ICPSR Official Representatives Blog

2009 OR meeting
datajunque @ 3:53pm
Do I read the ICPSR  events section on the site correctly?  The 2009 meeting will be in December? 

ICPSR FastTrack
datajunque @ 3:57pm

Apparently FaskTrack is no more, according to the web page

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/fasttrack/

and confirmed by e-mail I got from Amy Pienta this week.  All the studies that used to reside there have been moved in an as-is state to the general ICPSR collection as bundled zip archives.  

Does anyone have strong feelings about the demise of FastTrack, either pro or con?

Study #7389 Time Series Data for Chicago, 1840-1973
datajunque @ 10:08am

Does anybody have an input program for these data?  It looks like there are 134 records per observation.

datajunque @ 10:08am
 datajunque

OR Sabbatical
libbies @ 3:46pm
Great news - there is still time!  If anyone who has done an ICPSR Sabbatical would like to comment ont he experience - it might encourage others ....

For the 2008 sabbatical program, we offer the following ideas but are open to other projects that ORs may suggest:

• Prepare instructional materials in one of the core social science disciplines such as sociology, demography, economics, etc. Develop materials to promote statistical literacy such as materials for the Online Learning Center
• Develop online guides that identify the ICPSR datasets most suited for student analysis of a social science topic or theme
• Work on issues related to digital preservation, particularly with respect to new types of digital content
• Locate and/or develop additional materials for the Minority Data Resource Center, an ICPSR initiative to provide data resources for the comparative analysis of issues affecting racial and ethnic minority populations in the United States

ICPSR will pay a stipend of up to $7,500, depending on the length of stay, and will also pay for the OR's travel and lodging. Finding housing is the responsibility of the OR, but we will be happy to assist with this. ICPSR will provide the OR with an office and a computer during the stay. We ask that the OR write a Bulletin article after completing the sabbatical.

 

For further details of the program please see the attachment or this link: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/or/sabbatical.html    

Interested individuals should send their resumes to ICPSR's Human Resources Director Rita Bantom (rybantom@umich.edu) by January 4, 2008, with a brief proposal describing a project. Please also indicate the desired dates of your stay .   We look forward to hearing from you.

News from ICPSR
libbies @ 3:22pm
Hi - in case you didn't see this elsewhere - here are some nice new things from ICPSR via Linda Detterman:

Concerns about Election.
lyodi @ 2:15pm
Upon request, I am posting this for Richard Pinnell, who had a bit of trouble getting set up in LiveJournal. (Yes, I know it's a bit cumbersome.)

---

Folks
This is my first posting to the OR Blog.....surely hope I don't screw this up.
I received my second reminder from Electionballot@vote-now.com this morning, and so, as the OR for University of Waterloo, I decided to cast my vote. Having recently gone through a provincial election I am still in the voting spirit. I had some initial difficulty on the website since it would seem that I have turned off cookies in Firefox, and do you think I could discover how to turn them on? I found it easier to paste the election URL into IE and start again. Worked just fine. I dutifully read the bios of all the candidates and then proceeded to vote.

I visited the first section of the ballot, the election of a chair, and noted that I am to vote for one of......ONE. That was easy enough. Then I scrolled down to the Council section, and noted that I am to vote for six of ....SIX. At that point, I freaked. Crossed my mind that this “election” process is really not much more than an acclamation.
Yessssssss, I did look quickly to see if one could write in the name of another candidate..but nope, didn’t see that.
And so I am left wondering why I bothered, and why the need for Electionballot@vote-now.com to gently remind me twice that I should exercise my right to vote.
Perhaps I am missing something.....would NOT be the first time, for sure.
Richard Pinnell
University of Waterloo OR

Becoming the OR at your institution
libbies @ 3:52pm
Earlier this week I met with a new data services librarian at a local campus.  I assumed that she was the new OR for that school but it turns out that the is a long history of the ICPSR dues being paid by a department/research unit and the OR is actually a grad student in the computer lab for that center.  It got me thinking about how we go about becoming OR's in our institutions and I wondered if anyone can offer suggestions on how a librarian can lobby to become the OR or at least the DR at a campus. Any suggestions?  How do you build a joint relationship?  Since there are so many librarians as OR and libraries handling the dues I am hoping there are some solutions I can share.  

Thanks to ICPSR and being flung into data...
search_queen @ 7:01pm
I actually have to start back before the "thanks," but having a subject line like "my book" was just too self-aggrandizing and embarrassing. I pulled the actual item out on some people at the meeting, and was encouraged enough to - um - agg... make my first blog posting!
So.
see.
I wrote this book. (It came out August 06.)
It's a textbook for library schools, and they are actually using it! It's called The Librarian's Guide to Online Searching (it's really about database searching, but maybe that wasn't sexy enough). (Thus the moniker here - "search_queen" - I tried for the simple "suzanneb", but they said it was taken)
ANYHOW.
This book. It has in it a chapter on Finding Numbers (well, they call it "Numerical Databases") - but in my heart, it's Finding Numbers. It's just baby stuff compared to what most of you real data librarians do every day, but  hopefully it's appropriate for folks in library school, or people who are NOT data librarians. And I could not have written it without all the experiences of being a data librarian (sort of  ;) and the discussions and everything I've learned from all of you over the years, from attending the IASSIST conferences and ICPSR OR meetings.  I think this content is possibly unique for such a text; helps make the book different and better, and I really owe it all to you - so - a very belated THANK YOU to all of you!!!
(I was embarrassed to mention it on any "data lists" before, afraid you'd look at it and say "oh my god... you call that data? that's far too simplistic!" of course, now you know it exists, you might go read it and still say that - ! but my skin is thicker now ;)

And - it's a fun read! you might like it. Check it out, either via WorldCat and ILL, or Amazon.com (good lord, it's been around long enough for there to be used ones! incredible. who would want to sell such a gem?! ha)

   again - a big THANKS to ICPSR and all you friendly data people! :)

 cheers,
 -suzanne
(sorry - is this too awful of me to put this here??)

Summer Program Fees
libbies @ 12:02pm
Most OR's will have received the letter from ICPSR about the increase in the Summer Program fees.  I wrote to Bill Jacoby about the status of the member stipend.  He says the stipend is here to stay and may even increase to offset the fee increase.  The Summer Program advisory group is meeting in a couple of weeks and he will know more by then. 

Evaluate the OR Meeting
libbies @ 12:00pm
Be sure to complete the OR online evaluation if you have not already done so.  The responses really *do* matter and they are an important part of the planning process for the next meeting as well as other aspects of the ICPSR organization.  Here is the link:

New NIH Rules
libbies @ 11:11am
Hi all - this just in - researchers will now be "required" to deposit their manuscripts based on funded research. 

MANDATE FOR PUBLIC ACCESS TO NIH-FUNDED RESEARCH
POISED TO BECOME LAW

Full U.S. Senate Approves Bill Containing Support for Access To
Taxpayer-Funded Research

Washington, D.C. ­ October 24, 2007 - The U.S. Senate last night approved
the FY2008 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill (S.1710), including
a provision that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to
strengthen its Public Access Policy by requiring rather than requesting
participation by researchers. The bill will now be reconciled with the House
Appropriations Bill, which contains a similar provision, in another step
toward support for public access to publicly funded research becoming United
States law.

³Last night¹s Senate action is a milestone victory for public access to
taxpayer-funded research,² said Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC
(the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, a founding
member of the ATA). ³This policy sets the stage for researchers, patients,
and the general public to benefit in new and important ways from our
collective investment in the critical biomedical research conducted by the
NIH.²

Under a mandatory policy, NIH-funded researchers will be required to deposit
copies of eligible manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine¹s
online database, PubMed Central. Articles will be made publicly available no
later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

The current NIH Public Access Policy, first implemented in 2005, is a
voluntary measure and has resulted in a de deposit rate of less than 5% by
individual investigators. The advance to a mandatory policy is the result of
more than two years of monitoring and evaluation by the NIH, Congress, and
the community.

³We thank our Senators for taking action on this important issue,² said Pat
Furlong, Founding President and CEO of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy.
³This level of access to NIH-funded research will impact the disease process
in novel ways, improving the ability of scientists to advance therapies and
enabling patients and their advocates to participate more effectively. The
advance is timely, much-needed, and ­ we anticipate ­ an indication of
increasingly enhanced access in future.²

³American businesses will benefit tremendously from improved access to NIH
research,² said William Kovacs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president for
environment, technology and regulatory affairs. ³The Chamber encourages the
free and timely dissemination of scientific knowledge produced by the NIH as
it will improve both the public and industry¹s ability to become better
informed on developments that impact them ­ and on opportunities for
innovation.² The Chamber is the world¹s largest business federation,
representing more than three million businesses of every size, sector, and
region.

³We welcome the NIH policy being made mandatory and thank Congress for
backing this important step,² said Gary Ward, Treasurer of the American
Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). ³Free and timely public access to
scientific literature is necessary to ensure that new discoveries are made
as quickly as feasible. It¹s the right thing to do, given that taxpayers
fund this research.² The ASCB represents 11,000 members and publishes the
highly ranked peer-reviewed journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Joseph added, ³On behalf of the taxpayers, patients, researchers, students,
libraries, universities, and businesses that pressed this bill forward with
their support over the past two years, the ATA thanks Congress for throwing
its weight behind the success of taxpayer access to taxpayer-funded
research.²

Negotiators from the House and Senate are expected to meet to reconcile
their respective bills this fall. The final, consolidated bill will have to
pass the House and the Senate before being delivered to the President at the
end of the year.

Looking for an old Harris Poll
dawnillinois @ 4:50pm
Hello All,

I hope this is an acceptable use of this blog. 

A researcher here is trying to track down the raw data for a Harris poll done for Newsweek in 1967. It’s the only Vietnam-era poll he's seen that has questions about perceptions of Vietnam news coverage, so the poll is unique. The poll’s results are reported at great length in a special issue of Newsweek that was published July 10, 1967, so that puts the Harris poll sometime before then in 1967.

The Roper Center has no listing for any Harris or Newsweek dataset in 1967.  Any ideas of where else to check?


-Dawn

Many thanks to all
libbies @ 12:24pm
Hi everyone,
well I'm still floating after that amazing acknowledgment at the OR meeting Awards Banquet.  I want to thank you all again for making me feel like it has all been worthwhile.  And I so enjoyed meeting some people for the first time and meeting people I have "met" only online. I hope we will stay in touch and share our thoughts and ideas - especially here in the blog. 

Cataloging of ICPSR items
lorres @ 1:58pm
For those ORs who are librarians:  is your library cataloging individual ICPSR studies? How are you conveying information about the new items to catalogers?

Discussion on strategic plan
datajunque @ 12:19pm

Is this an acceptable forum to discuss the strategic plan before this week's OR meeting ? The blog seems kind of open--maybe the OR e-list is preferable.

Promoting ICPSR
lorres @ 10:46am
Thanks to libbies for actually posting some content and getting the blog started.  I see that no one is posting any comments and I'm wondering whether it's a difficulty with LJ functions or the way LJ always puts new posts at the top and most of us are hesitant to scroll around looking for comments.

I think all libbies ideas are helpful.  Although I've been an OR for a few years, I've just scheduled my first class for the general university community on ICPSR, so I'm thankful for all the tips.  I'm especially impressed with the calendar idea.  And that reminds me to get an email together to promote the undergraduate competition  that's underway.

RSS for the OR Blog
libbies @ 1:07pm
I know RSS feeds have been around for awhile, but I am still just getting the hang of them.  Still, I use them for the various groups with which I blog.  And the OR Blog is no exception.  If you are interested in getting an RSS feed then go to this link: http://community.livejournal.com/ormeeting/data/rss ; and subscribe.  It places a little icon on your toolbar and you can check it whenever you want to see what's been happening. 

Welcome to the ICPSR OR Blog!
libbies @ 10:00am
 Greetings and welcome to the ICPSR Blog for Official Representatives.  
 
The blog is for Official Representatives, Designated Representatives, Individual and Federated members alike.  This is a place where you can ask questions of other OR’s about ICPSR membership activities.  So, would you like to know about how other members are promoting ICPSR on their campuses, or how to incorporate instructional materials into your class presentations?  Are you just getting started as an ICPSR member?  Well, this will be a helpful spot for you to connect with other OR’s in between meetings and get tips and advice and how to’s.  To get started, set up an account and review the Blog FAQ by clicking on this link:  http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/cocoon/ICPSR/FAQ/0243.xml
 
Looking forward to talking with you!

Bibliography of Data-Related Literature
libbies @ 3:37pm
I can't say enough about how much I like the Bibliography of Data-related Literature. I find that students prefer to use this to identify key writings about data obtained from ICPSR.  Students are sometimes really overwhelmed by trying to do literature searches in the many article databases subscribed to by the Library and they don't find what they need by using Google Scholar.  So, I direct them to the Bibliography first to identify authors and subject terms. They can then use these to carry out successful searches in article databases.  You can get there from the Data tab on the ICPSR home page (click on Publications based on our Data) or here is the direct link: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/citations/index.html

As a companion to the Bibliography I also use the instructional tool: Exploring Data Through Research Literature (EDRL).  I think Rachel Barlow did a fantastic job on this.  I have adapted pieces of EDRL for use in class presentations with great success.  If you are in a library and you are involved in information literacy activities, this is a great tool.  Check it out at:  http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/EDRL/index.html ; You can also find it from the ICPSR home page by clicking on the Courses and Learning Tools tab and then on Instruction Resources in the drop down menu.

The OR site
libbies @ 3:29pm
I get requests for ICPSR data from researchers at other institutions fairly often.  Often the requester is at a member institution and I want to not only answer the question but also link the user with the OR at their own institution.  So, I find the OR site on the ICPSR web page to be really helpful. I can find the university and also the OR along with an email.  I use the OR site for a lot of things like getting utilization reports, getting a list of summer program attendees, or checking out the latest activity from the Council.  To get to the OR site, click on  Quick Links ->OR site on the ICPSR home page.

Preservation of data
libbies @ 3:16pm
One of the hardest things I face as an OR is getting researchers to deposit their data with ICPSR.  I am encouraged by the requirements or encouragements of funding agencies for researchers to place their data in public repositories.  I think faculty do understand that this is important, but getting them to actually do so is another story.  Even though they can budget for preparing a public dataset in their funding proposals they use the money for other aspects of the project.  And though they seem to buy into the need to preserve data from research they just don' get around to doing it.  Last week I met with yet another research group with lots of data and guess what?  It's all on 9-track tapes.  I am encouraged that maybe there will be some change through the work ICPSR is doing on digital preservation.  Heck, if we could just get researchers to migrate their files onto new media once in awhile I would feel like there was progress .... If you are interested in this topic, read about what ICPSR is doing at: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DP/

Promoting ICPSR
libbies @ 2:48pm
I am always on the lookout for a new way to inform students and faculty about the holdings of ICPSR and the many other resources and tools.  I especially like the ICPSR workshop materials and the Media Kit.  In the workshop materials there is a nice power point presentation you can use and customize to fit your own institution.  This year I have promised myself that I will do more outreach and today I found a very nice calendar I can use to remind me about things I need to do with respect to ICPSR.  It is just one page and I can pin it up where I'll actually see it.  And now that I am using Google Calendar I can even put in little reminders to tell faculty about ICPSR instructional resources each term.  If you haven't looked at these materials, you can find them at this link: http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/ICPSR/or/promo/media-kit.html#workshop