NISO Professional Development Events, August and September 2020

July 2020

August 2020

Free Webinar:

Seamless Access Presents Entity Categories and Attribute Bundles
Monday, August 5, 2020, 10:00 am - 11:00 am (Eastern Time)

The SeamlessAccess Entity Categories and Attribute Bundles Working Group brought together 22 individuals from around the world and across different sectors to define and promote the categorization of different levels of attribute release profiles (commonly known as entity categories) associated with federated access to scholarly information resources. The group has proposed three separate categories: Authentication Only, Anonymous Authorization, and Pseudonymous Authorization. The goal is to have these categorizations and profiles adopted and/or endorsed by global research and education federations, library communities, and other stakeholder groups. This webinar will review each of these entity categories with a goal of encouraging informed feedback from the community during the public consultation period.

Moderator: Jason Griffey, Director, Strategic Initiatives, NISO

Featured Speaker: Heather Flanagan, Program Director, SeamlessAccess.org

NISO Two Part Webinar:

By Faculty and For Students: Supporting Open Educational Resources, Part One
Wednesday, August 12, 2020, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm (Eastern Time)

Open Educational Resources (OER) might seem like a win/win for students and faculty alike, but adoption isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. For example, some texts may not lend themselves to being printed out — the subject matter may dictate an interactive design, or one that is heavily image-driven. And, while the creation of low-cost textbooks and curriculum support is recognized as important, how is the information community dealing with the challenges of ensuring currency and quality? How do we ensure equal access for all in a world of differing access to technology?

In the first session of this two-part webinar, a panel of experts will address some of the key challenges, including: How can you successfully drive buy-in by your undergraduates? What design elements are most likely to engage them? What indicators of use should you be measuring, how, and why? How can you support faculty members who are interested in developing these materials?

Confirmed speakers include Perry Collins, Scholarly Communications Librarian, University of Florida, and Micah Jenkins, eText Coordinator, University of Florida, Anita Walz, Assistant Director for Open Education and Scholarly Communication Librarian, Virginia Tech, and Apurva Ashok, Program Manager, Rebus Foundation.

Open Access Monographs: What You Need To Know, Part Two
Wednesday, August 19, 2020, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm (Eastern Time)

A 2019 article in The Atlantic observed that the current disruption in scholarly book publishing might result in the Great Sorting, what the author saw as a beneficial “matching of different kinds of scholarly uses with the right media, formats, and locations.”

In that context, the second session of this two-part webinar focuses specifically on OA monographs. Which stakeholders are currently delivering them and using them? Which current business models are most likely to represent sustainability for those stakeholders? And, with a population of interested readers of these works that may be far larger than their actual revenues, what can publishers, librarians, vendors, and others do to help drive discovery and usage of high-value OA monographs?

Our panel of expert speakers will share their expertise, as well as respond to your questions about OA monographs.

Confirmed speakers include Charles Watkinson, Director, University of Michigan Press and Associate University Librarian, Publishing, University of Michigan, Barbara K. Pope, Director, Johns Hopkins University Press and Frances Pinter, Executive Chair of the Central European University Press and Founder of Knowledge Unlatched.

NOTE: ALL members of NISO automatically receive sign-on credentials for both parts of this event as a member benefit. There is no need to register separately. Check your institutional membership status here.

NISO Virtual Conference:

Transforming Search: What the Information Community Can and Should Build
Wednesday, August 26, 2020, 12:00 pm Noon - 4:00 pm (Eastern Time)

Linked data. Aerial photography. Voice recognition and automated transcription. While none of these alone have transformed the user’s search experience, each plays a part in how users currently think about information retrieval and about the research process. In the coming years, artificial intelligence will have an increasingly important role as well in satisfying the user’s information need. This event will address how search technologies have progressed as well as emerging issues associated with discovery and relevant retrieval.

Confirmed speakers include: Joyce Valenza, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University; Johnny Boursiquot, Chief Technology Officer, Skilltype; Sebastian Kohlmeier, Senior Manager, Semantic Scholar & Response to COVID-19 Pandemic, Allen Institute of AI; Markus Kaindl, Senior Manager for Semantic Data, Springer Nature; Representative, Copyright Clearance Center; other TBA.

September 2020

NISO Webinar

Demonstrating the Return On Investment: The Library’s Role and Contribution
Wednesday, September 9, 2020, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm (Eastern Time)

Assessment practices can be used by libraries to demonstrate to administrators and key decision-makers the return on investment from the services they offer. They can help show that, rather than being a drain on institutional resources, the library is a cost-effective and impactful part of an institution’s educational offering.

This webinar will focus on how assessment exercises are critical to helping position the library in this way, and on effectively presenting the data generated by the assessment to those passing judgement. The panel will address questions such as: How can you show that library initiatives are aligned with institutional goals? How effectively is the library allocating its space in serving students and faculty? How much is being spent on licensed content, and are those resources being used?

Librarians and library vendors, administrators, and publishers alike will benefit from a better understanding of how and why to demonstrate the ROI of a library.

Confirmed speakers for this event, among others, include Karen Schneider, Dean of the Library, Sonoma State, Denise Stephens, Vice Provost and University Librarian, Washington University at St. Louis, Diane Bruxvoort, Dean of Libraries, University of North Texas, Courtney L. Young, University Librarian, Colgate University, and Thomas Wall, University Librarian, Boston College.

NISO Virtual Conference

Privacy in the Age of Surveillance: Everyone’s Concern
Wednesday, September 16, 2020, 12:00 pm Noon - 4:00 pm (Eastern Time)

In an age of networked information platforms, a user’s activity is traced automatically and frequently without much system transparency. Does that necessarily constitute surveillance of the user? Depending upon the geographic location, camera and satellite monitoring are ubiquitous. Why shouldn’t data sensors help administrators improve traffic flow? Why should we hesitate to gather and use data in resolving big and small issues in society? Vendors want to improve the user experience; studying user data allows that. Even in the library, benign assessment exercises trace patron use of resources or access. Where is the line and how should stakeholders be thinking about the issue?

To what extent are these practices intrusive or threatening to the individual? How transparent are we required to be about systems and practices? This event will feature participation by a variety of community stakeholders considering these and other questions about this sensitive concern.

NISO Training Series

Assessment Practices and Metrics in a 21st Century Pandemic: A NISO Training Series
Friday, September 18, 2020 - November 6, 2020, 11:30 am - 1:00 pm (Eastern Time)

To explore planning, management, and assessment practices in libraries during COVID-19. We will discuss effective practices for planning for library spaces, collections, services, and strategic innovations – a sequel to the 2018 and 2019 offerings. Participants will also have access to the 2018 webinar recordings.

Don't let a crisis get wasted is a popular saying these days. The world has been challenged this year with the COVID-19 pandemic so our familiar and well-known series will explore some new and some familiar topics on spaces, collections, services and strategic innovations through the lens of COVID-19. Our seminar series this year will focus on the transformations happening in today’s 21st century library and in the changes we are living through, the planning overkill we are experiencing, the ways we know we are succeeding, and how we can emerge resilient and sane at the end of the tunnel. What does all the shifts we are going through mean for the 21st Century Library and the way we assess and measure our success!

Registration for this event includes access to the archived recordings the 2018 Training Series on Assessment Practices and Metrics in the 21st Century.

Course Moderator: Martha Kyrillidou of QualityMetrics, LLC

The series consists of eight (8) segments, one per week and each lasting approximately 60-90 minutes. Each segment is intended to cover a Thursday lunch period (11:00am - 12:30pm, US. Eastern).

NISO Virtual Conference

Humanities Roundtable 2020: Building Diversity, Building Accessibility, Building Better
Wednesday, September 23, 2020, 11:30 am - Friday, September 25, 2020, 4:30 pm (Eastern Time)

The theme of this year’s Humanities Roundtable is building better — better diversity, better accessibility, better technology — in order to develop a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable humanities community. From the complexities of controlled vocabularies and thesauri in the humanities, to dealing with historically offensive language, and from defining accessibility in a humanities context to designing for it, our speakers will touch on many of the critical changes the digital humanities need.None of this is simple but, at the same time, if we work together to find solutions, it’s not impossible. By bringing together stakeholders from across our community — librarians, publishers, technology providers — this year’s Roundtable will kickstart a discussion on the practical requirements and implications of delivering a more diverse, a more accessible, a better information environment for the digital humanities community.

The event will include small group breakout sessions to encourage attendees from a range of stakeholder communities to engage productively with one another and to collaborate in identifying next steps.