UKnowledge Visualizes Global Reach of UK Research
LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 2, 2015) — Since the University of Kentucky Libraries launched UKnowledge as UK's institutional repository in late 2010, UKnowledge has collaborated with various campus partners to collect, organize and provide free worldwide access to the research and scholarship created by UK faculty and students. Nearly 11,000 items, including books, journal articles, research reports, videos, images, theses and dissertations, have been deposited in UKnowledge. They are accessed every day and the aggregated download count is climbing steadily to the 2 million mark.
A world map is now available on the UKnowledge homepage to visualize in real time the downloads of the contents. When an item is accessed, a pin drops to the map to indicate where it is downloaded. The item’s title and the download location are displayed on the panel above the map. Clicking the item’s title will open up the record of the item, which provides bibliographic information such as the author(s), abstract, publication date, and source of publication. To view the download history, you can click the back arrow on the panel or bring up an enlarged map and click the pins there. This feature of UKnowledge presents a clear picture of the global reach, readership and potential impact of UK-based research and scholarship.
If an item in UKnowledge has a digital object identifier, a colored ring in the record of the item will reveal how much buzz the item has generated online. Fed with the data gathered by the article-level metrics company Altmetric, the ring uses colors to represent distinct online information sources that have mentioned the item. Red indicates how much the article was reported on by news outlets. Other colors demonstrate interest in research articles on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. Clicking the See more details link will bring up a categorized account of the online mentions of the article. Additionally, there is information about the score in the ring, which is “one measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that an article has received.”
Just like the world map, this new feature of UKnowledge offers a vivid visualization of the worldwide interest in the research and scholarship based at UK. Meanwhile, UKnowledge tracks the download rates of the available items and sends authors a monthly download report by email to inform them of the readership and potential impact of the items. It helps UK researchers gain a comprehensive view of how their works are received in academia and beyond.
UKnowledge is a strategic initiative managed by UK Libraries to enable unbridled global access to the unique research and scholarship contributed by members of the UK community. If you would like to make scholarly content available in UKnowledge or learn about services pertinent to academic publishing, visit this guide or contact Adrian Ho, director of Digital Scholarship at UK Libraries. For information about article-level metrics, see this page of the research impact metrics guide.