Sep 30, 2015 Library Partners with Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR)

For those who ask “What goes on in libraries now that everything is online?” Here is one answer.

Assistant Librarian Rebekah Cummings (Left) and Associate Librarian Anne Morrow (Right) have been working closely with the Office for Undergraduate Research (OUR) in publishing the research projects of undergraduate students and in teaching them data management skills.

Anne has worked with Rachel Hayes-Harb in transforming the U’s Undergraduate Research Journal (which contains the students’ work) from a costly and cumbersome print journal to an online journal that is now available to all. The new issue is now available online among a library of open access publications hosted by J. Willard Marriott Library at epubs.utah.edu.

Formerly Undergraduate Research Abstracts, the name change reflects the journal’s new focus to welcome submissions from undergraduates across all disciplines. Submissions can now include images of art work, links to performances, traditional research abstracts, and more.

In tandem with the work on the journal, the library is also involved in teaching undergraduates data management skills. Rebekah Cummings has been providing these training sessions to students who are currently engaged in research (also through OUR). Topics that she covers include:

• Why data management is important
• How to write a data management plan
• Data Organization (File Naming, Version, Control, Folder Structures)
• Describing Data
• Storage and Archiving Data

Anne Morrow concluded by saying that, “The newly-created Scholarly Communication department at the Marriott Library is committed to providing access to the scholarship produced by faculty and students at the University of Utah.  The partnership with OUR has been a wonderful opportunity to get involved in promoting the important contributions of undergraduate students to research and creative work produced on campus.”