Data Ethics and Privacy for Researchers

This workshop addresses specific data privacy and anonymization standards and techniques for researchers that are collecting personally identifiable information as well as sensitive information. The workshop covers federal, state, and international laws and regulations governing data privacy, the development of an impact assessment and privacy policy. The second half of the workshop focuses on ethical workflows, anonymization techniques and related resources

Navigating Content & Peer Review in an Online Journal

This session explores the use of Digital Commons as both a hosting site and peer review and management tool for the creation of an online journal. In 2018 Florida International University (FIU) Libraries launched Athenaeum: Scholarly Works of the FIU Libraries Faculty and Staff. Athenaeum is meant to collect both published and unpublished articles, conference posters, and presentations of library faculty and staff as they pertain to librarianship. The goal is to provide librarians with another discovery layer for their scholarly work and to help new librarians acquire peer reviewed articles by offering peer review before inclusion in Athenaeum. In this session, we will discuss the pros, cons, and challenges associated with managing the collection as a journal. We will discuss the steps involved in finding peer reviewers and then managing the peer review process within Digital Commons, creating a submission form that caters to previously peer-reviewed articles as well as those requiring peer review, and how to submit articles already in Digital Commons. We will address the concerns expressed by those who wish not to have the statistics for their articles already in Digital Commons duplicated. We will briefly discuss the inclusion guidelines made for articles in the collections in regards to language, supporting materials, and the criteria for accepting items such as posters and presentations. Finally, we will explore how to motivate FIU librarians to participate in Athenaeum

Using Social Science to Create a Better Survey

This presentation is a summary of concepts related to survey creation that were originally presented in a 6 week course at the University of Michigan on creating surveys in the social sciences. It includes references and links to the course

Documenting and Evaluating the DH Project

Science disciplines both value and regularly engage in collaborative research and projects while their faculty regularly attain tenure and promotion. However, for those in the digital humanities, collaboration often presents itself as a barrier when it comes to evaluations for tenure/promotion. Currently, administration and assessment committees are well-equipped to evaluate the individual and their work without considering the collaborative nature that often defines digital humanities work. This presentation will help digital humanists prepare for annual reviews, tenure, and promotion by providing a workable strategy for documenting their work within a collaborative project from beginning to end. We will discuss what to document and how to document, including preservation for projects and their data. Additionally, most faculty in the humanities continue to report feeling unprepared and under-qualified to adequately evaluate digital humanities projects. For that reason, we will discuss specific resources available to help those in the position of evaluating the work of digital humanists. We will look at developing language for promotion manuals and focus on educating evaluators on the spectrum of digital projects

Navigating Content and Peer Review in an Online Journal

This session explores the use of Digital Commons as both a hosting site and peer review and management tool for the creation of an online journal. In 2018 Florida International University (FIU) Libraries launched Athenaeum: Scholarly Works of the FIU Libraries Faculty and Staff. Athenaeum is meant to collect both published and unpublished articles, conference posters, and presentations of library faculty and staff as they pertain to librarianship. The goal is to provide librarians with another discovery layer for their scholarly work and to help new librarians acquire peer reviewed articles by offering peer review before inclusion in Athenaeum. In this session, we will discuss the pros, cons, and challenges associated with managing the collection as a journal. We will discuss the steps involved in finding peer reviewers and then managing the peer review process within Digital Commons, creating a submission form that caters to previously peer-reviewed articles as well as those requiring peer review, and how to submit articles already in Digital Commons. We will address the concerns expressed by those who wish not to have the statistics for their articles already in Digital Commons duplicated. We will briefly discuss the inclusion guidelines made for articles in the collections in regards to language, supporting materials, and the criteria for accepting items such as posters and presentations. Finally, we will explore how to motivate FIU librarians to participate in Athenaeum

A Digital Collections Center’s Experience: ETD Discovery, Promotion, and Workflows in Digital Commons

The Digital Collections Center (DCC) at Florida International University (FIU) fulfills a unique role in the in the processing of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD). We are responsible for a second formatting review, processing, dissemination to the IR, and preservation. This presentation will explore our use of Digital Commons once an ETD has been uploaded and the formats we encounter and how we process them (Word, PDF, PDF/A, LaTeX). We will explore some of the problems our students encounter, not just with submission or file format, but even after publication, and how we manage those and how we promote our collection. We will also consider features such as different types of reports and citation tracking that both administrators and students could benefit from and what our current strategies in these areas are. Our Digital Commons site has now reached over one million downloads, with people from all over the world downloading our students’ research and we hope this presentation will engender a lively discussion on best strategies in regards to workflows and discoverability of ETDs in Digital Commons

How Libraries are Meeting Researcher Needs in the Digital Humanities

This presentation will provide guidance for those considering the creation of a digital humanities (DH) lab, as well as for those with a current functional DH lab. The Digital Scholars Studio at Florida International University (FIU) was created in 2016 with the purpose of providing needed technology and collaborative space for researchers and students. We will explore the challenges experienced by restricted space and budget and discuss how we resolved these specific limitations before continuing with an in-depth look at programming and usage of DH software and tools. We will take a look at a few current projects our researchers are working on in their fields in order to better understand current needs and interests in using DH labs and the technologies most preferred by researchers and students. The hope is that this presentation will engender a lively discussion and sharing of thoughts, questions, and experiences that attendees will find useful. Participants should leave with a good understanding of what is essential in the development of a DH lab and how to increase usage and interest in a DH lab while conquering the technical aspects of creating and running one with all the associated technology and applications

The Dark Side of Digitized Content: Stalking, Consent, and Subpoenas

Digital librarians work to balance the sometimes competing goals of stewardship and access all while being responsive to the needs of patrons, content owners, and creators. This presentation explores the often unforeseen challenges and issues that can arise with the creation and management of digital collections. While ingesting digitized works into a repository brings up ever-present concerns such as copyright, others challenges exist within the realm of privacy (stalking, harassment, digital anonymity), plagiarism, and ownership (false claims of ownership) that are almost always unexpected. The goal is to further a discussion on these types of issues that digital librarians may face and explore best practices for preventing and dealing with unexpected responses and actions with both the patron and within the digital collection. As a starting point for discussion, we will share examples of subpoenas, plagiarized content, take-down notices, awkward responses from contacted alumni, and the challenge of dealing with victims of stalking and violence. Our hope is to engender a discussion and provide a framework of best practices based on examples and discussion from the presenters

Digital Collections in the University Classroom: Inspiring your faculty with regional content

This presentation explores a model collaboration between the Digital Collections Center of the library and the History Department that has been highly successful in introducing students to researching with digital collections. We consider the use of history department undergraduate and graduate interns in the library and discuss the benefits and challenges to both parties. Dr. Christopher Davis shares the research project that was embedded in his course syllabus, highlighting various relevant digital collections and the results of student research. He also discusses what aspect of the collections he found intriguing and inspired him to create a research project and his expectations of students. The hope is that this presentation will help librarians view their collections as the potential research projects they could be. In this presentation, librarians will learn to assess their collections for unique content that may be particularly well-suited for research projects. Additionally, we help librarians, directors, and supervisors evaluate whether the use of history students in their department would be beneficial for them by exploring elements such as time spent on training, the effectiveness of history interns as metadata specialists, and space and technology concerns. The ultimate goal of this presentation is to provide attendees with a model of collaboration that should result in broader discovery and use of their digital collections in the classroom

3D: DOIs, Data Files, and Digital Commons

This presentation looks at the emerging trends of implementing Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and the storage, preservation, and accessibility of related data files for both ETDs and retrospective theses and dissertations (RTDs). The first half of this presentation will explore implementation models for DOIs, including additional metadata work that may become apparent, such as standardizing institutional degrees, as well as the successful administration of a DOI workflow between the graduate school and the library. Participants will learn how DOIs work and their benefit of increased cite-ability and discoverability. Attendees will also learn how to develop a successful workflow in conjunction with both Crossref and Digital Commons. The second half of the presentation will focus on including and managing data files that are submitted along with ETDs, including a brief look at efforts to encourage students to think about the creation and preservation of their data. We will explore the inclusion of data files within the Digital Commons platform, as well as the use of the open source research data repository software of Dataverse. Attendees will develop an awareness of the conventional issues faced in the storage and administration of data and will become versed in the specifications of both Digital Commons and Dataverse. We will leave ample time for questions and lively discussion of best practices related to both DOIs and Data files