Re-orienting the role of the Information Specialist in the

knowledge societyGAELIC Summer Training Camp 2010

16 November 2010Venue: National Library of South Africa

Dr Daisy SelematselaExecutive Director: Knowledge Management & Evaluation

Outline

• Publicly funded research• Data driven science• Scientific paradigm• Data management• Electronic Document & Records

Management System (eDRMS)• CoP’s• Info Specialist Value add!

Publicly funded research

“Publicly funded research data are a public good, produced in the public interest. As such they should remain in the public realm. Availability should be restricted only by legitimate considerations of national security restrictions; protection of confidentiality and privacy; intellectual property rights; and time-limited exclusive use by principal investigators.”

Data Driven Science

wireless

cabled

2000 2010

Scientific Principles

• Research findings together with the data should be available for others to refute, confirm, clarify, or extend the results – part of public accountability

• Responsibility to funders and to society to use resources efficiently (data are often under-exploited)

• Important to reduce response burden• Increasing international responsibilities

Importance of establishing policies on data access, sharing

and preservation

Internationally by multi-lateral bodiesNationally by• funding agencies• universities or university consortia• professional societies• data producers Policies need an implementation plan

which must pay attention to the incentives (sticks and carrots)

Benefits of data sharing

• Development of knowledge• Encourage greater exploitation of data and therefore

greater impact• Contribute to sound policy decisions• Foster multiple perspectives on data• Facilitate comparative research• Create knowledgeable data community• Provide feedback on data and improve data quality• Improve citations and competitiveness• Improve quality and relevance of teaching

Partnership with data intermediaries

• for both technical work and advocacy; partnership across the data archiving, data librarian, statistical and research communities is to be encouraged– Preservation– Metadata and documentation– Providing access– Keeping records– Running user training

Dissemination of data & metadata via portal networks

Preservation is essential

• Having collected data at some cost to the public and taxpayer, it behoves us to manage them well.

• Alongside dissemination, this entails data preservation.• Due to poor data management, human error as well as

technical change and inadequate use of technology, many data sets are no longer readable.

• Thus all that remains of this important legacy are the, often quite superficial, reports or papers that were produced at the time.

• To this extent an important part of our heritage is lost and we are severely limited in our analysis of change.

• Long term preservation of electronic material is not a straightforward task especially with data sets which have embedded software

• It can be hard to persuade financial authorities to spend money on the preservation of data for historians and researchers of the future, when there are so many pressing problems today.

eDRMS

• Data & Records Stewardship – Legislative compliance– Promote access procedures– Data & Records Repurposing• Promote best practice in data/records use and

sharing • Tools - SharePoint / Meridio; Hummingbird;

AlFresco etc.

Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice are not about bringing knowledge

into

the organisation but really about helping it

grow...

Differentiators

• A domain of knowledge. The domain creates common ground and a sense of community purpose. A well-defined domain legitimizes the community by affirming its purpose and value to members and other stakeholders. i.e SARChI (South African Research Chairs & CoE (Centres of Excellence)

• A community of people who care about this domain. A strong community fosters interactions and relationships based on mutual respect and trust.

• The shared practice that they are developing to be effective in their domain. The practice is a set of frameworks, idea, tools, information, styles, languages, stories and documents that community members share.

Addressing Our Culture

Connecting People with Information and People with People with Our Communities

Multiple Business Units

MANY TALENTS ONE TEAM

DRIVING INNOVATION THROUGH ENTERPRISE SOCIAL NETWORKING

Re-users

Occasional Contributors

Core Team Members

Community of Practice – Example of set up

Community Members

Core Team Members

Community Boundary

Community Leader

Explicit vs Tacit Knowledge in Communities of Practice

Levels of EngagementL

evel

s o

f E

ng

agem

ent

Feedback

Browse - Search - Learn

Engage

Become a Member

Share

Contribute

Wisdom

Q & A

Subject Matter Expert

Mentor

Waxing and Waning Interest

Types of Engagement

The1%Rule

For every 100 people online only 1 person will create content and 10 will “interact” with it. The other 89 will just view it.

Each day at YouTube there are 100 million downloads and 65,000 uploads

50% of all Wikipedia article edits are done by 0.7% of users, and more than 70% of all articles have been written by just 1.8% of all

users

In Yahoo Groups, 1% of the user population might start a group; 10% of the user population might participate actively. 100% of the user

population benefits from the activities of the above groups

What can you accomplish in...?

Lots

of Time1

Hour

5 H

ours

10 H

oursNo

Time

Start a discussion

Read a wiki Read a blog

Upload a document

Read a document

Read a forum post

Contribute to a wiki

Add an event

Write a blog

Comment on a Blog

Respond to a forum posting

ONE WEEK

Be a community member

Facilitate a

community

Measure and Monitor

Don’t rely on metrics to claim your community is successful.

Use metrics to understand your

community better..

Concluding remarks – competing in the knowledge society

• The growing importance of higher education & research as drivers of economic growth has led to an increase in international competition between countries, institutions and researchers.– University rankings– Bibliometrics– Evaluating research– Project funding

Concluding remarks: Information Specialist impact factor!

• Bibliometrics

• University rankings

• Evaluating research

• Project funding

• Widely used to evaluate performance & impact of research.• Heavily based on bibliometrics;• Taken as signals of quality in a global environment.

• National governments & agencies evaluate the quality of research, performance of Depts, & most productive individual. Exercise use quantitative indicators such as bibliometrics.

• Competitive project funding is increasingly used in research financing (peer-review/bibliometric profile).

Monitoring & Evaluation

Appraisals, Reviews & Evaluations

Evaluation and rating of researchers– Develop appropriate documentation and marketing tools; appropriate

management, processes for mining data and reporting tools– Processing of applications for evaluation and rating– Administrative processes and implement appropriate improvements to the

system

I want a B rating

I want an A rating

No B for me

I got an A C ?

Enkosi, Thank you, Re a leboga, Siyabonga, Dankie

RISA