the merger of NISO and NFAIS in June 2019 the conference was renamed NISO Plus and took on a new format. Little did they know that the second conference would have to be held virtually while the world was battling a global pandemic. The 2021 audience represented a 400% increase over the 2020 in-person attendance. There was no general theme, but there was a topic for everyone working in the information ecosystem - from the practical subjects of standards and metadata quality to preprints to information privacy and ultimately to the impact of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning on scholarly communication. With speakers from around the world and across time zones and continents, it was truly a global conversation!

Addressing disorder in scholarly communication: Strategies from NISO Plus 2021

Open science and preprints have invited a larger audience of readers, especially during the pandemic. Consequently, communicating the limitations and uncertainties of research to a broader public has become important over the entire information lifecycle. This paper brings together reports from the NISO Plus 2021 conference session “Misinformation and truth: from fake news to retractions to preprints”. We discuss the validation and verification of scientific information at the preprint stage in order to support sound and open science standards, at the publication stage in order to limit the spread of retracted research, and after publication, to fight fake news about health-related research by mining open access content.

KBART Phase III: Unresolved questions

During the “NISO update” session at the NISO Plus 2021 conference, which took place online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the KBART (Knowledge Base and Related Tools) Standing Committee presented their plans and work toward KBART Phase III, a revision of the KBART Recommended Practice. In an interactive breakout session, they sought input from attendees on how KBART is being used and what new content types it should support. Presenters from the KBART Standing Committee were Noah Levin (Independent Professional), Stephanie Doellinger (OCLC, Inc.), Robert Heaton (Utah State University), and Andrée Rathemacher (University of Rhode Island). Assisting them in preparing the presentation were Jason Friedman (Canadian Research Knowledge Network), Sheri Meares (EBSCO Information Services), Benjamin Johnson (ProQuest), Elif Eryilmaz-Sigwarth (Springer Nature), and Nettie Lagace (NISO).

2021 Miles Conrad Award Lecture: Heather Joseph

This paper is based upon the 2021 Miles Conrad Award Lecture that was given by Heather Joseph at the second annual NISO Plus conference held virtually from February 22–25, 2021. The lecture provided a brief look back at the emergence of the Open Access (OA) movement in scholarly communication beginning with the E-biomed proposal in 1999 that was shortly followed by the Budapest Declaration released on February 14, 2002, through how far it has come in almost two decades. The author notes that the initial reaction to OA was often just a quick dismissal of it as an idealistic pipe dream and as the idea began to grow in popularity, skepticism changed into hostility. OA was criticized as being too disruptive to the then-existent publishing paradigm. Yet, far from disappearing, the movement towards the open sharing of knowledge steadily advanced. Today conversations about “why” or “whether” to open up the scholarly communication system have evolved into conversations about how best to do it. The author notes that the Budapest Declaration underscored that the end goal of OA is to empower individuals and communities around the world with the ability to share their knowledge as well as to share in accessing the knowledge of others. She warns that members of the global scholarly communication community must look critically at who currently can participate in the production of knowledge, and whose voices are represented in the “global intellectual conversation” that need to be facilitated. Whose voices are still are left out because structural barriers – be they technical, financial, legal, cultural, or linguistic – prevent them from joining?

Ask the preservation experts at the inaugural NISO Plus conference

During the inaugural 2020 NISO Plus Conference that was held from February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD, several “Ask the Expert” sessions were scheduled so that attendees could have access to experienced information industry executives who could address questions on a variety of topics. This brief paper is based upon the session on the topic of the preservation of scholarly information featuring Stephanie Orphan, Director of Publisher Relations at Portico and Craig Van Dyck, Executive Director of the CLOCKSS Archive. The experts first fielded questions from the moderator, Wendy Queen, Director of Project Muse, who asked about preservation challenges, the role that scholars should play in having their works preserved, the preservation of outputs from thought-leadership conferences such as NISO Plus, standards across publishing that create a burden for preservation, etc. In the remaining time they answered questions from the audience.

An overview of the 2020 NISO plus inaugural annual conference: A grand experiment

This paper offers an overview of the highlights of the 2020 NISO Plus inaugural conference that was held in Baltimore, MD from February 23–February 25, 2020. This conference replaced what would have been the 62nd Annual NFAIS conference. However, NISO and NFAIS merged in June 2019, resulting in the conference being renamed NISO Plus and taking on a new format. The goal was to continue some of the best traditions of past NFAIS conferences while building in time for discussions. With two and a half days of networking and education on tap, attendees had the opportunity to learn about emerging and exciting areas of change and development such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and new content types such as Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality. There were very practical sessions that focused on the status of standards, current issues and problems, with the goal of working towards innovative solutions and developing plans for moving forward.

2020 Miles Conrad award lecture: James G. Neal

This paper is based upon the 2020 Miles Conrad Award Lecture that was given by James G. Neal at the inaugural NISO Plus conference held from February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD (USA). The lecture provided a brief look back at some of the key information industry challenges of the past four decades, but more importantly it highlighted the challenges facing the community today such as the democratization of creativity; the born-digital explosion; policy chaos including privacy, market monopoly, global intellectual property, and intellectual freedom; the challenges of diversity, equity, and inclusion; and human-machine symbiosis and blended reality. The lecture lists five commandments to which all stakeholders in the Information Community need to adhere in order to be successful moving forward together: (1) Thou shall preserve the cultural and scientific record; (2) Thou shall fight the information policy wars; (3) Thou shall be supportive of the needs of your users and your readers; (4)Thou shall cooperate in new and more rigorous ways; and (5) Thou shall work together to improve knowledge creation, evaluation, distribution, use, and preservation.

NISO Plus 2020: Outputs and next steps

NISO Plus 2020: Outputs and next steps

Questioning the legitimacy of data

This paper is based upon the closing keynote presentation that was given by danah boyd at the inaugural NISO Plus conference held from February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD (USA). It focuses on how data are used, and how they can be manipulated to meet specific objectives – both good and bad. The paper reinforces the importance of understanding the biases and limitations of any data set. Topics covered include data quality, data voids, data infrastructures, alternative facts, and agnotology. The paper stresses that data become legitimate because we collectively believe that those data are sound, valid, and fit for use. This not only means that there is power in collecting and disseminating data, but also that there is power in interpreting and manipulating the data. The struggle over data’s legitimacy says more about our society – and our values – than it says about the data itself.

Reflections on NISO plus or scholarly communications pre-COVID - how the world has changed

This brief paper offers a look back at the inaugural NISO Plus conference that was held February 23–25, 2020 in Baltimore, MD, USA and provides the author’s perspective on the themes that she identified over the three days of the conference.