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Since the IR may serve the institution as a digital library, it should accurately reflect the institution’s scholarship and activities. But how can we determine whether this is the case? This study proposes selecting several microcosms, creating a controlled vocabulary of terms and phrases, searching the vocabulary at the institution-level and in the IR, and comparing the percentage of hits in each. Assessing IRs from the perspective of its content is not a frame of reference generally used. This study compared three microcosms in the IR with the same microcosms in the institution at large--LGBTQ, Indigenous People, and Latinx. What percentage of similarity be considered a close enough correlation? While this is a review of one IR at a doctoral-granting land grant institution, a discussion of the methodology and results could lead to cross-IR analyses. This presentation describes developing the vocabularies, search strategies using the advantages and short-comings of Google and Solr, and what the data revealed about VTechWorks, the IR at Virginia Tech. Studying these microcosms within the IR also revealed the use or non-use of terms and phrases by certain author communities, e.g., graduate students through their ETDs and faculty through their published articles.

Using the Virginia Tech strategic plan as a guide, a team of its University Libraries faculty and staff designed a strategic planning approach for the library that directly engaged with University goals and explored two areas: 1) contributing to the equity-, diversity-, and inclusion-related (EDI) goals laid out in the University strategic plan, and 2) expanding upon efforts to broaden diversity and representation in the library. The team identified four major themes: accessibility, climate, employment and professional development, outreach, and advocacy, and used these themes to develop specific recommendations. The process served to shine the light on these topics within the library, allowing for reflection and self-understanding, crucial components to change and grow with more attention to inclusion and diversity. Recognizing a need for change, it is hoped the report leads to better advocacy and ally-ship and brings issues to light for other libraries engaging in similar processes.

Course Description Learn from the Open Access Subvention Fund (OASF) manager how to get the library to pay the article processing charges (APCs) when your article is accepted by an OA journal that requires these fees. Since 2013 when Virginia Tech Libraries first made funds available, the OASF has grown to $215,000 to support articles published in scholarly OA journals. Everyone in the VT community—faculty, staff, and students, is eligible for support from the Libraries’ fund. In this session we will review the OASF award guidelines, identify journal and publisher databases to help you determine if a journal meets the funding criteria, locate OA journals in your field, and discuss VT’s new open access policy that was approved by the Board of Visitors in March 2021. If there’s time we will also talk about the Libraries’ publishing services, including open textbooks, and book subvention opportunities. Course Outcomes • Be familiar with the OASF award criteria • Gain knowledge of hybrid OA journals and publishers’ “double dipping” • Be familiar with sources of OA journals • Be aware of the VT OA policy

Dean Tyler Walters allocated the 2021 VT OASF $150,000 to support article processing charges (APC) in open access journals. By March 15, 2021, those funds had been fully depleted but additional funds continued to be awarded to qualifying requests. In fiscal year 2021, the Libraries received 183 requests, of which 85% met the award criteria. The OASF awarded $197,249.43 for 156 articles.

IRs give their home institutions both a digital library and a showcase, but do IRs accurately reflect their institutions? Is the IR instead an isolated storage archive disconnected from its home institution? Assessing IRs from the perspective of their institutions’ scholarly output and activities is a little used frame of reference. This study used Google to search the IR and the institution’s website for words authors used when writing about Indigenous People, LatinX and LGBTQ. This study also searched the IR directly to compare terms in graduate students’ ETDs and faculty peer reviewed publications. Let’s talk about IRs and whether they reflect their institutions’ “quality and … research activities” as Raym Crow suggested in 2002 as well as hold an historically inclusive record as Sam Winn admonished in 2017. Let’s discuss assessing IRs and whether using select microcosms and authors’ vocabularies is an appropriate way to measure correlation within the institution.

Institutional repositories are often measured by data points such as their size, or who deposits, or how much is deposited, or how many times items in the IR are used. These data, however, do not put the IR in a larger context and they do not facilitate comparing repositories across institutions. Therefore, I suggest using the contents of the institution’s website as the standard or baseline that its IR should minimally meet. We could put the repository in the context of the institution by evaluating how well the IR reflects or rep-resents its host institution. In his foundational SPARC paper, Raym Crow advised that IRs “should aim to become “tangible indicators of a university’s quality ... [so as to] ... demonstrate the scientific, societal, and economic relevance of its research activities.” VTechWorks is the institutional repository for Virginia Tech, a PhD granting insti-tution with about 37,000 students and 2000 faculty. At the time of this study (February–March 2021), VTechWorks had about 84,500 items, 96% of which were open access full text while 4% were embargoed, withheld, or legacy abstract-only items. Members of the university community populate VTechWorks, including faculty, for example, who deposit their works either directly or through the integrated Elements system. Students contribute to VTechWorks, including graduate students whose ETDs, electronic theses and dissertations, arrive from the Graduate School’s online approval system, and under-graduates when courses require deposit of final projects. VTechWorks staff also deposit formally and informally, for example after reading about a publication in the online daily news or handling SWORD deposited articles.

Dean Tyler Walters allocated the 2020 VT OASF $150,000 to support article processing charges (APC) in open access journals. This year the Libraries received 203 requests, an increase of 32 over 2019. 83% of the requests met the award criteria. The OASF supported 168 articles.

You’re writing your thesis or dissertation, and you want to include an image that you didn’t create. Are you allowed to use it? Is that considered fair use? What if has a Creative Commons license? What about your thesis or dissertation - is that copyrighted? How does placing your thesis or dissertation in the institutional repository affect your ability to publish articles or books from it later on? Learn the answers to these questions and more in this workshop. By the end of this session, you’ll Understand the basics of copyright and fair use as they apply to your thesis and dissertation Know your rights as the author of a thesis or dissertation

The IR gives the university both a digital library and a showcase so it should accurately reflect its home institution. Assessing IRs from the perspective of its resources, however, is an as yet unused frame of reference. The goal of this initial study was to investigate whether the IR represents the scholarship and activities of its home institution by comparing a microcosm of the IR to the same microcosm at the institution. The IR can be correlated with the university by using a controlled vocabulary to search each source and comparing the percentage of hits. This study looked at VTechWorks, the IR at Virginia Tech, as a whole and through three lenses, that of graduate students’ ETDs, the faculty’s scholarly publications, and the academic units’ web-accessible publications. Using the LGBTQ microcosm, the percentage of hits for a controlled vocabulary showed a good correlation, demonstrating that the IR is representative of the university for this microcosm. Can we extrapolate and say this IR accurately represents its university?

This is a presentation providing information about scholarly communication and open access for GRAD 5204 Citizen Scholar Seminar. Also presenting were Jonathan Petters and Karen DePauw at this Zoom class on April 14, 2020.

April 21, 2020, presentation to the VT SPIA Colloquium about Scholarly Communication (e.g., the life cycle of information) and Open Access. Also presenting was Nathaniel Porter who shared information about social science data and VT Libraries' data-related services.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) form the foundation of many institutional repositories (IR), and ETDs can provide an important lens on how the IR represents the work that is being done university-wide. To test this theory, I studied a microcosm of VTechWorks, the IR at Virginia Tech, anticipating that it would encapsulate the characteristics of the repository as a whole. I analyzed the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) microcosm through the ETD lens. I compiled a controlled vocabulary of 161 LGBTQ terms and phrases that I searched in the IR’s ETD collection, recording number of hits for each term. To give context to this data and to understand more broadly who is doing the scholarship and research in this microcosm, I gathered the same data from the IR’s faculty publications and top-level academic units’ output which is often aimed at alumni or the public. I searched the same vocabulary in the university website to establish the measure of the LGBTQ domain at the university and to contextualize the data from the IR, specifically ETDs. Using a microcosm to look at graduate student works in the IR and university web publications provides manageable data and the opportunity to reflect on the contribution of ETDs to the development of institutional repositories.

The Virginia Tech Libraries strategic planning process included a group specifically responsible for exploring how the library could contribute to the equity-, diversity-, and inclusion-related goals as presented in VT’s strategic plan and build upon the library’s previous and on-going equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts. This report documents the work of the Diversity and Inclusion group’s work to propel the library forward.

Dean Tyler Walters allocated the 2019 VT OASF $140,000 to support article processing charges (APC) in open access journals. This year the Libraries received 171 requests, an increase of 28 over 2018. 77% of the requests met the award criteria. The OASF awarded $165,234 for 131 articles, though invoices paid did not exceed the Fund’s budget allocation.

Jean Robbins was the first chair of the Peacock-Harper Culinary History Advisory Board. At the April 6, 2018, luncheon this presentation celebrated some of Jean Robbins's accomplishments and contributions on the first anniversary of her passing.

Electronic theses/dissertations (ETDs) have been required at higher education institutions for twenty years. Although numerous goals have been realized, the majority of ETDs have not been transformed into new media.

Do community-facing resources in the digital repository reflect the work being done at the university? Can examining a microcosm such as the LGBTQ-related materials indicate how successful a university’s digital repository is in avoiding unconscious bias? Searching the repository’s collections, including ETDs (electronic theses and dissertations) and Faculty Research, indicates whether these authors used particular terms in their scholarship, when the terms were used, and how frequently the terms appear. Comparing frequency and publication dates within, rather than across, collections is more revealing. Terms not used or used more or less frequently in one collection or the other and elsewhere within the IR may also be significant.

Dean Tyler Walters allocated the 2018 VT OASF $150,000 to support article processing charges (APC) in open access journals. The Libraries received 143 requests for which the publishers asked for $235,183 in APCs. The OASF awarded $123,571 for 104 articles (73%) that met the award criteria.

This is the 2018 annual report for the Research & Informatics division at University Libraries.

This workshop is designed for busy faculty who want a jump start in developing new skills, mastering new tools, and learning new approaches related to sharing their work and extending their impact. As delivered in June 2017, University librarians and publishing experts presented a variety of tools and methods to enable faculty members to: (1) leverage their rights as authors, (2) build and manage their online presence, (3) share their work and get noticed, and (4) demonstrate their impact. Attendees had the opportunity to set and refine individual goals for their workshop participation and beyond. Hands-on time and assistance were included for attendees to make tangible progress in their identified areas. Time was also allocated for attendees to discuss common problems and solutions.

For the Digital Science Thought Leadership Webinar on Oct. 26, 2017, Gail McMillan was invited to present Virginia Tech’s approach to open access (OA) activities and their steps towards an OA Policy. [Also presenting were Sally Rumsey, Head of Scholarly Communications & Data Management at Oxford University, and Arthur Smith, Open Access Service Manager at Cambridge University. The panel was organized by Kate Byrne, Symplectic, and moderated by Laura Wheeler, Digital Science. A video of the complete webinar will be released by Digital Science.]

NLI Course (March1, 2017) Description If you're writing an article for a scholarly peer-reviewed journal, Virginia Tech Libraries will support the Article Publishing Charge of up to $1500 for an open access journal. In this session we will review Virginia Tech’s Open Access Subvention Fund award criteria, locate Open Access journals, and identify databases to help determine if the publisher meets the funding criteria. At the conclusion of the session you will be in a good position to have your next article funded, which you can link to your CV, FAR, or P&T dossier. Come prepared to also learn more about the Libraries’ publishing services.

These slides were prepared for the Virginia Tech Graduate Student Assembly to introduce them to Open Access (OA) in general.

Presented Feb. 1, 2017, these slides were created to facilitate a discussion about many aspects of scholarly communication at the request of Dr. Patrick Miller for the PhD colloquium in the Architecture and Design Research Program.

VT Libraries Dean Tyler Walters allocated the 2017 OASF $100,000 to support article processing charges (APC) in open access journals. The Libraries received 110 requests for $134,867 in APCs, and awarded $104,699 to support 80 articles (73%) that met the award criteria.

Course Description If you're writing an article for a scholarly journal, Virginia Tech Libraries will support the Article Publishing Charge (APC) of up to $1500 for publication in an open access (OA) journal. The fund also supports APCs for hybrid OA journals, if the publisher reduces institutional subscription prices. The OASF is available to everyone In the VT community—faculty, staff, and students. In this session we will review Virginia Tech’s Open Access Subvention Fund award criteria, locate OA journals, and identify databases that help determine if the publisher meets the funding criteria. Bring your laptop or tablet and practice or create an OASF request with the fund manager at hand. At the conclusion of the session you will be in a good position to have your next article funded, which you can link to your résumé, annual activity report, or dossier for promotion and tenure/continued appointment. Come prepared to also learn more about the Libraries’ publishing services and VT’s draft open access policy. Course Outcomes Understand the OASF award criteria Learn about hybrid OA journals and publishers’ “double dipping” Walk away with a draft the request for funds Know who to talk to about library publishing services Have a better understanding of the impact of an OA policy

This was a presentation for the CAUS Construction Engineering Research Methods course, CNST-5084, taught by Dr. Annie Pearce. The focus of the April 26, 2016, class was "Communicating Research to the Public." It was organized by Mayank Khurana & Vivek Prasad.

Countering anecdotal evidence and calming fears about publicly accessible ETDs—electronic theses and dissertations, McMillan will present a variety of perspectives based on current data. She has led international surveys and gathered data from publishers and journal editors about their policies regarding ETDs. To these she will add data about ETD initiatives based on graduate school and university library activities.

The landscape of scholarly publishing is in flux and has evolved considerably over the last decade. This program addressed the current state of scholarly communication and provided an opportunity to discuss issues, controversies and ideas related to author’s rights, open access publishing, impact measures, and more. It was informative for everyone on both sides of the podium and launched conversations and discussions surrounding scholarly publishing.

VT Libraries Dean Tyler Walters initially allocated the 2016 OASF $60,000. As funds were awarded to support article processing charges (APC) in open access journals and the OASF was depleted, Scholarly Communication added $6,000 from salary savings and Dean Walters added $20,000. The OASF had a total allocation of $86,000. It received 83 requests for $145,275 in APCs. $85,140 was awarded to support APCs for 63 articles (75% of requests).

Library Council, the governing body of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech, commissioned creation of a task force to identify problems and propose solutions regarding the sharing and reuse of content created by the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. This report presents a discussion of the alignment of access, dissemination, discovery and efficient use of information with the mission and strategic plans of the University and University Libraries, overview of content ownership policies established by the University, open licensing policies of other University libraries, types of content created by the University Libraries, benefits and risks of openly licensing library-created resources, and recommendations. The authors are not attorneys and this report should not be construed as legal advice.

This SPEC Kit explores the strategies that ARL member institutions are using to address article processing charges (APCs)—including how the funds are established and how they are handled (e.g., policies, applications, budgets, administration, outreach activities, etc.), sources of funding, and whether and under what circumstances libraries are partnering with other units (or other libraries) to fund this aspect of open access. This SPEC Kit includes examples of funding web pages, fund administration policies and procedures, promotional material, and job descriptions.

The purpose of the survey was to (1) Identify general practices of academic institutions worldwide, (2) chart the longitudinal progress of ETD initiatives, and (3) discover any updates and advances in the field. This was a presentation about some results of the second international biennial ETD survey.

If you're writing an article for a scholarly peer-reviewed journal, the university will give you $1500 to publish it in an open access journal. In this session we will review Virginia Tech's Open Access Subvention Fund award criteria, locate Open Access journals, and determine if the publisher meets the funding criteria. Bring your laptop or tablet and practice or create a real fund request with the fund manager at hand. At the conclusion of the session you will be in a good position to have your next article funded, which you can link to your CV, FAR, or P&T dossier.

VT faculty, staff, and students who received support to make their articles open access were acknowledged at the Feb. 24, 2015, annual Authors Recognition Day. Virginia Tech Libraries, in partnership with the Office of Senior Vice President and Provost, offer an open access (OA) subvention fund of $50,000 to subsidize article processing fees for scholarly peer-reviewed articles accepted for publication in open access or hybrid OA journals. A primary goal of the program is to enable authors to engage in new transformational open publishing environments. The program aligns with the University Libraries strategic direction to support the research endeavors of the VT faculty and students, including the process of providing unrestricted access to digital research and scholarship. (http://www.lib.vt.edu/oafund/) [These slides were prepared for but not displayed at the event.]

Copyright in Research and Scholarship for the Engineering Education Graduate Seminar, May 1, 2015.

On Nov. 3, 2015, international speakers participated in the DELNET (Developing Library Network) Panel Discussion on "Digital Knowledge Repositories: Emerging Issues, Trends and Technologies" at the India International Centre in New Dehli. This presentation (one of five) focused on the 2015 ETD survey particularly as it related to participation by Indian universities.

This is about the path that brought us to India and the 18th International Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations.

The VT OASF was allocated $50,000 in FY2015 from the Libraries' Collections budget. The OASF received 88 requests to fund publishers' article processing charges totaling $129,967. We approved 48 articles (55%), awarding $49,711 to cover $ $59,393 of the publishers' charges. The awards averaged $1,035.65, ranging from $148.50 to our maximum, $1500. The OASF approved 38% of the total requests to cover the publishers' charges.

These slides were presented to two groups of faculty at the University of Richmond following an invitation from Lucretia McCulley to lead a presentation and discussion on the current state of scholarly publishing "to educate our faculty and to hopefully "jump start" further conversations around campus." Held in the UR International Commons on Feb. 6, 2015, the event was sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Faculty Enrichment Council, and Boatwright Library.

As an increasing number of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) are available on the Internet, there seems to be an increase in concern about how publishers and editors of books and journals view these works, with particular interest in whether open access to ETDs hinder future publishing opportunities. This presentation will focus largely on the 2011 survey of social science and humanities journal editors’ and university press directors’ attitudes toward online theses and dissertations. The 2012 survey of science editors and the 2013 survey of institutions requiring, allowing, or considering ETDs will also be shared. This information should help students and faculty make informed decisions about open access ETDs and what the implications are for publication.

In academia, there is a growing acceptance of sharing the final electronic version of graduate work, such as a thesis or dissertation, in an online university repository. Though previous studies have shown that journal editors are willing to consider manuscripts derived from electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), faculty advisors and graduate students continue to raise concerns that online discoverability of ETDs negatively impact future opportunities to publish those findings. The current study investigated science journal policies on open access ETDs and found that more than half of the science journals responding (51.4%) reported that manuscripts derived from openly accessible ETDs are welcome for submission and an additional 29.1 percent would accept revised ETDs under certain conditions.

Virginia Tech began subsidizing article processing fees for authors publishing scholarly peer reviewed articles in open access and hybrid OA journals in August 2012, following the approval of "The Proposal for a Virginia Tech Open Access Publishing Fund." During the pilot, 67 requests for funds were made, totaling $100,564 in publisher fees. In response to these requests the VT OASF awarded $58,700 to 117 VT authors, 26 of whom were funded more than once. The OASF supported the publication of 55 open access articles in 38 journals by 22 publishers.

This Networked Learning Initiatives (NLI) hosted session on Oct. 22, 2014, was presented during Open Access Week to draw the Virginia Tech community’s attention to library initiatives that promote the need to change the traditional cycle of faculty labor funding publishers’ profits. The NLI abstract said: If you're writing an article for a scholarly peer-reviewed journal, the university will give you $1500 to publish it in an open access journal. In this session we will go over the Open Access Subvention Fund award criteria. Participants can do a practice or a real fund request with the fund manager at hand. At the conclusion of the session you will be in a good position to have your next article funded, which you can link to your CV, FAR, and/or P&T dossier.

McMillan presented data from the 2013 ETD base line survey of institutions and the 2011-2012 surveys of journal editors and university press directors about their ETD policies.

Ten multiple-choice questions about what activities the library might sponsor during Open Access Week 2013

An increasing number of higher education institutions worldwide are requiring submission of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) by graduate students and are subsequently providing open access to these works in online repositories. Faculty advisors and graduate students are concerned that such unfettered access to their work could diminish future publishing opportunities. This study investigated social sciences, arts, and humanities journal editors’ and university press directors’ attitudes toward ETDs. The findings indicate that manuscripts that are revisions of openly accessible ETDs are always welcome for submission or considered on a case-by-case basis by 82.8 percent of journal editors and 53.7 percent of university press directors polled.

If you want to publish a journal or conference proceedings online, the library can help you. OJS, Open Journal Systems, and OCS, Open Conference Systems, are software and support that is available from the Center for Digital Research and Scholarlship. See a demonstration of these new library services and learn about the support available for scholarly publishing.

This is a brief introduction to the topic of "alternative metrics" for University Libraries.