News Blog | University Library

An interesting case statement from the Research Data Alliance: the BioSharing Registry

A working group of the Research Data Alliance has proposed a case statement to develop the BioSharing Repository into a registry. Admittedly, I wasn't clear about the distinction until I read through the report a couple of times. Now that I have a better understanding of what the working group is trying to accomplish, I am eager to see how this plays out and if it can adapted in other fields. Personally, I can attest to how hard it is to find relevant standards and repositories for a particular research project. There are simply too many to know and no good way to find the ones that you or your colleagues don't know.

Upcoming Data Visualization Workshop

On Tuesday, September 9th I will be teaching a workshop on data visualization for the IUPUI Arts & Humanities Institute, “Introduction to Data Visualization I: Visualization with Gephi.” For the uninitiated, Gephi is an open-source network visualization program. The tool is ideal for networks of any size. It offers a vast array of network analysis and visualization options, including geospatial layouts for data, statistical measures for social network analysis, and dynamic network visualization. Gephi handles a variety of data formats and allows the construction of datasets within the tool itself, perfect for those working with smaller amounts of data. Gephi runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

Greed, Fear & Snobbery: The STM Open Access Licenses

At the beginning of this month the International Association of Science, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) released a suite of model licenses "for a variety of uses within open access publishing." If that sounds like reinventing the widely used Creative Commons, don't be suckered; it's far worse. Rather than merely wasting our time and trying our patience with superfluous model licenses, STM is promoting licenses that decrease the "commons" and stifle "creative" opportunity. While STM insists that the model licenses will "be complementary to Creative Commons licenses," these "complements" are restrictive in nature. Furthermore, three of the five models are "Full" licenses; only two were written to supplement other licenses.

DPLA’S EMILY GORE AT ILF ANNUAL

Emily Gore of DPLA to present at ILF Annual in Indianapolis.Emily Gore of DPLA will be participating in an Indiana Library Federation Annual Pre-Conference session, Monday November 17, 9 am-12 pm at Mariott East in Indianapolis. You need not be a member of ILF to attend and we hope to hear from lots of non-library affiliated participants.The cost is $25 for ILF members and $37.50 for non-members.To find out more read the Preliminary ILF ProgramRegister here.Please share this opportunity widely!

Flagship journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry to become Open Access

Chemical Science, a journal published by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), will become openly accessible to all beginning January 2015.

Topic Modeling: Worth Learning as a Librarian?

Aside from preparing for the onslaught of instruction that will be fall semester, my time lately has been spent exploring topic modeling (I realize that I am somewhat late to the game on this, but it has been on my ‘to do’ list for a while now).

Sex Sells, If You're Willing to Show A Lot of Skin

Two of IUPUI's savviest faculty authors, Aaron Carroll and Rachel Vreeman, recently released their third book in a popular, myth-debunking consumer health series. The first two titles did well, but this one will be a big hit--sex sells:Carroll, Aaron E., and Rachel C. Vreeman. Don't Put That in There!: And 69 Other Sex Myths Debunked. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2014.

Crowdsourcing Science

Radiolab is one of my favorite podcasts. I save them up for long runs. Jad and Robert’s science-y musings make 10 miles pass in the blink of an eye (well, an hour and half blink-but still). Typically rooted in the natural (hard) sciences of biology, anatomy, physiology, physics, and astronomy, they also dip into social science often as they relate to their harder friends. While the show hasn’t yet devoted an entire episode to scholarly communication (insert plug for such show here), many Radiolabs make me think about the state and future of scholarly communication.

Research data can be reused in unexpected ways

In addition to his many famous writings, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) took careful notes about the natural world around him.

IUPUIScholarWorks Quarterly Report, April-June 2014

The second quarter of 2014 is behind us. It's time to tally up the submissions to IUPUIScholarWorks!