CNI: Coalition for Networked Information

Blockchain: What’s Not To Like?

David S. H. Rosenthal
Stanford University (retired)

We’re in a period when blockchain or “distributed ledger technology” is the Solution to Everything™, so it is inevitable that it will be proposed as the solution to problems in academic communication and digital preservation. These proposals typically assume, despite the evidence, that real-world blockchain implementations actually deliver the theoretical attributes of decentralization, immutability, security, anonymity, lack of trust, etc. The proposers appear to believe that Satoshi Nakamoto revealed the infallible Bitcoin protocol to the world on golden tablets; they typically don’t appreciate or cite the nearly three decades of research and implementation that led up to it. This talk will discuss the mismatch between theory and practice in blockchain technology, and how it applies to various proposed applications of interest to the CNI audience.

https://blog.dshr.org/

California Digital Library & Dryad: Community Owned Data Publishing

Daniella Lowenberg
Product Manager, Data Publishing
California Digital Library, University of California Office of the President

John Chodacki
Interim Executive Director
California Digital Library, University of California Office of the President

In light of the current research data landscape, Dryad and California Digital Library (CDL) are formally partnering to address researcher needs and lead an open, community-owned initiative in research data curation and publishing. This partnership is focused on driving adoption of research data publishing by meeting researchers where they are in their workflows. By working together, we will create global efficiencies and minimize needless duplication of effort across institutions, freeing up time and funds. Our goal for this session is to engage with the CNI community and institutional stakeholders on the future of Dryad. The new Dryad service will be focused on being a collaborative data publishing platform that integrates data curation/stewardship more closely into researcher workflows. To accomplish these goals, a new Dryad service will be hosted on a nimble, open-source CDL developed platform, reliant on integrations with journal publishing platforms for ease-of-deposit, and offer a transparent layer for institutions to get involved in data publishing in a system where their researchers are already depositing. But, for Dryad to be a success it will need to be supportive and reflective of institutional values and build a strong institutional community. Members from the Dryad and CDL team will present on the work already underway to launch the new Dryad as well as gain feedback from attendees on our longer-term partnership roadmap and business models.

Can I Trust this Data? Selecting Data for Reuse and Other Dilemmas of the Research Scientist

Grace Agnew
Special Advisor for Strategic Initiatives, Libraries
Rutgers University

What are the barriers to finding and using interdisciplinary data, and how do we overcome them? The Rutgers University Libraries are leading the development of the data services layer of the Virtual Data Collaboratory (VDC), a National Science Foundation-funded regional multidisciplinary research data portal in development by Rutgers University, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and others. To design the portal, Rutgers, Penn State, and Temple University librarians interviewed research faculty and graduate students about their problems finding and selecting research data. We discovered that research has become interdisciplinary to the point that graduate students, in particular, had difficulty identifying a discipline they were associated with. Instead, research has become, at least for our sample, inherently multidisciplinary and problem-based. Interviewees identified trust in data as a primary determiner for selecting data for reuse. Researchers want to know as much, if not more, about the creator of the data as information about the data. To understand the data, they want to know the problem it addresses and the methodology employed more than the discipline it represents. This presentation will present the enlightening results of our research as well as our solution, a Portland Common Data Model metadata representation of the data creator that interacts with metadata for the research data to integrate information about both, including reuse of the data by other VDC participants, in a linked data Samvera environment.

Presentation

Demonstrating Faculty Impact: New Data and Visualization Services*

Barrie Hayes
Bioinformatics & Research Data Librarian
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Amanda Henley
Head, Digital Research Services
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

There is a constant and growing focus on impact, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making in higher education today. Academic and non-academic units alike must continually demonstrate their value and communicate their impact to multiple stakeholders. At the University Libraries, UNC (University of North Carolina) Chapel Hill, librarians are adapting services and building expertise to meet these needs. Librarians help faculty and staff demonstrate research impact and advance teaching using the same digital scholarship tools and methods used for research. In this session, we discuss some organizational changes made by the Libraries to focus and facilitate these new services. We also highlight recent examples of this type of work: conducting text analysis of syllabi and citation network analyses of publications to help administrators and faculty in the School of Pharmacy improve curriculum design; creating maps to demonstrate the global reach of campus programs; and preparing bibliometric analyses and citation network visualizations to assist the University’s NIH (National Institutes of Health) Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA) unit in illustrating the impact and reach of CTSA-supported research at UNC-Chapel Hill.

The presenters would like to acknowledge additional colleagues who have contributed to this project:

Dr. Nandita Mani
Associate University Librarian for Health Sciences and Director of the Health Sciences Library

Joe Williams
Director of Public Services

Presentation

 

*Weather/travel issues precluded the speakers from attending CNI’s fall 2018 meeting; the presenters provided CNI with this recording and granted permission to release it publicly.

Developing Library Strategy for 3D and Virtual Reality Collection Development and Reuse

Nathan Hall
Director, Digital Imaging and Preservation
Virginia Tech

Jamie Wittenberg
Head, Scholarly Communication
Indiana University – Bloomington

3D and virtual reality (VR) technologies show great promise for a range of scholarly fields as they offer new potential for interactive visualization and analysis of artifacts, spaces, and data. Lower costs and greater computational power have made 3D and VR technologies financially realistic for a broader variety of institutions. As a result, sustainable programs and infrastructure for access and management of 3D and VR data are now vital. This presentation will provide an update on the Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Grant (LG-73-17-0141-17)—a partnership between three academic libraries (Virginia Tech, Indiana University, and the University of Oklahoma) to study and make recommendations for library adoption of 3D and VR services. We will present preliminary findings synthesized from our three forums hosted in 2018. Audience members will have a greater understanding of resources required for developing, managing, and hosting 3D models, datasets, and associated technologies.

http://lib3dvr.org

Presentation

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