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May 29th, 2019
On Thursday, May 23, a Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations was held at Purdue University. Ashlee Messersmith, manager, thesis/dissertation, The Graduate School at Purdue University, and Michael Witt, associate professor, Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies, organized the event, with support from the United States Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Association (USETDA).
By Michael Witt, Head, Distributed Data Curation Center (D2C2), and Associate Professor of Library Science
The presenters at the Symposium on Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) highlighted a wide variety of creative works produced by graduate students in earning their degrees, such as:
Graduate students will typically prepare and defend a written thesis, even if their research can be communicated in a more meaningful or impactful format than a document. There are other examples, such as software source code and research data, videos and photos from exhibits and performances, mixed media, dynamic websites, and much more produced by students; but this type of content is often left out of a traditional thesis.
In some cases, these non-traditional works could be considered as the primary product of the students’ scholarship — without the need for a written thesis.
Recent changes to the policies of Purdue’s Graduate School reflect a progressive approach and support for non-traditional theses, embracing both the opportunities and challenges they present for the Purdue’s faculty, thesis office, and libraries.
“As emerging technologies continue to influence higher education, we needed to set a precedent through which students are permitted to express their creativity,” Messersmith explained. “Exploring these influences and their implications was the focus of the symposium, which was held in the Wilmeth Active Learning Center. We invited experts to share ideas and brainstorm with participants who supervise theses and manage the processes and platforms for producing and archiving them.”
The opening keynote presentation by Professor and Dean of Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Martin Halbert addressed the landscape and life cycle of electronic theses and dissertations, as well as the ETDPlus resource.
The closing keynote, delivered by Jean-Pierre Hérubel, professor, Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies, dove into the history and culture of the doctoral dissertation, as well as variations and transformations of its purpose and form.
Other presentations from Purdue faculty and staff explored issues related to student perspectives, digital humanities, graduate college policies, research data management, digital preservation, and scholarly publishing. Throughout the symposium, participants discussed important questions related to sharing current practices; interfacing with faculty to observe and respect local cultures related to credentialing students; identifying concerns and opportunities for graduate colleges, libraries, and technology providers; and increasing collaboration within the University and among universities. A lively round of lightning talks in the afternoon featured specific examples of theses that challenge conventions from other universities.
Presentation slides and collaborative notes from the symposium are available on Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies’ e-Pubs repository at https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/etdgiantleaps/.
Filed under: events, faculty_staff, general
September 7th, 2018
Last week, the Washington Post published an article about the data a Purdue University professor (and two of his research colleagues) gathered on “every confirmed, line-of-duty police killing a civilian in 2014 and 2015.” Logan Strother, assistant professor in the Purdue Department of Political Science, used the Purdue University Research Repository, or PURR, to publish the dataset of police shootings he references in the piece. (Co-authors include Charles Menifield and Geiguen Shin, both at Rutgers University, Newark.) According to Data Repository Outreach Specialist (Research Data, Purdue University Libraries) Sandi Caldrone, by using PURR to publish the dataset, Strother is promoting transparency in scholarship.
“It also allows others researchers to replicate or build upon his work,” she noted.
She said the dataset referenced in the Washington Post piece is freely available for public download on the PURR website at doi.org/10.4231/R70G3HCR. It is an example of how one Purdue faculty member uses the valuable PURR research data-management tool.
“PURR is available to anyone at Purdue—faculty, staff, and students,” Caldrone said. “We support researchers throughout the research data-management lifecycle, providing help with data-management planning, online file storage for ongoing projects, data-publication services, and data preservation and archiving.”
According to Vikki Weake, assistant professor in biochemistry at Purdue, she and her lab team members have used PURR extensively to archive datasets associated with their published studies.
“Data management and archiving are becoming increasingly important in the life sciences,” Weake noted. “This is really important, as other researchers have access to the raw data, so they can replicate our analyses and results. The National Institutes of Health have recognized that we need efforts to improve rigor and reproducibility in biomedical science, and services that make raw data freely available are a great way for labs to be transparent about the work that they are doing. Ideally, other groups should be able to take our data and replicate our findings, or if new knowledge becomes available—they might use our data to gain novel insight into a biological process.”
In a brief Q&A below, Caldrone shares how PURR fits into the work that researchers at Purdue University perform and how she and Libraries’ faculty and staff can support them via PURR.
Q. How does PURR fit into the resources and services provided to campus by the Purdue Libraries?
Caldrone: Most of our resources are available online at purr.purdue.edu, but what really sets us apart from other data-management tools is that we have a team on campus to help every step of the way. We’re part of the Research Data unit, which provides consultations and support to help Purdue researchers plan, describe, disseminate, steward, and archive datasets.
Q. Why would faculty and students want to use PURR for their research needs?
Caldrone: Data is a valuable research product, and increasingly funders and publishers expect that product to be shared with the public. We provide the support to meet those funder and publisher requirements. There are lots of other places to publish data online. Our advantage is that we have support staff on campus to help with the process.
Since we are part of the Libraries, we also take preservation seriously, and we carefully archive all of our published datasets. During data collection, many researchers also take advantage of our online file storage space. It’s accessible anywhere on the web and is a simple, easy option for sharing files with off-campus collaborators.
Students learning about data should also look to PURR for sample datasets. See what data looks like in your discipline, download data files, and use them to test data analysis and visualization tools. Or, just explore our collections.
Q. Recently, PURR was redesigned. Why it was needed? What changed about it?
Caldrone: Our look hadn’t changed much since we started in 2011, so we were definitely due for a visual redesign. We took that opportunity to make functional improvements, as well. We increased our storage space, streamlined the registration process, and really expanded our collection of help resources.
Q. When in the research process should a researcher at Purdue begin to think about using PURR?
Caldrone: We’re happy to help researchers at any stage, but ideally we hope people will think about PURR early in the planning process. We provide helpful resources and in-person guidance for researchers writing data-management plans, whether or not they decide to publish their data in PURR. Having sound data-management practices in place before data collection starts saves a lot of work and stress down the road.
Q. How should a researcher reach out to you and your team members about using PURR? What kind of customer service help can you provide them to help get them started?
Caldrone: We have written instructions and video demos online showing how to use the PURR (see purr.purdue.edu/guides). We also provide one-on-one or group training sessions and consultations. Researchers can reach out to us at purr@purdue.edu or submit a support ticket on the website. You can also reach the entire Libraries Research Data team at researchdata@purdue.edu.
Q. Any other information you would like to impart to the audience at Purdue?
Caldrone: We’ve had some exciting data collections published recently. Standa Pejsa, PURR’s data curator, worked closely with Professor Nicholas Rauh in classics to publish an image database of hundreds of pottery sherds from Dr. Rauh’s archaeological work in the Cilicia region in what is now Turkey. Their publication is the result of years of hard work and can be found at https://purr.purdue.edu/publications/2924/1.
We’re also working with the philosophy department to publish audio recordings and transcripts of lectures given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. This work is still underway, but we have several semesters’ worth of lectures already published. Anyone who would like to hear what it was like to take a course with Deleuze can check out The Movement-Image: Bergsonian Lessons on Cinema.
Filed under: faculty_staff, general, UncategorizedMarch 6th, 2018
The Purdue University Research Repository, a research data-management resource for Purdue faculty, staff, and students, has been updated recently to better serve the University community.
PURR provides an online, collaborative workspace for Purdue researchers with tools for learning about data-management best practices, privately sharing research files, and publishing completed data sets. Its goal is to help researchers meet funders’ data-sharing requirements and to move science forward by publishing and preserving open data, says Sandi Caldrone, data repository outreach specialist in the Research Data unit of Purdue Libraries.
The improvements made to PURR include:
The design was based on results from a usability study conducted in 2017. The website also has been streamlined so that it is much easier to navigate and use. It also is mobile-friendly.
Caldrone says that if someone has used PURR before, all of their data is still there. She also notes that published data sets are now called “Datasets,” instead of “Publications.”
The account registration process also has been streamlined for easier use. Purdue users can log in using their Purdue career accounts. Non-Purdue researchers can register for an account if they are invited by a Purdue researcher to collaborate on a project.
PURR is a collaboration among Purdue Libraries, ITaP, and the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships.
For more information, contact Caldrone at scaldron@purdue.edu or email PURR at purr@purdue.edu.
Article courtesy of Megan Huckaby, Purdue University Marketing and Media
Filed under: general, UncategorizedMay 13th, 2013
Have you heard of PURR but want to find out more information on the key functions of this Purdue University Libraries repository?
Check out PURR’s latest video, which has also been launched on YouTube and learn the four main ways the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) can help you manage your data and research:
Filed under: D2C2, DIGIT, general, MGMT, scholcomm, services