Organizational Unit:

Library

Permanent Link

https://hdl.handle.net/1853/70682

Parent Organization

Organizational Unit

Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

Includes Organization(s)

Organizational Unit

Archives, Records Management, and Digital Curation

ArchiveSpace Name Record

https://finding-aids.library.gatech.edu/agents/corporate_entities/126

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

Toward an Improved Understanding of Research Data Management Needs: Designing and Using a Rubric to Analyze Data Management Plans

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-06-08) Parham, Susan Wells ; Hswe, Patricia ; Whitmire, Amanda ; Carlson, Jake ; Westra, Brian ; Rolando, Lizzy
Applying the DART Rubric to Inform Georgia Tech RDM Service Development

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-06) Rolando, Lizzy

Panel Abstract: To provide research data management (RDM) support services, libraries need to develop expertise in data curation and management within the library. Many academic libraries are reorganizing to initiate RDM service structures, but may lack staff expertise in this area. Funding agencies increasingly require a data management plan (DMP) with funding proposals; they describe how data generated in the proposed work will be managed, preserved and shared. We have developed an analytic rubric for assessing DMPs. An analysis of DMPs can identify common gaps in researcher understanding of RDM principles and practices, and identify barriers for researchers in applying best practices. Our rubric allows librarians to utilize DMPs as a research tool that can inform decisions about which research data services they should provide. This tool enables librarians who may have no direct experience in applied research or RDM to become better informed about researchers' data practices and how library services can support them. This panel will consist of five data specialists from academic libraries who will introduce the rubric, share the results of our individual analyses, and describe how the results informed the evolution of services at our respective libraries.
Building on Common Ground: Exploring the Intersection of Archives and Data Curation

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-06) Rolando, Lizzy ; Hagenmaier, Wendy

Research data management continues to emerge as a distinct information discipline with unique needs, policies and practices, but there are many ways in which it overlaps with the existing disciplines of records management and archives. Examining areas where policies, practices, and resources can be shared between them is increasingly valuable as the digital information universe becomes more complex. This session will examine those shared areas, highlighting efforts to engage with different information communities and programs. Kelly Chatain, Associate Archivist, University of Michigan, will present her work as an ‘embedded’ archivist within the Survey Research Center, focusing on records management tools and archiving principles used to facilitate a practical and cultural shift in the creation of data. Bethany Anderson, Visiting Archival Operations and Reference Specialist, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will discuss ways of integrating the work of academic archives and research data services to appraise, manage, and steward data. Research Data Librarian Lizzy Rolando will discuss Georgia Tech’s efforts to identify areas of convergence between the functional and policy requirements of a research data repository ecosystem and the requirements of a born-digital archives repository ecosystem.
Development of an Analytic Rubric to Facilitate and Standardize the Review of NSF Data Management Plans

( 2015-02-09) Parham, Susan Wells ; Carlson, Jake ; Hswe, Patricia ; Rolando, Lizzy ; Westra, Brian ; Whitmire, Amanda

The last decade has seen a dramatic increase in calls for greater accessibility to research results and the datsets underlying them. In the United States, federal agencies with over $100 million in annual research and development expenditures are now compelled to create policies regarding public access to research outcomes.1 A sense of urgency has arisen, as researchers, administrators, and institutions must now determine how to comply with new funding agency requirements for data management planning and the sharing of data. As academic institutions develop or expand services to support researchers in meeting these planning and accessibility mandates, there is an increasing demand for mechanisms to better understand researcher needs and practices. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has required a data management plan (DMP) with each new proposal since January 2011. As a document produced by researchers themselves, DMPs provide a window into researchers’ data management knowledge, practices, and needs. They can be used to identify gaps and weaknesses in researchers’ understanding of data management concepts and practices, as well as existing barriers in applying best practices. Formal analysis of DMPs can provide a means to develop data services that are responsive to the needs of local data producers. The IMLS-funded “Data management plans as A Research Tool (DART) Project” has developed an analytic rubric to standardize the review of NSF DMPs. We seek to complement existing tools that have been designed to assist in the creation of a data management plan, such as DMPTool and DMPonline, by developing a tool that will enable consistent analysis of DMP content and quality ex post facto. In this poster, we describe the methodology for developing the analytic rubric, and present results from an initial assessment of DMPs from five U.S. research universities: Oregon State University (lead), Georgia Institute of Technology, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Oregon. The rubric was developed through a review of the NSF’s general guidelines, as well as additional requirements from individual NSF directorates.2 In the rubric, DMP guidelines are translated into a set of discrete, defined tasks (e.g., “Describes what types of data will be captured, created, or collected”), describes levels of compliance for each task, and provides some illustrative examples. We are now conducting a more comprehensive study of DMPs, applying the rubric against a minimum of 100 plans from each study partner. The resulting data set will be analysed with a focus on common observations between study partners and will provide a broad perspective on the data management practices and needs of academic researchers. Once the analysis takes place, the rubric will be openly shared with the community in ways that facilitate its adoption and use by other institutions.
Paper seismograms shake up research data workflows at Georgia Tech

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-11-03) Rolando, Lizzy ; Hagenmaier, Wendy ; Gentilello, Katie

Although most research data collections submitted for inclusion in Georgia Tech’s institutional repository SMARTech are born digital and comprised of only a few digital files, some researchers still have valuable, non-digital collections. Case in point is a retired seismologist who offered the Library ownership over of a collection of original paper seismograms containing over 30 years of unique readings on seismic events that had occurred in the Southeast region. Given the unique and longitudinal nature of the collection, the Library, with support from the University Archives, agreed to digitized, preserve, and make accessible the complete collection through the Institution’s DSpace repository. The project was a strategic opportunity to provide access to a valuable collection of data files, and to collaboratively review and assess existing practices and workflows for dealing with digital collections. Areas of interest include: the need for review and subsequent adjustment to the existing repository deposit agreement to allow for the transfer of ownership and eventual destruction of the paper records; the expansion of digitization services to include patron submitted materials ; digitization of oddly shaped and often poorly documented paper records; struggles with the hierarchical collections and communities in DSpace when archiving a complex and highly interrelated collection; finding the balance between customized, discipline-specific metadata and the standard fields used for all repository items; and the creation of collection level metadata, using the Encoded Archival Description standard, to comprehensively document the breadth of the collection and allow future users more direct access to individual items contained within the entire collection. Our poster will discuss the specifics our process and reflect on lessons learned, highlighting areas for future consideration and collaboration.
Reimagining the Georgia Tech Library

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-05) Bennett, Charlie ; Hagenmaier, Wendy ; Rolando, Lizzy ; Rascoe, Fred ; Critz, Lori ; Renfro, Crystal ; Baer, Willie ; Axford, Mary

In this paper, we discuss the major elements of that renewal as pertaining to our Library. First, we are a research library. A 21st century research institution still requires the multifaceted services of a research library. We also discuss the space of the Library itself. A library has never been merely a container for books. The physical space of the renewed Library will be the interdisciplinary platform for innovative scholarship and learning, as services expand. Finally, we discuss the role of the Library as an integrated network of resources, focusing on the important and unique collaborative services provided by Library faculty and staff . The renewed Georgia Tech Library will be the research library that Georgia Tech needs to both support and define what a 21st century research institution should be.
Beyond Metadata: Leveraging the "README" to Support Disciplinary Documentation Needs

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-04-28) Rolando, Lizzy

Despite widespread agreement about the importance of metadata to facilitate data sharing and reuse, academic institutions still grapple with questions about how to best support the broader documentation requirements of their researchers’ datasets. Libraries have traditionally been concerned with established metadata standards and the structured metadata in library catalogs and repository records. But as researchers’ practices evolve and library collections grow to incorporate more types of research outputs, the library’s view on metadata must evolve as well. In order to fully support the increasingly varied and discipline specific documentation methods employed by scholars in their research -- methods that are necessary to ensure their datasets can be found and used in the future -- libraries must first become familiar with these non-standard types of data documentation and consider how they can be leveraged to improve data sharing and reuse. This presentation was part of a panel that brought together librarians who have been working to support non-standard data documentation on their campuses, focusing specifically on an effort to study disciplinary metadata and documentation practices, in order to inform the development of discipline-specific README templates.
Re-purposing Archival Theory in the Practice of Data Curation

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-02-25) Rolando, Lizzy ; Hagenmaier, Wendy ; Parham, Susan Wells

The research data sharing imperative has produced an explosion of interest around institutional research data curation and archiving. For institutions seeking to capture their intellectual output and ensure compliance with funding agency requirements, data archiving and data curation are increasingly necessary. With some notable exceptions, data curation in academic institutions is still a fairly nascent field, lacking the theoretical underpinnings of disciplines like archival science. As has been previously noted elsewhere, the intersection between data curation and archival theory provides data curators and digital archivists alike with important theoretical and practical contributions that can challenge, contextualize, or reinforce past, present, and future theory. Archival theory has critical implications for defining the workflows that should be established for an institutional data curation program. The Georgia Institute of Technology Library and Archives has been developing the services and infrastructure to support trustworthy data curation and born-digital archives. As the need for archiving research data has increased, the intersection between data curation and digital archives has become progressively apparent; therefore, we sought to bring archival theory to bear on our data curation workflows, and to root the actions taken against research data collections in long-standing archival theory. By examining two different cases of digital archiving and by mapping core archival concepts to elements of data curation, we explored the junction of data curation and archival theory and are applying the resulting theoretical framework in our practice. In turn, this work also leads us to question long held archival assumptions and improve workflows for born-digital archival collections.
Research Data Needs Assessment at Georgia Tech

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-10-21) Rolando, Lizzy ; Parham, Susan Wells ; Doty, Chris ; Valk, Alison

From late 2010 through spring of 2013, Georgia Tech Library’s Research Data Project Team conducted a multi-faceted assessment of GT research data needs. In this program, we will discuss the four methodologies used in our data needs assessment. Each methodology served a different purpose, allowing us to collect different but complementary information. While our survey provided a broad overview of practices, individual interviews contributed to a more thorough and nuanced understanding of trends observed in the survey. By analyzing data management plans submitted alongside NSF proposals, we better understand how researchers expect to comply with funding agency requirements for data management and sharing. Finally, data archiving case studies prompted deep discussions with researchers about their data, as well as critical conversations within the Library about the types, formats, and volumes of data we can commit to preserving. This combination of methodologies and results informs our strategic goal to develop campus partnerships to collect, manage, share, and preserve Georgia Tech digital research data. While our assessment was conducted with a narrow scope of research data services, the methodologies employed can easily be adapted and used to study and assess other Library services.
If We Share Data, Will Anyone Use Them? Data Sharing and Reuse in the Long Tail of Science and Technology

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-04) Wallis, Jillian C. ; Rolando, Lizzy ; Borgman, Christine L.

Research on practices to share and reuse data will inform the design of infrastructure to support data collection, management, and discovery in the long tail of science and technology. These are research domains in which data tend to be local in character, minimally structured, and minimally documented. We report on a ten-year study of the Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. We found that CENS researchers are willing to share their data, but few are asked to do so, and in only a few domain areas do their funders or journals require them to deposit data. Few repositories exist to accept data in CENS research areas.. Data sharing tends to occur only through interpersonal exchanges. CENS researchers obtain data from repositories, and occasionally from registries and individuals, to provide context, calibration, or other forms of background for their studies. Neither CENS researchers nor those who request access to CENS data appear to use external data for primary research questions or for replication of studies. CENS researchers are willing to share data if they receive credit and retain first rights to publish their results. Practices of releasing, sharing, and reusing of data in CENS reaffirm the gift culture of scholarship, in which goods are bartered between trusted colleagues rather than treated as commodities.