Education for eScience Professionals: Integrating Data Curation and Cyberinfrastructure

1. Education for eScience Professionals: Integrating Data Curation and Cyberinfrastructure Youngseek Kim Benjamin K. Addom Jeffrey M. Stanton

2. Introduction Large, collaboratively managed datasets have become essential to many scientific and engineering endeavors New needs for “eScience Professionals” who solve large scale information management problems for researchers and engineers “eScience Professionals” serve in a new professional area of librarianship.

3. Job Analysis based on Focus Groups & Interviews Develop Job Search Criteria Extensive Job Search Job Market Analysis for eScience Professional Positions HigherEdJobs.com Monster.com • 45 eScience Professional related jobs were newly posted in academia(2/26-3/27). • 163 eScience Professional related jobs were newly posted in industry(2/26-3/27). 208 Jobs per a month on 2 websites

4. Research Objective Focuses the dimensions of work, worker, and workplace, including the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for eScience professionals Provides suggestions for curriculum and program development of eScience professional education

5. Background eScience Cyberinfrastructure Global collaboration in science and the next generation of infrastructure that will enable it (Hey et al. 2003) Expanded the scope beyond science and into engineering and industrial research and development Data Curation and Information Management Information Technology Use A “data deluge” as an inevitable side effect of eScience and cyberinfrastructure (Hey & Trefethen, 2003)

6. Literature Review • Digital curation curricula (Gordon, 2009; Grace, Anderson, & Lee, 2009; Waters & Allen, 2009) • Overlap between digital library versus digital curation curricula (Pomerantz et al. 2009) • Digital curationto serve researchers in the humanities (Renear et al. 2009) • Curriculum development issues for education of biological information specialists (Heidorn, Palmer, Cragin, & Smith, 2007; Heidorn, Palmer, & Wright, 2007; Palmer, Heidorn, Wright, & Cragin, 2007)

7. Research Focus Best serve students who choose to enter the education program for eScience professionals Skills & knowledge from the areas of librarianship Capabilities for making use of Cyberinfrastructure eScience Professional Education Through this research, we are going to explore the nature and balance of this mix.

8. Research Overview Design Prototype Revision & Evaluation • Interviews & Focus Groups with Directors and Researchers • Recruiting a Pilot Cohort of Students • Conduct Their Internships • Offer Suggestions for Curriculum and Program Development • Needs Analysis • Job Analysis of eScience Professionals • Internship Log & Questionnaire Analysis • Curriculum Test with a Cohort • Syllabi Adjustment • Additional Courses • Activity Modification

9. Method:Data Collection – Interview & Focus Group • Five interviews and five focus groups • 8 laboratory directors & 7 researchers in science and engineering research centers • Collect the job requirements of eScienceprofessionals • Work, worker qualifications, and work organizations • Asked these participants to describe: • The duties of eScienceprofessionals • The required characteristics • Their work environments • Any specific tools, equipment, or materials needed

10. Data Collection - Summer Internship • Placed five eScience professional master’s students in summer internships • Worked closely with researchers • Kept detailed logs of their activities • Elicited a variety of task, skill, and knowledge data • Completed an exit questionnaire that rated a range of tasks in both technical and content areas in terms of frequency and importance

11. Job Analysis Framework • Job analysis is the systematic investigation of work roles and worker qualifications • Two complementary strategies include work analysis and worker’s qualification analysis • We used Fine and Cronshaw’s (1999) job analysis framework, which hybridizes the work and worker approaches and which also takes the organizational context into account

12. Fine & Cronshaw’s (1999) Framework • Qualifications Analysis • Knowledge • Skills • Abilities • Experience • Education Worker • Task Analysis • Data • People • Things • Organizational Analysis • Principles • Policies • Procedures • Problems Work Work Organization Fine & Cronshaw (1999)

13. Data Analysis • Interviews and Focus Groups • Summer Internship Logs • Imported them into “QDA Miner” • Developed our own coding scheme by using both deductive and inductive approaches • Fine and Cronshaw’s(1999) job analysis framework used • Created a general data analysis scheme • Used an inductive approach to create more specific codes within each major category

14. Data Analysis Summary

15. Job Analysis Results:Work of eScience professionals

16. Worker’s Characteristics & Tools Used • Knowledge • Databases • Terminology and methods in domain area • Information technology • Programming or scripting • Skills • Administration • Communication • DB management • Programming/scripting • Project management • System administration • General computer skills • Ability • Work well in a team environment • Quickly learn new material • Ability to communicate with others • Tools Used • Collaboration software • Data sharing applications • Database systems • Project management software • Security technology • Web applications • OS/Server

17. Organizational Environment • Organizational missions: • Developing scientific findings by analyzing large data • Making those data accessible to other researchers • Collaboration with other relevant research centers • Major problems they have encountered • Overloading by huge data sets • Managing databases • Dealing with new technologies • Collaborating with distributed teams • Complexity of their data problems

18. Summer Internship Analysis Results:Work of eScience professionals • The results from the task analysis of internship logs were strikingly similar to those obtained from the interviews and focus groups • Three of five students mainly worked on data related tasks • All five students had extensive responsibilities for communicating with other people and investigating technology solutions • Three of the five students were further involved in both technology implementation processes

19. Exit Questionnaire Asked the students to report on the frequency and importance of the tasks

20. Worker’s Characteristics & Tools Used • Knowledge • Domain area knowledge • Database • Programming (or scripting) • General IT • Research methods and research ethics • Skills • Communication • Database management • Programming/scripting • Project management • Research • System administration • General computer skills • Ability • Work well in a team environment • Quickly learn new material • Ability to communicate with others • Tools Used • Database management • Citation organization • Data sharing • Project management • Collaboration

21. Organizational Environment • Worked with researchers and IT professionals • Three students also worked with professional colleagues whose work overlapped strongly with eScience • Organizations faced similar problems as those identified by interview and focus group participants

22. Discussion Three main roles of eScience Professionals including data curation, communication, and cyberinfrastructure First, eScience professionals need to have a range of data curation capabilities. Second, they play critical roles in bridging the research community and the IT infrastructure community. Finally, they function in one or another paraprofessional role, swinging the pendulum either toward the scientist or towards the IT professional.

23. Curriculum Considerations The courses on both databases and scientific data management are proved to be essential in preparing our students for their internship experiences. Project management was found to be a required course for eScience professionals. Both scientists and students mentioned that some capability for scripting or programming was worthwhile.

24. Curriculum Recommendation • Cyberinfrastructure • Overview of cyberinfrastructure • Information system management • Scripting or practical introductory programming • Web content management and Web interaction design • Data Curation • Digital data curation • Database design and management • Essentials of scientific research • Data mining • Communication • Distributed collaboration • Project Management

25. Limitations • It is possible that some of our findings are idiosyncratic to the small group of students and professionals involved in our study. • The roles of eScience professionals are still emerging and evolving in the workplace. • Our work here is an initial leg in an ongoing process of triangulation.

26. Conclusion • The unique skill sets of eScience professionals are not limited to the natural sciences. • We expect that significant demand will arise for eScience professionals in terms of data curation and cyberinfrastructure. • eScience professional’s roles may embody the new wave of librarianship. • Serving the education needs of eScience professionals can be a promising curricular and program focus in the LIS educations.

27. Thank you!

28. Questions? • More about Our Findings • A more complete report of this research program will be available in a special issue of Journal of Education for Library and Information Science. • Visit our website: http://ischool.syr.edu/research/eScience • Acknowledgements • This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant #OCI-0753372. • Prof. Jeffrey Stanton is the Principal Investigator of the project.