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October 22nd, 2020
By: Sandi Caldrone, Data Repository Outreach Specialist
The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) has published over 1,100 open access datasets from Purdue researchers – no small feat – but we want to do more. How can we make more of Purdue’s cutting-edge research data FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable? We’re starting at the beginning with Findable.
PURR’s published datasets are already very easy to find. They are all freely available on our website, indexed by search engines like Google Dataset Search, and identified with unique and persistent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). This works great for digital datasets that are small enough to download quickly over the web, but what about other types of datasets? What about datasets big enough to be measured in terabytes, or sensitive datasets that can only be shared upon request? PURR has a plan for them.
PURR is developing new functionality that will expand our repository to also include a data registry. What does that mean? Researchers will be able to register datasets that, for whatever reason, cannot be downloaded through the PURR website – big data, sensitive datasets that require sharing agreements, and even physical specimens. Registered datasets will receive a DOI, and will be indexed by PURR and every other search engine that catalogs PURR’s datasets. Each registered dataset will come with an accessibility statement explaining how to access the data and who to contact with questions.
So much research data is available for reuse if only you knew where to find it. With the new registry, PURR is hoping to bridge the gap between data user and data author – making more freely available datasets truly accessible. Registry functionality should be up and running later this academic year. Stay tuned to Purdue Libraries for more details.
Filed under: general, OAWeek2020, Open_Access, servicesOctober 21st, 2020
Announcing the second episode in the Diversity and Making Podcast and Video Series, a collaboration between Libraries and School of Information Studies and the Purdue University Asian American and Asian Resource and Cultural Center:
In this episode, we talk with Kristina Mok from Makers Making Change. The motto of the organization is ‘empowering people with disabilities through technology’. Kristina discusses the ways in which they achieve this through community based Makers, Occupational Therapists and Volunteers to develop and deliver affordable open source assistive technologies. Check out the episode at https://www.lib.purdue.edu/diversity-and-making, then pick up materials to make your own raindrop switch at WALC on Oct. 26, 5-8 PM!
October 20th, 2020
By: Mark Puente, Associate Dean for Organizational Development, Inclusion and Diversity
The theme for the 2020 Open Access Week is “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.” The theme is timely in light of the structural inequities that have come to light in recent months with the global pandemic as well as the world-wide protests and social unrest that have been a product of the killing of George Floyd in June. Although, at the surface, it might be difficult to see any connection between these phenomena and structures related to scholarly output and dissemination, it serves as a stark reminder of the interconnectedness of things like research output and the commodification and corporatization of higher education.
I think many of us know that our current systems in this realm are not sustainable and that they privilege organizations and institutions that have long benefited from the “usual” ways of doing things to the detriment or disadvantage of other stakeholders. But how does “open” help to address these broader structural inequities? Is it a panacea or simply a cog within a larger mechanism that needs significant overhaul and restructuring in order to run efficiently while accomplishing the function intended? It may be the latter, but with an understanding that no complex mechanism can run if it has a critical, structural piece missing.
Perhaps, in some ways, open access to scholarly content and educational resources can serve as a model for delivering on the promise of equity as we engage in critical analysis of broader educational and societal systems that must be reimagined and rebuilt. Open Access Week provides an excellent opportunity to explore these issues and to imagine what we might be able to accomplish collaboratively if we think boldly about making structural change.
Join us as we explore important questions like these in a special Open Access Week virtual panel event:
October 19th, 2020
Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies is proud to announce the 2020 winner of the Leadership in Open Access Award, Professor Nicholas K. Rauh. Since 2010, the Leadership in Open Access Award has been awarded annually to a member of the Purdue community who demonstrates an exceptional commitment to broadening the reach of scholarship by making publicly-funded research freely accessible online through Purdue e-Pubs. This year, we honor Dr. Rauh, an Open Access champion who has long-partnered with both Purdue e-Pubs and the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR).
Dr. Rauh is a Roman archaeologist, teaching in the classics program in the College of Liberal Arts School of Languages and Cultures. He conducts survey archaeology in Turkey, exploring the ancient lives of Cilician pirates, who flourished in the eastern Mediterranean between 139 and 67 BC. For more than 70 years, these pirates waged economic war with neighboring Hellenistic realms, and most particularly, with the forces of the Roman Republic and its far-flung provincial empire. The material remains they left behind offer a rich, varied look at the ancient civilizations they regularly antagonized.
During his annual summer course, Dr. Rauh engages his students in the scientific process. In addition to collecting potsherds, the researchers collect GIS data for each artifact, bridging the gap between ancient sites and modern technology. Dr. Rauh has been working with Libraries’ data curator, Standa Pejša, for a number of years, curating this data and drafting reports for the Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey, a systematic surface survey of a 60 kilometer strip of Western Rough Cilicia, on the southern coast of Turkey. These reports are openly available in Purdue e-Pubs. The data itself is available in PURR; however, this project goes a step above—integrating the GIS data with the individual artifact data.
“He has been pushing content online since 1996,” Pejša said of Dr. Rauh’s commitment to Open Access. “Public and free, he has been practicing it. If there were more people like him, we would not need all those obfuscating monikers for open access – it would simply be access.”
At 11:00 am (EST) on Wednesday, October 21, 2020, Dr. Rauh will be one of four faculty panelists at a special virtual event in honor of Open Access Week. “Purdue Open Scholarship: Impacts and Implications” will be moderated by Libraries’ Associate Dean for Organizational Development, Inclusion and Diversity, Mark Puente. Registration is free and open until the event concludes at 12:00 pm (EST). All are welcome to attend.
Learn more about Dr. Rauh and his research:
https://purr.purdue.edu/groups/roughciliciasurvey
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/rcas/
Filed under: events, general, GIS, OAWeek2020, Open_Access, press_release
October 19th, 2020
By: Nina Collins, Scholarly Publishing Specialist
As we begin our celebration of Open Access Week 2020, it is important to define what Open Access means and why it matters at Purdue University.
Open Access, in the broadest sense, is free and immediate access to scholarly literature, coupled with re-use permissions. Open Access does not require subscription fees. Anyone can read, download, copy, distribute, or re-use Open Access scholarship, regardless of whether or not they have the ability to pay subscription fees. Open Access content is immediately available to everyone. This immediacy helps to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery and creation of new scholarship. In this way, Open Access also helps to encourage innovation and enrich education.
According to the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), “Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education form a broad Open Agenda that is critical to accelerating the way we discover knowledge and unlocking our potential to solve big problems and make new discoveries.”
Never has the necessity to accelerate scientific discovery and solve big problems been more important than it is in 2020. “On 30 March 2020, UNESCO hosted an online meeting of representatives of science ministries of 122 countries to exchange views on the role of international cooperation in science and increased investment in the context of COVID-19. During the meeting, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay called on governments to reinforce scientific cooperation and integrate open science in their research programmes to prevent and mitigate global crises”. (reference) On April 7, 2020, the Executive Committee of the German Commission for UNESCO released a statement calling for global open scientific cooperation in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The release emphasized that open science is a question of survival and is necessary to overcome the pandemic (reference).
The benefits of Open Access scholarship reach beyond the pressures of discovering solutions to the current pandemic. Open scholarship has numerous advantages for teaching and learning. If an educator cannot access scholarly works, they can’t teach it. If students cannot access it, they cannot learn it. A 2015 report from UNESCO, titled, Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good, stated, “. We must consider not only how knowledge is acquired and validated, but also how access to it is often controlled and, therefore, how access to it can be made commonly available”(79).
At Purdue, Open Access helps fulfill our land-grant mission. Open Access Scholarship can more readily be accessed and taught, it can speed up discovery and innovation, and can help with engagement by ensuring access to all. To support the myriad benefits available to scholars who publish their work openly, Purdue Libraries established Purdue e-Pubs, our institutional repository for scholarly works. Launched in 2005, Purdue e-Pubs currently hosts more than 76,000 Open Access documents. These works have been downloaded more than 22 million times across the world. With the current focus on virtual teaching and learning throughout the world, Purdue e-Pubs downloads have increased more than 25% this year.
Filed under: general, OAWeek2020, Open_AccessOctober 16th, 2020
From a memoir on navigating America’s elder care system to the go-to resources on living with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, Purdue University Press has a timely and useful collection of books on the experience of aging in America.
by Lianna Marie
The Complete Guide serves as the go-to book for comprehensive, easy-to-understand information for all Parkinson’s patients and their loved ones. A trained nurse and primary caregiver for her mother, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, Lianna Marie draws upon over twenty years of education, research, and direct experience.
by Lianna Marie
Caregivers for those with Parkinson’s disease do the utmost for their loved ones, often neglecting their own health in the process. This book is not just about caring for a loved one, but also about taking care of yourself, providing an essential resource for all caregivers of those with Parkinson’s disease.
by Sue Petrovski
Shelved provides readers with a personal account of what it is like to leave a family home and enter a new world where everyone is old and where decisions like where to sit in the dining room fall to low-level corporate managers. Showcasing the benefits of communal living as well as the frustrations of having decisions about meals, public spaces, and governance driven by the bottom line, Petrovski delivers compelling suggestions for the transformation of the elder care system.
by Denise Calhoun
In Changing Seasons, Denise Calhoun provides a language-based, interdisciplinary program to help older adults improve their communication skills. The activities in the book promote meaningful interactions and the creation of a stimulating environment, underscoring the importance of sustaining quality of life as we and those we love age.
by Jolene Brackey
Creating Moments of Joy is filled with practical advice for those impacted my Alzheimer’s disease, and sprinkled with hope, encouragement, new stories, and generous helpings of humor. We are not able to create perfectly wonderful days for people with dementia or Alzheimer’s, but we can create perfectly wonderful moments, moments that put a smile on their faces and a twinkle in their eyes. Five minutes later, they will not remember what we did or said, but the feeling that we left them with will linger.
by George Kraus
A straightforward summary of leading advice for understanding and caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease, written without technical jargon and impractical nuance. With this broad, thoughtful, and grounded approach, family members, clinicians, and caregivers are better able to discover and make wise choices from a wealth of effective interventions in all areas of care. It also allows them to care for themselves and their families in the dynamic and supportive care process.
by Sue Petrovski
A Return Journey draws on journals the author kept as a caregiver during her mother’s eight-year battle with Alzheimer’s, and on her correspondence with other caregivers who were kind enough to share their innermost feelings and emotions. Petrovski clearly and wisely explains that in Alzheimer’s care there are no “right” ways, no “best” decisions, no “perfect” answers.
by Gail Holland and Anne Bashkiroff
Anne Bashkiroff was a pioneer in the fight for Alzheimer’s awareness. The consequences of Alzheimer’s and the extended burden the disease places on families and caregivers was not fully known in the 1970s. Instead of giving up after her husband’s diagnosis with the disease, Bashkiroff moved to make the world aware. Her strength and dedication led her to help establish the Family Survival Project.
You can get 30% off all Purdue University Press titles by entering the code PURDUE30 at checkout on our website.
Filed under: PurduePress, UncategorizedOctober 15th, 2020
Each year, Libraries negotiates with publishers and vendors to provide access to the databases and journals that advance Purdue University’s world-changing research and transformative instruction.
For many years, Purdue has licensed access to most journals published by Elsevier for the West Lafayette, Fort Wayne, and Northwest campuses. Usage for many of these subscriptions is high, but so is the cost, and it has risen significantly over the past decade. When we negotiate with publishers, we seek contracts that are affordable, sustainable, and transparent, but sometimes, publishers insist on significant increases that far exceed available funding. For 2020, Purdue paid a staggering $3.3M for access to Elsevier content, and we are currently in negotiations with Elsevier for journal subscriptions for 2021.
This past June, we alerted Elsevier that we must reduce Purdue’s total spend on publications by $1.5M. This reduction is necessary due to the Libraries’ allocated budget and also reflects the need for more fair and equitable pricing. Purdue pays more for Elsevier subscriptions than many of our peer institutions, and our contracts are based on a complicated and archaic pricing strategy that favors Elsevier while hurting universities like Purdue.
In July, Elsevier proposed three options for 2021 pricing, none of which met our need for a reduced cost. We offered a reasonable counter proposal in August, which Elsevier declined to consider. As of early October, we are waiting to hear back from Elsevier on another proposal, one which we hope will honor our needs. As we move forward with these negotiations, we look to the University Library Committee (ULC), a group that reports to the Senate’s University Resources and Policy Committee, for input and guidance.
If Purdue cannot come to a satisfactory conclusion with Elsevier and reach an agreement which is both affordable and sustainable, we will be forced to significantly reduce the number of journals to which we subscribe. Over the past few years, some universities have terminated their subscription contracts with Elsevier entirely, and others have greatly reduced their subscription offerings, all due to the inability to arrive at a satisfactory cost agreement. (See the University of California and the University of North Carolina for recent examples.) Should a reduction in subscriptions become necessary, rest assured that Libraries will provide campus with alternative means to access the content that our students, staff, researchers and faculty need to meet their information resource needs.
Filed under: collections, general, press_release
October 14th, 2020
ILS 23000: Data Science and Society: Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues
Meeting Time: DIS
Instructor: Kendall Roark
This course provides an introduction to Ethical, Legal Social Issues (ELSI) in Data Science. Students will be introduced to interdisciplinary theoretical and practical frameworks that can aid in exploring the impact and role of Data Science in society. This is a writing intensive course. Students will work individually and on collaborative assignments.
Learning Outcomes
1. Engage in current debates surrounding professional and research ethics, roles and responsibilities in Data Science.
2. Examine emerging legal and policy issues which impact Data Science.
3. Critically reflect on the relationship between Data Science and political, social and cultural change.
4. Learn collaboration, public engagement and scholarly communication skills.
October 13th, 2020
ILS 59500: GIS for Humanities and Social Science Research
Instructor: Nicole Kong
This course will introduce you the skills of spatial thinking, basic functions of Geography Information Systems (GIS), and spatial research methods that are relevant to humanities, social science, and related fields. The course will start with introduction to basic GIS concepts and technology, then move into GIS applications during the research process, including spatial research design, data collection, management, visualization, and spatial analytical techniques. Practical work will be introduced and completed using ESRI ArcGIS Pro software.
Learning Outcomes
October 13th, 2020
We talked to Lianna Marie, the author of two new Purdue University Press books, The Complete Guide for People With Parkinson’s Disease and Their Loved Ones and Everything You Need to Know About Caregiving for Parkinson’s Disease.
The Complete Guide serves as the go-to book for comprehensive, easy-to-understand information for all Parkinson’s patients and their loved ones, and Everything You Need to Know provides an essential resource full of useful information for all caregivers of those with Parkinson’s disease.
Q: What about your experience as a caregiver motivated you write these books?
Lianna Marie: My greatest motivation for writing these books was a conversation I had with my mom in her fifteenth year of living with Parkinson’s. She told me back then she wished there was more information available to help her understand and deal with her disease as it was progressing, and written in a way that she could understand (i.e., without medical jargon).
At that point, no one had told us how powerful music could be in helping her mobility, or that there are reasons not to join a support group (there are definitely pros to joining one, but there are also cons), or that sometimes symptoms could disappear just by being really happy. We chatted about these and other useful tips she had learned about living with the disease, and shortcuts she had figured out on her own.
Mom told me she wished she had known these tips earlier, that someone living with the disease could have helped make her life easier, sooner. As a daughter, caregiver, and writer, I felt I could help others like my mom by writing a book that offered practical tips and answered the most pressing questions of someone living with the disease.
Q: How important do you feel it is for patients and family members to get this type of information early? What kind of things does your book provide for those in all parts of their Parkinson’s journey?
Marie: Being informed, or “Parkinson’s literate,” as my neurologist friends say, is imperative not only for people with Parkinson’s but their care partners as well. Having an understanding of the diagnosis process, the motor and non-motor symptoms, as well as other facets of the disease and how they may affect you, is essential to learn early on so you can make more informed treatment decisions.
Both books aim to walk a person affected by PD from diagnosis to the end-stages of the disease and give practical information and tips on how to manage the various challenges that a person with Parkinson’s may face.
Q: What convinced you to take a whole book to concentrate on the experience of the caregiver?
Marie: The caregiving book resulted from many years of witnessing the toll caring for someone with Parkinson’s can have on a person if they don’t have the right help and tools. It was initially inspired by my stepdad, who, while caring for my mom in the later stages of Parkinson’s, unfortunately, neglected to care for himself and suffered burnout and significant health issues. Additionally, I learned (through trial and error) many things about how to better care for my mom and wanted to help others save time and energy by putting them all together in an easy to read book.
My ultimate goal is to help caregivers feel less alone and give them hope that they can make it through this often challenging Parkinson’s journey with their loved one.
Q: What are you trying to provide with these books that those affected by this disease can’t find elsewhere?
Marie: I am amazed at how little information is out there written by people who have first-hand experience with Parkinson’s disease. Most books, as my mom pointed out when she was first diagnosed in the 1990s, are written by doctors, and often don’t deal enough with the specific day-to-day issues people with PD want help with. Through my AllAboutParkinsons.com website and Facebook page, I’ve been able to ask thousands of people with Parkinson’s what their most significant challenges are, how they’ve coped with these challenges, and address them head-on.
Q: What are some steps you’ve taken with the books to make this information as accessible as possible for patients and caregivers?
Marie: By listening to my readers over the past many years, I’ve learned what topics are most important and made sure to include them. I’ve also received many tips from people with Parkinson’s and their caregivers and sprinkled these throughout each book.
As far as the overall structure of the books, I’ve dissected the hard to understand medical information and explained it in layman’s terms. Both books are organized into several sections with shorter chapters so that topics are easy to find and digest. I’ve also included a “words you need to know” section in both books for terms that may be unfamiliar.
Thank you to Lianna! If you would like to know more about these books you can get your own copy or request them from your local library.
You can get 30% off these titles and any other Purdue University Press book by entering the code PURDUE30 when ordering from our website.
Filed under: PurduePress