Why Does Google Scholar Sometimes Ask for Money

“Why Does Google Scholar Sometimes Ask for Money? ” Leveraging the Economics of Information and Scholarly Communication Processes to Enrich Instruction Scott Warren & Kim Duckett NCSU Libraries LOEX Annual Conference May 3, 2008

What We’ll Cover • Why economics of information & scholarly communication? • Our teaching scenarios • Instructional strategies • Assessment efforts & feedback • Future plans

Why Information Economics? ________________

“If students really knew how much they were paying for all the info in the library I bet they would definitely be using the library and all of its available resources much more. ” “Gravenewworld” (anonymous grad student). Physics Forums (2007 September 10). Message posted to http: //www. physicsforums. com

Why Scholarly Communication? _________________

“Unfortunately, students are too often asked to use the tools of a discipline without being able to adopt its culture. ” Brown, J. S. , Collins, A. , & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32 -42.

Relevance for Info Literacy _________________

ACRL Info Lit Standard Five The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.

“Before we train students to use search tools, before we send them to books, periodicals, or websites, we need to teach them about information. What is it? How is it created? Where is it stored? ” Swanson, T. (2004). A radical step: Implementing a critical information literacy model. Portal, 4(2), 259 -273.

“…how often do our instruction programs treat information as a socially-mediated phenomenon? More often we act as if it’s inert stuff that you find and use to create ‘products’ without actually interacting with it or considering where it came from and why – other than whether it’s scholarly or not. ” Fister, B. (2006, March 21). Making information literacy critical. Message posted to http: //acrlog. org/2006/03/21/making-informationliteracy-critical

Our Teaching Scenarios _________________

Our Sandbox • Communication for Science and Research (ENG 333) • Junior / senior science majors • Required course for some students • Many desire to go to grad school • On campus and online sections

Additional Groups • Undergrads – Engineering, communication, ESL composition – Honors seminar • Grad students – textiles management, computer science, electrical engineering, textiles engineering – education, and communications and rhetoric in digital media

Instructional Strategies _________________

Provide Context for Peer Review • Get students to talk about what they already know. • Then build on it… – – – – “why not post it on a blog? ” career management rejection rates how the process works “not all journals are created equal” page rates no royalties who owns the article?

Scholarly Information is a Business How much do you think this journal costs? What you get: Online access Print copies (12 issues)

Scholarly Information is a Business Sticker Shock! Vanderbilt University Libraries Cornell University Libraries University of California San Francisco Libraries

Ask Probing Questions • Why do you think publishers can charge so much money? • Why are libraries willing to pay so much money?

Information Business “Players” Academic Information is a BIG BUSINESS The players: Researchers Writing Publishers Selling Access & Packaging Database (index/abstract) companies Selling Discovery Libraries Buying Discovery & Access

Invisible / Deep Web Metaphor • If peer reviewed articles cost money, do you think publishers would give them away for FREE? • “Silo” nature of the Web • “Free” vs. “costs money” • Compare to consumer behavior • Discovery vs. access

Web Search Engines – Yahoo!, Google, etc. World Wide Web – Millions of web pages! This is the surface of the Web

Web Search Engines World Wide Web – Millions of web pages! Web pages containing search tools The Invisible Web

Web Search Engines World Wide Web – Millions of web pages! Web pages containing search tools (DATABASES) $ $ $ free! $ Silos of Information $ $ free!

Google Scholar Academic content from. edu web domains $ $ $ free! Citations for scholarly articles from publishers $ free! $ Ejournals / Publisher sites $ $ free!

Here’s an example: Imagine that you need to find an affordable plane ticket. So you search Google…

You get some results…

You need to search inside Travelocity to find the plane ticket information.

Discovery!

Access!

Discovery!

Access!

Distinguish Between Discovery and Access Use examples of consumer behavior to highlight distinction between “searching for it” and “getting it. ”

Balance Context with Hands-On Our Project Pure Context Pure “How -To”

Assessment _________________

Prior Knowledge Probes Trying to get students’ mental models of how the Web and scholarly publishing “work”

Post-Workshop Survey • What did you learn that was new to you…(try to name three) • What did you learn that was useful to you…(try to name three) • Any comments or suggestions to make this session better…

Quizzes Can students explain what they learned? Ø How does an article database like CAB Abstracts differ from Google or Google Scholar (consider things such as content, costs, who can access content, etc. )? Ø Why do people sometimes see a message to buy an article from a publisher when they are using Google Scholar?

“I thought the most interesting parts of the forum last night were the statistics. For example, I knew that the university spent tons of money of journal subscriptions, but I didn't know high it was! The same goes for the number of journals out there, I knew there a lot but 10, 000 was it? That's amazing!”

“I learned the reason Google fails me so often. . . I wish this presentation was offered earlier in my college career. ”

“Being a college student = access to a lot of expensive material. ” “Best library presentation I’ve been to. ”

Future Plans _________________

Expanding Instruction • Learning modules about: – Peer review – Costs of journals – The Invisible Web and Google Scholar • Sharing ideas and teaching materials with colleagues – UCLA, University of Vermont

Your Thoughts? _________________

Contact Scott Warren Associate Director, Textiles Library & Engineering Services NCSU Libraries scott_warren@ncsu. edu Kim Duckett Principal Librarian for Digital Technologies & Learning NCSU Libraries kim_duckett@ncsu. edu