Classes, Workshops and Internships
Workshops
Writing Your Data Management Plan. AGU Fall Meeting Workshop sponsored by the ESIP Federation (December 2010).
2011 Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) Summer Institute for Data Curation, which focused on the life sciences. Data Conservancy (DC) funded individuals also served as participant volunteers and coordinators of the event. Over the course of the institute, participants considered best practices for managing and preserving various data types, questions surrounding multi-scale data collections, and data identity and ontologies. (June 6-9, 2011, 41 attendees)
Research Data Workforce Summit (in conjunction with the International Digital Curation Conference) for DataNet partners and other affiliated educators, to share information and promote collaboration on education initiatives dedicated to advancing the research data workforce. Thirteen speakers covered perspectives from government, data centers, and educators, gaps in the workforce, and current education initiatives. One session was devoted to Data Conservancy and DataOne initiatives. Over the course of the summit, three prominent themes across the presentations and discussions are outlined in the report: advancing professional education, coordination across disciplines and sectors, and key educational challenges. (December 6, 2010, 31 attendees)
Data Management 101 for the Earth Scientist. AGU Fall Meeting Workshop sponsored by NOAA and the Data Conservancy, and conducted by the ESIP Federation (December 2011).
Classes
The Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign continues to enhance the Data Curation specialization. The Specialization in Data Curation offers a focus on data collection, representation, and management, digital preservation and archiving, data standards, and policy. In the 2010-2011 school year, courses specific to this program served 128 enrollments with both face-to-face and online students.
As part of the Data Conservancy, two case studies were developed, with one focusing on lessons learned in the Data Conservancy Infrastructure development and the other focusing on Data Management Services. The completed case studies will be implemented into educational units within GSLIS courses.
Course and program information from 63 international library schools, covering iSchools and other LIS schools, were manually harvested from online course catalogs to understand the state of education in the field and to assess how the data-intensive workforce demands in data curation, data management, and data science were being met by today’s curriculum. Refinement of the dataset based on qualitative review and verification by the institutions as of the fall of 2011 resulted in 476 courses at 55 institutions for analysis showing the high level of coverage of at least some aspects of data expertise. This data and the results of the study can be analyzed by visiting the Data Curation Curriculum Search website.
Internships
A DC internship program was developed and piloted with Illinois Masters student placement in the summer of 2011. We placed two students at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). These placements were partially funded by the Data Curation Education Program. One placement focused on archival activities for an 8-week term, and the other spent 12 weeks working on metadata, collection management and preservation activities. In addition to the significant length of time for these fieldwork opportunities (which in the past have generally 6-weeks long), the mentor at NSIDC secured funding from the University of Colorado – Boulder to support half of the 12-week placement. One placement also occurred at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 2011.
To be eligible for the internships, students must have completed a minimum of 14 course credits and required core courses.