Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

October HSSE Featured Database: ERIC

October 24th, 2019

The HSSE Featured Database for October is ERIC (EBSCO Interface). This database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and stands for “Educational Resources Information Center,” which has been providing education research since 1964. It also explores research in other disciplines that have implications on educational theory and practice.

Open Access for Alumni

October 23rd, 2019

Oct. 21-27, 2019, is International Open Access Week. This is part of a series — written by Purdue faculty — that demonstrates the benefits of open access scholarly publishing. For the entire series, visit https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/oaweek19/.

by Erla P. Heyns, Head, Humanities, Social Sciences, Education, and Business Division
Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies

An issue very dear to my heart is providing access to published research for alumni. The professionals who graduate from our universities and enter such fields as veterinary medicine, psychotherapy, social work, and many more have been carefully trained to find and evaluate research literature while they are students. Once they graduate, they are cut off from this access, and they have to depend on employers who might or might not subscribe to certain needed journals. If not, they have to pay, if they are able, for access.

The consequences of deficient access are far-reaching for our society. How can it be acceptable for a veterinarian, for example, not to be able to stay current with the research literature? How can it be acceptable that a psychotherapist has to depend on learning about the latest research only haphazardly, at annual conference presentations, instead of being able to focus on current research in a particular area at the time of need? These critical fields, in which professionals make a significant difference in the lives of their clients, in our lives, typically do not have adequate access to important new research.

The urgency of having a holistic approach to provide access to research for all professionals cannot be overstated. Universities, not just libraries, should tackle the issue with renewed vigor, since we are not only infringing on the lifelong learning opportunities of our alumni, but we are also hurting ourselves and the entire population as consumers of professional care.

There is very little written about this subject in the library research literature, but what is published relates to two different approaches to the problem.

One is to think about alumni as an extension of the university they graduated from and to suggest ways to give them access, perhaps through subscribing on their behalf or providing a service through which they can request an article for a fee or the university will pay the copyright fee.

Another discussion that has been happening at some institutions is to try to convince publishers to create favorable funding models so that alumni can subscribe to journals in their fields of study. This has not been successful, except in very limited instances. Another issue with the solution of individual subscription access is, in most fields, research literature is not just published in a few journals. The problem, of course, is also bigger than just access to the journal literature; journals are indexed in databases that alumni also cannot access. Google Scholar provides valuable access to be able to identify research, but it is by no means comprehensive or complete.

The second context in which this problem is being discussed in the literature is in the context of open access. The benefit of open access is apparent since everyone will be able to access current research. Bruce Symphony, in “Open Access for Scholars Left Behind” (2018), emphasizes the importance of teaching students how to find and cite legitimate open access publications so that they are aware of these resources and are more likely to use them in their professional lives.

Providing access to alumni requires a university community working toward a comprehensive solution, and a main feature of the solution is awareness of and ability to use high-quality, open access material.

Information about other 2019 Open Access Week activities at Purdue is available at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/2019/09/26/oa-week19/.

Learn more about Purdue’s Open Access resources, including Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue’s open access digital repository, at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess.

The Evolution of the Joint Transportation Research Program

October 22nd, 2019

Oct. 21-27, 2019, is International Open Access Week. This is part of a series — written by Purdue faculty — that demonstrates the benefits of open access scholarly publishing. For the entire series, visit https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/oaweek19/.

by Darcy Bullock, Lyles Family Professor of Civil Engineering and Director, Joint Transportation Research Program

The Purdue e-Pubs open access model for publishing Joint Transportation Research Program (JTPR) reports and conference proceedings is widely regarded as a best practice for rapid, cost-effective dissemination to transportation agencies, practicing professionals, and academia. Including JTRP reports, specialty series, and conferences, this open access material has received more than 2.3 million downloads from individuals in 29,000+ institutions, representing 230 countries.

Our partnership with Purdue University Press enables JTRP research to have global impact through the e-Pubs online publishing system. JTRP reports provide a treasure trove of invaluable information for transportation professionals and academia, but were previously buried in the basement of the engineering library [now the Library of Engineering and Science]. To promote knowledge sharing and increase impact, JTRP partnered with Purdue Press in 2011 to modernize report publishing and digitize previous reports.

As an example, when Purdue Civil Engineering Emeritus Professor Sidney Diamond published his report on “Methods of Soil Stabilization for Erosion Control” in 1975, he expected it to be read by state engineers to assist them with improving Indiana’s transportation infrastructure. Today, however, his report has been downloaded 1,883 times, with readers just as likely to be in India, Brazil, and China as in Monticello or Frankfort, Indiana.

Thanks to Purdue e-Pubs, Diamond’s research is helping practitioners worldwide to cheaply and safely reinforce dirt roadways made unstable by heavy rainfall. More recently, Professor Rodrigo Salgado published a technical report entitled “Dynamic Cone Penetration Test (DCPT) for Subgrade Assessment” in 2003 that has been downloaded more than110,000 times.

These examples show how making JTRP research openly and freely accessible online increases the value of the state’s investment in transportation research, while providing worldwide impact.

In addition to technical reports, JTRP publishes a variety of conference proceedings on e-Pubs. One example is the Purdue Road School Transportation Conference and Expo, produced in collaboration with the Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program, which attracts more than 3,000 attendees annually.

Approximately 4,000 Road School presentations and proceedings have been posted on e-Pubs. These publications have been downloaded more than 447,000 times, extending the impact of Road School well beyond the conference attendees. Downloads for Purdue Road School have exceeded 131,000 in just the past year. We are particularly pleased by the magnitude of these Road School downloads, as approximately 65% are from government agencies and private sector companies. This demonstrates the impact the scholarly work is having on government and private sector entities.

Information about other 2019 Open Access Week activities at Purdue is available at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/2019/09/26/oa-week19/.

Learn more about Purdue’s Open Access resources, including Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue’s open access digital repository, at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess.

Democratizing Readership of Research on Teaching and Learning Engineering

October 21st, 2019

Oct. 21-27, 2019, is International Open Access Week. This is part of a series — written by Purdue faculty — that demonstrates the benefits of open access scholarly publishing. For the entire series, visit https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/category/oaweek19/.

by Monica Cardella and Senay Purzer, School of Engineering Education, Purdue University

As editors, we have had countless conversations with prospective authors and other colleagues about the model used for the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER): an online, open access, common good journal. Free for readers to access articles, free for authors to publish their work. What? Free for readers and free for authors? How is that possible?

It’s possible because of the commitment of the University and the University Press—it is not possible to maintain a reputable journal without any costs, but through the commitment of Purdue’s School of Engineering Education, Purdue University Press, Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies, authors and readers are not limited in their ability to access and publish papers.

Even more important, however, is the question of why.

Open access journals reach those readers who most benefit from the research in those journals: J-PEER disseminates research findings from studies of engineering learning in pre-college settings. This includes studies of how children learn engineering in elementary school classrooms, how teachers learn to teach engineering, how people learn engineering in museums and through “maker” activities. Some studies focus on broadening participation in engineering; others focus on how we measure or assess what children or teachers have learned.

While many of our readers are other researchers who learn from the articles we have published in order to advance their own research, the fact that J-PEER is an online, open access journal means that teachers, museum exhibit designers, afterschool program managers, parents, superintendents, and the general public have access to this research. For us—as not only journal editors, but also as researchers—this resonates with a core commitment of our research—that it not only benefits the research community, but also has the potential to impact practice.

Open access journals help accelerate the growth of our field. For us as scholars in the field of pre-college engineering education research, we also believe that the open access model supports our growing field. The journal started eight years ago in 2011, when the field of pre-college engineering education research was still “young” and emerging. At the time we were members of the original editorial board, under the leadership of the founding editor, Johannes Strobel. We joined the editorial board for the same reason he started the journal: a way to support the growth of this field. The hope was we could provide a venue for scholars to publish their work and a way for people to quickly learn about other work underway in this interdisciplinary, emerging area.

Open access journals foster global impact of research. Research in engineering education tends to concentrate on specific regions of the world, where universities can afford to fund robust databases and high invoices from journal publishers. J-PEER is able to reach a wide global readership that would not have been possible without open access. With this ability, OA democratizes readership and globally inclusive access for scholars.

Open access can help debunk “false” information. People in their everyday life communicate through social media and share with each other information found on the Internet. Often challenging false information can be a problem when access to “real,” academic work is only available to scholars. With open access, anyone can freely and easily disseminate their work.

Open access is a defense against phishing journals. The funding structures of journals that charge authors per page, and the pressures of the tenure and promotion process, have created a vacuum resulting in myriad phishing journals. The recent increase of fake journals is especially confusing for new scholars and graduate students, who are under great pressure to publish their research. Open access is a defense against such exploitation.

For some, a journal that is freely and openly available to the public may generate concern for quality and respect. Yet it is a journal’s review process and the editorial board that matters the most. For us, the choice between an open access vs. a traditional journal was easy. Open access is the future of a democratized readership of research.

Information about other 2019 Open Access Week activities at Purdue is available at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/2019/09/26/oa-week19/.

Learn more about Purdue’s Open Access resources, including Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue’s open access digital repository, at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess.

Wayne Wright Honored with 2019 Leadership in Open Access Award

October 21st, 2019

Purdue University College of Education Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Programs, and Faculty Development and Professor and Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy and Language Wayne Wright has been selected as the recipient of 2019 Leadership in Open Access Award from Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies and the Office of the Provost.

This week (Oct. 21-27) academic institutions and libraries across the globe are celebrating the benefits of Open Access for research and scholarship during the 12th annual International Open Access Week commemoration.

According to Dean of Libraries and School of Information Studies and Esther Ellis Norton Professor of Library Science Beth McNeil, Wright was chosen this year for his exceptional advocacy for Open Access (OA) at Purdue and beyond. Currently, Wright serves as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, an OA publication.

“Wayne also actively promotes Open Access by sharing open access news and events with his faculty and provides engaging learning opportunities for Purdue’s emerging scholars,” McNeil said.

In 2018, Wright collaborated with faculty in the College of Education and in Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies to help organize a workshop on trending OA topics for graduate students.

“This workshop brought together faculty, graduate students, and librarians, generating rich, cross-disciplinary discussions that continued beyond the workshop,” McNeil added.

Wright noted he’s grateful for Purdue’s commitment and the OA resources provided by Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies Scholarly Publishing Services to facilitate open access.

“It is a great honor to receive this award,” he explained. “Open Access research is premised on the idea that most research is produced by public universities; thus, the research should be freely accessible to the public.”

Information about other 2019 Open Access Week activities at Purdue is available at https://blogs.lib.purdue.edu/news/2019/09/26/oa-week19/.

Learn more about Purdue’s Open Access resources, including Purdue e-Pubs, Purdue’s open access digital repository, at www.lib.purdue.edu/openaccess.

Q&A with John Norberg

October 16th, 2019

We talked with celebrated writer, author, and humorist John Norberg about the second edition of Wings of Their Dreams: Purdue in Flight, his second book with Purdue University Press this year.

The second edition of Wings of Their Dreams continues and updates the story of an aeronautic odyssey of imagination, science, engineering, technology, adventure, courage, danger, and promise. It is the ever-evolving story of the human spirit taking flight, expanding Purdue’s legacy in aviation’s history.

Q: What originally inspired you to write Wings of Their Dreams?

John Norberg: I started working on it in 1999 as the 2003 centennial of flight approached. Purdue has a great history in flight and space and I thought the centennial of flight would be the perfect time to highlight it. There was no book where the stories of all our historical figures in flight and our astronauts were brought together in one place. As with several of the books I’ve written I talked about the idea with Joe Bennett, then vice president for university relation. This was before I started at Purdue in October of 2000. Joe liked the idea and took it to President Steve Beering who authorized it with financial support from the Purdue Research Foundation.

Q: Purdue is often referred to as the “cradle of astronauts”, what do you think are some of the main reasons Purdue has been so successful in producing astronauts?

Norberg: I have researched this and talked with all our astronauts about it. I’ve concluded there are five specific reasons we have so many astronauts.

• Large and world class schools of engineering and science that attract people who want to become astronauts. NASA has a history of selecting people with engineering and science backgrounds as astronauts. In the early days being an engineer was required.
• A university airport on the campus. Going back to our earliest astronauts, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and Roger Chaffee, they had no idea about the future that awaited them. But they knew they liked to fly and the airport was a plus in attracting people interested first in aviation and later space flight. Many of our shuttle astronauts have also been pilots and they were interested in the University airport.
• A large and outstanding ROTC program. Many astronauts used a military career path to be selected by NASA for space flight. A number of them become military test pilots. Some received ROTC scholarships or came to Purdue on Navy scholarships. The excellence of Purdue’s ROTC programs and the fact that the military was a good career track for become an astronaut attracted people to Purdue who were interested in flight and later space.
• A master’s degree program in association with the Air Force Academy. In the 1960s one of the most selective programs at the Air Force Academy was a master’s degree program with Purdue. Only the top students were selected. They took some advanced courses at the Academy and upon graduation they came immediately to Purdue and began taking course during summer terms, and there were three of them. With a heavy course load in the fall semester they were able to complete their master’s degree work in January. Seven men who went through this program became astronauts and credit Purdue with helping them succeed. One of the people who came to Purdue on the program became the Hero of the Hudson, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger.
• When Cernan and Chaffee became NASA astronauts in 1963, Purdue had four alumni selected for space missions and the total number of people in the space program was not large. Young people interested in space began to see Purdue as a great place to study to accomplish their goals. Purdue’s reputation as a school of astronauts became even stronger as more and more Boilermakers were selected for the program by NASA.

Q: What’s something you think that people may not know about Purdue’s history in flight?

Norberg: People are always interested in stories about Neil Armstrong and the first landing on the moon. It’s in the book. I also wanted to give readers surprises, stories they didn’t know about. Most people don’t know that a Purdue alumnus worked with the Wright Brothers in the earliest days of flight. They don’t know Purdue graduates taught flight to Billy Mitchell and Hap Arnold – icons in U.S. military. They don’t know one of the nation’s first test pilots was a Purdue graduate, that a Purdue graduate and Charles Lindbergh were involved in a mid-air crash, an incident that marked the first time two pilots parachuted to safety. They don’t know about a Purdue graduate who flew beneath a balloon to the stratosphere. The first pilot to be called “Mr. Space” when there were no astronauts was a Purdue alumnus. The second person to break the sound barrier studied at Purdue (and some say he was the first). There is much more. Wings tells the history of flight and space through the stories of Purdue graduates. I think people will also be surprised that some astronauts apply four or five times before being selected. It is very competitive. The man who assigned astronauts to flights says Grissom would probably have been the first person on the moon, had he survived.

Q: What was the thing that surprised you most when you did the research for this book?

Norberg: If I tell all the surprises they won’t be surprises. The most pleasant surprise was that Neil Armstrong agreed to let me interview him for the book, something he rarely did. It was before Jim Hansen released his excellent biography of Neil, First Man but they were working on it. When I finished Neil’s chapters I sent them to him for accuracy review. He responded that the chapters were good, but he thought they were “about one-third too much me.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. So, I took quotation marks off some of his statements and paraphrased them. I sent it back and he said it was perfect. Shortly after Wings was published, Purdue held an event at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Neil was there and spoke. He started telling stories about pilots in Purdue’s history. The first one I recognized as someone in the book. Then there was a second and third. It finally dawned on me that he was repeating the stories from the book. I sent him a copy of the book and he had read it. That surprised me. At the end of his talk he said “All these stories are from John Norberg’s book Wings of Their Dreams that I heartily recommend.” I thanked Neil after he spoke. Someone came up to me and told me I needed to go to the table we were using to sell and sign books. There was a line of people waiting that stretched down the first floor of the museum. Neil wrote a statement for the cover of another book, Spacewalker, I wrote with Purdue astronaut Jerry Ross: “Spacewalker is the book for anyone who ever dreamed of flying in space.” There are many surprises in the stories about the people I wrote about in the book. I hope people enjoy them.

Q: What is new about the second edition of Wings of Their Dreams?

Norberg: Much has changed from 2003 to 2019. All the profiles and stories that were in the first book are in the second edition, but many of them have been updated. I interviewed all our living astronauts again (there are 24 associated with NASA and one commercial astronaut) and updated their information and thoughts. In addition to Grissom and Chaffee, who died in 1967, four other Purdue astronauts have died since 2003 – Janice Voss, Armstrong, Cernan, and Don Williams. I updated those stories. I added profiles on two additional astronauts since 2003. I also added a chapter on Sullenberger’s 2009 landing of a commercial airplane on the Hudson River, saving all the souls onboard.

You can get 30% off of Wings of Their Dreams by entering the discount code PURDUE30 when ordering from our website.

Seeking Student Social Media Specialist

October 16th, 2019

Must Be a Currently Enrolled (Fall 2019, Spring 2020) Purdue University Undergraduate Student

Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies (PULSIS) seeks a creative social media specialist student employee for 20 hour per week the remainder of Fall 2019 and for Spring 2020. The ideal applicant will possess strong knowledge of the digital media landscape, particularly in Instagram and its storytelling functionalities. The successful candidate will be responsible for contributing content to PULSIS Instagram (and other social media platforms at various times) via their own mobile device to share the story of PULSIS and the resources and services we provide for Purdue students. This position requires a student with exceptional public relations judgement, the ability to maintain our unit’s brand voice, and one who has photo-composition skills and/or aptitude. This position will also require developing and maintaining rapport with PULSIS faculty and staff—who are integral in helping tell our story—and include Instagram-monitoring duties. Those looking to gain valuable online media experience with an established organization are encouraged to apply.

Qualifications

1+ years’ experience in social media/marketing
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Working knowledge of Instagram
Basic knowledge of Photoshop
Beginner-level knowledge of video content best practices
Photo composition skills/aptitude

Please send resume and cover letter to:

Teresa Koltzenburg, Director of Strategic Communication

tkoltzen@purdue.edu

Studies in Jewish Civilization – 50% Off Sale

October 16th, 2019

Purdue University Press is offering 50% off all books in our Studies in Jewish Civilization series, including the most recent addition, Next Year in Jerusalem: Exile and Return in Jewish History edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon.

Next Year in Jerusalem recognizes that Jews have often experienced or imaged periods of exile and return in their long tradition, examining this phenomenon from different approaches, genres, and media.

The volumes in our Studies in Jewish Civilization series, edited by Leonard J. Greenspoon, are based on presentations made at the annual symposium of the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization, sponsored by Creighton University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and University of Nebraska at Omaha. Each collection explores a different topic in Jewish history and culture worldwide that continues to be of interest today. Jargon-free, unbiased, and inherently interdisciplinary, every chapter is accessible, authoritative, and meant for scholars and laypeople alike.

Get 50% the books when you order off of our website and use the discount code SJC50. The sale will continue until the end of the year.

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The Legacy of the “First Man”, a Q&A with James R. Hansen

October 15th, 2019

We talked with James R. Hansen, Neil Armstrong’s authorized biographer, about his new book with Purdue University Press Dear Neil Armstrong: Letters to the First Man from All Mankind.

Dear Neil Armstrong publishes a careful sampling—roughly 400—of the thousands of letters sent to Neil Armstrong from the day of the moon landing to the day of his passing, reflecting the various kinds of correspondence that Armstrong received along with representative samples of his replies.

Q: You’ve already written First Man, the definitive authorized account of Neil Armstrong, what motivated you to take on this new project?

James R. Hansen: I find not just the biography but even more the iconography of the First Man on the Moon endlessly fascinating. “Definitive” is relative. There’s always more to know, to learn, to discover. For First Man, I did not have total access to Neil’s correspondence. For the past four or five years I did have access, in the Purdue Archives, and, as a result, I have a lot more to share with the world about Armstrong.

Q: What do you think is the most commonly misunderstood thing about Neil Armstrong, and how could looking through these letters remedy that misunderstanding?

Hansen: That he was ultra-private, closed off, a near-recluse. The letters show that Neil was not any of those things, not at all. He was very engaged in the world around him, though he had his own particular ways and standards of how he would engage with society and culture.

Q: There are some 75,000 letters stored in the Purdue University Archives and Special collections, what was it like paring it down to the roughly 400 that made it into the book?

Hansen: It was very hard to keep my selection of letters to that size, because almost every letter to Neil, and every reply from him, offered interesting new insights into who he was, and even more so into who we were, in terms of what we thought about our hero and what we wanted from him.

Q: Was there any overarching theme or trend in the letters that surprised you most?

Hansen: Nothing in the letters made me change my basic understanding of Armstrong. What they did, however, is add depth, richness, and resonance to everything I had already come to understand about his as a person and as an icon.

Q: Were there any letters that didn’t make it in the book that still stick out to you?

Hansen: I tried very hard to include all the letters that stuck out to me! Some of the truly crazy letters that were written to him, which included some threatening letters from stalkers and other disturbed individuals, I chose not to include: letters from people in mental asylums, criminal penitentiaries, or people who should have been. Some of the letters were so disturbing that I did not want to present them in the book.

Q: What do you most hope to accomplish with this book?

Hansen: Foremost, I hope people today and forevermore will understand and appreciate Neil Armstrong not just as a global icon but a flesh-and-blood three-dimensional human being, with faults, defects, and limitations, just like all the rest of us. But I also hope the reader stops from time to time to think, “Shame on us.” Shame on us for not being more considerate for the situation of our celebrities and great public figures. Day in and day out, we just ask way too much of them.

You can order Dear Neil Armstrong now, and get 30% off when using the discount code PURDUE30 on the Purdue University Press website.

Purdue BOT Ratifies McNeil’s Appointment as Esther Ellis Norton Professor of Library Science

October 10th, 2019

The Purdue University Board of Trustees on Thursday (Oct. 10) ratified the appointment of Beth McNeil as the Esther Ellis Norton Professor of Library Science.

McNeil is dean of Purdue University Libraries and School of Information Studies. She is a nationally known scholar of management practices in libraries and leadership development. She is the author of “Fundamentals of Library Supervision,” which is in its third edition, as well as numerous articles, edited works, and book chapters.

She rejoined the Purdue faculty in July 2019, having previously been at Purdue from 2007-15 as associate dean in Libraries.

Read the entire BOT release at www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2019/Q4/purdue-trustees-approve-faculty-appointments.html.