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About the e-Science Institute

The ARL/DLF e-Science Institute: Purpose, Activities, Intended Outcomes

Wordle about e-science/e-research

In mid-2011 the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Digital Library Federation (DLF) put out a call for sponsors to support an e-science institute, a program designed to help position ARL libraries to develop “a sound strategic approach to exploring and supporting e-science research within their organizations.” Well over 70 ARL libraries, including PSUL, responded to the call for sponsorship, and the ARL/DLF E-Science Institute was launched in spring 2011. Each sponsoring and supporting library has a small team of librarians participating in the Institute. At Penn State these are Mike Furlough (Institute faculty member), Lisa German, Nan Butkovich, Patricia Hswe, John Meier, Cynthia Robinson, Helen Smith, and Gary White.

The institute encompasses "designed learning experiences," chiefly learning modules that are initiated via a webcast, roughly every six to eight weeks, and oriented around particular themes and activities - e.g., an environmental scan, involving both an institutional self-assessment and interviews with library directors and relevant administrators. These activities help identify what is already in place that participating libraries could leverage in developing an e-science strategy. Each module also consists of assignments and readings, and there is ongoing online communication among members of the Institute cohort. In addition, there will be a Capstone event, allowing cohort members to meet and interact in person, which will culminate in the completion of an e-research support strategic agenda.

Above all, the Institute presents the participating libraries with an opportunity to build community in this area, which in turn will likely foster a common understanding about requirements for an e-science agenda, as well as forge new collaborations and partnerships. For more information about the ARL/DLF E-Science Institute, please see: http://www.arl.org/rtl/eresearch/escien/escieninstitute/index.shtml.

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Institutional Self-Assessment

E-Science Institute Self-Assessment Questionnaire - A Sampling

Doing Some Background Research

In order to understand their institution’s current e-research landscape, participating libraries engaged in an initial self-assessment process. Institute faculty provided several sets of questions, to which institute participants responded (using their library websites and other resources). The answers served as an introduction to this landscape, from both technological and cultural perspectives, and prepared participants for the more detailed research activities and interviews in the second module of the Institute.

Sample Organizational Questions

  1. What is the organizational structure for research at your institution? Is it under the Provost? Is there a Vice Provost/President/Dean in charge of research, or the equivalent? Is there a sponsored research, programs, or grant administration office? Identify the major players/offices and briefly describe their roles.
  2. What is the organizational structure for technology support at your institution? Include enterprise/administrative computing, academic/educational computing, and research computing components. Where do these groups report? Are they linked to your institution’s research enterprise? Are they distributed or centralized in one department? Identify the major players/offices and briefly describe their roles.These questions will help you understand where the research enterprise of your institution sits and who controls/supports it. These will help you identify where to find answers to other questions, and possible candidates to interview later in the Institute.
  3. Identify your institution’s administrative agencies, polices and normative practices for supporting its research programs and activities, paying special attention to e-science support.

Sample Cyberinfrastructure Questions

  1. Does your institution provide centralized research support services, or at the division/department level? Examples include grant proposal development and budget management, high-performance computing equipment (i.e. server clusters, Grid, Massively Parallel Processing, etc.), MPP programming, research data storage and/or management systems, data visualization, data curation, and virtual organizations (e.g. Access Grid videoconferencing system).
  2. Are there existing facilities on your campus to support team science, such as videoconferencing rooms, visualization and/or collaboration rooms (e.g. the UNC Health Science Library’s Collaboration Center)?
  3. Building on question #1 above, does your institution host a national, state-wide, consortial or institutional supercomputer center? Does the library have any existing connection to it?

Sample Institutional Culture Questions

  1. How important is science and engineering at your institution? Review the institutions mission statement and strategic plan to indentify strategic priorities, especially in the sciences.
  2. Is your institution hierarchical or fluid? For example, can you easily reach out to a senior administrator or member of the faculty, or is there a strict protocol for reaching those people?
  3. Is your institution’s culture entrepreneurial or more tradition-based? For example, are departments (including the library) encouraged to create new services as needed, or does that require a significant review and approval process by the university’s administration?
  4. How interdisciplinary is research your institution?
  5. Are there many centers or initiatives that span multiple departments or involve diverse faculty?

Sample Library Questions

  1. Does the library currently employ staff to handle e-research support services (e.g., ontology or metadata development, GIS training, social science data licensing, data integration or reformatting services).
  2. Does the library currently have an institutional repository or digital archive system in which research datasets could be deposited? If research data are already accepted, are they cataloged or otherwise discoverable via normal library search tools? Are they linked to related materials, such as required processing software or publications?
  3. How prepared is the library to adapt to change, as an organization? Is there a defined process for strategic planning and/or reorganizations? Are there examples of library projects or initiatives that embraced change from the past decade?

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Interviews

Interviews with Faculty Researchers and University Administrators

A key Institute assignment has been to interview researchers and administators, including library deans and directors, about e-science, mainly to achieve a sense of the context in which librarians will be integrating a strategic e-science agenda.

Researchers and Administrators Who Were Interviewed

Sample of Interview Questions (these were posed to Hank Foley)

  1. What does the term “e-science” mean to you and to researchers at Penn State?
  2. In what ways does your office coordinate research efforts with other Penn State offices?
  3. How do you think the university identifies its intellectual capital? How does it seek to protect and disseminate it?
  4. What types of efforts are underway to provide e-science or cyberinfrastructure support centrally for researchers?
  5. What are the overhead costs associated with conducting e-science research?
  6. What strategic goals does the Graduate School have that are related to e-research or cyberinfrastructure?
  7. Does the Graduate School collaborate with other departments or units on e-science initiatives? If yes, then what kinds of collaborations?
  8. How is the Graduate School preparing its students for career paths informed by e-research trends?
  9. Does the Graduate School have a clear understanding of agency-mandated goals (such as those of the NSF) on data re-use and management within the administrative agencies?
  10. What type of e-science services can the University Libraries provide to researchers at Penn State?

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SWOT

Following the self-assessment activities of answering Institute questions and interviewing Penn State administrators and researchers, the team processed its findings for a SWOT analysis. (SWOT stands for "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.") The analysis is laid out below. 

Note: By "internal factors," we mean factors internal to the Libraries. Similarly, by "external factors," we mean factors external to the Libraries.

Strengths (Internal Factors)

  • Libraries Research Data Management Toolkit and Team established
  • Expertise in scholarly communications
  • Libraries faculty conduct research using data
  • Framework for content stewardship (including accommodation of e-science/cyberinfrastructure needs)
  • Partnership between the Libraries and ITS
  • Broad agreement of need and support for the Libraries' role across the campus
  • Initiative is a priority for both ITS and Libraries
  • Subject expertise of liaison librarians
  • Repository initiative in process

Opportunities (External Factors)

Weaknesses (Internal Factors)

  • Nascent repository services
  • Lack of knowledge about current processes such as born digital workflow
  • Conflict between traditional role of librarians and new roles librarians are expected to play and what does this mean for the future of librarianship
  • Lack of technical expertise among our librarians
  • Lack of confidence and experience with metadata by subject librarians
  • Complicated organizational structure with ever changing roles of faculty and staff in order to best serve our faculty and students 
  • Understanding data (from the types of data being produced by our faculty to the possibilities of use/reuse of that data)
  • Shortage or lack of e-research services relevant to faculty and students (tools/software applications, workshops, collaborative space with ready technology/whiteboards or even smartboards, remote collaboration tools, etc.)

Threats (External Factors)

  • Lack of awareness of NSF mandate or attitude that it is not important to grant awards 
  • Some researchers may not be taking the mandate seriously - last-minute data management plans 
  • Not everyone has fully examined needs of data storage requirements 
  • University administration's attention will be diverted to other things
  • Library is out of the loop on hiring and other decisions related to new areas of research
  • Outward image of the Libraries is not current with research practices of faculty
  • Change in job descriptions
  • Re-organization and re-alignments (introduction of the new, or unfamiliar and unknown)
  • Fewer awards from funding agencies
  • Faculty seeking help beyond the Libraries for expertise that the Libraries already offer
  • Sustainable funding for these spaces and tools and for the hiring of librarians with e-research expertise
  • Competition with commercial entities

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Capstone

Soon to come in this space: a definition of a Capstone event and a summary of the Capstone event in which Penn State librarians participated (which will happen in mid-January 2012).

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