UMSI PhD student Morgan Daniels proudly accepts the Best Paper Award for her co-researchers at the international iConference in February. Presenting the honors were University of Washington iSchool dean Harry Bruce (left) and Eric Hall of Emerald Group Publishing, the company that sponsored the award.

UMSI Professor Elizabeth Yakel and two doctoral students, Morgan Daniels and Kathleen Fear, were recognized with a Best Paper Award at the 2012 iConference in Toronto. “Managing Fixity and Fluidity in Data Repositories” was co-authored with Ixchel Faniel, a researcher with OCLC and former UMSI faculty member.

The paper is based on data from the Dissemination Information Packages for Data Reuse (DIPIR) project funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services and led by Faniel, principal investigator, and Yakel, co-principal investigator.

The initial call for participation in the conference resulted in 360 submissions, with 53 papers being accepted for presentation. According to the conference organizers, “the resulting high overall quality of accepted material was a testament to the ever-increasing quality of the iConference series.” Papers at the conference are submitted by international participants and cover the vast array of information topics available at iSchools.

Reviews of the paper stated: “The methodology applied by the research team shows the value of empirical, interpretive research in identifying and assessing the sometime conflicting needs of the repositories and the designated communities their serve.”

“By examining data transformation in three different repositories, the researchers are able to identify the needs proper of each designated community and to analyze the complex relationship between curators and creators/users of the data. The analysis of the findings is very thorough and offers great insights. More empirical studies like this would be needed especially in the area of digital curation, where we lack understanding of the specific needs and expectations of the different communities involved in the creation, management, and preservation of research data.”

A link to download the paper is available here.

In addition Professor Paul Edwards participated in a panel on "The State of Infrastructure Studies" with David Ribes, Steve Jackson, Jillian Wallace, and UMSI doctoral student Ayse Buyuktur at the iConference.