Blog

Written by Lene Janussen Gry

Are you part of the academic community on Twitter (now X)? Recent changes to the platform are affecting the academic social media arena and altmetrics tools.

Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform Twitter (now X) has brought in changes that affect the academic community, both in terms of where academic news and publications are shared and discussed, and now also in terms of altmetrics.

ALTMETRICS: ‘Alternative article-level metrics’ are metrics based on a research article’s mentions as harvested
from social media platforms, news media, and policy documents, Twitter having been one of the main providers.
The main altmetrics tools are altmetric.com (by Digital Science) and PlumX metrics (by Elsevier).

Elsevier recently announced that its altmetrics tool PlumX would discontinue all Twitter (X) metrics as of August 31^st 2023, the stated reason being: “changes in market conditions” (plumanalytics.com, 31 August 2023).

Altmetric.com has announced that they are “observing ongoing developments with the platform closely”. They are still tracking tweets as usual but are “working on a number of scenarios as to how we might adjust to any developments that may occur in the future” (altmetric.com, 8 June 2023).

A large number of academic Twitter users have already fled the platform or are planning/considering doing so due to dissatisfaction with recent changes to the platform, the most problematic of which are discussed here: Social media has changed – Will academics catch up?).

Some have moved on to alternative platforms, including Mastodon, Threads, Spoutible etc., and many are, of course, still hanging on to Twitter(X), perhaps simultaneously maintaining a presence on other platforms, to be able to keep up with their peers. So far, former Twitter users have sought out different alternatives – and there is no consensus on where the “new Twitter” is.

Elsevier has not made it clear whether they will harvest mentions from other social media platforms instead, and altmetric.com are still monitoring developments, as mentioned.

The CBS Library newsletter will keep you posted on future changes. If you have questions or comments on this matter, please contact Lene Janussen Gry.

Written by Kristoffer Gulmark Poulsen

We are thrilled to announce that three new GPU (Graphics Processing Units) options are now available for CBS researchers on UCloud virtual machines: NVIDIA A10, A40, and A100.

GPUs are specialized hardware designed for parallel processing of data. Their ability to handle thousands of simple calculations simultaneously makes them highly efficient for computing tasks with machine learning, deep learning/AI and scientific simulations where massive parallelism accelerates performance significantly.

For those seeking high-performance options, you can initiate a dedicated virtual machine with the following specifications:

✔ 6x NVIDIA T4 GPUs with up to 210GB memory
✔ 4x NVIDIA A10 GPUs with up to 210GB memory
✔ 3x NVIDIA A40 GPUs with up to 420GB memory
✔ 2x NVIDIA A100 GPUs with up to 420GB memory
 

CBS is fortunate to have substantial resources at our disposal, and we cannot wait for CBS researchers to get their hands on these machines!

Apply for GPU resources today
 

If you need more information, please join us for the upcoming webinar “Train your ML/AI Model on GPUs“.

Looking for tutorials and documentation?

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Kristoffer Gulmark Poulsen or send an e-mail to rdm@cbs.dk

Written by Thomas Basbøl

Like you, we are following developments in artificial intelligence with great interest here at the library.
We first began to notice it around Christmas last year, when our users came to us looking for books and papers that simply did not exist.

“Where did you get this reference?” we would ask and get the now familiar answer: “ChatGPT told me.”

Can ChatGPT cite sources?
A year later, AI has gotten much better at citing real sources. It is still not perfect, but it is clear that in the not-very-distant future, AI will offer a workable shortcut to finding useful information, especially at the undergraduate level. Many of our databases (e.g. Scopus and JSTOR) are already promoting test versions of AI assistants for doing literature reviews. These will not only find relevant sources based on natural language prompting, they will also generate competent-sounding prose summaries of the literature, which will be increasingly tempting to simply cut and paste into research papers.

This raises a number of important questions about citation and authorship that will no doubt challenge our intuitions about plagiarism in publication and cheating in examinations. The library, however, does not make the rules. We can only offer to help you think these questions through and explore the technology with you as it develops.

Be careful (as always)!
In practice, we urge caution. Though the technology is improving, it is not yet what we would call reliable. Exploring the literature through careful topic and citation searches, and of course, reading the sources yourself, is still the gold standard for scholarship. After all, good ideas are precisely those that are worth taking the time to read and write about yourself. It would be unfortunate if students and scholars ended up letting machines do their thinking for them.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact resident writing consultant Thomas Basbøll, academic integrity specialist Joshua Kragh Bruhn, or resource librarian Mette Bechmann.

Source: https://danish-repro.github.io/

Written by Mareike Buss

Philosophers of science and empirical researchers alike have throughout the past 20 years discussed reproducibility failures in a whole range of different disciplines. Some researchers have gone so far as to proclaim the existence of a veritable “reproducibility crisis” that undermines society’s trust in scientific research or the entire academic enterprise (e.g. Begley et al. 2015, Baker 2016).

The debates around reproducibility of research have over time become more sober and nuanced (e.g. Leonelli 2022, Munafò et al. 2022). Now, the focus is less on reproducibility in the narrow sense and more on constructively contributing to rigorous research practices in all disciplines.

In this context, the establishment of Reproducibility Networks plays an important role:

“A Reproducibility Network (RN) is a national, peer-led consortium of researchers that aims to promote and ensure rigorous research practices by establishing appropriate training activities, designing and evaluating research improvement efforts, disseminating best practice and working with stakeholders to coordinate efforts across the sector.”

The Danish Reproducibility Network (DKRN) was established in early 2023. DKRN’s launch event took place on August 24^th, 2023, where around 50 researchers and research support staff from all eight Danish universities gathered at the University of Copenhagen to discuss reproducibility, transparency, open science, and how to move forward with developing DKRN as a national community for everybody interested in reproducibility (check out the event program).

An important insight from this event was that to be viable, DKRN needs backing by local initiatives at all participating universities.

The Research Data Management Support (RDM) at CBS Library facilitates the establishment of the local DKRN branch at CBS.
If you are interested in the topic and want to learn more about it, you can contact RDM Support Officer Mareike Buss.

References:

• Baker, M. (2016). 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility. Nature, 533, 452-454. https://doi.org/10.1038/533452a
• Begley, C., Buchan, A. & Dirnagl, U. (2015). Robust research: Institutions must do their part for reproducibility. Nature 525, 25-27. https://doi.org/10.1038/525025a
• Leonelli, S. (2022). Open Science and Epistemic Diversity: Friends or Foes? Philosophy of Science, 89(5), 991-1001. https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2022.45
• Munafò, M.R., Chambers, C., Collins, A. et al. (2022). The reproducibility debate is an opportunity, not a crisis. BMC Research Notes 15, 43. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-05942-3

Duplicate Management in Mendeley  - Written By Liv Bjerge Laursen

Now Mendeley is again able to detect duplicates, which makes it much easier for you to identify and remove duplicate entries from your Mendeley library. As duplicates may cause both confusion and error when you insert citations in a paper, we highly recommend avoiding them.

Find out more in Mendeley blog post

Colourbox images for your presentations - Written by Camilla Boelsgaard Lund
You can use images from Colourbox in your educational presentations. All you need to do is create an account and enter the license key that you will find on CBSshare.
If you already have an account, you need to renew it with the new license key.

Find the new key on CBSshare (scroll to the bottom of the page)

Avoid Time-Outs while Searching Libsearch - Written by Camilla Boelsgaard Lund

Here is a tip if you sometimes find yourself timing-out when searching for literature. 
Libsearch can extend your sessions automatically. Simply go to Personal Details and Settings to activate this feature. Here you will also be able to ask Libsearch to save your search history and to change the default language of the interface.

In this way, you do not accidentally lose your work and you will never have to spend time selecting your preferred language again.

Source: https://www.cbs.dk/nordic-nine

By Thomas Basbøl, Mette Bechmann & Joshua Kragh Bruhn

Nordic Nine is important to CBS and as such important to the library. A library does not just store information; it maintains and teaches the skills that are needed to access it. We have taken a close look at the nine capabilities and below you will find out how the library contributes to the paradigm.

We maintain a deep knowledge base in a broad context. (#1)
Along with books and journals, the library provides access to continuously updated statistics, research, and journalism. The ability to find relevant information in a sea of data is part of the knowledge competence of our graduates.

We support the growth of analytical and curious minds. (#2)

The library provides reliable sources of primary data and gives students the tools to identify patterns within them. We emphasize the importance of source criticism and help them to build their analytical vocabulary.

We foster critical thinking and constructive collaboration. (#6)
In research, it is essential to practice humility, self-reflection, curiosity, and generosity. We show our students how to make use of other people’s ideas and the importance of acknowledging their contributions.

In all our interactions with students, we emphasize the importance of these skills beyond their use at university, their value to their future employers, and their future selves.

Written By Mareike Buss

If you wish to work with register data in your research and run into issues related to data access for instance, you can reach out to KOR.

What is KOR?
KOR, short for ”Det koordinerende organ for registerforskning/ Coordinating Body for Register Research”, is an advisory committee under the Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation (DeiC). Their aim is to support and strengthen Danish register-based research.

KOR promotes the interests of more than 3000 researchers working with Danish register data by focusing on three strategic areas:

1. Access to data: Register data is collected and safeguarded by many different public authorities in Denmark. Researchers are granted access to these data under different conditions. KOR aims to facilitate a dialogue between the public authorities as data owners and the researchers as data users to create better access conditions to register data for researchers. 
2. Competences and skills: KOR organises courses and conferences that aim at improving knowledge exchange on register-based research in Denmark.
3. Infrastructure: KOR contributes to an improved research infrastructure for register research in Denmark. Historically, KOR has contributed to an improved infrastructure by financing projects, e.g., on high-quality variable documentation, or through participation in international social surveys. Future initiatives include the processing of register data on high-performance computing clusters.

On the KOR committee are 11 members and a chairperson, all of whom are researchers with one of the eight Danish universities and the Danish National Center for Social Science Research. CBS is represented in KOR by Birthe Larsen (ECON) and Edith Madsen (ECON).

For more information, take a look at the KOR website or contact the RDM Support.

Written By Lars Nondal

Twice a year, Danish researchers can apply for resources on UCloud/ DeiC Interactive HPC, one of the national High-Performance Computing Services provided by the Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation (DeiC).

Recently, two CBS research projects were granted large amounts of HPC computing and storage resources. The two research projects are led by Lasse Heje Pedersen from the Department of Finance (FI) and Jan Stuckatz from the Department of International Economics, Governance and Business (EGB).

Lasse Heje Pedersen has been granted 1,000,000 ‘CPU core hours’ and 3,000 GB storage to be used by the researchers/PhD students associated with the BIGFI project and its sub-projects.
The general idea is to merge big data (microdata) from the economic agents (households and financial institutions) with market data on aggregate outcomes to analyze or empirically examine the microfoundation of a phenomenon as well as its market-wide effects. The BIGFI is a Center of Excellence under the Danish National Research Foundation.

- We are extremely grateful to have access to this high-performance computing, which means that researchers can quickly start implementing large models with big data, rather than everyone having to build their own infrastructure – and even better with this grant. -Lasse Heje Pedersen, FI

Jan Stuckatzhas been granted 30,000 CPU hours and 1,200 GB of storage for his project Money in Politics at Work: An Individual-level Analysis of Employee Campaign Donations.
The project investigates how businesses and economic elites influence U.S. politics, and how the economic power of corporations translates into political power. More specifically, by linking individual campaign donations data to U.S. national voter registration data (which party the voter is registered with, if registered), to investigate how important the workplace is for individual political donations.

Bonus information:
A “core-hour” is a unit of computational time where one core-hour represents running a single CPU for one hour, thus employing 1,000 CPUs for an hour equals a 1,000 core-hours. 1 million core hours will give approx. 125,000 hours on a standard laptop and 15,625 hours on the largest UCloud machine.

Do you also need HPC computing and storage resources?
If you need more computing power, you can also apply. The next peer-reviewed application round for national resources will take place in September 2023, for resources to be used from Jan 1, 2024. We also have a pool of local resources you can apply for anytime. If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact the RDM Support.

Click for more information about High-Performance Computing

Written By Mette Bechmann

Are you on top of your course readings for the 2023 fall semester? Let us help your students get better access.

To ensure students have better access to course readings, we strive to provide copies of the required textbooks for in-house use, and whenever possible, we try to obtain digital copies as well. While CBS students are generally expected to purchase their own textbooks, we aim to support them by making relevant materials available through our resources.

To facilitate this, we automatically review reading lists created in Course Readings, the reading list extension in Canvas, as well as any reading lists submitted to Academic Books. In this way, we can identify books that should be included in the Course Collection at the library. The Course Collection comprises both print and digital books from CBS reading lists. Print books are exclusively available for use within the library premises, but students can always check if we have additional copies available for checking out.

If you would like to have supplementary literature added to the Course Collection or made accessible through Course Readings, please inform us, and we will strive to accommodate your request.

Please contact Nikolaj Kjær Jensen to submit a Course Collection request, and please include information about the study programme as well as the relevant semester for which the item is required.

If you have any questions about Course Readings in Canvas, your liaison librarian stands ready to help.