Dr. Sayeed Choudhury, “Research Data Curation at Scale”
UF Informatics Institute, Inaugural Speaker Series, Spring 2016

When: March 28, 2016, 10-11:30am

Where: UFII Conference Room (432 Newell Dr. CISE Bldg. E252, Gainesville, FL 32611)

Abstract: As the research community considers how to share, preserve and reuse data, there are initial lessons learned from large-scale data infrastructure development efforts such as the Data Conservancy, which was initially funded through the NSF’s Datanet program. These lessons learned highlight the importance of treating data as primary research objects and curating data from the early stages of its creation. Additionally, there is great potential through the adoption of linked data and use of information graphs. While there are promising developments within the academic community, a broader question relates to why the corporate sector seems to offer more compelling success stories that provide tangible value for their customers. It is possible that the attributes of control, interpretation and effort provide useful lenses from which to examine these questions and outline strategic approaches for research data curation at scale.

Biography: G. Sayeed Choudhury is the Associate Dean for Research Data Management and Hodson Director of the Digital Research and Curation Center at the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the Executive Committee for the Institute of Data Intensive Engineering and Science (IDIES) based at Johns Hopkins. He is a member of the Board of the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and a member of the Advisory Board for OpenAIRE2020. He has been a member of the National Academies Board on Research Data and Information, the ICPSR Council, the DuraSpace Board, Digital Library Federation advisory committee, Library of Congress’ National Digital Stewardship Alliance Coordinating Committee and Federation of Earth Scientists Information Partnership (ESIP) Executive Committee. He has been a Senior Presidential Fellow with the Council on Library and Information Resources, a Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins and a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the recipient of the 2012 OCLC/LITA Kilgour Award. He has testified for the Research Subcommittee of the Congressional Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Choudhury has served as principal investigator for projects funded through the National Science Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, Library of Congress’ NDIIPP, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Microsoft Research, and a Maryland based venture capital group.  He is the Principal Investigator for the Data Conservancy, one of the original awards through NSF’s DataNet program, and acted as the technical lead for the Roman de la Rose Digital Library and the Archaeology of Reading projects. He has oversight for data curation research and development and data archive implementation at the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University. Choudhury has published articles in journals such as the International Journal of Digital Curation, D-Lib, the Journal of Digital Information, First Monday, and Library Trends. He has served on committees for the Digital Curation Conference, Open Repositories, Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, and Web-Wise. He has presented at various conferences including Educause, CNI, JISC-CNI, DLF, ALA, ACRL, and international venues including IFLA, the Kanazawa Information Technology Roundtable, eResearch Australasia, the North America-China Conference, eResearch New Zealand and the Arabian-Gulf Chapter of the Special Libraries Conference.

Related Resources:

• Archaeology of Reading: http://archaeologyofreading.org/
• Data Conservancy: https://dataconservancy.org/
• Roman de la RoseDigital Library: http://romandelarose.org/

This event is free and open to the public.

For additional information, contact Alethea Geiger (ageiger0213@ufl.edu) or Laurie Taylor (laurien@ufl.edu).

Sponsors:

This UF Informatics Institute Inaugural Speaker Series event is co-sponsored by the UF Smathers Libraries, and the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (Rothman Endowment).

About the UF Informatics Institute, Inaugural Speaker Series, Spring 2016

The inaugural UF Informatics Institute (UFII) Inaugural Speaker Series supports the dynamic vision of UFII, which was created based on the recognition that informatics and data science are changing the way we do research in nearly every field of study. UFII has four interrelated thrust areas:

• Informatics Techniques and Technologies
• Biomedical and Life Science Informatics
• Informatics for Engineered Systems and the Physical Sciences
• Informatics in Social Science, Humanities, and Education