The Stellenbosch University Library is undergoing renovations. We apologise for the inconvenience caused during the refurbishments.

The renovations consist of upgrading the existing facilities and infrastructure to accommodate clients’ needs and create a contemporary aesthetic for the SU Library while maintaining the integrity of the existing building. The primary focus of the project is to provide clients with comfortable and effective spaces in which to work while making it easier to use and navigate the library.

Renovations include the installation of a new client service desk, new students’ workspaces, redesign of the reading area, new furniture, flooring and new toilets for students and staff.

The work will be completed in three phases. Phase  1 of the project runs until the end of July 2021.

Phase 1 comprises renovation of the client service desk, short loans and related staff work areas and staff toilets.

The central section between Special Collections and the Law Section is boarded off. Science and AgriSciences books and printed journals are not available for the duration of the project. However, the Law Section, Special Collections and upper level toilets are still accessible. The Science and AgriSciences faculty librarians are temporarily located in the Learning Commons.

See the full announcement about the SU Library Refurbishment project.

Clients can look forward to comfortable and effective spaces when the project is complete.

 

 

 

Architect’s drawings of the refurbished SU Library spaces

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​The Library reminds researchers of the institutional open access publication (OAP) agreements reached with the following publishers, which afford article processing charge (APC) benefits, and which were communicated to the campus community on 26 February 2021:

• Cambridge University Press (CUP) – no cost for SU authors
• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) – no cost for SU authors
• MDPI – 10% discount for SU authors
• Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) – 15% discount for SU authors

Regrettably, the Library’s fund in support of open access publication (OAP) funding has ceased to exist.

The Library had some funds available to support OAP author fees in 2021. However, due to the number of applications received, this amount has been spent and no further funding will be available in future. We therefore request that researchers do not submit any further OAP funding applications to the Library.

The Library will continue to administer the University’s deposit account with SpringerNature (formerly BioMed Central), which will allow SU researchers to submit open access articles to SpringerNature without having to pay author fees to SpringerNature before publication, at https://preview.springernature.com/gp/open-research/institutional-agreements/individual-institutional-agreements. Submissions under the University’s deposit account will afford researchers 15% discount on the article processing charge (APC) for some SpringerNature titles. However, in future researchers will have to refund the Library 100% of these author fees, plus 15% VAT, upon publication. By submitting an article to SpringerNature against the University’s deposit account, a researcher agrees to refund the full cost to the Library after publication. The Library will claim this refund from the researcher upon receiving notification from SpringerNature that an article submitted against the University’s deposit account has been published. (Rand value calculated at the exchange rate on the day of claiming the refund).

Queries about SpringerNature APC funding may be directed to Ms Naomi Visser, tel: 021 808 4433.

Achievements

Mr Bruce Lewis is congratulated on completing his Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Library Science at the University of South Africa.

Dr Martha Susanna (Santie) de Jongh is congratulated on achieving her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Music from Stellenbosch University (SU). Santie’s thesis is entitled Music and militarisation during the period of the South African Border War (1966–1989): Perspectives from ‘Paratus’.

Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director: Library and Information Service, was a recipient of the University’s Chancellor’s Award. Ms Tise’s award was in recognition of her stewardship in various national and international library bodies. She champions access to knowledge as a basic human right.

 

New Appointments

 

Mr Jeremiah Pietersen has been appointed Manager: Learning and Training with effect from 1 February 2021. Jeremiah previously worked at UCT Libraries in various positions, most recently as Librarian: Science and Engineering.

 

 

We also welcome Mr Darryl Geldenhuys who has been appointed as Administrative Officer B1 in the Makerspace at the SU Library, with effect from the 1 March 2021. Darryl previously worked as an IT Technician at Bridge House School.

 

Also joining the Library on 1 March was Ms Deborah Beerwinkel, who has been appointed as Administrative Officer B1 in the Library’s Finance and Maintenance Division. Debbie previously worked at the Department of Medical Imaging and Clinical Oncology on the Tygerberg Campus. Debbie has been with SU for 11 years.

 

We wish Jeremiah, Darryl, and Debbie all the best in their new roles.

Stellenbosch University Library launched its Makerspace on 10 March 2021. While not the first of its kind at Stellenbosch University, it is the first to be housed in a non-discipline specific space.

In her presentation, Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director of the Library and Information Service, articulated some of the reasoning behind having such a space in an academic library. She mentioned that the idea had already started taking shape when in 2016 at the Stellenbosch University 14^th Annual Library Symposium, Jeroen de Boer presented on: “Makerspaces: a great opportunity to enhance academic libraries”. In his presentation Jeroen quoted David Lankes: “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities”. This corresponds well with the missions of academic libraries, which support the mission of the academe – that often centres around societal impact through research – and encourage being active contributors in the knowledge production ecosystem. Stellenbosch University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies, Professor Eugene Cloete, commended the Library for seeing through the construction of a makerspace. “In future I would like to see many more spaces like this at the University”, he commented.

Attended by other members of the University Executive, the SRC Chairperson and various important stakeholders at the University, the launch was a success in re-emphasizing the importance of the academic library growing its span of services congruent with changes in the higher education landscape. It also showed the ways the Makerspace can enrich creativity and learning, as well as support existing curricula on campus. After the launch, guests were taken on a tour of the Makerspace with many expressing keen interest and delight at having such a space in the Library.

With the space having formally opened its doors to the Stellenbosch University community on 1 April 2021, we have high hopes that it fulfills its purpose to provide a collaborative, technologically focused environment for students to invent, create and learn while sharing.

Jeremiah Pietersen

Photographs: Hennie Rudman

Editor: Read more about the Makerspace. / Lees meer oor die Innovasieruimte.

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Virtual launch: Course Reading Lists in SUNLearn

On 17 February 2021, the Library and Information Service launched the Course Reading Lists system. Some 116 colleagues participated in the launch, of which 70 were academic staff.

In her welcome, Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director: Library and Information Service, emphasized how this new system fulfills the need for comprehensive, structured, annotated and online reading lists available in the familiar environment of SUNLearn.

In her presentation, guest speaker Ms Amy Liakopoulos (Manager of Campus Engagement, Ex Libris North America) highlighted some of the benefits of Course Reading Lists for Stellenbosch University. It saves lecturers time in managing reading material for their courses: they can quickly and easily add diverse resource types to their lists and reuse these lists in subsequent terms or years through the rollover function. By organising resources into sections, tagging items as essential, recommended, etc. and by adding notes to resources, lecturers ensure students understand their expectations. A further advantage of the system is the integrated library support: with a single click, lecturers can send lists for Library review and students can report broken links directly to the Library. Comprehensive usage analytics measure student engagement with each resource; lecturers could leverage student feedback to improve instruction.

Two early adopters showcased their reading lists. According to Anria van Zyl (Senior Lecturer: School of Accountancy), Course Reading Lists helps her avoid clutter in SUNLearn, is easy to find, contains hyperlinks and exposes the Library resources to her students. Dr ZE Mashimbye (Lecturer: Geography and Environmental Studies) finds Course Reading Lists to be a convenient way to organise reading material and the Cite It! bookmarklet is a useful tool to quickly add resources to his list.

A demonstration of how to create a reading list and add resources, combined with a question-and-answer session, concluded the event.

Watch the launch recording.
For more information, visit the Library’s Course Reading Lists in SUNLearn webpage.

Natasja Malherbe

Editor: Read further how Course Reading Lists expands the Library’s support for teaching and learning at SU.

Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service is pleased to announce the launch of the Research Data Management (RDM) Adventure Game. The RDM Adventure Game is a text-based role-playing interactive fiction serious game, based on the data management challenges of a research project. The game takes the form of an online choose-your-own-adventure format in which game players take a simulated research project through the following processes: data management planning, data collection/generation, data organisation, data description and research publication, while encountering data management challenges along the way. The game was developed as part of a collaboration between the University of Bath Library and Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service between 2017 and 2020 by Alex Ball (University of Bath), Samuel Simango (Stellenbosch University) and Nushrat Khan (University of Bath). In January 2021, the Wellcome Trust’s Early Career Researchers Advisory Board endorsed the game by including it in the Wellcome Open Research early career researchers pack, recognising it as a useful tool for researchers.

Aim of the Game

The objective of the RDM Adventure Game is to demonstrate and teach good practice in research data management and assist researchers in understanding good practices related to RDM. The specific learning outcomes focus on the following aspects:

1. Data management planning
2. Designing participant information sheets and consent forms
3. Choosing appropriate equipment for research projects
4. Acquiring suitable third-party research data
5. Organising research data
6. Storing research data appropriately
7. Analysing and documenting research data
8. Preparing research data for archiving
9. Publishing research data

The Audience

The RDM Adventure Game is aimed primarily at postgraduate students as well as early career researchers and academics. Anyone who has an interest in understanding how RDM works on a practical level, e.g. research support staff, could, however, also find the game helpful.

Game play

The game takes players through different stages of the research data lifecycle, presents them with a data management challenge and allows them to make decisions that affect the success of their research project. Players progress either by making straightforward binary choices or by completing puzzle-like options. In the process certain challenges test the effectiveness of the decisions made by the players. The tone of the game is light-hearted to maintain its entertainment value, despite it being a serious game.

Since the game simulates the entire RDM lifecycle, the repercussions of decisions researchers make can be experienced in a safe environment, permitting them to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them without suffering the associated real-life consequences. Game players can opt to play the entire game or can select to only play specific stages of the RDM lifecycle.

Find out more and play the game

The RDM Adventure Game was launched in December 2020 at the University of Bath. The game has been released under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) and is hosted on GitLab. If you are interested in playing the game, click here.

For more information, please contact Samuel Simango at ssimango@sun.ac.za

 

Further Reading

• Ball, A. 2020. Fancy a Game of Research Data? University of Bath: Library News. Available: https://unibathlibrary.wordpress.com/2020/12/01/fancy-a-game-of-research-data/
• Ball, A and Simango, S. 2018. Serious Gaming: Creating a Research Data Management Adventure. 15th Stellenbosch University Library Symposium. Available: https://conferences.sun.ac.za/public/conferences/53/presentations/rdm.pdf

The Library and Information Service is pleased to announce that we have signed agreements with a number of publishers that make it easier for our researchers to publish in open access with these publishers, and in some cases to even publish in open access without paying any article processing charge (APC).

BioMed Central and SpringerNature

Our agreement with BMC has been replaced by an agreement with SpringerNature and now includes all fully open access journals of BMC, Nature Research (including Nature Communications and Scientific Reports), Palgrave Macmillan, Springer and SpringerNature. Under this agreement, the APCs for these journals will be deducted from Stellenbosch University’s prepaid deposit account with SpringerNature. Articles published in BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals will receive a 15% discount on the APCs.

Before submitting a manuscript to one of these journals, corresponding authors affiliated with Stellenbosch University should complete an Open Access Publication Fund application form. If the application is approved, they may submit the manuscript, stating Stellenbosch University as their affiliation. When an article is accepted for publication, SpringerNature will ask the Library to verify the submitting author’s SU affiliation. The full APC will then be deducted from our deposit account. However, since the Open Access Publication Fund funds only 50% of the SU authors’ share of the publication cost, a refund will be claimed from the author in the form of a corrective journal transaction on the SUN system.

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

The Library has signed a Read and Publish agreement with CUP, which covers APCs as well as subscription payments. This agreement allows all corresponding authors from Stellenbosch University to publish research articles in open access in CUP journals at no extra cost. Authors must use their @sun email address when submitting an article to a CUP open access journal.

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

The ACM is a non-profit society publisher, which plans to achieve full open access within five years. The Library’s agreement with ACM includes access to ACM journals and allows SU authors to publish in open access in ACM journals at no cost. It is a 3-year agreement (2021-2023) with a fixed price for the length of the agreement. Authors can opt out of the open access arrangement and publish behind a paywall if they so choose.

MDPI and Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC): APC discounts

SU authors will receive a 10% discount on the APCs for any paper accepted for publication by MDPI and a 15% discount when publishing with RSC.

More information regarding the SU Open Access Publication Fund is available on our website.

Enquiries: Ms Naomi Visser, nrv@sun.ac.za, Tel 021 808 4433

October 2020 was the 10^th anniversary of International Open Access Week. Celebrations took place amidst the COVID-19 pandemic which made access to physical libraries difficult for many users. International Open Access Week is an annual global event that seeks to broaden awareness and understanding of the importance of open access to scholarly research. It seeks to ensure that scholarly research and accompanying data is published on platforms that make it freely accessible to the user. The theme for this year’s Open Access Week was “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion”. It is a theme that focused on the urgent need for action regarding information equity, representivity and inclusion.

The Library and Information Service (LIS) of Stellenbosch University (SU) did not let the COVID-19 crisis dampen its spirits. A number of activities were undertaken in celebration of this week.

Promotional material and plasma slides were prepared and presented throughout the week by Digital Scholarship staff. The exhibition and slides aimed to raise awareness and understanding about the Library’s open access (OA) activities.

A social media OA awareness campaign was run. The Library’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were used to share information about OA and its importance to library users especially while the COVID-19 crisis prevails.

A video, Open access initiatives at Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service was created and flighted on the Library website and social media. The video highlights the SUNScholar institutional repository and the Library’s open digital heritage repository, SUNDigital Collections, which showcases the Library’s special collections. SUNScholarData too, is featured.

Additionally, Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director of the LIS, was invited to speak at the OA event of the University of the Western Cape Library Services. In her presentation, Ms Tise highlighted the OA initiatives of the LIS of SU and their impact. The initiatives include electronic theses and dissertations, digitisation of scholarly articles, digitisation of special collections content, and the digitisation of research data.

Siviwe Bangani

Editing: Bronwyn Bruton

The Library and Information Service conducted a client survey in August to hear the needs and challenges of staff and students in using the Library’s online services and resources. With a greater understanding of users’ needs and challenges, the Library is now working to make improvements.

The 1 149 survey responses which were received were representative of all client types and faculties. Illustrated below is a breakdown of respondents by client type, expressed as a percentage of the total.

Client type of respondents, as a percentage

 

The bar graph below depicts the faculties represented by survey participants, expressed as a percentage of the total.

Survey respondents by faculty, as a percentage

 

Feedback, received in the form of four open-ended questions, has provided valuable information about aspects of online services with which staff and students struggle and which they wish to see improved.

Clients’ needs are centered on finding information for their studies or research in the form of journal articles and books, and in using the online databases, e-journals and SUNSearch. They also have need to access the physical library, including printing facilities and study areas. The Interlibrary loans service and the library guides set up by librarians are also very frequently used. Aspects such as a user-friendly website, library-related training and help with referencing were also fairly important needs indicated by staff and students.

The challenges that library users experience mostly relate to accessing information in databases, users’ own search abilities, navigating the Library’s website, limited electronic material and complex search functions. A large number of participants (170) indicated that they do not experience any challenges in using the Library’s online services and resources.

Suggestions received regarding training related mostly to the ease of obtaining information for studies or research. The optimal use of databases, how to do a literature search, search strategies, basic orientation, the need for online training videos and how to reference resources were all points highlighted. As the Library already offers training in several of these topics, the need for awareness of services and training has become evident.

General suggestions included the need for an improved electronic book collection, a user-friendly website, a better search engine and more online resources in general. More defined search options will also assist in finding information effectively.

Based on the survey results, the Library will work to improve the following: the usability of the website and search functions, expansion of the current generic training which will also focus on new students and undergraduates, provision of more e-learning tools and using a variety of ways to market the library’s services and training. The results and recommendations have also assisted the Library in setting up strategic themes for the period 2021-2025.

The Library is truly thankful to all who participated in the survey. We look forward to offering you improved services.

Marié Roux

Editing: Bronwyn Bruton

Update on Course Reading Lists

The Library and Information Service in collaboration with the Centre for Learning Technologies and other learning and teaching support divisions, has implemented a SUNLearn integrated course reading system to allow for the better administration of reading lists in an e-learning environment. Course Reading Lists, powered by Leganto® from Ex Libris, allows lecturers to build and manage the reading lists for their courses directly from within SUNLearn. Lecturers from the Departments of Educational Psychology, Music, Geography and Environmental Studies, the School of Accountancy, the Division of Molecular Biology and Human Genetics and the Faculty of Theology, participated in the implementation of the system which went live on 1 December 2020.

Leganto® allows lecturers to include diverse content from the Library and elsewhere, such as books, articles, open educational resources, websites, streaming media, digitised content and course notes, in a single list. In doing so, Course Reading Lists adds both print and electronic materials to the same lists and shows the real-time availability of both. Student usage reports are also available to help lecturers determine how effective their reading lists are and what materials students engage with most, through views, comments and likes.

Students access Course Reading Lists from within their course in SUNLearn. They can interact with their lists by marking citations as read and liking those citations which they enjoy. If enabled by the lecturer, students can view upcoming due dates by when material needs to be read and can partake in student discussions on their lists. This new integrated course reading system comes at a time when students need to engage more with their lecturers through the SUNLearn system.

To learn more about Course Reading Lists and to get started on your own, please visit https://libguides.sun.ac.za/readinglists.

Lecturers and facilitators of courses who wish to make use of this new feature to improve their course reading list administration in 2021, can contact Natasja Malherbe (Manager: Digital Library Systems), tel. +27 21 808-2845 or their faculty librarian.

Wouter Klapwijk

Update on Library services

The libraries that are currently open for services, including research and study, are: SU Library, Engineering and Forestry Library, Medicine and Health Sciences Library, Music Library and USBL (Bellville Park Campus Library).

Read here the details about opening hours, booking a visit as well as services and resources that are offered.

SU Library service

The Stellenbosch University (SU) Library building is available for a limited number of clients at a time to use computers and spaces for study and research. Clients are also welcome to bring their own devices.

Clients may use the library’s online booking system to book to browse for books in the SU Library. Clients who are interested in utilising this option must place a booking 24 hours in advance of the desired time. The relevant Faculty Librarian will then contact the client to explain the relevant procedures. Please note that Monday bookings must be verified on the previous Friday.

To ensure adherence to Covid-19 protocols, the total number of clients allowed in the library is monitored. Clients are therefore required to book time slots via the library’s online booking system. Further details can be found here.

International Open Access Week is an annual scholarly communication event which focuses on Open Access and related topics and takes place every year in the last week of October. The theme for this year’s Open Access week was “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion”. In light of this theme, the Library and Information Service decided to put the spotlight on Open Data as an aspect of Open Science and inform the research community of the importance of Open Data as well as to showcase the growth of SUNScholarData, the institutional Research Data repository managed by the Library.

Open Data is a sub-component that exists within the broader context of Open Research. It owes its existence largely to the increasingly prominent role which research data have come to play in the world of scholarly research. The impetus behind making research data openly accessible has been a desire to democratise the data so that any person can access such data, free of constraints such as paywalls. However, the need itself goes beyond this and is linked to certain positive benefits for the rest of society. Examples of this include but are not limited to the following: Improvements in the quality of research data; compliance with certain ethical and legal requirements; a reduction in the duplication of data collection efforts; an increase in the diffusion of information and ultimately knowledge throughout society and the broader dissemination of research data.

In recognising the important role that research data repositories can play in facilitating the dissemination of open scientific data, Stellenbosch University (SU) set up and launched its very own institutional research data repository, SUNScholarData, on 12 August 2019.

The first dataset was deposited in SUNScholarData on 7 August 2019. Since then, the number of deposits has increased at a modest rate and now totals 84 datasets. Some 21 of these have been published and are openly accessible. The datasets have been viewed 9 564 times and generated 1 559 downloads since August 2019.

In addition to permitting the deposit of research data, SUNScholarData facilitates the bulk-linkage to supplementary data originally submitted to academic publishers. Currently this is only possible with supplementary data associated with the Public Library of Science’s (PLOS) journals. On 16 September 2020, a total of 3 508 PLOS datasets were linked to SUNScholarData. These datasets cover a period from 2006-2020 and provide a broad view of openly accessible research data that span several academic disciplines.

SUNScholarData provides several benefits which can be harnessed by SU researchers. The greatest benefit experienced by those who have published research data on SUNScholarData is the increased visibility of their data. As SUNScholarData is visible and accessible online it is certainly better than storing research data on local as well as external hard drives. Furthermore, the repository stores research data securely in accordance with recognised ISO standards. The research datasets are curated prior to publication, thus ensuring quality and by extension trustworthiness. SUNScholarData facilitates compliance with research funder mandates, which may require that the research data associated with funded research be shared publicly upon the completion of projects. SUNScholardata also facilitates compliance with the policies of academic publishers, which sometimes mandate that the research data underpinning publication be published via research data repositories.

Researchers interested in learning more about SUNScholarData are welcome to contact the Manager: Research Data Services of the Library at ssimango@sun.ac.za.

Samuel Simango