Institutional Data Curation Project Plan

Worksheet for enhancing institutional data curation activities locally

Data Curation Workshop Welcome

Logistic and sponsorship information for the IASSIST & Data Curation Network - Data Curation Workshop is presented in these slides

Slides from Consultation Session

This discussion session covered the many ways that data librarians consult on data. Participants broke out by consultation topic and discussed initiating, consulting workflows, and follow-ups for each consultation type. This file includes the slides used to guide participants through discussions

Outline of Consultation Session

This discussion session covered the many ways that data librarians consult on data. Participants broke out by consultation topic and discussed initiating, consulting workflows, and follow-ups for each consultation type. This file provides an outline of the overall session

Embedded Option: A Common Framework

EXPERIENCE AND RESEARCH has shown that given the complex nature of research data services, various university units and departments must work together to provide appropriate services to create, manage, store, educate, archive, and preserve research data. Organizationally, this can prove to be a challenge. One viable option for meeting these challenges is the embedded librarian model. In the research data services sense, librarians may be embedded into a faculty-led research group, assisting in creating metadata and managing active data; into the university research office, helping with federal requirements for open data compliance; and into a campus information technology unit providing assistance with big data transfer and data storage issues, to name just a few examples. This chapter provides a common framework that describes the responsibilities and skills of an embedded research data services librarian and then presents various case studies as examples of implementation

Digital Baboon: Curating 30 years of Primatology Research Data

Many digital data curators will agree that making digital storage, online platform, digitization best practices, and metadata schema choices is a complicated process, even for a simple database. Curating a project that encompasses tooth casts, palm prints, field sheets, videos, images, and a database assembled over a thirty-year period extends those challenges, but also creates an opportunity to preserve and share an irreplaceable contribution to research. Librarians at Washington University in St. Louis are currently working with Dr. Jane Phillips-Conroy, Professor of Physical Anthropology; Anatomy and Neurobiology, to digitally curate this heterogeneous mix of physical and digital data. Dr. Phillips-Conroy’s work has centered on the long-term study of the of the Anubis and Hamadryas species of baboons - and their hybrid offspring. Her methods included the observation, capture, measurement and biological sampling of over 1000 animals in 13 social groups, thus making the research unrepeatable. This poster will outline the various technologies and methods the Data & GIS Services Librarians have utilized to ensure the ongoing access and preservation of these data. Results from the implementation of newer technologies, such as the 3D digitization of tooth casts will be shared.https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/lib_present/1008/thumbnail.jp

Safeguarding Scientific Integrity: Examining Conflicts of Interest in the Peer Review Process

This case study analyzes the expertise, potential conflicts of interest, and objectivity of editors, authors, and peer reviewers involved in a 2022 special journal issue on fertility, pregnancy, and mental health. Data were collected on qualifications, organizational affiliations, and relationships among six papers' authors, three guest editors, and twelve peer reviewers. Two articles were found to have undisclosed conflicts of interest between authors, an editor, and multiple peer reviewers affiliated with anti-abortion advocacy and lobbying groups, indicating compromised objectivity. This lack of transparency undermines the peer review process and enables biased research and disinformation proliferation. To increase integrity, we recommend multiple solutions: open peer review, expanded conflict of interest disclosure, increased stakeholder accountability, and retraction when ethical standards are violated. By illuminating noncompliance with ethical peer review guidelines, this study aims to raise awareness to help prevent the propagation of partisan science through respected scholarly channels.Comment: 15 pages, 3 tables, 2 figure

Coordinating culture change across the research landscape

Scientific integrity necessitates applying scientific methods properly, collecting and analyzing data appropriately, protecting human subjects rightly, performing studies rigorously, and communicating findings transparently. But who is responsible for upholding research integrity, mitigating misinformation, and increasing trust in science beyond individual researchers? We posit that supporting the scientific reputation requires a coordinated approach across all stakeholders: funding agencies, publishers, scholarly societies, research institutions, and journalists and media, and policy-makers

Taxonomomy of Disinformation

Disinformation permeates science through individuals, organizations, and governments that manipulate scholarly communication, media, and institutions. This new taxonomy provides a framework and language to explain the actors, outlets, and methods. For example, scholars recently published misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines in a peer-reviewed journal. Now retracted, an author reposted the debunked claims as legitimate research on their website. This case demonstrates how the credibility of a professor's website can be exploited to introduce falsehoods, and how bad actors circumvent corrections. With clarity on the nature and flow of scientific disinformation, journalists and policymakers can better identify and respond.Comment: 10 pages, 3 table