Re-orienting the role of the Information Specialist in the knowledge society

1. Re-orienting the role of the Information Specialist in the knowledge society GAELIC Summer Training Camp 2010 16 November 2010 Venue: National Library of South Africa Dr Daisy Selematsela Executive Director: Knowledge Management & Evaluation

2. Outline • Publicly funded research • Data driven science • Scientific paradigm • Data management • Electronic Document & Records Management System (eDRMS) • CoP’s • Info Specialist Value add!

3. 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.”

4. Data Driven Science wireless 2010 2000 cabled

5. 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

6. Importance of establishing policies on data access, sharing and preservation Internationally by multi-lateral bodies Nationally 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)

7. 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

8. 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

9. Dissemination of data & metadata via portal networks

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. Communities of Practice are not about bringing knowledge into the organisation but really about helping it grow... Communities of Practice

14. 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.

15. Addressing Our Culture Multiple Business Units ONE TEAM MANY TALENTS DRIVING INNOVATION THROUGH ENTERPRISE SOCIAL NETWORKING Connecting People with Information and People with People with Our Communities

16. Community of Practice – Example of set up Community Leader Core Team Members Core Team Members Community Members Occasional Contributors Re-users Community Boundary

17. Explicit vs Tacit Knowledge in Communities of Practice

18. Levels of Engagement Subject Matter Expert Wisdom Mentor Share Q & A Contribute Engage Become a Member Levels of Engagement Feedback Browse - Search - Learn Waxing and Waning Interest Types of Engagement

19. 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. The Important Message is: Look after your Content Creators! The Important Message is: Look after your Content Creators! Each day at YouTube there are 100 million downloads and 65,000 uploads 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 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

20. What can you accomplish in...? ONE WEEK Start a discussion Read a wiki Read a blog Upload a document Read a forum post Contribute to a wiki Be a community member Facilitate a community Add an event Write a blog Read a document Comment on a Blog Respond to a forum posting 1 Hour No Time 5 Hours 10 Hours Lots of Time

21. Measure and Monitor Don’t rely on metrics to claim your community is successful. Use metrics to understand your community better..

22. 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

23. 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). Concluding remarks: Information Specialist impact factor!

24. Monitoring & EvaluationAppraisals, 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 I got an A C ? No B for me

25. Enkosi,Thank you, Re a leboga, Siyabonga, Dankie RISA