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"Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science 2 (WILIS2)"
The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) has awarded Dr. Joanne Marshal $101,000 to complete the "Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science 2 (WILIS2)" project. This project will develop a shared alumni tracking system that all LIS programs can potentially use. The IMLS supplement provides an opportunity to include an additional 10 programs, including SILS and the other North Carolina programs that participated in WILIS 1. Juxtaposed, the two WILIS projects will provide information on SILS graduates from 1964 to 2009. There will be several articles on WILIS 1 and other workforce-related issues forthcoming in a special issue of Library Trends in November 2009.
"Closing the Digital Curation Gap: An International Collaboration"
The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) has awarded $249,623 to Drs. Helen Tibbo, Richard J. Marciano and Cal Lee as part of a cooperative agreement to complete their project, "Closing the Digital Curation Gap: An International Collaboration." The project will include co-operation with The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Digital Curation Center (DCC) in the United Kingdom and attempts to establish/support a network of digital curation practitioners, researchers, and educators through face-to-face meetings, web-based communication, and various other information and communication technology (ICT) tools.
"Policy-Driven Repository Interoperability (PoDRI)"
The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) has awarded Dr. Richard J. Marciano of the DICE Group a grant of $492,463 for his project, "Policy-Driven Repository Interoperability (PodDRI). The principal focus of PoDRI is to investigate the feasibility of interoperability mechanisms between repositories at the policy level. There is a growing trend toward cross-repository integration, driven by the need for scalable, open, and distributed environments, in which content can be leveraged in a variety of storage spaces. The research project focuses on the integration of an object model and a policy-aware distributed data model with Fedora and iRODS as representative open source software for each model. Other project partners include the Carolina Digital Repository, UNC Libraries’ institutional repository, which is based on an integrated Fedora/iRODS infrastructure. The findings and validation work of this project will benefit the library, archival, and museum communities through identification of cross-repository patterns for interoperability.
"TUCASI data-Infrastructure Project (TIP)"
This project, which is directly informed by Dr. Richard J. Marciano's "Policy-Driven Repository Interoperability (PoDRI)" project, was funded on September 2nd of this year through the Research Triangle Foundation Board. TIP is a $2.7 million grant that brings together the three CIO's and the three Head Librarians from Duke, NC State, Chapel Hill, the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and DICE, and looks at building shared collections across the Triangle universities through the federation of storage resources. Dr. Richard Marciano of the DICE Group will direct the project.
“NARA Transcontinental Persistent Archive Prototype”
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded nearly $5 million for a continuing grant to Drs. Reagan W. Moore, Arcot K. Rajasekar and Richard J. Marciano, professors, for a project entitled, “NARA Transcontinental Persistent Archive Prototype.” The grant began Sept. 15, 2008 and has been “approved on scientific/technical merit” through 2012 pending available funds and scientific progress. The initial funding, which includes support from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), for year one is $953,988 with about the same award provided each year for a total of five years. The NARA Transcontinental Persistent Archive Prototype (TPAP) conducts research on fundamental preservation principles to inform the NARA Electronic Records Archive. The current project is developing a reference implementation for preservation environments that can be used as a starter kit. The goal is to identify the basic preservation rules and procedures that automate the management of persistent archives.
“Multi-site Multiple Sclerosis Clinical Trials Management Registry”
Dr. Javed Mostafa, SILS associate professor and co-investigator, and Dr. Lisa Lavange, principal investigator and director of the Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center, were awarded $2,480,772 by the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation for the “Multi-site Multiple Sclerosis Clinical Trials Management Registry.” The three year grant is through the University’s Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center, Department of Biostatistics.
“A Digital Repository for Preservation and Sharing of Data Underlying Published Works in Evolutionary Biology”
Dr. Jane Greenberg, SILS Francis Carroll McColl Term Professor is co-principal investigator on a $650,999 grant from NSF for year one, with the full award being $2,186,179 pending good scientific progress over a 3.5 year period. The funding is for the development of the Dryad repository for research data underlying scientific publications in evolutionary biology and related disciplines. Dryad was initiated as a collaboration involving the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and the SILS Metadata Research Center. The project includes an extensive research/evaluation program for building and sustaining a robust and functional repository. Partners include: Duke University, North Carolina State University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (SILS MRC and Biology), University of New Mexico and Yale University.
“DigCCurr II: Extending an International Digital Curation Curriculum to Doctoral Students and Practitioners”
Dr. Helen Tibbo, professor, received a grant for $878,634 from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for a project entitled, “DigCCurr II: Extending an International Digital Curation Curriculum to Doctoral Students and Practitioners.” Building upon an earlier funded project, SILS partnering with the National Archives and Records Administration and the University of Glasgow, will develop an international, doctoral curriculum and educational network in the management and preservation of digital materials across their life cycle. This project will prepare future faculty to perform research and teach, as well as provide summer institutes for cultural heritage information professionals already working in this arena.
“Towards Evidence-Based Discovery”
Dr. Cathy Blake, assistant professor, received a three-year grant of $449,317 from NSF for her project entitled, “Towards Evidence-Based Discovery.” The goal is to develop new text mining methods that are consistent with the manual processes that experts currently use to resolve contradictory and redundant evidence. Both discovery and synthesis are difficult activities for people. Plans are to develop a socio-technical strategy to achieve this goal. This study includes a longitudinal study of manual discovery and synthesis behaviors of a diverse network of faculty, policy makers, and students from UNC and the Research Triangle Park. “One of the most exciting components of the grant is a new interdisciplinary seminar on discovery science that will bring together faculty and students from around the campus, and the Human Side of Discovery Science workshop that will take place in year three,” said Blake.
“Result Space Support for Personal and Group Information Seeking Over Time”
Dr. Gary Marchionini, Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor, received a three-year grant from NSF for $448,000 to study and develop the next generation of search systems. The project aims to develop techniques and systems that help people solve information problems that are complex, general, or ongoing and when information seeking takes place over multiple intervals or in collaboration with other people. The approach is to first study how people seek information and interpret results of searches as they use multiple systems over time and in collaboration with emphasis given to managing and optionally sharing result sets and items. Based on these initial investigations the team will build systems that support dynamic search and visualization and can serve both as a personal information manager and a group information manager and evaluate these tools in field and laboratory settings. The results of this research will provide guidance for designers of the next generation of systems that support a full range of information seeking needs and contribute open source tools that people can easily adopt as plug-ins to popular Web browsing software.
“HIVE: Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering”
Dr. Jane Greenberg is the PI on a funded project by IMLS entitled, “HIVE: Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering.” The co-PI on the project is Ryan Scherle from National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent). Bob Losee, professor, is senior staff/project principal and Kathy Wisser, director of Instructional Services, is the workshop leader/advisory board member. SILS doctoral students, Hollie White and Sarah Carrier, are also working on the project, which is approved for $334,699. The project is a collaboration between the SILS Metadata Research Center and the NESCent. The work connects to the recent NSF funded research for the Dryad repository; and the use of W3C standards will be applicable to other interdisciplinary repositories, libraries, etc.
“Workshop: Coordinating EU-US Digital Library Education”
Dr. Jeffrey Pomerantz, assistant professor, received a $26,213 grant from NSF for his project, “Workshop: Coordinating EU-US Digital Library Education.” The meeting is intended to develop and launch a coordinated international digital libraries curriculum project. The two-day collaborative workshop will bring together about 15 experts in information and computer science research and educational curriculum development.