IITG MidYear Project Outcomes

Report Mid Year Project Outcomes

1)            Please consider the original timeline and deliverable targets. How is your project progressing compared with the original estimates?*

Our project called for hosting the ACRL day-long workshop, “Scholarly Communication: From Understanding to Engagement” in the fall and survey the library staff who do scholarly communication tasks in order to create a network, share best practices, and look for opportunities to collaborate on projects. We hosted the workshop on 9/30/2016, with 45 attendees. The next step will be to create the survey. We are currently right on track.

2)            How is spending progressing when compared with the original budget estimates? (You may also choose to detail issues regarding access to funds in the next three questions).*

We applied for $20,000 grant but only received $10,000. We have spent approximately $8200 of that amount on the conference.

3)            Please provide feedback regarding your experience with the project execution, in particular any issues or roadblocks you’ve encountered that may have been unexpected.*

It will be challenging to complete all the tasks we set out to do with only half the funding.

4)            What are your positive observations or pleasant surprises about your team’s interaction or project process that might would be helpful to other PI’s?*

Initial feedback from conference attendees include such comments as:

“these conversations refresh my enthusiasm for scholarly communications issues”

“I want to get our faculty up to speed and comfy with OA but my info dates back to 2006; I need(ed) a refresh”

“(I am) meeting others in my field, gaining new knowledge, learning new ways to help faculty and students”

“I feel less alone in this SCHOLCOMM world”

5)            Please describe any challenges you’ve encountered working with your project team that you’ve found solutions for that might be helpful to other PI’s.*

NYLA Scholarly Communications Unconference

Recap of the Scholarly Communication Unconference held at NYLA, 11/2/2016

1.    Peter D. Barvoets, SUNY Cobleskill
What I learned in getting almost 100 students to publish their presentations from the SUNY Undergraduate Research Conference (SURC 2016)

Main takeaway – sent email permissions 5 days before event, was at conference with laptop to capture presentations as students registered.

2.    Amy Schuler, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
Providing research data management training for students
Main takeaway – summer research institute for undergraduates. Teaches data management. Great presentation.

3.    Jeremiah Hall, Bard College
Digital Commons Platform for a Small College IR
Main takeaway – Instructional resources, Oral Histories, Senior Projects

4.    Kim Myers, The College at Brockport
Starting a library publishing program http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/lib_presentations/14/

5.    Pamela McLaughlin, Syracuse University Libraries
Sound Beat: an innovative media publishing initiative at Syracuse University Libraries
Main takeaway – 2 minute sound bites on a variety of subjects, musical and otherwise. Librarians work with one or two classes a semester to produce these. Posted on a Wordpress site, use only clips so it is used as transformative, avoid copyright police.

6.    Alice Carli, Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester
A digitization project leading to publishing a large number of texts (including musical scores, in our instance) on our digital repository
Main takeaway – Multiyear project to digitize and conserve fragile scores in the SML. Those in public domain made public in the U of R’s IR+, those still in copyright put up with embargos, and made public only to U of R community.

7.    Jiebei Luo, Skidmore College
1. Creating an auto embargo reminder by utilizing Google Gadgets (Google form, Google Spreadsheet, formMule add-on script, Google calendar). 2. Building a live statistic Google site (iFrame, Google)
No takeaway here. Sophisticated use of Google Apps, but what doesn’t make sense is WHY? Why create work outside the IR (Digital Commons), when it is already provided?

Main conference takeaway –The above lightning rounds took place in the morning. The afternoon was devoted to a World Café, where the audience determined the topics. Of all the possible topics to discuss at this unconference, how to start and run an IR, engage with faculty, etc. was what most people wanted to talk about. Brockport is way ahead of the game there.

Links to presentations: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5BZ7sQZ7CRUa3RqWWdabllYems

Ideas for supporting McNair Program

We added the McNair journal to Digital Commons about 4 years ago, and it has been downloaded over 900 times. The current iteration of the journal is a pdf of the print version with a little about the student and a one-page abstract about their research. I have found 3 other examples of McNair journals in institutional repositories, and they all have full papers attached. The reason may have to do with the cost to print the journal. If that is the case, then perhaps the print edition could continue as before, but the online edition could contain the papers, as well. It might be a useful way to demonstrate outcomes for the grant, too. 

Eastern Michigan: http://commons.emich.edu/mcnair/

Grand Valley State University: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/

University of Pennsylvania: http://repository.upenn.edu/mcnair_scholars/

In speaking to Herma (cc: Barbara), I found out that "Summer Research students are required to write one abstract for conferences and one for the journal. In some cases, their mentor requires them to write a full paper as well, especially when their research is for credit. So your point is certainly thought provoking. And I'm so happy to see that people are downloading the journals so many times!!! That is good news. We'll be in touch, Herma :) ". 

A supplemental idea of housing their research posters in Digital Commons, in the soon-to-be created Poster Palooza collection was a definite hit, so we should follow up with them about that after the summer program. 

Thesis status by department: ESB, Biology, Psychology and KSSPE

Environmental Science and Biology:

There are currently 106 theses with 23K+ downloads in this collection (12/2016). This department was another early adopter, through the efforts of Dr. Joseph Makarewicz. These theses are well written and well researched, but what is published in Digital Commons may not contain the data sets. In some cases, the data sets are only found in the print copies. I only recently became aware of this, and I think this may need to be addressed in the future, if these are to be the official records. One way to address it would be to have the data sets submitted with the theses, as supplemental files. Supplemental files may either be public (if the box is checked) or kept private. A further possibility would be to embargo the data sets for a period of time.

The submission process: ESB still binds theses, as well as submitting a digital copy with two files on CD to Digital Commons. One file contains the metadata for the submission page, the second file contains the actual thesis. It is up to the DSR to upload the thesis, and apply a one year embargo to it.

Biology:

Biology was late to the game, and in fact, resisted the idea. Their faculty are greatly concerned that having the theses in Digital Commons will result in their research being scooped before they have a chance to publish it themselves. (See 5/2015 and 7/2015 posts for more on this). They finally agreed, but only if there is an automatic one year embargo on all theses, for which one renewal could be requested. Their theses are uploaded by the student, but often with no embargo period entered, so that has to be checked on. This is a small collection, with only 23 theses, of which 18 are public at this point, and 1400 downloads.

Psychology:

Psychology started submitted theses digitally in 2015. They currently have 13 theses in the IR. Their process is for the student to submit, and I make Sara Margolin (graduate coordinator) the administrator. She looks it over, and emails me back her approval. From her email today: I'd like to be able to give you approval, because there always exists the possibility that a student will submit to Digital Commons, but not give their final thesis to me. If I have it in hand, and it's the same as the one that's submitted to you, then we know we're good. 

KSSPE:

KSSPE has gone to a synthesis project, and in fall 2017 had students start self-submitted approved projects. The presence of a signature page indicates instructor approval to post (per Cathy Houston-Wilson, 8/23/17).

Thesis status by department: Education and Human Development

Education and Human Development:

This department was definitely a pioneer at Brockport with ETDs. They have the model for best practices in terms of process here. All theses (and now capstones) are uploaded by the student. One of the required fields is the name of their Advisor. An email is sent to the advisor notifying them when the thesis is uploaded, with a link to review it. After they review the thesis, they have 3 choices. They can approve as submitted for posting, approve with a request for minor revisions, or reject it completely - which is never done. I receive a copy of the email, if it says approve for posting, I will post the thesis and update the site. If there is a request for minor revisions, the student can upload a revised copy and have it reviewed. In general, theses are not uploaded until they are at the end of the process, so most revisions will have been completed already. Sometimes when a thesis is initially uploaded, if I notice that the size of the file is unexpectedly large, I will look at it to see if I can determine what is going on. Sometimes it is in the wrong format, other times it is loaded with large illustrations. These are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

As of 12/14/2016 - the EDH collection: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/ehd_theses/ has 684 theses and capstone projects, making it our largest collection, with 641,084 downloads to date. 

Updated as of 3/25/2019: 1,209 theses - 1,598,039 downloads - largest collection

Thesis status by department: Counselor Education

Counselor Education:    

The first department to add their theses, they have never been available in print. Theses dating back to 2005 had been stored on a departmental drive awaiting a time when they could be displayed electronically. The department handles obtaining all permissions, and while initial uploads were done by the DRS, in recent years their graduate assistant has taken care of it. The collection contains 171 papers and is located at http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/.

In 2015, the department changed from a thesis project to a capstone project, and a new collection was created called Counselor Education Capstone. http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_capstone/ . There are currently 28 papers in that collection, as of 12/13/16.

Things to know:

1. Research involving the Veterans Administration is not allowed to be published, and will be subject to takedown, if inadvertently posted. Examples include: http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/129, http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/166 and http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/edc_theses/164
2. When granting new graduate assistants administrator privileges, be sure to add them to the Capstone collection, not the thesis collection.
3. Both Capstones and Theses should be gathered into the larger Thesis Collection. Filters have been set up to do this.