Ithaka S+R’s Building Campus Strategies for Data Support Services project is designed to survey the needs of data support providers for the purpose of developing standards, strategies and procedures that preserve, protect and promote the future of data sharing as advised by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. Binghamton University is one of ten institutions recently chosen to participate in Ithaka S+R’s second “Data Support Cohort.” The Libraries are pleased to announce that Amy Gay, assistant head of Digital Initiatives for digital scholarship, and David Schuster, senior director for library technology and digital strategies, will join Micheal Jacobson, director of the Office of Strategic Research Initiatives, and Nicolas Walling, innovations and research infrastructure developer, as participants in this important two-year project.
Binghamton’s representatives will engage with professionals from around the nation in active discourse and training surrounding the topic of data, with particular emphasis on how the services that institutions provide can better serve researchers and have a positive effect on the long term health of data collected. When qualitative and quantitative records are kept using easily reproducible methods, information has a better chance of being exchanged with a wider audience. Centralized data support has the power to provide both the institution of record and the researcher more direct attribution rates and help conserve essential resources as well.
Institutions that invest in securing research outcomes are at an advantage because external trends, and internal system and staffing changes can otherwise affect legacy information collection and distribution. “Ithaka’s project involves key factors that fit squarely within the Libraries’ five year Strategic Plan and have direct overlap with the Campus Roadmap,” according to David Schuster. “Training at the national level will inform our programs and enable Binghamton’s research community to remain directly connected to the best resources available.”