Research Support Services in Agriculture

In 2016, Clemson University Libraries (CUL) participated in a study through Ithaka S+R about research support services in the field on agricultural research. Eight researchers in Clemson University’s Department of Agricultural Sciences participated in a semi-structured interview (see Appendix) with the library liaison to the life sciences. Responses were transcribed and coded to identify themes and ways the library can further support agricultural research at CU. The first major theme identified was that agricultural research overlaps with a stunning variety of subject areas and, as such, the research methods vary extensively. The projects are also widely collaborative with other departments on campus as well as with industry, practitioners, and educators around the state. This diversity makes it difficult to pinpoint anything specific that applies to all agricultural researchers equally, with the exception that they all feel the need for more time and money to complete their research. There were common themes dealing with the scholarly publishing process, especially with regard to open access. While the library generally cannot help directly with obtaining more money or time, these findings have distinct implications for CUL services and resources. Although CUL does already provide many scholarly resources as well as a handful of services that assist with getting grants, publishing, and demonstrating value, these services need deeper support, and CUL must find novel ways to publicize such offerings and educate their constituents on what is available to them from the Libraries beyond books

Information Literacy and Mathematics Education Students: A Case Study in Library Instruction

Prior to 2016 library instruction for mathematics courses was nonexistent at Shippensburg University. The hiring of the STEM librarian in August 2016 led to an initiative to engage the mathematics faculty and students in using resources and services offered by the Ezra Lehman Memorial Library. This outreach resulted in two sessions of the Fundamentals of Mathematics course coming into the library for instruction in the fall semester. These first sessions found that detailed instruction in how to search and identify articles related to key concepts from the desired journal type was particularly useful to the students; however, these sessions also demonstrated a greater need for citation-focused instruction. Adapting the instruction session spring 2017 to include a more in-depth discussion about the necessity of citations showed a greater understanding of the concept by students in the course. Ultimately, this successful instruction improved the course instructor’s perception of the student work and led to the scheduling of future library instruction sessions by other members of the mathematics department

Locomotor loading mechanics in the hindlimbs of tegu lizards (Tupinambis merinae): comparitive and evolutionary implications

Skeletal elements are usually able to withstand several times their usual load before they yield, and this ratio is known as the bone\u27s safety factor. Limited studies on amphibians and non-avian reptiles have shown that they have much higher limb bone safety factors than birds and mammals. It has been hypothesized that this difference is related to the difference in posture between upright birds and mammals and sprawling ectotherms; however, limb bone loading data from a wider range of sprawling species are needed in order to determine whether the higher safety factors seen in amphibians and non-avian reptiles are ancestral or derived conditions. Tegus (family Teiidae) are an ideal lineage with which to expand sampling of limb bone loading mechanics for sprawling taxa, particularly for lizards, because they are from a different clade than previously sampled iguanas and exhibit different foraging and locomotor habits (actively foraging carnivore versus burst-activity herbivore). We evaluated the mechanics of locomotor loading for the femur of the Argentine black and white tegu (Tupinambus merianae) using three-dimensional measurements of the ground reaction force and hindlimb kinematics, in vivo bone strains and femoral mechanical properties. Peak bending stresses experienced by the femur were low (tensile: 10.4±1.1 MPa; compressive: –17.4±0.9 MPa) and comparable to those in other reptiles, with moderate shear stresses and strains also present. Analyses of peak femoral stresses and strains led to estimated safety factor ranges of 8.8–18.6 in bending and 7.8–17.5 in torsion, both substantially higher than typical for birds and mammals but similar to other sprawling tetrapods. These results broaden the range of reptilian and amphibian taxa in which high femoral safety factors have been evaluated and further indicate a trend for the independent evolution of lower limb bone safety factors in endothermic taxa

Wasted Words?: Current Trends in Collection Development Policies

The transition to electronic resources and the changing role of the collection development librarian are having a tremendous impact on the manner by which libraries select and acquire new materials. The goal of this research project was to further elucidate the current trends of collection development policies in members of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) as well as gauge current use and future efficacy. The survey was designed and sent to librarians responsible for collection development at university-affiliated ARL libraries in order to obtain a current picture of academic collection development policies, and how they are changing due to the abundance of electronic resources and new methods of data-driven acquisitions. The goals of the survey are to Measure the continued use of CD policies as major collection-building tools; Assess the frequency of updates to collection development policies; Determine the availability of collection development policies; Measure and compare the amount of time available to librarians to review and select new materials; Determine if print materials are being reviewed in new and innovative ways or if they receive the same assessment as electronically formatted materials; Measure the employment of data or patron-driven acquisition methods. The findings will require additional assessment, but the data does seem to indicate a time of change in the way academic libraries complete and assess their primary collection development activities. This survey was created, at least in part, with the hope of setting a starting point for continued evaluation and longitudinal measurement. If our survey participants are as actively helpful in future years, these dreams of cyclical assessment may well come to fruition

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

Agricultural data management and sharing: Best practices and case study

Agricultural data are crucial to many aspects of production, commerce, and research involved in feeding the global community. However, in most agricultural research disciplines standard best practices for data management and publication do not exist. Here we propose a set of best practices in the areas of peer review, minimal dataset development, data repositories, citizen science initiatives, and support for best data management. We illustrate some of these best practices with a case study in dairy agroecosystems research. While many common, and increasingly disparate data management and publication practices are entrenched in agricultural disciplines, opportunities are readily available for promoting and adopting best practices that better enable and enhance data-intensive agricultural research and production

GA4GH: International policies and standards for data sharing across genomic research and healthcare.

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) aims to accelerate biomedical advances by enabling the responsible sharing of clinical and genomic data through both harmonized data aggregation and federated approaches. The decreasing cost of genomic sequencing (along with other genome-wide molecular assays) and increasing evidence of its clinical utility will soon drive the generation of sequence data from tens of millions of humans, with increasing levels of diversity. In this perspective, we present the GA4GH strategies for addressing the major challenges of this data revolution. We describe the GA4GH organization, which is fueled by the development efforts of eight Work Streams and informed by the needs of 24 Driver Projects and other key stakeholders. We present the GA4GH suite of secure, interoperable technical standards and policy frameworks and review the current status of standards, their relevance to key domains of research and clinical care, and future plans of GA4GH. Broad international participation in building, adopting, and deploying GA4GH standards and frameworks will catalyze an unprecedented effort in data sharing that will be critical to advancing genomic medicine and ensuring that all populations can access its benefits