Academic Libraries as Enablers - USETDA 2020 Conference
Channel: USETDA
Date: 19/02/2021

Academic Libraries as Enablers to Prepare Graduate Students for Open Scholarship. Adrian K. Ho, University of Kentucky Libraries. USETDA 2020 Conference. United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association.

A plethora of digital tools have become available in the past decade to facilitate different tasks in the scholarly communication process.  Meanwhile, research funders have established policies that require grant recipients to practice open scholarship by sharing their research deliverables online.  Graduate students as junior scholars may feel overwhelmed due to their unfamiliarity with some digital tools and how to be in compliance with research funders’ requirements.  To prepare them for academic success and open scholarship, academic libraries have partnered with graduate schools to educate students about scholarly communication issues.

With the focus on a public university in the U.S., this poster aims to discuss how the library has taken the initiative to collaborate with campus constituents to enhance graduate students’ understanding of four scholarly communication topics: 1. Research disambiguation and citability; 2. Copyright and licensing; 3. Research data management; and 4. Scholarly journal publishing and access.  Specifically, the poster will address what has been done to promote the use of persistent identifiers and to highlight people’s rights when producing, consuming, and reusing information.  There will also be discussion about the significance of managing and sharing research data and different access models for scholarly publications.  When appropriate, examples from other institutions will be brought up to enrich the discussion.  In addition, the poster will cover lessons learned, effective strategies, and recommended practices in light of the feedback received from graduate students and collaborating campus units.  Relevant resources from the library community will be identified so that interested colleagues can refer to them for inspiration.

In summary, this poster will illuminate how academic libraries can play a crucial role in enabling graduate students to not only disseminate their theses and dissertations broadly but also adapt and thrive as open scholars in the digital age.  Its coverage may result in more exploration of collaboration opportunities among campus units in order to better support graduate students’ intellectual growth holistically.

USETDA 2020 Conference Proceedings: 
https://www.ocs.usetda.org/index.php/USETDA/USETDA2020/paper/view/224