‘Fake news’ and scholarly communication: the role of research libraries

Presenation at the "Meet the experts" series of the BIBLIO MOOC.

Transcript

1. ‘Fake news’ and scholarly communication. the role of research libraries Giannis Tsakonas Library & Information Center, University of Patras LIBER Executive Board | HEAL-Link Board of Directors @gtsakonas
2. context - We live in a context that of great tensions. The digital media have been both a factor and a facilitator for this. - ‘Fake news‘ and the various distortions of truth are part of these tensions. - they halt progress and harm rationality, - they jeopardise key values of democratic societies, - they foster discrimination and risk social cohesion. - People are prone to believing opinions that suit their background. - Fake news is not a ‘privilege’ of social media alone. Distortions of truth have been recorded in ‘legacy’ media as well. They are on every aspect of the public speech.
3. scholarly communication - We tend to believe that science is unaffected. - Science is performed by humans as well; there is evidence of misinformation or disinformation that fuel fake news. - There are elements in the research lifecycle that are vulnerable to manipulation, see fraudulent data sources or predatory journals. - The scholarly communication system addresses these: - by using its main practices, such as peer review - by extending these with open peer review, peer review on preprints, open data, etc. - by correcting mistakes through retractions.
4. the role of libraries - We often see criteria, such as accuracy, relevance, adequacy, completeness, explicitness, that are used to validate resources. - Libraries are well accustomed to these criteria, performing them in numerous aspects of their work. - Building further the capacity of librarians to use these to validate scientific sources and digital content helps science in many ways: - training the wide audience about checking facts and selecting trustworthy sources of information, - helping with validation of data and cross-checking sources, - promoting credible tools and sources that combat distortions of truth.
5. open science - Open Science is a new paradigm that forwards reproducibility of research, increases transparency and strengthens integrity. - Skills associated to OS are expected to strengthen librarians in their duties related to ‘fake news’. https://libereurope.eu/article/open-science-skills-diagram/
6. thank you for your attention.