We are happy to welcome Dr. Vincent Larivière & Dr. Stephanie Haustein (University of Montreal) to SIM for two special events, co-sponsored by the Dalhousie President’s Office, SSHRC (Research Development Fund), and Dalhousie Libraries:

WORKSHOP: From Bibliometrics to Altmetrics – Current Challenges in the Measurement of Scholarly Activity

Monday, March 7th, 2016 from 12:00pm-1:30pm*

Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue

*A light lunch will be served at 11:45am in Rowe 3087

Abstract: Since the creation of the Science Citation Index in 1963, sociologists of science and information scientists have developed methodologies to quantify various aspects of scholarly activity based on papers and citations. The digital era, which makes it easier for knowledge to be diffused, accessed and used, has led to a diversification of the means for communicating scholarly information, but also increased the traces it leaves online—especially on social media. This workshop will provide an introduction to bibliometrics and to the new family of social media-based indicators of scholarly activity currently grouped under the umbrella term of “altmetrics”, emphasizing possibilities and limitations.

LECTURE: On Transformations of Scholarly Communication in the Digital Era (Dr. Vincent Larivière)

Tuesday, March 8th, 2016 from 4:15pm-5:15pm

Room 3089, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building, 6100 University Avenue

Abstract: This year marks the 350^th anniversary of the creation of the first scientific journal, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. At the beginning of the 19^th century, journals became the fastest and most convenient way of disseminating new research results, outranking correspondence and monographs with which they had happily coexisted until then. They consolidated this position throughout the 20^th Century, especially in the sciences. The advent of the digital era then challenged their traditional role and form. Indeed, digital technologies, which are easy to update, reuse, access, and transmit, have changed how researchers produce and disseminate knowledge, as well as how this knowledge is accessed, used, and cited. Drawing on historical and contemporary empirical data, this talk will address the past and current transformations of scholarly communication, with an emphasis on how these transformations have affected the speed at which knowledge is disseminated.

BIOS

Vincent Larivière holds the Canada Research Chair on the Transformations of Scholarly Communication at the Université de Montréal, where he is an associate professor of information science. He is also the scientific director of the Érudit platform, associate scientific director of the Observatoire des sciences et des technologies (OST) and a regular member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST). Vincent holds a bachelor’s degree in Science, Technology and Society (UQAM), a master’s degree in History (UQAM) and a Ph.D. in Information Science (McGill), for which he received the 2009 Eugene Garfield Dissertation Scholarship award.

Stefanie Haustein is a post-doctoral researcher at the Canada Research Chair on the Transformations of Scholarly Communication at the University of Montreal. Her current research focuses on social media in scholarly communication and making sense of so-called “altmetrics” and is supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is co-chair of the NISO Working Group on altmetrics data quality. Stefanie holds a Master’s degree in history, American linguistics and literature and information science and a PhD in information science from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.

For more information on both events, visit the Public Lecture page of our website.