Doctoral candidate Tiffany Chao has been awarded ASIS&T’s Thomson Reuters Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Scholarship
for 2014. Sponsored by Thomson Reuters, the scholarship provides a
$1,500 cash award to support doctoral students with their dissertation
research. The award will be presented at the upcoming ASIS&T 2014
Annual Meeting in Seattle October 31 through November 5.
Proposal abstract:
The focus of this dissertation research is to inform metadata generation processes for data curation services by addressing the role of research “methods” description and its significance for data reuse. I introduce the term "methods metadata", or the type of information needed for basic comprehension of how data were produced in the scientific research context, to encapsulate this descriptive information. Through qualitative semi-structured interviews and content analysis of journal publications from the Earth Sciences, I investigate how to generate methods metadata and also identify and describe similarities and differences in how methods metadata needs to be described across Earth Science research areas. The results of this study will have implications for professionals working in libraries, repositories, and archives who will be responsible for or expected to assist in the curation of research data.
This summer Chao also received the 2014 Best Paper award in the ICPSR Data Curation Research Paper Competition for her paper titled “Exploring the Role of 'Research Methods' in Metadata Description for Data Reuse.” The first place prize includes a $1,000 award.