Organizational Unit:
Library
Library
Permanent Link
Research Organization Registry ID
Description
Previous Names
Parent Organization
Parent Organization
Organizational Unit
Includes Organization(s)
Organizational Unit
ArchiveSpace Name Record
Publication Search Results
Now showing
1 - 10 of 12
-
ItemToward 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
-
ItemApplying the DART Rubric to Inform Georgia Tech RDM Service Development(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-06) Rolando, LizzyPanel 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.
-
ItemBuilding on Common Ground: Exploring the Intersection of Archives and Data Curation(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-06) Rolando, Lizzy ; Hagenmaier, WendyResearch 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.
-
ItemExploring Disciplinary Metadata and Documentation Practices to Support Data Reuse Dataset(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2015-04-30) Rolando, Lizzy ; Young, Karen ; Frizzell, Matt ; Doshi, Ameet ; Li, Lisha ; Valk, AlisonWhether to comply with funding agency requirements or to share freely with others, researchers increasingly deposit data into repositories for long-term preservation and access. In 2010, the Georgia Tech Library first rolled out our research data services, eventually establishing a data archiving service where researchers could deposit small, final datasets into our institutional repository SMARTech. As the rate of data deposit increases, and the Library accepts research data from a wider array of disciplines, we want to ensure that deposited research data are adequately described and documented. Because datasets are rarely self-describing or uniformly structured like publications, additional metadata is necessary to make certain that the data can be used in the future. Like many of our peers, Georgia Tech now asks data depositors to provide a “README” file with their deposit, in order to capture this additional metadata. This is particularly important since our repository currently only supports Dublin Core metadata, which cannot hold the full breadth of metadata needed for most datasets. We provide depositors with a “README” template , to provide guidance as to the types of supplemental metadata the repository hopes to capture. However, we have noticed that the generic, one-size-fits-all template does not adequately meet the needs of our community. For some researchers, the template does not address vital pieces of documentation, and for others, the template includes too much information that is not relevant to their dataset. While recognizing that our patrons’ individual needs will continue to vary widely even within their discipline, we sought to create more specialized “README” templates, based on discipline and data type, to better accommodate disciplinary differences. For example, a biologist preparing a dataset for deposit would receive a template designed with biologists and standard forms of biological data in mind, including metadata standards like Darwin Core or Ecological Metadata Language. This template would differ from one given to a Materials Scientist, who would have a template with metadata fields specific to Materials Engineering. In order to create specialized metadata templates, a group of librarians with diverse but complementary skills and experiences convened to explore differences in metadata creation and use. Members of the project team included subject librarians, the research data librarian, and the repository metadata librarian. Through a combination of document analysis, interviews with researchers, and exploration of existing standards, the Library has begun to determine the level of specialized, structured metadata that can be collected and indexed in the repository, as well as the amounts and forms of supplemental information that will need to be captured in a “README.” The datasets below were collected in support of this project.
-
ItemDevelopment 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, AmandaThe 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.
-
ItemPaper seismograms shake up research data workflows at Georgia Tech(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-11-03) Rolando, Lizzy ; Hagenmaier, Wendy ; Gentilello, KatieAlthough 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.
-
ItemReimagining 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, MaryIn 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.
-
ItemBeyond Metadata: Leveraging the "README" to Support Disciplinary Documentation Needs(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-04-28) Rolando, LizzyDespite 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.
-
ItemRe-purposing Archival Theory in the Practice of Data Curation(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014-02-25) Rolando, Lizzy ; Hagenmaier, Wendy ; Parham, Susan WellsThe 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.
-
ItemInformation Now: Open Access and the Public Good(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-10-21) Hagenmaier, Wendy ; Rolando, Lizzy ; Rascoe, Fred ; Cohen, Dan ; George, Christine ; Watkins, Kari E. ; Suber, Peter ; Chang, MichaelEvery year, the international academic and research community dedicates a week in October to discuss, debate, and learn more about Open Access. Open Access in the academic sense refers to the free, immediate, and online access to the results of scholarly research, primarily academic, peer-reviewed journal articles. In the United States, the movement in support of Open Access has, in the last decade, been growing dramatically. Because of this growing interest in Open Access, a group of academic librarians from the Georgia Tech library, Wendy Hagenmaier (Digital Collections Archivist), Fred Rascoe (Scholarly Communication Librarian), and Lizzy Rolando (Research Data Librarian), got together to talk to folks in the thick of it, to try and unravel some of the different concerns and benefits of Open Access. But we didn’t just want to talk about Open Access for journal articles – we wanted to examine more broadly what it means to be “open”, what is open information, and what relationship open information has to the public good. In this podcast, we talk with different people who have seen and experienced open information and open access in practice. In the first act, Dan Cohen from the DPLA speaks about efforts to expand public access to archival and library collections. In the second, we’ll hear an argument from Christine George about why things sometimes need to be closed, if we want them to be open in the future. Third, Kari Watkins speaks about specific example of when a government agency decided, against legitimate concerns, to make transit data open, and why it worked for them. Fourth, Peter Suber from Harvard University will give us the background on the Open Access movement, some myths that have been dispelled, and why it is important for academic researchers to take the leap to make their research openly accessible. And finally, we’ll hear from Michael Chang, a researcher who did take that leap and helped start an Open Access journal, and why he sees openness in research as his obligation.