tag: Big data

In February 2023, Ithaka S+R launched Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support, a project designed to help universities create viable strategies for delivering and sustaining research data service across campus. Following workshops to conceptualize new approaches or solutions to service delivery, cohort teams revisited some of the design thinking activities on their own campuses and honed in on a tangible idea or solution to implement.

In response to universities’ strategic need to provide effective data support services to researchers, Ithaka S+R launched the Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support project in February 2023. In the first two phases of the project, participants conducted an inventory of data services on their campus and interviewed researchers about their research data services support needs. Spring 2024 marked the beginning of phase three during which participants will implement innovative strategies to assist researchers in navigating support services…

This spring, 107 librarians, administrators, and staff from the 29 universities participating in Ithaka S+R’s Building Campus Strategies for Coordinated Data Support project began to identify barriers to streamlining their research data support services. The project’s first two meetings brought together representatives from university units involved in supporting academic researchers: librarians, senior administrators, research officers, and research computing staff. Working primarily in small groups roughly divided by professional capacity, participants described the ways that different university units—and different institutional…

What research data services do campuses currently offer and are researchers aware of them? What funding models can support the costs of centralized data services? Where in the larger organizational structure should these services reside? How can institutions make informed staffing decisions to ensure the expertise needed to support current and future services? As the need for robust, effective, and coordinated research data services on college campuses grows increasingly acute, these are some of the key questions members in our…

With 2023 coined the “year of data” by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and data-intensive research methods growing across disciplines, campuses throughout the US and Canada are recognizing the strategic need to build a centralized approach to providing data support services to researchers. These services are often provided by the library, in addition to other campus units scattered across the university. Developed over time and with minimal coordination, data support services tend to exist in silos,…

This fall, Ithaka S+R announced a new cohort-based research and consulting project to help universities coordinate research data support services across campus. Demand for the first cohort has been overwhelming, making it clear just how timely and important this topic is to university leaders. For this reason, we are pleased to announce that we are organizing a second cohort so that more universities can participate in this project.

Since 2012, when Ithaka S+R began systematic exploration of the changing needs and practices of researchers, the stunning growth in the accessibility of large datasets and the computing power necessary to work with them has transformed research practices across disciplines. As big data methods have spread, universities have responded by expanding their research support service offerings. Libraries have been the most active players in this space, but many campus units—including information technology offices, research computing centers, and academic…

As “big data” has moved from the margins to the center of a growing number of academic disciplines, how well are universities, funders, and publishers supporting researchers? To better understand how big data research is pursued in academic contexts, Ithaka S+R partnered with librarians at more than 20 colleges and universities, interviewing over 200 faculty members, to explore how researchers work with big data and identify the challenges they face. “Big Data Infrastructure at the Crossroads:…

Candidate screening in the United States is in the midst of rapid innovation. Traditional processes of assessing candidates’ skills focused on resume screening that evaluated candidates’ degrees, training programs, or prior work experiences—a process that favored credentialing intermediaries like higher education institutions, industry associations, and former employers. Today’s employers, however, are turning to advanced algorithmic solutions for verifying candidate competencies and predicting best job fit. The tools—such as resume filtering, talent analytics, online simulations, cybervetting, digital interviews, gamification,…