SHAREOK Gives Access to Scholarly Work

Access to scholarly work and research is an incredibly important aspect of any university curriculum. Luckily, the Oklahoma State University Libraries have made accessing scholarly work easier than ever with SHAREOK.

SHAREOK is a joint institutional repository for the Oklahoma State University Libraries, the University of Oklahoma Libraries and the University of Central Oklahoma Max Chambers Library.

Essentially, it is a place for students and faculty to deposit digital versions of their work. SHAREOK houses theses, dissertations, research reports and more from some incredibly talented and brilliant people across the state. Why is this so important? Well, the documents are all open access, meaning they can be read by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Because the documents on SHAREOK are all open access, this provides students with a way to find scholarly work after they graduate. For a student like myself who will graduate in May, this is exciting news. I currently have access to a plethora of databases provided by the library, yet once May rolls around, that access will no longer be available. SHAREOK allows students like myself to transition into their postgraduate lives while preserving one of the educational assets they had at OSU.

Juliana Nykolaiszyn, a professor in the Digital Resources and Discovery Services department at the OSU library, is responsible for maintaining SHAREOK at OSU.

“The whole goal is to make everything open, accessible and free,” Juliana said. “Not only for students here at OSU, but throughout the state of Oklahoma and worldwide.”

Students are not the only ones who benefit from this platform. When faculty submit their work to SHAREOK, they gain another layer of visibility in the scholarly world. Rather than just allowing it to sit on their computers, unseen and unused, professors can submit their articles, presentations, posters or other work to SHAREOK where anyone in the world may now find it.

Clarke Iakovakis, an assistant professor in Research and Learning Services, works to increase the visibility of SHAREOK at OSU. He explained some of the benefits faculty gain by submitting their work to the repository.

“It’s this movement toward making what has been invisible more visible,” Clarke said. “There are people who are interested in really building their online scholarly profiles and sharing the work that they do. Downstream, other researchers can benefit from it, but it also can help build their profiles as researchers.”

While the benefits to students and faculty may be evident, the benefits of SHAREOK extend beyond what we see at OSU. Professionals in every industry have access to the material. The research conducted at OSU is often publically funded, so why shouldn’t the public be able to learn from the research, too? Furthermore, peer-reviewed research has traditionally been limited by subscription-only paywalls, the costs of which have risen dramatically in the last two decades. SHAREOK provides everyone with a way to continue learning and using the information on the platform without the financial burden of paying for a subscription service.

People around the globe can explore the information available on the platform. They may discover something that, had they been required to purchase access, they may never have learned. After all, knowledge is one of the greatest treasures. Why shouldn’t we share ours with the world?

Posted by Jenny Berry, electronic communications intern

Available Online

With the craziness of school, work and daily life, finding time to get to the library can be tough.

Luckily, the OSU Library knows this and has created several ways for students to continue learning and using the library without walking through Edmon Low’s big brass doors.

The library provides an abundance of online services and resources to students at Oklahoma State. Anywhere Library Access allows students who are off campus to simply log on using their OSU email and password. They can then access thousands of databases, articles, books and journals that are online or can be requested and picked up at the library.

Teryn Moorman, the OSU Library event communications intern, said she is thankful for the library’s online access, especially during her busy pre-finals and finals weeks.

“I can complete assignments from the comfort of my own home,” Teryn said. “I can also keep learning over breaks!”

Document Delivery is another favorite among students. The library is home to millions of books, and I feel extremely fortunate to have this resource at the tips of my fingers. However, while books are a resource that we have tons of, time is not. Document Delivery makes the potentially time-intensive task of finding a book stress-free. Students can go to the library’s website and request the book they need. The book will be retrieved and placed at the Circulation Desk for students to grab on the way to the next activity in their hectic schedules.

Even with the plethora of books at the library, sometimes it just doesn’t have the book you’re looking for. Not to worry, the library planned for this too. Interlibrary Services allows students to go online and request books, articles, journals and more! If available, ILS simply borrows the requested material from another library or institution and, when it arrives, places it at the Circulation Desk to be picked up.

Alex Cooper, a graduate student at OSU, uses Document Delivery and ILS regularly.

“ILS and Doc Delivery are great, especially when I’m in a hurry,” Alex said. “I like being able to just go pick the book up. It saves me a lot of time.”

But it doesn’t stop there. Students can go online to book study rooms, browse the library’s digital collections and even renew books. Citation and research guides, digital maps, databases and more are also available online.

Personally, I use the study room reservation and book renewal services the most. I find the online study room reservation system particularly convenient because when it comes to group projects, finding somewhere on campus to get together is tough. Reserving a room online ensures that my group will have a quiet place to work, and it only takes about 30 seconds to make the reservation! It couldn’t be easier.

The services I’ve mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg. They are there to facilitate learning and make students’ lives just a bit simpler. I’m incredibly thankful to have these services available to me, and I know my experience at OSU would have been a lot different without the Edmon Low Library and its resources.

If you ever have questions about the online services and resources the library offers, you can always chat with someone at the library. Don’t worry, you can do that online too.

Posted by Jenny Berry, electronic communications intern

Information Overload: How Students Consume Media

Media, news, information, data, whatever you call it, we are surrounded by it every day. Yet with the changes in media culture we’ve experienced over the last several years, the ways we consume media has also changed. Especially for students.

Oklahoma State was one of 11 universities that participated in a study about students’ news consumption habits. The study was done through Project Information Literacy, a nonprofit research institute that, according to the group’s website, “conducts ongoing, national studies on what it is like being a student in the digital age.” The OSU Library had the unique opportunity to serve as the liaison between OSU and the authors of the study.

While many people, myself included, might assume that most college students obtain the news through social media, the study found that most students are “multi-modal.” This means they consume media through social media, online newspapers and discussions with peers and professors.

The report details five big takeaways from the research, including a summary of the various pathways millennials take to get the news, and how and why students share news on social media.

The findings are followed by recommendations and solutions made by journalists, librarians and educators. One of the most important and interesting solutions, in my opinion, is teaching students from an early age to read the news critically and ask questions in order to develop “mental and intellectual frameworks for credibility testing of information,” (Head, Wihbey, Metaxas, MacMillan, & Cohen, 2018).

Matt Upson, the director of undergraduate instruction and outreach services at the library, believes that teaching students to evaluate the news is crucial to their understanding of their world.

“Traditional media is often portrayed as 'fake news,' and the nature of social media often prevents us from figuring out exactly where our information is coming from,” Upson said. “It can be easy to confuse what’s misinformation and what’s true.”

He hopes that the librarians, faculty and staff at OSU can create a supportive environment where students can continue reading and digesting the news in an informed manner.

“Students are interested in news; they want to share it, to be participants, to make a difference,” he said. “How can we help them do that and be more effective and efficient users of media?”

Teaching students to critically read the news and ask questions provides them with a foundation to consume information analytically and think for themselves. It is our responsibility as consumers to engage with the news. We cannot turn a blind eye to the events around us, but we cannot blindly accept everything we read, either.

This study is incredibly important for students, journalists, educators and librarians. If you’re interested in reading more about this study, you can find the full report at www.projectinfolit.org.

Sources:
Head, A. J., Wihbey, J., Metaxas, P., MacMillan, M., & Cohen, D. (2018, October). How Students Engage with News: Five Takeaways for Educators, Journalists, and Librarians (Rep.). Retrieved http://www.projectinfolit.org/uploads/2/7/5/4/27541717/newsexecutivesummary.pdf

Posted by Jenny Berry, electronic communications intern

Data and Software Carpentries

What is Data Science?

Well, simply put, it is the act of collecting new and insightful ideas and methods from data sets. The modern world revolves around data, and data is an important factor in any business or organization. You have your finances, your social media interaction, your production, your employee and partner information - the list goes on. No matter where you are in life, you’re going to have to deal with data at some point. Data Science deals specifically with digital data, which is based on various systems of code that are interpreted, processed and altered by computers.

The Data and Software Carpentries are programs that are looking to teach people how to conveniently and effectively manage the data that they gather in their businesses, organizations and even research opportunities at school. The benefits are that research becomes less painful, and the techniques learned through the data carpentries lead to more research being done more effectively.

According to Phillip Doehle, the program coordinator in the Oklahoma State University High Performance Computing Center, the tagline of the Carpentries is to “help researchers get their work done with less pain and more convenience.”

Software and Data Carpentry are not the same thing, though there is much overlapping between the two and many of the same tools are used. The difference is that Data Carpentry deals with a method of organizing data in an easy and understandable way so that interpretation and analysis are more simple and convenient. A huge factor that plays into Data Carpentry is the Data Lifecycle, which consists of data collection, data organization/cleaning, data analysis and a positive production trend.

Alternatively, Software Carpentry focuses on programming skills and techniques such as software development. Coding is a big tool within this program, which is used to create a reproducible method. According to Evan Linde, a research cyberinfrastructure analyst from the OSU High Performance Computing Center, Software Carpentry can give you the introductory knowledge needed to get you out of a tight situation. For example, a graduate student struggling with a data problem can learn how to write a specific bit of code needed to link multiple processes together and solve that problem.

Now you might be thinking, “I have no experience with stuff like this, and I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with it!” According to the official Data Carpentry website, their initial target audience is “learners with little to no computational experience.” Even if there is a bit of a learning curve, the experience and benefits gained are worth the time investment.

Software and Data Carpentries are starting points for coding and data management. The idea of the Carpentries is “Reproducible Data.” What this means is that the data can be duplicated through different means. When a data set is duplicated through different methods, then error risks are reduced, results are validated and it shows that the data can be adaptive to multiple different conditions.

While the techniques learned in the Carpentries can be very useful and informative, they don’t necessarily make you ready to immediately go out and work at a research facility. The Carpentries have a larger emphasis on the academics of research rather than an industrial emphasis. Even so, they provide a beneficial and explanatory introduction to the world of Data Science and Data Analysis. The programs are beneficial for graduate students who are getting involved in research or are interested in concepts of data science. Faculty members have told me that the knowledge they gained from the Data and Software Carpentries helped them maximize the time that they spent as a graduate student when they were working with research because their data was organized and reproducible.

The Carpentries are an informative and practical method for somebody who is looking to delve into a career based around data science, as well as students who are involved in research opportunities. They provide a foundation for understanding how to organize and interpret data, as well as how to make that data applicable within various situations. They’re an opportunity that many don’t know about, and they can potentially give somebody an extra push in understanding their career or research choice.

Posted by Braiden Ellis, student staff member, Research and Learning Services

With a Little Help from Our Friends

Benefactors make the library a special place for everyone

In 1991, an event began that would soon become one of the most celebrated and most important nights of the year for the OSU Library.

The H. Louise and H.E. “Ed” Cobb Dinner Series is presented annually by the Friends of the OSU Library. The dinner, lecture and book signing is a fundraising event, and all proceeds benefit the OSU Library.

This year, Lee Child, the author of the Jack Reacher series, will be speaking at the event. Past speakers include James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, Neil deGrasse Tyson and S.E. Hinton.

But the event isn’t just for donors or well-known authors. Students have the opportunity to attend, as well. Each year, generous donors purchase a number of tickets for students, who can then enter to win them and attend the event. Attendees will enjoy a wonderful dinner, attend the book signing reception and listen to a seasoned author, all while supporting a wonderful cause and making our library a better place. The funds raised at the dinner support the Friends’ goal of making the library a resource for all students.

The Friends have generously sponsored so many programs, events and more that help students at Oklahoma State achieve their academic goals and truly make the library a safe, helpful, fun and educational place. In the past, the Friends have funded the laptop checkout expansion, the finals week giveaways at Edmon Low and branch libraries and, when it first began, 24-hour access to the library during pre-finals and finals week. They also fund a number of special programs, like some of the outreach, research and cultural programs.

If it weren’t for the generous support of the Friends of the OSU Library, Edmon Low would not be the same. I know that personally, the library is my favorite place on campus. Whether I’m studying, researching or just taking a break between classes, the equipment and technology available at the library have helped me succeed in school and fostered my interest and love of learning.

So, whether you visit the library once during your college career or it is your second home, never forget this special group who has helped make it into the incredible place that it is.

Posted by Jenny Berry, electronic communications intern

Data Culture in the Library

If I asked somebody what a data culture is, they would probably look at me with a disinterested, glazed expression, followed closely by a mumbled, “I don’t know.”

And they may not really care either.

I feel like most people tend to see the word “data” as a very scary and intimidating word, and this prevents them from learning about just how useful and informative data can really be. Most people also tend to think that data is strictly quantitative information, such as numerical statistics. However, data can be text as well (such as emails, interview notes and media reports), which is qualitative data.

When analyzed, data provides ideas and solutions to various problems and situations. This ties into data culture and the benefits it can bring to a company or organization.

A data culture is an organization that uses data to make decisions to improve themselves. Some business leaders may prefer to make decisions based on gut instinct, ignoring data because their way just “makes more sense” (at least to them it does). A data-driven organization follows the path that makes the most sense in correlation with the data, even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense from a conventional standpoint. This has proven to be far more strategic and efficient. Erik Brynjolfsson et al. al. from MIT’s Sloan School of Management conducted a study that showed data-driven organizations to have a five to six percent higher output and productivity than other systems in which organizations tend to go with what they “feel” is the best path.

The Data Culture Project provides a great method for learning how data can be useful and how to connect with others through detailed analysis. The Data Process described below is a step-by-step system from the Data Culture Project that details how to bring about a more data-oriented workplace. The OSU Library is piloting the Data Culture Project this semester and plans to offer it in the future for those who are interested.

The Data Process:

#1: Warmups
Anytime you get a group together for a team-building exercise, warmups are a great way to get things started. Quick and creative activities that help to establish a feeling of comfort and informality allow participants to be invested and confident, leading to more engagement, which leads to more results in the long run.

#2: Asking Questions
This is the first step in analyzing data. When we look at a data set, there are plenty of questions to be asked, and there are plenty of questions to be answered. Colleagues are divided into small groups to analyze a data set and develop insightful observations and questions. Now, this exercise isn’t particularly about answering any questions that are asked, but it is instead about thinking creatively to generate stimulating questions.

#3: Gathering Data
This step goes hand-in-hand with the previous step. Data is difficult to interpret sometimes, even more so when the data is wrong or unorganized. You might need to combine multiple data sets as well, because a single data set may not be able to answer every question.

#4: Analyzing Data
Oh no, here comes the hard stuff!
Not really, but this is how many people feel when it comes to analyzing data. There are many different ways to analyze data because there are many different types of data. If you’re having a hard time trying to figure out a data set, maybe you just aren’t using the right method for you!  Analyzing data with colleagues leads to a combination of different ideas to maintain positive trends.

#5: Telling Your Story
This is the fun part of the process (as if you weren’t having fun before). This allows you to be creative while explaining a data set to colleagues. Various types of displays such as sketches and word webs communicate the context of the data through a narrative. This also allows abstract ideas and numbers to be represented by a concrete visual display.

#6: Try It Out
The final step is simple: just try it out! This answers many questions you may have about your developed story and the data backing it. Is the data understandable? Does the story make sense? Is it compelling? The idea of narrating your data is to influence your audience, informing and propelling them into action to improve the data.

A data-driven culture isn’t something that immediately happens, and it definitely isn’t something that has immediate results. It requires cooperation and understanding among colleagues, and the entire organization needs access to data in order to practice analyzing and interpreting it. In addition, data literacy must be encouraged so that each member of the organization can effectively contribute to improving and developing a collective network to help make important decisions.

Posted by Braiden Ellis, student staff member, Research and Learning Services

Relax and Read at the Library

Everyone knows that college is a hectic time. Tests, papers, meetings and more fill our days, and often the most relaxing thing we do is sleep. Sometimes.

But one year ago, some at the Edmon Low Library set out to change that. This week, I sat down with Whitney Vitale, the assistant head of access services at the Edmon Low Library, to learn more about the inception of the Relax and Read Collection and why it is so beneficial for students.

The Relax and Read Collection began in the fall of 2017 after a few employees at the library wanted to create a space for students to relax and get away from the stress of school.

“We wanted to capitalize on this work-life balance issue and support the students,” Whitney said. “What can make life a little easier and help with self-care?”

Whitney plays a vital role in curating the collections. She orders books, both fiction and nonfiction, which will appeal to a variety of students. The library already receives copies of the New York bestsellers, but Whitney also places orders for cookbooks or patron requests.

More than anything, the goal of the Relax and Read is just that – to help people relax.

“Students need that time to get away mentally and decompress,” Whitney said. “It can be hard to do that, and I think that this is a way they can have those few minutes or hours to get away from their troubles.”

While the collection will continue to morph and change to adapt to patron needs, the goal will always remain the same.

”We want to take care of the non-academic half of the patrons,” Whitney said.

If there’s a book or genre you’d like to see in the Relax and Read Collection, talk to anyone at the Circulation Desk or feel free to contact Whitney directly.

Posted by Jenny Berry, electronic communications intern