Scholarly Communication

What is Inclusive Citation and Why Does It Matter?

As awareness of systemic racism grows on college campuses, one hot topic has been inclusive citation. So, what is inclusive citation, why does it matter, and what can we do about it?

Inclusive citation is about whose work we decide to cite. When we cite, we are situating our own work in the larger scholarly conversation about our topic. When we choose which sources to cite, our decisions influence who is part of that conversation—and who is not. Practicing inclusive citation means making intentional choices to find and cite the work of scholars with varied backgrounds and identities, in order to increase equity and inclusion in your field.

Why does inclusive citation matter? Citation counts are considered a metric of success for scholars, and can heavily influence job offers, promotions, tenure decisions, and more. However, there is a growing body of evidence showing that women and underrepresented minorities are consistently cited at lower rates than men, across disciplines. And the more a scholar’s work is cited, the more they will continue to be cited over time. This inequity makes it harder for people from underrepresented groups to succeed in their field.

How can we practice more inclusive citation? Here are a few ideas to get us started:

  • Analyze your reference list and ask yourself, who am I not citing? Are there other perspectives that I should consider?
  • Find a leading researcher in your field with a marginalized identity, and follow their work on social media.
  • Experiment with different search strategies or sources to bring back different (and potentially more diverse) results.
  • Make diversity of authors and perspectives a factor in prioritizing what research you decide to read.

Want to learn more?

What is inclusive citation? is a short tutorial that details these strategies and the research behind them.

The rise of citation justice: how scholars are making references fairer is an article from Nature that provides an excellent overview of research on citation inequities, efforts to diversify citations, and critical responses.

New policies will impact research data sharing and scholarly communication

We’re monitoring recent changes to policy and legislation that will likely impact the work of Northeastern University faculty, staff, and student researchers. Read on for a brief overview of three of these impending changes, in order of their expected implementation dates.

NIH (National Institutes of Health) Policy for Data Management and Sharing

What is it? The NIH’s new policy on data management and sharing aims to improve the reproducibility and reliability of NIH-funded work by broadening access to research uploads.

When will the changes take place? January 25, 2023

How might this impact researchers?

  • DMSPs: All NIH proposals will require the submission of a data management and sharing plan (DMSP). Previously, only NIH proposals above a certain funding threshold required a DMSP.
  • Data availability: Research data is expected to be made accessible “as soon as possible, and no later than the time of an associated publication, or the end of the award/support period, whichever comes first.” Further, the new policy strongly encourages the use of established repositories to share data.
  • Costs: Reasonable costs related to data management and sharing may be included in NIH budget requests.

Additional resources:

CHIPS and Science Act

What is it? The CHIPS and Science Act is primarily related to semiconductor manufacturing and the STEM workforce pipeline, but also includes some open science directives.

When will the changes take place? One year following enactment (circa September 2023)

How might this impact researchers? Once the act takes effect, applications for National Science Foundation awards will be required to include machine-readable data management plans (DMPs). We do not anticipate that this will significantly impact researchers, as most DMPs are already machine-readable unless they include tables or charts. This requirement will enable more seamless information sharing between systems used by institutions and funders, ultimately reducing the paperwork burden for researchers.

Additional resource:

White House Office of Science & Technology Memorandum: Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research

What is it? OSTP’s new memorandum (aka the Nelson memo) builds upon OSTP’s 2013 Holdren memo. The new memo will make research funded by all U.S. government agencies immediately available to the public. This eliminates the current optional 1-year embargo period and applies to both publications and the data underlying peer-reviewed research. Under the new Nelson memo, the definition of publications is widened beyond articles to also apply to peer-reviewed book chapters and conference proceedings.

When will the changes take place? The Nelson memo will first impact funding agencies, which will be expected to fully implement their public access and data sharing plans by the end of 2025.

How might this impact researchers? Once the memo goes into effect, researchers and members of the public will benefit from broader, more immediate access to federally funded research results. The memo urges the use of persistent identifiers (PIDs) to unambiguously identify authors, affiliations, funders, and more, so this would be a great time to acquire and begin using an ORCID iD if you don’t already have one. The U.S. government has also signaled interest in examining current academic incentive structures to better recognize institutions and researchers for their support of public access to research.

Additional resources:

The library is working with campus partners, including Research Administration and Research Computing, to develop guidance and resources to assist researchers as they navigate these changes. As always, if you need assistance with a data management or data management and sharing plan, or if you’re searching for a secure, permanent home for your research outputs, we’re here to help!

Introducing the New Northeastern Commons

Commons Redesign
The library is happy to announce that the Northeastern Commons is relaunching with a new look. The Northeastern Commons is an online platform where Northeastern University students, faculty, staff, and the outside community can come together to share ideas, explore common interests, foster creativity, and expand interdisciplinary thinking.

Screenshot of the Northeastern Commons website

The redesign was led by Northeastern Commons Coordinator Meg McMahon, with help from Web Developer Jeanine Rodriguez and Digital Accessibility and User Experience Assistant Vanessa Lee. As a team, they re-built the platform with a user-first approach and a focus on digital accessibility of the platform.

Using a variety of methods, including stakeholder and user listening sessions, the team focused on how the current platform was functioning. They took the data gathered during those sessions and created an affinity diagram of user needs for the rebuild. From this network of user needs, they turned to considering system requirements for the platform. Rodriguez pitched the idea of using the BuddyBoss Platform as the codebase because of the overlap between user needs and the features of that specific WordPress plugin.

During the build, Lee conducted an accessibility audit of the BuddyBoss platform, including browser checking, screen reader testing, and mobile testing, which Rodriguez then used as a roadmap for changes to the initial codebase. McMahon worked on user testing and internal testing of the platform to ensure users would be able to use the platform easily. Any issues found during the testing were added to the list of changes to make to the codebase.

Currently, the Commons team is still working on accessibility updates to the platform and feature updates and will continue to do so as the work on the Commons continues.

Commons Features
The Northeastern Commons runs on profile and group-based networking. That means users will be able to post, share, and create from their own individual profiles and within groups, which are the primary method of collaboration on the Commons.

Users who set up a user profile can share their research interests, publications, projects, talks, and press. Adding this information to a Commons profile makes it easier for other users to find people with similar research interests, which can lead to greater collaboration between Commons users.

Group collaboration on the Commons is unique based on choice and the subsequent use of those features. Furthermore, there is privacy built into the group design. Visibility of the group depends on the privacy setting of the group: public, private, or hidden. Public groups can be joined or viewed by anyone, whether they are signed into the platform or not. Private groups can be seen on the platform, but members must request or be invited to join. Hidden groups are only visible to those invited to join. Every group regardless of privacy status has the same features, which are:

Feed
The feed for groups is the activity feed. Activity can be an update from the organizers of the group, a notification when someone joins the group, a document added to the document table, and any action a member does within the group. Members of the group can also comment on the activity, leading to greater collaboration within the feed.

The feed acts as a living record of the progress and conversation the group is having and is searchable by keyword, which leads to greater discoverability of previous conversations.

Members
The members tab is a list of all the members of the group. Users will be able to search for members here, message them, and request a Commons connection, which is like friending on the platform.

Documents
The documents tab is a place for the group to upload documents that are relevant to the whole group. The file structure uses folders to sort and separate out documents.

Discussions
The discussions tab is a place where group members can create discussion board topics and reply to others’ discussion board topics. These can be subscribed to for easy access through a user’s profile.

Send Messages
This tab can be used to send a message to all group members using private messaging. It can also be used to send a message to only a few group members the message creator selects.

Subgroups
This tab appears if the parent group has subgroups within it. Subgroups function the same way that a parent group does; it is just nested within the parent group and does not show up in the group search.

Zoom
This tab is used to keep a running list of Zoom meetings for the group. If the organizers of the group choose to have the meeting recorded in the cloud, the meeting itself is accessible within the group.

Calendar
The calendar is a tab where organizers can create a list of group events which can be viewable in many different calendar forms. This feature must be specifically requested for a group using the Northeastern Commons Consultation form.

Static Pages
This is where a group can request to have a static HTML page within their group tabs. Group organizers will be able to add whatever they want to that page and continually update it based on their needs. This feature must be specifically requested for a group using the Northeastern Commons Consultation form.

Next Step for the Commons
Going forward, the Northeastern Commons will continue to utilize user needs assessments to grow and build further functionalities, leaning on the collective knowledge and desires of current group organizers and users.

For more information on the Commons, visit northeasterncommons.org or contact Meg McMahon at m.mcmahon@northeastern.edu.

3 Minute Thesis with GWISE: October 16th

Exciting news! We’ve been working with GWISE to bring the 3 Minute Thesis competition to Snell Library this year.

Infographic for Northeastern's 3 Minute Thesis competition on Tuesday, Oct. 16th, 11 am - 1 pm, 90 Snell Library  

3MT challenges graduate students to distill their work for a non-technical audience, using just 3 minutes and a single PowerPoint slide. 

Check out this video of competitor Maria Gibbs from Notre Dame to see an example of a winning 3MT talk.

Prizes this year include gift cards, a guest appearance on the What’s New podcast, and credit in the 3D Printing Studio – not to mention bragging rights!

The deadline to present has passed, but you can still attend and cheer on the presenters.  More details in the graphic above and at the RSVP link.

Open Access Week is 10 Years Old!

The theme of this year’s International Open Access Week, “Open in order to…”, highlights the multitude of reasons why Open Access is important to researchers, students, funders, patients, and everyone else who benefits from increased sharing of knowledge. This year marks the 10th celebration of International Open Access Week, held during the last full week of October to advocate for fewer barriers between people and the information they need. At Snell Library, we support Open Access in lots of ways. In 2016, our staff adopted an open access policy for our published research and presentations – you can find them in our Digital Repository Service. These materials have been viewed almost 2,000 times and have been downloaded by readers more than 1,000 times! If you’re a researcher at Northeastern and would like to get started using the DRS to make your work more accessible to readers around the world, it’s easy. Also of interest to researchers: we’ve recently updated the page on our website about Open Access, and it now includes a list of publishers that offer Northeastern-affiliated authors a discount on the article processing charges for publishing open-access with them. Snell Library also supports Open Access journal publishing on campus through Open Journal Systems (OJS). We currently work with four journals being published at Northeastern – including NU Writing, which recently moved over to our OJS system from the platform it was previously using. NU Writing just released their first issue using OJS! And, we support Open Access publishing and sharing through our memberships in initiatives such as the Digital Commonwealth, the Digital Public Library of America, HathiTrust, Knowledge Unlatched, and SCOAP³. In October 2008, we celebrated the first international Open Access Day at Snell Library. Since then, as the Open Access movement has grown, we’ve expanded our programming as well – first, with Open Access Week, and then in the past two years with Open Access Month in October. This year, we’re expanding the concept even more – we want to highlight openness in research, teaching, scholarship, and creativity throughout the academic year. After all, at this point, open access is something that we should be acknowledging as an established facet of the scholarly ecosystem, rather than a special topic that only gets attention once a year. So, stay tuned for open access–related news and events to come. Banner image and poster openly licensed by SPARC, CC BY 4.0