Journal of eScience Librarianship

A Review of ‘DataSpace: A Funding and Operational Model for Long-Term Preservation and Sharing of Research Data’

Raquel Abad — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:20 PST

Description and Annotation of Biomedical Data Sets

Jen Ferguson — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:19 PST

Deposition of biomedical data sets is on the rise as more scientists submit experimental data to accompany their publications. Scientists are also increasingly reusing these publicly available data sets in their own work. Despite these developments, lack of both context and metadata can create barriers to understanding and repurposing these data sets. Researchers from the Bioinformatics Core Group in the Harvard School of Public Health attempted to address this issue by assembling a team of data curators who used the open source software suite ISA tools to annotate and contextualize microarray data sets.

This paper describes the workflow and software used in curating these data sets, discusses similarities and differences in the approaches of team members to the work, and suggests possible roles for librarians in similar data curation projects.

Teaching Research Data Management: An Undergraduate/Graduate Curriculum

Mary E. Piorun et al. — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:18 PST

With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Libraries of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Worcester Polytechnic Institute collaborated on a plan to expand the scope of science library practices and promote among medical, graduate, and undergraduate science students the preservation of scientific data in relevant repositories and archives. This paper outlines curriculum frameworks and learning needs for research data management instruction that can be delivered through a variety of methods. Individual modules are based on faculty and student interviews, as well as a comprehensive literature review.

Building an e-Science Portal for Librarians: A Model of Collaboration

Donna Kafel et al. — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:16 PST

The e-Science Portal for New England Librarians (http://esciencelibrary.umassmed.edu) is an openly accessible website targeted specifically for librarians working in research institutions that generate, share, store and/or use data for basic scientific research in the health, biological, and physical sciences. The portal provides links to information on e-Science, e-Science librarianship, current practices, and science disciplines. The portal’s e-Science Community blog http://esciencecommunity.umassmed.edu serves as a bulletin and discussion forum for the latest news, upcoming events, and commentaries. While the portal was originally developed to provide e-Science information to New England Librarians, its openly accessible content is relevant to librarians interested in networked science worldwide. Content for the e-Science Portal for New England Librarians is contributed by a team of nine content editors who are science and medical librarians from diverse New England research libraries. Each content editor identifies, annotates, and aggregates links to resources for a designated focus area of the portal and submits them to the portal’s project coordinator for further review. Following this review, the project coordinator and the portal development team plan the organization and layout of the content in the relevant subject web pages of the portal. The effective collaboration among the content editors and the portal design team has been crucial to the development of an e-Science Portal that provides the essential resources and tools needed by librarians engaging in networked science. The focus of this paper is the model of collaboration adopted by the portal’s design team and content editors.

Science Librarian Internship as a Way to Get Started in EScience

Wanda Anderson et al. — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:13 PST

The Science Bibliographers’ Group of Boston College first proposed the creation of a paid science librarian internship position in Summer 2008. Since then, the three interns hired over time have gained exposure to a wide variety of activities undertaken by science librarians, and, at the same time, have significantly furthered the Library’s understanding of, and participation in, eScience. In addition to important contributions in reference and collection development activities, intern contributions have included an environmental scan/best practices review of relevant eScience initiatives, design of an eScience brochure, development of a faculty survey to gauge interest in library data management, and a capstone presentation on eScience for all library staff. Building upon that work, the Science Bibliographers’ Group developed a Vision Statement and Action Plans for eScience. Our current intern is working closely with members of the group on the creation of a LibGuide focused on data management and, concurrently, develop-ment of curricular materials for data management workshops to be implemented during the 2011/12 academic year. Ideally, these increased efforts in eScience-related work will result in an enhanced profile for eScience on the Boston College campus, and, ultimately, creation of a new, eScience-focused position in the Boston College Libraries. An internship program can provide current knowledge and skills to educate and support a university research library through the early learning stage of developing an eSciences program, while simultaneously providing a valuable hands-on learning experience for a potential science librarian.

Tiers of Research Data Support Services

Rebecca C. Reznik-Zellen et al. — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:12 PST

Objective: To describe three tiers of research data support services that emerged from national environmental scanning of data management needs and activities.

Setting: The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a top fifty recipient of NSF funding, with the agency providing over 40% of the University’s sponsored research, and is classified as a Research University with Very High research activity by the Carnegie Foundation. After determining a need for data management services, a library Data Working Group per-formed national environmental scanning. Environmental scanning used public information available from 18 UMass Amherst peer and model institutions to determine the range of data management and curation services that are available to various research communities.

Methods: Environmental scanning activities include a web audit.

Results: National practices demonstrate a wide range of potential data management services. UMass Amherst’s Data Working Group has generalized data management services into three tiers, creating a useful rubric for determining one’s current service level and for setting goals to meet the needs of one’s research community.

Conclusions: The Tiers of Research Data Support Services, generalized from local needs and national activities, describe different levels of support of increasing cost and involvement scales for supporting researchers’ data management and curation needs: education, consultation, and infrastructure.

An Assessment of Needed Competencies to Promote the Data Curation and Management Librarianship of Health Sciences and Science and Technology Librarians in New England

Andrew Creamer et al. — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:10 PST

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate health sciences and science and technology librarians’ needed data curation and management (DCM) competencies to support nascent and future patron and institutional eScience research endeavors. The data from this research will be used to align a data curation and management curriculum with the educational needs of an online eScience portal community of users, and create relevant future professional development for librarians interested in data curation and eScience librarianship.

Setting/Participants: The study targeted the needed data curation and data management competencies of health sciences and science and technology librarians in six U.S. states who are on a listserv of librarians interested in learning about eScience. The sample for this study was 63 librarians.

Methodology: The team created the assessment tool using content analyses of digital curation and management library literature and LIS data management curricula. The survey contained 15 open-ended and closed-ended questions and was distributed to 141 librarians using Survey- Monkey (http://www.surveymonkey.com).

Results/Outcomes: The team identified twenty needed competency areas related to data curation and data management. The participants identified the necessary competencies to provide data curation and data management services. Results revealed a small number of librarians engaged in DCM and infrequent data services requests. Findings suggest there is an increase in libraries pursuing strategic plans concerning data management and the library community needs to cultivate a diverse range of technical and non-technical competencies through future professional development. Librarians saw their future roles involving DCM and sought competencies in conducting data interviews with patrons and helping patrons with NSF data management requirements. The survey results indicate the greatest need for librarians is technical hands-on training in the digital description and curation of large data sets.

Discussion/Conclusion: Librarians are interested in developing data curation and data management competencies to support eScience. These data indicate that future relevant professional development for librarians interested in eScience should focus on non-technical and technical DCM competencies.

DataONE: Facilitating eScience through Collaboration

Suzie Allard — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:08 PST

Objective: To introduce DataONE, a multi-institutional, multinational, and interdisciplinary collaboration that is developing the cyberinfrastructure and organizational structure to support the full information lifecycle of biological, ecological, and environmental data and tools to be used by researchers, educators, and the public at large.

Setting: The dynamic world of data intensive science at the point it interacts with the grand challenges facing environmental sciences.

Methods: Briefly discuss science’s “fourth paradigm,” then introduce how DataONE is being developed to answer the challenges presented by this new environment. Sociocultural perspectives are the primary focus of the discussion.

Results: DataONE is highly collaborative. This is a result of its cyberinfrastructure architecture, its interdisciplinary nature, and its organizational diversity. The organizational structure of an agile management team, diverse leadership team, and productive working groups provides for a successful collaborative environment where substantial contributions to the DataONE mission have been made by a large number of people.

Conclusions: Librarians and information science researchers are key partners in the development of DataONE. These roles are likely to grow as more scientists engage data at all points of the data lifecycle.

On the Horizon of eScience Librarianship

Jian Qin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:07 PST

Editorial: Welcome to the Journal of eScience Librarianship

Elaine R. Martin — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:57:06 PST