Search
Loading

Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

ORCID Grant Enables Purdue University Libraries to Connect Researchers to their Research

ORCID Grant Enables Purdue University Libraries to Connect Researchers to their Research

October 31st, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Purdue University Libraries is helping connect researchers to their research by participating in ORCID, a non-profit organization that registers researchers’ identities and links them across different systems that manage scholarly information, associating researchers with their publications, grants and patents. ORCID also helps researchers, especially those with common names to get appropriate credit for use and cite of their work.

For example, ORCID can enable people to search for the published work of a specific individual named “John Smith” without the ambiguity of different spellings or mixing up works from other authors who have the same name.

ORCID is working with major research institutions, funding agencies, publishers, and professional societies to establish and link identities across different systems and publications.

It is free for researchers to register for an ORCID identifier and associate it with their publications, grants, and patents. Researchers own their identifiers, which they keep for their entire academic career as they move from one institution to another.

With funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Purdue Libraries will encourage adoption of ORCID by integrating it into HUBzero, an open source software platform that was developed at Purdue for creating dynamic web sites that support scientific research and educational activities.

“Integrating ORCID with HUBzero will enable hundreds of thousands of hub users to register their identifiers and make it easier for people to find their scholarly output”, said Michael Witt, an Associate Professor of Library Science who is leading the effort at Purdue.

ORCID functionality will be piloted and tested on three hubs—the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR), nanoHUB.org, and HABRI Central—and then become available to more than 50 other hubs in September 2014.

 Source: Michael Witt, Purdue University Libraries, mwitt@purdue.edu

 Reference: ORCID, http://orcid.org

 


Victoria Stodden Lecture (Oct. 25) on Open Research Data and Code now Available for Online Viewing

October 30th, 2013

The Universal streaming archive of the October 25, 2013 “Scientific Reproducibility: Opportunities and Challenges for Open Research Data and Code” presentation by Victoria Stodden is available for online viewing at the following URL:

Victoria Stodden Presentation

Abstract:  It is now widely recognized that the traditional published article is insufficient to permit verification of computational results. The emergence of powerful computational hardware combined with vast data collection and storage capabilities presents many novel opportunities for researchers. Unfortunately current standards for communication of published computational findings make verification and validation next to impossible. A movement toward reproducible research – dissemination that includes sufficient experimental details such that results can be replicated by others in the field, i.e. the code and the data – has developed in many disciplines and research areas to address this shortcoming in research communication. In this talk Dr. Stodden will explore the problem and address solutions emerging from researchers and institutions, federal policy efforts, and journal publication standards.

Bio: Victoria Stodden is an assistant professor of Statistics at Columbia University whose research centers on the multifaceted problem of enabling reproducibility in computational science. This includes studying adequacy and robustness in replicated results, designing and implementing validation systems, developing standards of openness for data and code sharing, and resolving legal and policy barriers to disseminating reproducible research.  Her work has resulted in platforms and tools such as SparseLab, RunMyCode.org, and the Reproducible Research Standard. Stodden is a member of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure, the Mathematics and Physical Sciences Directorate Subcommittee on Support for the Statistical Sciences at NSF, the National Academies of Science committee on Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process, and several committees in the American Statistical Association. She completed her PhD in Statistics and her law degree at Stanford University, and her Erdös Number is 3.

 


Purdue University Libraries to Celebrate GIS Day with Activities – Wednesday, Nov. 6

October 23rd, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University will host several events for “GIS Day at Purdue: Geospatial Data is Everywhere” on Wednesday, Nov. 6.  GIS Day is a global celebration of geospatial research and GIS, which uses a collection of software applications, GPS receivers and data sensors to combine maps and statistical data in a digital mapping environment to answer research questions.

Activities including talks, demonstrations, graduate student presentations and a poster session will be held 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m. in Stewart Center, Room 306. The events are free and open to the public. 

 Matt Hutchinson, Research Scientist, Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT), Woolpert, Inc. will give the morning keynote address at 10 a.m. in Stewart Center, Room 302 on the topic of “Big Data GIS: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles”.  Randall Raymond, Geospatial Data Information Specialist, Office of Research, Evaluation, Assessment and Accountability, Retired, will present the afternoon keynote address at 2 p.m. in Stewart Center, Room 302, “Pathways to GIS Careers: A bring your laptop, hands-on, ArcGIS Online Experience.”

 Students and faculty will also learn more about the GIS resources (including software, servers, virtual and local classes) available to them at Purdue University. In addition, a hands-on ground penetrating radar demonstration will take place on the Purdue Mall. 

 The complete schedule for GIS Day is available at http://stemedhub.org/groups/2013gisday/college

 GIS Day is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice President for Research, College of Agriculture, College of Science, College of Education, College of Technology and Purdue University Libraries GIS Dept.

Source:

Benjamin Branch, Purdue University Libraries GIS Dept., bbranch@purdue.edu


Purdue e-Pubs celebrates 5-millionth download, success of highly utilized collections and their impact on research

October 22nd, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue e-Pubs, one of the three institutional repositories as part of Purdue University Libraries, has reached another significant milestone, hitting 5 million downloads this past month. 

A key collection piece downloaded as part of this milestone is the Birck and NCN publication series, one of the most popular and highly utilized collections housed in Purdue e-Pubs, which has seen more than 281,000 downloads to date. The 5-millionth download was an article from the Birck and NCN publications series, “Conductance Asymmetry of Graphene p-n Junction,” by Tony Low, Seokmin Hong, Joerg Appenzeller, Supriyo Datta, and Mark S. Lundstrom.

As part of Open Access Week, Oct. 21-27, the Mark Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology, will be awarded the Open Access Research Award on Oct. 25 for his leadership in creating NanoHUB, a radical departure from traditional forms of scholarly communication in nanotechnology with a strongly open access character. Lundstrom also is a co-author on the 5-millionth article download.

For faculty wishing to make their work available through Purdue e-Pubs and start receiving monthly download counts, visit: http://www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess/getstarted. For center directors and others interested in more formal publishing options, repository specialist David Scherer, dscherer@purdue.edu, is available for consultations.

About Purdue e-Pubs

Purdue e-Pubs is a service of the Purdue Libraries, providing free global online access to Purdue-affiliated articles, reports, conference proceedings, student scholarship, and more. Purdue e-Pubs also provides online publishing support for original publications.

About the Birck and NCN Publications Series

The Birck and NCN Publications Series contains more than 1,400 publications authored by members of the Birck Nanotechnology Center and the Network for Computational Nanotechnology.  Formed in 2007, the Birck and NCN collection of publications was one of the earliest collections in Purdue e-Pubs and has become one of its most popular collections to date. The collection of publications in Purdue e-Pubs serves a portal into some of the important and fascinating research being conducted at Purdue on nanoscience and nanotechnology from these two centers.

Contact: Dave Scherer, scholarly repository specialist, Purdue e-Pubs, 765-494-8511, dscherer@purdue.edu


Purdue University Libraries Launches New, Open Access Resource Website

October 17th, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — In association with Open Access Week – Oct. 21 to 27, 2013, Purdue University Libraries has launched a new, Open Access website with key resources, timely information and University expertise on the issues and topics related to Open Access.  The website is located at: lib.purdue.edu/openaccess

Open Access (OA) describes the online, free-of-charge, public access to the scholarly journal literature (in particular) that has until very recently been only available to the reader through subscriptions or affiliation with an institution that pays subscription fees. By changing the way in which publication is funded, Open Access has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year.

The Open Access at Purdue website provides news and resources about the Open Access movement. Most importantly it also provides easy workflows through which members of the Purdue community can make their work Open Access with assistance from the Libraries.

 Sources:

  • Dave Scherer, scholarly repository specialist, Purdue e-Pubs,  dscherer@purdue.edu, (765) 494-8511
  • Donna Ferullo, director, University Copyright Office, ferullo@purdue.edu, (765) 496-3864

Related website:

  • lib.purdue.edu/openaccess

Purdue Libraries Celebrates Open Access Week Oct. 21 to 27 with Open Education and Research Events, Journal Editors’ Group Tea

October 7th, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Purdue University Libraries will celebrate Open Access Week – Oct. 21 to 27, 2013 – with three key events including an Open Education Event presented by David Ernst, University of Minnesota; Journal Editors’ Group Tea; and Open Research Event presented by Victoria Stodden, Columbia University. Awards will also be presented to key faculty members for their commitment and contributions to the advancement of Open Access at Purdue University.  A live web stream of the presentations on Oct. 23 and Oct. 25 can be found at the following URL: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/pvhfc.

“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.

Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.

 OPEN ACCESS WEEK EVENT DETAILS

Wednesday, October 23: 2:00 – 3:30 pm, STEW 314. Open Education Event

Title: Open Textbooks and Educational Resources: New Approaches to Affordable Education

Speaker: David Ernst, University of Minnesota

Sponsor: Co-sponsored by Purdue Libraries and Purdue Student Government.

 [Note: This event will commence with the presentation of an Open Access (Education) Award by Dr. A. Dale Whittaker, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs. It will be presented this year to Dr. Linda S. Bergmann, Director of the Online Writing Lab (OWL), which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013. Now featuring over 300 reference and instructional materials, all made freely available online, OWL has established itself as one of the premier Open Educational Resources on the web. After the presentation, James L. Mullins, Dean of Libraries, will introduce the speaker.]

 Abstract: High college costs will keep as many as 2.4 million low and moderate-income college-qualified high school graduates from attending college during this decade. For those who do attend college, financial stresses are the main reason that 46 percent of students do not graduate with any credential within six years. College textbook and course material expenses are a significant part of college costs. The College Board estimates that the average student paid $1,200 on books and course materials during the 2012-13 academic year. These high costs put student success at risk.

  Dr. David Ernst will describe efforts in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development to improve college access, affordability, and success by reducing the impact of textbook and course material costs for students. Dr. Ernst spent the last two years identifying barriers to the adoption of open textbooks and finding ways to help institutions and faculty overcome those barriers. He created the Open Academics textbook catalog (http://open.umn.edu) in April, 2012, as a single source for faculty to find open textbooks. The catalog has had over 70,000 visits from instructors in 173 countries. Dr. Ernst will also describe the Digital Course Pack project, which leveraged digital content already-licensed by the Libraries to create digital course packs that were free or reduced cost for students. Lastly, Dr. Ernst will explain how all schools can reduce textbook and course materials costs by leveraging the same tools successfully used by the University of Minnesota.

 Bio: Dr. David Ernst is the Chief Information Officer in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. He brings his extensive background in education to his role, including 14 years of teaching and a PhD in Learning Technologies. His passion lies in developing innovations that help faculty teach and students learn. David is also the Executive Director of the Open Academics Textbook Initiative. This program works to improve higher education access, affordability, and success for all students through the use of open textbooks. David created and manages the Open Academics textbook catalog (http://open.umn.edu) – a single source for faculty to find quality openly licensed textbooks. David and his colleagues are also developing a toolkit to help other institutions interested in starting their own open textbook initiative on campus.

 Thursday, October 24, 3:00 – 4:00 pm, PMU East Faculty Lounge. Journal Editors’ Group Tea

 Would you like to learn more about open access? Are you interested in sustainable business models for journal publishing? Are you concerned about predatory open access publishers? If so, join the Purdue Journal Editors’ Group for its fall meeting. Refreshments will be served.

 When: Thursday, October 24th, 3:00-4:00pm

Where: East Faculty Lounge, Purdue Memorial Union

 The meeting will be discussion-based. RSVPs are not necessary, but are appreciated – please email Becky Bunch at rsbunch@purdue.edu if you plan to attend.

  The Editors’ Group is open to Purdue faculty, staff, and students who edit journals or proceedings, or serve on editorial boards.

 Friday, October 25: 9 – 10:30 am, LWS 1142. Open Research Event

 Title: Scientific Reproducibility: Opportunities and Challenges for Open Research Data and Code

 Speaker: Victoria Stodden, Columbia University

 Sponsor: Co-sponsored by Purdue Libraries and the Cyber Center in Discovery Park

  [Note: This event will commence with the presentation of an Open Access (Research) Award by Dr. S. Laurel Weldon, Interim Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs.  It will be presented this year to Dr. Mark S. Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN). The award is presented in recognition of Dr. Lundstrom’s leadership in creating NanoHUB, a radical departure from traditional forms of scholarly communication in nanotechnology with a strongly open access character. Annually, nearly 250,000 users in 172 countries access over 3,000 resources from more than 1,000 authors for research and education, including over 250 simulation tools. After the presentation, James L. Mullins, Dean of Libraries, will introduce the speaker.]

 Abstract:  It is now widely recognized that the traditional published article is insufficient to permit verification of computational results. The emergence of powerful computational hardware combined with vast data collection and storage capabilities presents many novel opportunities for researchers. Unfortunately current standards for communication of published computational findings make verification and validation next to impossible. A movement toward reproducible research – dissemination that includes sufficient experimental details such that results can be replicated by others in the field, i.e. the code and the data – has developed in many disciplines and research areas to address this shortcoming in research communication. In this talk Dr. Stodden will explore the problem and address solutions emerging from researchers and institutions, federal policy efforts, and journal publication standards.

 Bio: Victoria Stodden is an assistant professor of Statistics at Columbia University whose research centers on the multifaceted problem of enabling reproducibility in computational science. This includes studying adequacy and robustness in replicated results, designing and implementing validation systems, developing standards of openness for data and code sharing, and resolving legal and policy barriers to disseminating reproducible research.  Her work has resulted in platforms and tools such as SparseLab, RunMyCode.org, and the Reproducible Research Standard. Stodden is a member of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure, the Mathematics and Physical Sciences Directorate Subcommittee on Support for the Statistical Sciences at NSF, the National Academies of Science committee on Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process, and several committees in the American Statistical Association. She completed her PhD in Statistics and her law degree at Stanford University, and her Erdös Number is 3.

 

 


Purdue Libraries Celebrates Open Access Week Oct. 21 to 27 with Open Education and Research Events, Journal Editors’ Group Tea

October 7th, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Purdue University Libraries will celebrate Open Access Week – Oct. 21 to 27, 2013 – with three key events including an Open Education Event presented by David Ernst, University of Minnesota; Journal Editors’ Group Tea; and Open Research Event presented by Victoria Stodden, Columbia University. Awards will also be presented to key faculty members for their commitment and contributions to the advancement of Open Access at Purdue University.  A live web stream of the presentations on Oct. 23 and Oct. 25 can be found at the following URL: http://www.kaltura.com/tiny/pvhfc.

“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.

Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.

 OPEN ACCESS WEEK EVENT DETAILS

Wednesday, October 23: 2:00 – 3:30 pm, STEW 314. Open Education Event

Title: Open Textbooks and Educational Resources: New Approaches to Affordable Education

Speaker: David Ernst, University of Minnesota

Sponsor: Co-sponsored by Purdue Libraries and Purdue Student Government.

 [Note: This event will commence with the presentation of an Open Access (Education) Award by Dr. A. Dale Whittaker, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs. It will be presented this year to Dr. Linda S. Bergmann, Director of the Online Writing Lab (OWL), which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013. Now featuring over 300 reference and instructional materials, all made freely available online, OWL has established itself as one of the premier Open Educational Resources on the web. After the presentation, James L. Mullins, Dean of Libraries, will introduce the speaker.]

 Abstract: High college costs will keep as many as 2.4 million low and moderate-income college-qualified high school graduates from attending college during this decade. For those who do attend college, financial stresses are the main reason that 46 percent of students do not graduate with any credential within six years. College textbook and course material expenses are a significant part of college costs. The College Board estimates that the average student paid $1,200 on books and course materials during the 2012-13 academic year. These high costs put student success at risk.

  Dr. David Ernst will describe efforts in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development to improve college access, affordability, and success by reducing the impact of textbook and course material costs for students. Dr. Ernst spent the last two years identifying barriers to the adoption of open textbooks and finding ways to help institutions and faculty overcome those barriers. He created the Open Academics textbook catalog (http://open.umn.edu) in April, 2012, as a single source for faculty to find open textbooks. The catalog has had over 70,000 visits from instructors in 173 countries. Dr. Ernst will also describe the Digital Course Pack project, which leveraged digital content already-licensed by the Libraries to create digital course packs that were free or reduced cost for students. Lastly, Dr. Ernst will explain how all schools can reduce textbook and course materials costs by leveraging the same tools successfully used by the University of Minnesota.

 Bio: Dr. David Ernst is the Chief Information Officer in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota. He brings his extensive background in education to his role, including 14 years of teaching and a PhD in Learning Technologies. His passion lies in developing innovations that help faculty teach and students learn. David is also the Executive Director of the Open Academics Textbook Initiative. This program works to improve higher education access, affordability, and success for all students through the use of open textbooks. David created and manages the Open Academics textbook catalog (http://open.umn.edu) – a single source for faculty to find quality openly licensed textbooks. David and his colleagues are also developing a toolkit to help other institutions interested in starting their own open textbook initiative on campus.

 Thursday, October 24, 3:00 – 4:00 pm, PMU East Faculty Lounge. Journal Editors’ Group Tea

 Would you like to learn more about open access? Are you interested in sustainable business models for journal publishing? Are you concerned about predatory open access publishers? If so, join the Purdue Journal Editors’ Group for its fall meeting. Refreshments will be served.

 When: Thursday, October 24th, 3:00-4:00pm

Where: East Faculty Lounge, Purdue Memorial Union

 The meeting will be discussion-based. RSVPs are not necessary, but are appreciated – please email Becky Bunch at rsbunch@purdue.edu if you plan to attend.

  The Editors’ Group is open to Purdue faculty, staff, and students who edit journals or proceedings, or serve on editorial boards.

 Friday, October 25: 9 – 10:30 am, LWS 1142. Open Research Event

 Title: Scientific Reproducibility: Opportunities and Challenges for Open Research Data and Code

 Speaker: Victoria Stodden, Columbia University

 Sponsor: Co-sponsored by Purdue Libraries and the Cyber Center in Discovery Park

  [Note: This event will commence with the presentation of an Open Access (Research) Award by Dr. S. Laurel Weldon, Interim Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs.  It will be presented this year to Dr. Mark S. Lundstrom, Don and Carol Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN). The award is presented in recognition of Dr. Lundstrom’s leadership in creating NanoHUB, a radical departure from traditional forms of scholarly communication in nanotechnology with a strongly open access character. Annually, nearly 250,000 users in 172 countries access over 3,000 resources from more than 1,000 authors for research and education, including over 250 simulation tools. After the presentation, James L. Mullins, Dean of Libraries, will introduce the speaker.]

 Abstract:  It is now widely recognized that the traditional published article is insufficient to permit verification of computational results. The emergence of powerful computational hardware combined with vast data collection and storage capabilities presents many novel opportunities for researchers. Unfortunately current standards for communication of published computational findings make verification and validation next to impossible. A movement toward reproducible research – dissemination that includes sufficient experimental details such that results can be replicated by others in the field, i.e. the code and the data – has developed in many disciplines and research areas to address this shortcoming in research communication. In this talk Dr. Stodden will explore the problem and address solutions emerging from researchers and institutions, federal policy efforts, and journal publication standards.

 Bio: Victoria Stodden is an assistant professor of Statistics at Columbia University whose research centers on the multifaceted problem of enabling reproducibility in computational science. This includes studying adequacy and robustness in replicated results, designing and implementing validation systems, developing standards of openness for data and code sharing, and resolving legal and policy barriers to disseminating reproducible research.  Her work has resulted in platforms and tools such as SparseLab, RunMyCode.org, and the Reproducible Research Standard. Stodden is a member of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure, the Mathematics and Physical Sciences Directorate Subcommittee on Support for the Statistical Sciences at NSF, the National Academies of Science committee on Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process, and several committees in the American Statistical Association. She completed her PhD in Statistics and her law degree at Stanford University, and her Erdös Number is 3.

 

 


Purdue Libraries Database of the Week: GREENR, from Gale Cengage Learning.

October 4th, 2013

Welcome to Database of the Week.  This feature from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics is intended to give you a brief introduction to a database that you may not know.  These weekly snapshots will have only basic information about our most relevant and beneficial online resources, and hopefully tempt you to explore.  Feedback is always welcome.  If you have a suggestion for a database or research topic that should be covered, please let us know.

This Week’s Featured Database:  GREENR, from Gale Cengage Learning.

Find it:www.lib.purdue.edu/parrish, Under the column headed Collections, click on List of Business Databases.

Description/focus: GREENR is a resource for environment and sustainability research.

Try this:  The GREENR landing page has links to broad issues such as Resource Management, and more focused topics such as nuclear energy, coal energy, and wind energy.  You can do a keyword search in all content or in specific collections (videos or case studies), or use an interactive world map for country information.  Search results can be limited by subject or type of resource.  See here for a short video tutorial on the basics of searching GREENR

Why you should know this database:  GREENR  covers food security, environmental law and politics, economics and trade, pollution, ecology, energy, and more.  It includes many of the academic resources that appear in text-only databases, but GREENR  also includes podcasts, websites, newspapers, videos, magazines, and case studies.  You can navigate country, organization, and country portals for news, video, and primary source documents. 

Why students should know this database:  GREENR is easy to navigate and students can use it to narrow a broad interest to a specific topic, or find content on an assigned subject.

Tags: agribusiness, agricultural economics, agriculture, articles, companies, countries, country profiles, demographics, economic conditions, energy, environmental research, full text, international markets, international news, news, resource economics,

Cost: Paid annually by Purdue University Libraries.

——————————

Database of the Week comes to you from the Roland G. Parrish Library of Management & Economics. If you would like more information about this database, or if you would like a demonstration of it for a class, contact parrlib@purdue.edu.  Database of the Week is archived  at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/MGMT/.  For more Purdue Libraries news, follow us on Twitter (@PurdueLibraries).

 

If you would like us to promote your favorite database, send an email to mdugan@purdue.edu.


White House Office of Science and Technology Mandate: Deposit of Articles, Data Resulting from Research Grants into Open Access Repositories

October 2nd, 2013

February’s executive memorandum from the Office of Science and Technology Policy required over twenty federal agencies who have annual research and development budgets of more than $100 million to submit plans to the White House to ensure that “the direct results of federally funded scientific research are made available to and useful for the public, industry, and the scientific community.” This includes openly and freely sharing the publications that result from sponsored research as well as datasets. Purdue and the Libraries have supported this new policy and helped to inform its development.

The goal of the memo is to ensure that data that are produced with federal funds are made as available as possible for access and reuse by other researchers as well as the general public. Some agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health already require data management plans and have been encouraging data-sharing for years. Datasets such as spreadsheets, instrument and sensor data, software source code, transcripts, images and video, and the other “raw ingredients” of research need to be shared in order to reproduce experiments and validate their findings. Efficiency is gained by reusing instead of reproducing the same data in different studies, and new discoveries and economic opportunities can be created.

What does it mean for researchers on our campus? In practical terms, our researchers will be required to submit data management plans with their grant proposals to the major federal funding agencies. The agencies will be required ensure the evaluation of the merits of the data management plans, including how well the researcher identifies and describes what data will be produced by the research and how the data will be made accessible and preserved.

Since the establishment of the Distributed Data Curation Center (D2C2) by the Libraries in 2006, we have been preparing to help our researchers meet these requirements. In collaboration with the Office of the Vice President of Research and Information Technology at Purdue, the Libraries launched the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR, http://purr.purdue.edu) to give researchers a platform for collaborating and publishing and archiving their data. We have been involved in the creation of solutions such as the DMPTool (http://dmptool.org) that walks a researcher through the process of writing an effective data management plan, step-by-step. Purdue is also a founding member of DataCite (http://datacite.org), which is an international organization to assign unique, globally resolvable digital objects identifiers to datasets and promote the scholarly use and attribution of data in research.

Most importantly, our subject-specialist librarians are advocates, consultants, and collaborators in research data management, helping to write and review plans, working with faculty and students to understand issues related to data use and stewardship, and contributing as co-principal investigators on sponsored, data-intensive research.

As many of the parties involved in this new policy work on drafting potential solutions, the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has offered their proposed policy solution. Published in June of 2013, the Shared Access Research Ecosystem, or SHARE model, proposes that academic universities and libraries are well suited as a solution to the new OSTP policy requirements due to their long standing history of investing into the services, tools, and infrastructure to support the dissemination, access, and preservation of research. One of the key components to the infrastructure of this model that universities already have in operation is institutional repositories, such as Purdue e-Pubs (http://purdue.edu/epubs). Institutional repositories, including Purdue e-Pubs, are poised to play an important and significant role in the continued discussions on these new funder requirements, and the promotion of scholarship and research by Purdue faculty, staff, and students.

Established in 2005, Purdue e-Pubs is the open access institutional document repository of Purdue University providing free and open access to research and scholarship authored by members of the Purdue community. Submitting work to Purdue e-Pubs is open to anyone affiliated with Purdue, and can serve the public deposit requirements for any Purdue Principal Investigator (PI) on federally funded research projects. Once the work has been uploaded to the repository many of the services, tools, and infrastructure currently in place in Purdue e-Pubs are poised to fulfill several components of the policy’s requirements. After an item is deposited, Purdue e-Pubs makes the metadata and full text submission of the work available to commercial search engines, such as Google Scholar, and other discovery systems through the implementation of the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). It is also at this time that the repository will create within the metadata a link to the publisher’s version of the work through the creation of an Open URL. Purdue e-Pubs also belongs to a cross-institutional repository system, the Bepress Digital Commons Network (http://network.bepress.com/). The Digital Commons Network is a federated institutional repository-based discovery tool aggregating works from over three hundred institutional repositories. Built upon the Bepress institutional repository platform, Digital Commons, the Digital Commons Network further illustrates solutions to the OST memorandum’s accessibility requirements.

There are also several methods to ensure compliance with using the Purdue e-Pubs repository and other institutional repositories as components to the new policy requirements. Upon submission and final deposit of a work an automated notification is currently sent to all authors. This automated notification could be potentially sent to other designee’s including the author’s institutional research offices, the publisher of the work, and to the funding agency to ensure notification and compliance with the new policy. Authors currently also receive an automated monthly email informing them on the industry recognized COUNTER (http://www.projectcounter.org/) compliant download statistics. These download statistics, as well as the access and site statistics from Google Analytics and altmetrics, could also be supplied to administrators and other invested parties by Purdue e-Pubs and its additional services.

At the time of this publication, the federal agencies have turned in their plans to the White House, which will review and respond to them over the course of the next six months. Because of our involvement and early engagement in issues related to research data management, Purdue is prepared and equipped to meet these new funder requirements and promote the research of our faculty and students through global data-sharing and reuse.

 

 


Purdue Libraries Celebrates Information Literacy Month in October

October 1st, 2013

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University Libraries will celebrate Information Literacy Month during the month of October with a variety of educational and awareness initiatives and a culminating Information Literacy Symposium on Tuesday, Oct. 29 at Purdue University featuring Dr. Mary Somerville, University Librarian at the Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver.

Purdue University Libraries is committed to leading the way in learning and information literacy through a variety of cutting-edge initiatives, including the newly expanded IMPACT program, which helps transform Purdue’s core curriculum to support learners in today’s information-rich environment and enhance student information literacy by advancing educational practice and research.

About Information Literacy

 Information Literacy is a survival skill in the Information Age, according to the American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy Final Report (1989).

 Instead of drowning in the abundance of information that floods their lives, information literate people know how to find, evaluate, and use information effectively to solve a particular problem or make a decision–whether the information they select comes from a computer, a book, a government agency, a film, or any number of other possible resources.

Libraries, which provide a significant public access point to such information and usually at no cost, must play a key role in preparing people for the demands of today’s information society…

From American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy Final Report (1989)

About the 5th Annual Information Literacy Symposium – Oct. 29

In celebration of Information Literacy Month, Purdue University Libraries present: The 5th Information Literacy Research Symposium by Dr. Mary Somerville, University Librarian at the Auraria Library, University of Colorado Denver – “Toward Informed Learning in Professional Practice” on Tuesday, October 29, 2013, Purdue University West Lafayette Campus,  318 Stewart Center.

During the morning presentation, eminent library leader and researcher Dr. Mary Somerville will discuss her research on informed learning.  She will explain how it builds on her experiences as a practitioner/ researcher/leader.  She will reflect on her colleagues’ engagement with informed learning and the implications of informed learning for academic curriculum design.  She will invite questions and comments from the audience members as educators, including a discussion of opportunities to take the ideas presented forward.

The afternoon will consist of a workshop to design an instructional activity or a cross-disciplinary project based on informed learning theory/principles.

PROGRAM:

9:30 a.m. – 10 a.m.                  Registration

10 a.m. – 12 p.m.                     Presentation

12 p.m. – 1 p.m.                       Lunch (Purdue Memorial Union Anniversary Drawing Room)

1 pm. – 3 p.m.                         Workshop

 ___________________________________________________________________________________________

Source:

Sharon Weiner, PhD, W. Booker Chair for Information Literacy, Purdue University Libraries, 765-496-3128, sweiner@purdue.edu

Related Web sites:

Purdue University Libraries/Learning and Information Literacy www.lib.purdue.edu/infolit

National Forum on Information Literacy – www.infolit.org