Social Science Data and ETDs: Issues and Challenges

Joan CheverieGeorgetown University

Myron GutmannICPSR – University of Michigan

Austin McLeanProQuest CSA

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.

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?

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?

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?

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.

Dissertation Publishing Strategy

Mission

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

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

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?

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?

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

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)?

Intellectual Property Issues

How do we protect students’ intellectual property to ensure that they can publish and build their careers?

What if the data don’t 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?

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?

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?

Questions for Discussion

What’s the Policy and Who Makes it? Intellectual Property Technology Why, What, Where? Who Curates?