2022 CLIR Postdoctoral Fellowship Program - Summer Seminar Presentation - Alumni Lightning Talk

Synopsis: This formal presentation was presented on Wednesday,  August 31, 2022 at the 1 pm | Alumni Lightning Talks (Part II) | Attendees: Supervisors & Fellows session via Zoom as part of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program Community Data Fellowship Summer Seminar. The CLIR Postdoctoral Fellowship Program were looking for five to ten fellows and alumni to present quick, simple three-minute lightning talks (i.e. three slides) that center on skill acquisition or collaboration to address a project or research need during the course of the fellowship or a more recent position or project. This presentation is on a more recent electronic lab notebook (ELN) project. The presentation had to address the following three criteria:

1. The need you had to address (could be a research question, technical problem)
2. The skill set you identified to address the problem and how you acquired it (it could be training or a workshop you took personally or collaborating with a colleague with the needed skills and experience)
3. The outcome of the project

The presentation includes: survey responses from a question on basic set of 'core' features for an institutional-wide ELN solution from a 2020 ELN Qualtrics survey [Note: 157 participants (i.e. faculty, scientists, students, staff) completed the 14 questions survey], a socio-technical systems (Davis et al., 2014) theory approach to better understanding ELN/research data management program development influenced by 2014 - 2016 CLIR Postdoc experience as chair of the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded EarthCube Technical and Architecture Committee Gap Analysis Working Group which prepared for current position as chair of the Data Management and Curation Working Group, and select outcomes, including timeline of key events leading to current investigation of ELNs by an official University ELN Working Group which will evaluate, select, and recommend a potential institutional-ELN solution.  This presentation may interest CLIR Postdocs, graduate students, librarians, data managers, early career researchers, and stakeholders. "Successful data sharing ultimately depends on cultural and social infrastructures as much as on technical infrastructures" (Ruediger et al., 2022).

Disclaimer: An open competitive procurement approach is currently in process. This presentation accentuates progress leading to current efforts. An official University ELN Working Group comprised of management, PIs, research, academic units, scientists at all levels and the institute's IT department and the Libraries developed a series of questions which were submitted to three vendors. The University ELN Working Group is currently developing formal assessment and selection of an institution-wide ELN solution for submission to senior leadership for further consideration based on responses to ELN evaluative questions and vendor presentations. Thus, ELN presentations, task force, and working group contribute to gathering information for final decision-making stakeholders. "Rather than depending on individual researchers or labs, these efforts should be based on the premise that long-term stewardship of digital data — the intellectual assets of the university — is a critical responsibility of the university as a whole" (Erway, 2013).