Topic: Research practices
Past Event
April 13, 2019
When Enough Isn’t Enough: Rethinking Research Support in the Sciences
Danielle Cooper and Rebecca Springer at ACRL
On Saturday, April 13, Danielle Cooper and Rebecca Springer will present “When Enough Isn’t Enough: Rethinking Research Support in the Sciences” at the ACRL Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Their talk is scheduled for 8:30 am. For more information and to register, please see the conference website. About the presentation What would it take for university libraries to develop the same kind of buy-in with scientists as they often have with humanists? A major challenge is that how libraries offer…
Past Event
April 8, 2019
Holistic Approaches to Research Data Management: Scholars as Collectors
Danielle Cooper and Oya Y. Rieger at the CNI Spring Meeting
In April, Danielle Cooper and Oya Y. Rieger will present on “Holistic Approaches to Research Data Management: Scholars as Collectors” at the CNI Spring Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference runs from April 8-9. For more information and to register, please visit the CNI website. Presentation abstract In conjunction with their research and teaching activities, scholars create and assemble complex personal collections of information. These collections vary widely depending on the…
Blog Post
January 16, 2019
Supporting Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
Recommendations by and for Academic Librarians
In Ithaka S+R’s newest Research Support Services project – highlighted in our capstone report released today – we partnered with teams at 11 academic libraries in the United States and Canada to study the research practices and support needs of civil and environmental engineering scholars. (They join teams at 77 other universities who have participated in similar Ithaka S+R-led projects, including Asian studies and public…
Blog Post
January 16, 2019
Engineering for Impact: Practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars
The latest installment in Ithaka S+R’s series of Research Support Services projects investigates the research practices and support needs of civil and environmental engineering scholars. Today we are excited to publish the project’s capstone report. The field of civil and environmental engineering tackles pressing issues relating to our built and natural environments – from climate change to urban drinking water, bridge and highway upkeep to natural disaster planning. The need for research solutions to these problems…
Research Report
January 16, 2019
Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars
In 2017 and 2018 Ithaka S+R examined the changing research methods and practices of civil and environmental engineering scholars in the United States with the goal of identifying services to better support them. The goal of this report is to provide actionable findings for the organizations, institutions, and professionals who support the research processes of civil and environmental engineering scholars.
Blog Post
January 9, 2019
Redoubling Our Commitment to Museums and the Arts
In recent years, Ithaka S+R has completed a number of major research and advisory projects focusing on the museums, arts, and cultural communities. In 2019, we are redoubling our commitment through a number of new projects and growth on our team. Many in the museums community are most familiar with Ithaka S+R because of our ongoing partnership with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), and the American Alliance of…
Past Event
April 12, 2019
US Faculty Survey 2018: First Release of Key Findings
Christine Wolff-Eisenberg and Roger Schonfeld at ACRL
The Ithaka S+R Faculty Survey has tracked the attitudes and behaviors of US faculty members since 2000 to provide regularly updated snapshots on key issues and trend analysis of changes across survey cycles. Christine Wolff-Eisenberg and Roger Schonfeld will unveil key findings from the Faculty Survey 2018 which we plan to publish in conjunction with the ACRL 2019 conference. In this survey cycle, we have continued our coverage of faculty research workflows, teaching practices, and perceptions of the role of…
Blog Post
December 10, 2018
Learning at LAC
Notes from the Library Assessment Conference 2018
This year, the Association of Research Libraries and the University of Washington Libraries hosted their biennial Library Assessment Conference (LAC) in Houston, Texas. Having recently joined the Ithaka S+R survey team in November, this was my first time attending LAC, and I was eager to immerse myself in the sessions described in the schedule. I knew I was in the right place when the conference started with “Wednesday Metrics with Steve.”…
Blog Post
December 7, 2018
The Place of Manuscript Management Systems in a Consolidating Marketplace
It was my great privilege last month to facilitate a virtual workshop on the topic of The Place of Manuscript Management Systems in a Consolidating Marketplace. These services are at the heart of the publisher workflow, and they are the basis of fascinating consolidation today. Elsevier’s acquisition of Aries has brought its competition with Clarivate, which owns ScholarOne. Can these providers integrate manuscript management into their broader publishing…
Blog Post
November 28, 2018
Collectively Supporting Faculty in New Zealand
In 2018, the majority (six out of eight) of New Zealand academic libraries undertook the Ithaka S+R faculty survey in order to explore and deepen understanding of scholars’ research and teaching practices and needs. The project was initiated by the Council of New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) with the Ithaka S+R instrument chosen as this is a well-established tool with a strong track record in evaluating the relationship between scholarly researchers and the use of libraries. The goal…
Blog Post
November 28, 2018
New Issue Brief on Scholars as Collectors
Today we publish an Ithaka S+R issue brief that is aimed at reframing how academic research support is conceptualized to better address scholars’ needs. Research support services in university settings are currently focused on aiding scholars as they work on specific research tasks or content, which is largely diffuse and often insufficiently funded. We contend that research support services would be more effective if designed to holistically reflect how scholars work. Looking to scholarly practices in a…
Issue Brief
November 28, 2018
Scholars ARE Collectors: A Proposal for Re-thinking Research Support
After fifteen years of digging into the research practices of scholars at Ithaka S+R, it is clear that scholars are collectors. We have found that they are creating and amassing increasingly complex personal collections of information over the course of their careers. These collections vary widely depending on the discipline and take many forms.
Blog Post
October 23, 2018
Reflections on the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color
From September 26-30 the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC) held their third national conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The conference is sponsored by five associations of ethnic librarians and is a crucial venue for supporting librarians of color, and by extension, fostering diversity in the profession. A group of librarians on the Indigenous Studies project, in which 12…
Blog Post
September 17, 2018
From 101 Innovations to a Roadmap for Collaboration
Open Source Tools for Scholarly Workflow Support
Last month, I participated virtually in the Joint Roadmap for Open Science Tools (JROST) workshop as 86 individuals from 58 different organizations gathered in Berkeley on August 27-28 to explore the growing category of open source scholarly workflow tools, to compare notes, and to identify areas of cooperation and integration.The event program includes all the background information and presentations so I’ll try to highlight…
Blog Post
August 30, 2018
Dispatch from IFLA 2018
I recently presented at the 2018 IFLA World Library and Information congress on the Indigenous Studies project. For the project, Ithaka S+R is working with 12 university libraries to understand the research support needs of Indigenous Studies scholars. The project is endorsed by IFLA’s Indigenous Matters section and I presented alongside section member Camille Callison, who is serving…
Blog Post
August 15, 2018
Announcing a New Project on Language and Literature
This fall Ithaka S+R is launching the tenth project in our ongoing Research Support Services program. This project will focus on the research practices of faculty in the fields of language and literature, broadly defined, and will seek to identify areas where these scholars need further support. Research in language and literature is typically delineated through sub-fields grouped by genre, theory and/or method of analysis (e.g., poetry, history of…
Blog Post
June 27, 2018
New Questionnaire for the US Faculty Survey 2018 Now Available
I am thrilled to announce that we have completed our updates for the upcoming Ithaka S+R US Faculty Survey 2018. As in previous cycles, the survey will explore the research and teaching practices, perceptions, and needs of scholars at four-year colleges and universities. This year, we have developed new thematic areas of coverage on research dissemination, open educational resources, and learning analytics, which we believe are vital emergent strategic issues for higher education institutions and their…
Blog Post
June 21, 2018
The Limits of Area Studies: Studying Scholars of Asia
From 2015-2017, Ithaka S+R partnered with 29 researchers at 11 academic libraries in the U.S. to study the research activities and support needs of scholars in Asian Studies. Today we are excited to release the project’s capstone report, Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Asian Studies Scholars, which provides actionable findings for organizations, institutions, and professionals who support these research activities. Our report is complemented by the local findings (see below) that have…
Blog Post
June 21, 2018
Leveraging the Asian Studies Project Locally
Lafayette College’s Perspective
In the spring of 2017, Lafayette College joined eleven other institutions to participate in Ithaka S+R’s qualitative study of Asian Studies scholars (Ithaka S+R’s capstone report, which includes links to the reports authored by the participating institutions, can be found here). As part of the project, Michaela Kelly and I conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews with our faculty members on their research focus and methods, information access and discovery, dissemination practices, and the state…
Research Report
June 21, 2018
Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Asian Studies Scholars
Executive Summary Ithaka S+R’s Research Support Services Program investigates how the research support needs of scholars vary by discipline and includes reports on history, chemistry, art history, religious studies, agriculture, and public health. In 2017-2018, Ithaka S+R examined the changing research methods and practices of Asian studies scholars conducting research through U.S. institutions. This project was undertaken collaboratively with research teams at 11 academic libraries with the goal of identifying services to better support Asian studies scholars. This report…