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University Information Technology Services News Room

IU selected as partner in new data curation fellowship program

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 24, 2012

Technical editors: A version of this news release for the general public is also available at: http://ovpitnews.iu.edu/news/page/normal/22121.html

BLOOMINGTON, Ind.— Scientific data is being created at a level never before seen in human history, underscoring the need for curators to ensure that this vital information is maintained for today—and tomorrow.

Indiana University has long been a leader in "big data" initiatives, and the trend continues. In a joint effort between its Data to Insight Center and the IU Libraries, Indiana University has been selected as one of the partner institutions in the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)/Digital Library Federation (DLF) Data Curation Fellowship Program.

The program will provide recent Ph.D.'s with professional development, education, and training opportunities in data curation for the natural and social sciences. IU's fellow will work with the Sustainable Environment-Actionable Data (SEAD) project, a major National Science Foundation-funded DataNet project, and the HathiTrust Research Center, both joint ventures of the Data to Insight Center and the IU Libraries.

The fellowship's creation coincides with the Obama Administration's recent announcement of the "Big Data Research and Development Initiative," which recognizes the importance of training the next generation of data scientists.

"The scientific data projects we work on with the IU Libraries are of the nature of the 'long tail' as described by Anderson and Shirky," says Beth Plale, director of the Data to Insight Center and managing director of the Pervasive Technology Institute. "The 'long tail' of research data is complex, large, and valuable in science when taken collectively and over time. The preservation and curation of this data is critical to advancing science."

For the program's first cohort, CLIR is now recruiting six data curation fellows in cooperation with its partner institutions: Indiana University; Lehigh University; McMaster University; Purdue University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the University of Michigan. Recent Ph.D.'s who are interested in the Indiana University fellowship should visit http://www.clir.org/fellowships/datacuration/position-descriptions.

The award is being supplemented by funding from the Data to Insight Center and the IU Libraries to create a two-year postdoctoral fellow experience.

"This is a terrific opportunity for a postdoctoral fellow to get hands-on experience with library, domain, and computer science experts addressing real problems in data preservation of sustainability science," says Brenda Johnson, Ruth Lilly Dean of the IU Libraries.

Recent PhDs who are interested in the Indiana University fellowship can visit http://www.clir.org/fellowships/datacuration/position-descriptions.

About the Data to Insight Center

The Data to Insight Center engages in interdisciplinary research and education in the preservation of scientific data, digital humanities, large-scale data management, data analytics, and visualization. It is part of the Pervasive Technology Institute, IU's flagship initiative for advanced information technology research, development, and delivery in support of research, scholarship, and artistic performances. See: http://d2i.indiana.edu

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