Practical data management: Enabling graduate students and staff to function as ethical actors

Graduate students and staff are the unrecognized daily stewards for much of the research data collected on academic campuses. Often, they are performing these vital tasks without understanding their role as part of the research life cycle and scholarly communication process. Providing data management training is vital to ensuring the integrity of valuable research data. This poster will describe a series of instructional tools designed to provide a skills base for responsible data management

Improving data management in academic research: Assessment results for a pilot lab

Common practices for data collection, storage, organization, documentation, sharing, re-use, and preservation are often suboptimal. Issues often arising from common data practices include data loss, corruption, poor data integrity, and an inability to demonstrate the provenance (i.e., the origin) of the data. Ineffective data management can result in data that are unusable for re-use and re-analysis. However, effective data management practices exist to support data integrity, interoperability, and re-use. These practices maximize the value and potential impact of any particular dataset. In light of the gap between common practice and known effective strategies, we developed an intensive lab curriculum to train students and research support staff in implementing these strategies. This lab addresses the lack of formal data management training available on our campus and targets key processes in the data life cycle, promoting strategies that facilitate generation of quality data appropriate for re-use

Exploring the Disconnect Between Information Literacy Skills and Self-Estimates of Ability in First-Year Community College Students

evidence summaryA review of: Gross, M., & Latham, D. (2012). What’s skill got to do with it?: Information literacy skills and self-views of ability among first-year college students. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(3), 574-583. doi: 10.1002/asi.2168

Autism Spectrum Disorders: Wading through the controversies on the web

Autism is one of three developmental disorders in the group known as the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). This spectrum of disorders has an estimated prevalence of one in 150 children. Increased awareness and diagnosis has led to an explosion of information available about the disorder. This explosion has made scientific research more readily available, along with inaccurate and spurious information. Autism is a disorder without a known cause or cure and few treatments with sufficient evidence to indicate effectiveness. Due to the variable presentation of autism, there is no single intervention that is effective for all individuals. The complexity of the disorder is addressed by research and practice across several disciplines, including education, psychology, psychiatry, neurology, genetics, and internal medicine. This resource guide will introduce the range of autism spectrum disorders, its various perspectives and treatments, and will point librarians and patrons to introductory resources to provide links for further learning.N/

Academic Historians in Canada Report Both Positive and Negative Attitudes Towards E-books for Teaching and Research

Evidence summary; Article reviewObjective – To understand academic historians’ attitudes towards, and perceptions of, e-books for use in teaching and research. Design – Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews using a grounded theory approach. Subjects – Ten faculty members in departments of history at academic institutions in Southwestern Ontario participated. Methods – Participants were recruited using flyers and email distribution lists. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews lasting 30-60 minutes, between October 2010 and December 2011. After 10 interviews, the authors determined saturation had been reached and ceased recruitment. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for coding. Analysis was conducted using grounded theory procedures incorporating Roger’s Innovation decision model. Main Results – The authors elicited participants' perceptions of e-books without providing a common definition for the concept. Consistent with previous studies, participants were confused about what constituted an e-book, particularly the distinction between e-books and electronic journals and databases. Several comments included illustrate this confusion, indicating the responses collected may represent perceptions of e-resources more generally, rather than e-books in particular. The authors mention that at least one participant who initially responded that they had not used e-books later changed their response as the interview progressed. Unfortunately, the exact number of participants who did so is not reported. Participants reported both negative and positive attitudes towards e-books. Attitudes varied depending on the characteristic discussed. The characteristics identified focused primarily on the delivery mechanism, rather than the content, of e-books. The authors identified four factors each as contributing to positive and negative attitudes. Factors associated with a negative attitude included availability, serendipity, cost, and tradition. These factors stemmed from concerns about changing student research behaviours resulting from the differences between e-books and print books. Factors associated with a positive attitude included convenience, teaching innovations, research practices, and cost benefits. These factors largely reflected benefits to students, such as the ability to access e-books easily (convenience), increased access in general, and the perceived relatively low cost of student e-books. The factor directly benefitting respondents was improved speed and accuracy in their work, enabled by particular technological features. While participants were eager to use e-books in the classroom, there were concerns about implications for research practices. Participants worried that the benefits of browsing and serendipitous discovery would be lost as students chose materials based on convenience rather than other factors, such as quality. Finally, the perceived lack of digitized historical documents available for use as primary sources was also of concern. Conclusions – The authors state that confusion regarding the nature of e-books slows adoption. While participants were exploring ways to incorporate e-books into their norms, values, and research practices, they are unlikely to rely solely on e-books as primary sources. This stems from two perceptions. First, current e-book formats and platforms do not authentically represent all the characteristics of print books. Second, there are insufficient primary sources available as e-books. The validity of these perceptions is not addressed in this article

Building Data Services From the Ground Up: Strategies and Resources

There is a scarcity of practical guidance for developing data services in an academic library. Data services, like many areas of research, require the expertise and resources of teams spanning many disciplines. While library professionals are embedded into the teaching activities of our institutions, fewer of us are embedded in research activities occurring across the full life cycle. The significant challenges of managing, preserving, and sharing data for reuse demand that we take a more active role. Providing support for funder data management plans is just one option in the data services landscape. Awareness of the institutional and library culture in which we operate places an emphasis on the importance of relationships. Understanding the various cultures in which our researchers operate is crucial for delivering data services that are relevant and utilized. The goal of this article is to guide data specialists through this landscape by providing key resources and strategies for developing locally relevant services and by pointing to active communities of librarians and researchers tackling the challenges associated with digital research data