Social Science Data and ETDs: Issues and Challenges

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Social Science Data and ETDs Issues and
Challenges

• Joan Cheverie
• Georgetown University
• Myron Gutmann
• ICPSR University of Michigan
• Austin McLean
• ProQuest CSA

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Background

• Students explore the possibility of using
  existing data and/or whether new data must be
  collected to best answer the research question
  they are seeking to answer in their theses and
  dissertations
• New methods of collecting and analyzing data have
  enabled the development of more realistic models
  of complex social and behavioral phenomena, the
  integration of disparate datasets to enable
  deeper study and knowledge creation, and the
  collection of better data through simulations,
  etc.

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Philosophical and Legal Considerations

• Many data not under the control of the researcher
• Will ETDs make it more difficult for students to
  be published elsewhere since results are
  immediately available?
• How are intellectual property rights managed?
• What are the rules for deposit?
• Does this extend to source material?
• How do we get students to prepare their data for
  deposit and preservation?

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Policy Considerations

• What types of data and objects will be eligible
  to be included?
• Who is responsible for making those decisions?
• Who is responsible for ingest and maintenance?
• How is data migration managed and data integrity
  monitored?
• What are the costs?

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Technical Considerations

• What are the curation tasks for data?
• Can institutions carry these out on their own?
• What kind of technological developments are
  necessary to link data to their related
  publication?
• Building infrastructure between repositories and
  infrastructure supporting preservation and
  curation of data is key
• What are the characteristics of this
  infrastructure?

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Background - UMI Dissertation Publishing

• Publishing graduate research since 1938.
• Over the past 69 years, UMI has published over 2
  million dissertations and theses.
• Publish 70,000 dissertations and theses each
  year from 700 graduate schools in the U.S.,
  Canada, and elsewhere
• National Repository for Dissertations as
  designated by Library of Congress (Collection
  moves to LC should ProQuest CSA cease
  dissertation database).
• Provide access to graduate works through the
  ProQuest Dissertations Theses (PQDT) database,
  and other channels to academia.

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Dissertation Publishing Strategy

• Mission
• As the primary publisher of dissertations and
  theses, our mission is to support higher
  education by meeting the universitys need to
  provide a record of scholarly productivity and
  ensuring that graduate works remain significant
  contributions to the primary literature

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Dissertations Publishing Program

• Since 1997, digitizing all newly submitted paper
  PhDs / MAs
• Since 2003, accepted ETDs via ETD Administrator
  Website (dissertations.umi.com)
• Increasingly receiving files with multimedia
  component (Of 870,000 digital files, 1,000 have
  multimedia component)
• Adding ability to download datasets / multimedia
  files to PQDT database in 2007/08

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Issues around data sets / multimedia

• Preservation / Migration
• What are the preservation expectations of the
  universities that submit dissertations and theses
  to ProQuest CSA?
• What file types do university publishing partners
  expect ProQuest CSA to commit to migrate?
• Publishing Services
• Will the published version differ from the
  pre-print version?
• What permissions will need to accompany
  dissertations/theses?
• What type of material review should be put in
  place at ProQuest CSA? At the University?
• Are the needs / expectations of the Graduate
  Schools different than the Library?

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Issues around data sets / multimedia (continued)

• Access / Searching
• How will data sets / multimedia files be
  discovered? What are additional metadata
  requirements for tagging files to facilitate
  search? Are there new and different search
  requirements?
• Author Considerations
• What audience should the author consider in
  determining what data sets / multimedia files to
  include?
• Committee members / Chair?
• Peers / Researchers?
• General population of interested readers?
• All of the above?
• How would material restriction affect each of
  these audiences?

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Data Sharing in the Social Sciences

• Origins with Polling, Political Science,
  Government Data in the 1940s-1960s
• Well-developed infrastructure of Independent
  University Data Archives
• Some Professional Association Ethics codes
  require sharing
• Some Journals require sharing of data in
  publications

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Why What, Where?

• Why?
• Data sharing reflects transparency
• Data sharing allows replication
• What?
• All data?
• Only exact data used in analysis?
• Only results not fully reported in the thesis or
  dissertation?
• Where?
• On Campus (Institutional Repository)?
• Central ETD repository (ProQuest CSA)?
• Specialized Content Repository (eg ICPSR)?

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Intellectual Property Issues

• How do we protect students intellectual property
  to ensure that they can publish and build their
  careers?
• What if the data dont belong to the student?
• Data belonging to faculty (mentors or others)?
• Data belonging to third parties (eg evaluation
  studies in education)?
• Data that are a small subset of a larger
  collection?

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Equity Issues

• Many students are using digital information in
  their thesis and dissertations
• Examples
• Digital photos of archival documents
• Digital images of works of art
• Why limit a requirement to students in social
  science or other fields with data?
• What if policies differ from campus to campus?

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Data Content Curation

• Sharable data require fairly extensive
  preparation to be usable
• Is the student responsible for that preparation?
• If not the student, then whom?
• How does data curation differ from curation of
  other content?

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Questions for Discussion

• Whats the Policy and Who Makes it?
• Intellectual Property
• Technology
• Why, What, Where?
• Who Curates?