Data as Stepping Stones in the Research River: Using Data Across Disciplines When You’re Not a Data Expert

Research – it’s all about discoveries from data! Unfortunately, research development often means encouraging good science and research without being an expert in the data. And as we scale up to working with interdisciplinary teams, even the researchers on the team do not understand each others’ data. Epistemological barriers prevent researchers from good team science. Epistomological silos also provide a barrier to good grantwriting. Developing the general skills to talk data to many types of researchers at many different levels is essential to working with individual PIs in many disciplines. It also supports concrete grantwriting skills such as explaining data management plans, encouraging ethical handling of data, and building an effective argument on the impacts of proposed research. This idea showcase gives an overview on how to “follow the data” even when we aren’t data experts, in order to promote better grantwriting and encourage PIs to build more credible and persuasive proposals

Development of research competencies among academic librarians

Academic librarians are often expected to do research, and research is one of the ALA core competencies of librarianship. But most librarians take at most one class in doing research. Therefore, academic librarians may not be prepared for researching and publishing. This dissertation asked the question: How do academic librarians develop competencies necessary for success in their initial efforts to do research? Two subquestions emerged: (SQ1) how do academic librarians experience their early research projects, and (SQ2) what personal attributes and contextual factors help academic librarians succeed in their research? This study interviewed academic librarians who had succeeded in research. Secondary interviews with peers and supervisors explored librarians’ research contexts. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was the theoretical lens for thematic analysis. The analysis used both deductive and inductive passes through the data for methodological triangulation, then aligned the codes to the CHAT framework for structure. This study built a CHAT-informed view of the researching activities of academic librarian researchers. Many of the constructs are similar to what one might expect in “traditional” research, but are experienced differently in the practitioner environment. Key differences occur in the Subject’s mindstate and in the Division of labor of the researcher-librarian. This study also found that the experience of being a researcher-librarian one of learning while doing, shaped by the library context. The practitioner must make several successive attempts at research and then synthesize the understanding they have created with each attempt into a whole understanding of how research happens. The learning is not complete with a single success in researching, so successive attempts bring in new experiences as the librarian again approaches and works through uncertainty in their researching activities

An Exploration of Factors Influencing Faculty Engagement With Open Practices at the School of Education: A Pilot Study

Background: Open practices in academia are emerging as affordable tools in widening research access by removing many barriers in the scholarly research and learning process. While faculty engagement with open practices is increasing, there remain some barriers to widespread participation. Though research to date suggests faculty perceptions about promotion and tenure (P&T) policies influence faculty engagement with open practices, many studies limit their focus on a few influencing factors. Answering calls for more research, this pilot study aims to explore the influence of various factors on faculty engagement with open practices, with a focus on promotion and tenure (P&T) policies based and their unique influence on faculty decisions through the lens of Social Exchange Theory. Methods: During the first phase, 15 faculty members completed the survey about their perceptions, engagement in open practices, and demographic data such as faculty classification. To better understand the quantitative data, we will conduct focus groups and individual interviews. Results: Most faculty members felt the importance and benefits of open practices. However, beliefs about the valuing of open practices in P&T and professional reputation did not show consensus. This implies group uncertainty about support for engaging in open practices in general. Conclusion: The quantitative results support the previous research (Lwoga & Questier 2014, Kim 2010, Kirschner, 2019). While refining the survey measures could be the next step for research, the preliminary implication for higher learning institutions could be increasing faculty awareness about the availability of resources for open practices faculty engagement.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1170/thumbnail.jp

To Open or not to Open: Exploring Factors Influencing Faculty Engagement

Open practices enable increased access to scholarly outputs by removing financial, legal, and technological barriers. However, widespread faculty engagement is still low. Our interdisciplinary team undertook a pilot study to identify those barriers and evaluate their relative influence on faculty decisions to either publish in an open access journal or customize or create an open educational resource (OER). This study employed an explanatory sequential mixed method research design, featuring a web-based survey and follow-up interviews and focus groups to elaborate on responses. The team hopes to use the analyzed data to identify and recommend potential pathways to increase faculty engagement with open practices. For example, recommendations could include increased promotion of library support for these efforts and the explicit support for creating OER in promotion and tenure (P&T) policies. This poster will provide an overview of this research project, share findings from the pilot study, and preview preliminary recommendations

Reviewing Data Management Plans: Practical Experience for New Service Providers Workshop

This presentation was given as part of a workshop at the Southeast Data Librarian Symposium on October 12, 2022.Many academic librarians begin their work in research data support by offering reviews of Data Management Plans (DMPs, also called Data Management and Sharing Plans/DMSPs), which are required components of many grant proposals. After a researcher drafts a DMP, they may want someone to review it, assess its fit with best practices, and give feedback. Reviewing DMPs means evaluating and offering advice for improvement. But how does a library get started with reviewing DMPs? This workshop is tailored for new data librarians and subject librarians starting in data, who want to provide a DMP or DMSP support toolbox. The panel portion will compare real-world practices on how to provide DMP reviews for existing drafts created by researchers in different institutional settings. Next, presenters will compare different approaches, such as contrasting the DART Rubric (“DMPs as A Research Tool”) for in-depth National Science Foundation (NSF) reviews versus the Caltech NSF checklist for fast reviews; discussing how FASEB’s NIH DMSP contest rubric differs from the DART rubric; and summarizing how funder notes in DMPTool can be used for reviewing DMPs from various funders. This discussion will help new DMP evaluators think about how the process might change, and not change, for different funders’ DMPs. Finally, everyone will have guided practice in using the DART rubric to evaluate a simple research proposal and sketch out feedback for improvements in the DMP. At the end, the whole class will be better prepared to evaluate DMPs and offer researcher feedback on how to improve their Plan to make their research data FAIR

Rigor and reproducibility instruction in academic medical libraries

Background: Concerns over scientific reproducibility have grown in recent years, leading the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to require researchers to address these issues in research grant applications. Starting in 2020, training grants were required to provide a plan for educating trainees in rigor and reproducibility. Academic medical centers have responded with different solutions to fill this educational need. As experienced instructors with expertise in topics relating to reproducibility, librarians can play a prominent role in providing trainings, classes, and events to educate investigators and trainees, and bolstering reproducibility in their communities. Case Presentations: This special report summarizes efforts at five institutions to provide education in reproducibility to biomedical and life sciences researchers. Our goal is to expand awareness of the range of approaches in providing reproducibility services in libraries. Conclusions: Reproducibility education by medical librarians can take many forms. These specific programs in reproducibility education build upon libraries’ existing collaborations, with funder mandates providing a major impetus. Collaborator needs shaped the exact type of educational or other reproducibility support and combined with each library’s strengths to yield a diversity of offerings based on capacity and interest. As demand for and complexity of reproducibility education increases due to new institutional and funder mandates, reproducibility education will merit special attention

Exploring innovative pedagogies in a global information context

SIG Innovative Pedagogies offers a panel that includes four sets of speakers who examine innovative pedagogies for LIS education in a global information context. Each presentation features a different innovative pedagogical approach. Presentations are followed by an interactive discussion period, and attendees are invited to continue the conversation after the program via Twitter. Kyungwon Koh and Alaine Martaus discuss Design thinking for teaching the foundations of librarianship, showing how design thinking can be a tool of innovation for teaching core courses in LIS graduate programs. Their talk also features examples of how they applied design thinking in their course designs, and includes details about course assignments, student projects, and reflections. Denice Adkins and Nina Exner show how Using Library Carpentry methods and resources in the LIS classroom can be used for technology training in LIS education programs. This presentation provides an overview of the Library Carpentry instructional approach and shows how it is different from traditional LIS classroom instruction. Adkins and Exner conclude with an overview of Library Carpentry lesson design principles and standards that can be used for LIS classrooms and LIS practitioner training. Vandana Singh discusses Integrating professional librarians into open source software (OSS) communities. Singh notes that professional librarians are increasingly integrated into OSS communities, and she shows how this integration has inspired an innovative participatory action model for OSS that can be used to guide curricula for current LIS students as well as continuing education programs for working practitioners. In Gender, community and narrative: Exploring the social aspects of fanfiction, Kristen Schuster and Brittany Kelley show how creative aspects of fanfiction contributes to the development and maintenance of social networks, which in turn facilitates deeper and transferrable forms of learning and literacy. In this talk, Schuster and Kelley combine learning theory and information behavior models into a framework for teaching literacy and information-seeking practices

Harmonising knowledge for safer materials via the “NanoCommons” Knowledge Base

In mediaeval Europe, the term “commons” described the way that communities managed land that was held “in common” and provided a clear set of rules for how this “common land” was used and developed by, and for, the community. Similarly, as we move towards an increasingly knowledge-based society where data is the new oil, new approaches to sharing and jointly owning publicly funded research data are needed to maximise its added value. Such common management approaches will extend the data’s useful life and facilitate its reuse for a range of additional purposes, from modelling, to meta-analysis to regulatory risk assessment as examples relevant to nanosafety data. This “commons” approach to nanosafety data and nanoinformatics infrastructure provision, co-development, and maintenance is at the heart of the “NanoCommons” project and underpins its post-funding transition to providing a basis on which other initiatives and projects can build. The present paper summarises part of the NanoCommons infrastructure called the NanoCommons Knowledge Base. It provides interoperability for nanosafety data sources and tools, on both semantic and technical levels. The NanoCommons Knowledge Base connects knowledge and provides both programmatic (via an Application Programming Interface) and a user-friendly graphical interface to enable (and democratise) access to state of the art tools for nanomaterials safety prediction, NMs design for safety and sustainability, and NMs risk assessment, as well. In addition, the standards and interfaces for interoperability, e.g., file templates to contribute data to the NanoCommons, are described, and a snapshot of the range and breadth of nanoinformatics tools and models that have already been integrated are presented Finally, we demonstrate how the NanoCommons Knowledge Base can support users in the FAIRification of their experimental workflows and how the NanoCommons Knowledge Base itself has progressed towards richer compliance with the FAIR principles

ELIXIR and Toxicology: a community in development [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]

Toxicology has been an active research field for many decades, with academic, industrial and government involvement. Modern omics and computational approaches are changing the field, from merely disease-specific observational models into target-specific predictive models. Traditionally, toxicology has strong links with other fields such as biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine. With the rise of synthetic and new engineered materials, alongside ongoing prioritisation needs in chemical risk assessment for existing chemicals, early predictive evaluations are becoming of utmost importance to both scientific and regulatory purposes. ELIXIR is an intergovernmental organisation that brings together life science resources from across Europe. To coordinate the linkage of various life science efforts around modern predictive toxicology, the establishment of a new ELIXIR Community is seen as instrumental. In the past few years, joint efforts, building on incidental overlap, have been piloted in the context of ELIXIR. For example, the EU-ToxRisk, diXa, HeCaToS, transQST, and the nanotoxicology community have worked with the ELIXIR TeSS, Bioschemas, and Compute Platforms and activities. In 2018, a core group of interested parties wrote a proposal, outlining a sketch of what this new ELIXIR Toxicology Community would look like. A recent workshop (held September 30th to October 1st, 2020) extended this into an ELIXIR Toxicology roadmap and a shortlist of limited investment-high gain collaborations to give body to this new community. This Whitepaper outlines the results of these efforts and defines our vision of the ELIXIR Toxicology Community and how it complements other ELIXIR activities

S03, E10: The Census

Nia and Dr. Nina Exner discuss the Census and how the data is used. Nia and Nina discuss the difficulties of counting every American, as well as the ways in which other types of sampling data is taken and how the statistics are adjusted to give an overall picture of the American population.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/civil_discourse/1028/thumbnail.jp