The Role of Conceptions of Value in Data Practices: A Multi-Case Study of Three Small Teams of Ecological Scientists.

This dissertation examines the role of conceptions of data's value in data practices. Based on a study of three small teams of scientists carrying out ecological research at a biological station, my study addresses the following main question: How do scientists conceive of the value of their data, and how do scientists enact conceptions of value in their data practices? I relied on interviews and participant observations for my study and analyzed my data through the lens of theories of value and meaning. I found that scientists were primarily concerned with data's value for their team's own, relatively narrow uses: addressing a gap in knowledge and producing the outputs that would garner them credit and prestige. When asked about their data's potential value beyond their studies, scientists regularly cited metaanalysis, cross-site comparison, and time-based studies as worthy secondary uses for data and assessed data's value according to how well they thought the data could serve those ends. As they collected data and conducted their studies, scientists did not think about data's value beyond whether or not they were good as resources for addressing a gap in knowledge. However, when asked to make their data more openly available, researchers indicated that their decision to share was based strongly on data's value for producing publications for the team. Data that teams were still working with and planned to publish were regarded as too valuable to the team to make widely available. Conversely, when scientists thought data's publication value had been fully exploited for the team, they saw little threat in sharing. In addition to publication potential, scientists also suggested that study type influenced their decision to share data and told me that they felt less compelled to share data from controlled studies because they assumed such data had inherently limited value.PHDInformationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107162/1/dharmrae_1.pd

A Data-Driven Approach to Appraisal and Selection at a Domain Data Repository

Social scientists are producing an ever-expanding volume of data, leading to questions about appraisal and selection of content given finite resources to process data for reuse. We analyze users’ search activity in an established social science data repository to better understand demand for data and more effectively guide collection development. By applying a data-driven approach, we aim to ensure curation resources are applied to make the most valuable data findable, understandable, accessible, and usable. We analyze data from a domain repository for the social sciences that includes over 500,000 annual searches in 2014 and 2015 to better understand trends in user search behavior. Using a newly created search-to-study ratio technique, we identified gaps in the domain data repository’s holdings and leveraged this analysis to inform our collection and curation practices and policies. The evaluative technique we propose in this paper will serve as a baseline for future studies looking at trends in user demand over time at the domain data repository being studied with broader implications for other data repositories.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145607/1/document.pd

Only with Your Permission: How Rights Holders Respond (or Don’t Respond) to Requests to Display Archival Materials Online

Archival repositories are increasingly considering mass digitization as a means of meeting user expectations that materials be available online, remotely. Copyright is frequently noted as a significant obstacle to these efforts, but little empirical data exist on the copyright permissions process in archives. This article reports the findings of a study of the copyright permissions process for the Jon Cohen AIDS Research Collection at the University of Michigan. Specifically, the study sought to reveal how much effort is required to seek copyright permissions, what the results of those efforts would be, and whether or not there were traits of documents or copyright holders that were associated with accept or denial status. The study found that significant time is required to contact and negotiate with rights holders and that the biggest obstacle to getting permission is non-response. Of those requests that get a response, the vast majority are to grant permission. While few of the requests were met with denial, the data suggest that commercial copyright holders are much more likely to deny permission than other types of copyright holders. The data also show that adherence to the common policy of only displaying online those documents with explicit permission will likely result in substantially incomplete online collections.John D. Evans FoundationPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77412/1/DAkmonOnlyWithYour-Permission_DAFinal.pdf-

How do properties of data, their curation, and their funding relate to reuse?

Despite large public investments in facilitating the secondary use of data, there is little information about the specific factors that predict data’s reuse. Using data download logs from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), this study examines how data properties, curation decisions, and repository funding models relate to data reuse. We find that datasets deposited by institutions, subject to many curatorial tasks, and whose access and preservation is funded externally are used more often. Our findings confirm that investments in data collection, curation, and preservation are associated with more data reuse.National Science Foundation grant 1930645 (LH, AP, DA) Institute of Museum and Library Services grant LG-37-19-0134-19 (LH, DA) National Institute of Drug Abuse contract number N01DA-14-5576 (AP)http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/168212/5/Hemphill et al Data downloads.pdf4ae71d2a-01c0-4084-84c3-c32ce960e81c5836d8a9-776f-4cd5-ba6e-a0cfd10d555dSEL

Building Tools to Support Active Curation: Lessons Learned from SEAD

SEAD – a project funded by the US National Science Foundation’s DataNet program – has spent the last five years designing, building, and deploying an integrated set of services to better connect scientists’ research workflows to data publication and preservation activities. Throughout the project, SEAD has promoted the concept and practice of “active curation,” which consists of capturing data and metadata early and refining it throughout the data life cycle. In promoting active curation, our team saw an opportunity to develop tools that would help scientists better manage data for their own use, improve team coordination around data, implement practices that would serve the data better over time, and seamlessly connect with data repositories to ease the burden of sharing and publishing. SEAD has worked with 30 projects, dozens of researchers, and hundreds of thousands of files, providing us with ample opportunities to learn about data and metadata, integrating with researchers’ workflows, and building tools and services for data. In this paper, we discuss the lessons we have learned and suggest how this might guide future data infrastructure development efforts.National Science Foundation #OCI0940824Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140714/1/document.pdfDescription of document.pdf : Main Articl

The Application of Archival Concepts to a Data-Intensive Environment: Working with Scientists to Understand Data Management and Preservation Needs

The collection, organization, and long-term preservation of resources are the raison d’être of archives and archivists. The archival community, however, has largely neglected science data, assuming they were outside the bounds of their professional concerns. Scientists, on the other hand, increasingly recognize that they lack the skills and expertise needed to meet the demands being placed on them with regard to data curation and are seeking the help of “data archivists” and “data curators.” This represents a significant opportunity for archivists and archival scholars but one that can only be realized if they better understand the scientific context.National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0724300Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/86738/1/Akmonetal2011.pd

NSF datanet partners update

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111154/1/bult1720400608.pd

Developing electronic records capacity in the small collecting repository: the Documenting Internet2 Project

What options are available to a small scale collecting repository when the core documentation in its primary subject area is no longer created in traditionally manageable formats? How well do traditional methods for appraising institutional records, which were developed in the context of stable, structured organizations, adapt to increasingly distributed, dynamic organizations whose records are primarily born-digital? For a collecting repository whose subject area is high technology, the problem feels particularly acute: the irony of trying to capture adequate documentation of developments in information technology in paper only is ever present. These questions were at the core of a collaborative project, funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and administered by the University of Minnesota’s Charles Babbage Institute (CBI) Center for the History of Information Technology between 2003 and 2005. In this article, we describe a few of the methods, findings, and ideas for further exploration generated during “Documenting Internet2: A Collaborative Model for Developing Electronic Records Capacities in the Small Archival Repository.”National Historical Publications and Records CommissionAkmon, Dharma; Kaplan, Elisabeth. (2006). Developing electronic records capacity in the small collecting repository: the Documenting Internet2 Project. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/42434