Competencies

Competency 12: Research

Picture: Coast Guard icebreaker ship

Icebreaker and research vessel US Coast Guard Cutter Healy taking core samples from the bottom of the Arctic Ocean 100 miles north of Barrow, AK, June 18, 2005

COMPETENCY STATEMENT

Each graduate of the Master of Library and Information Science program is able to…

…demonstrate understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods and of the evaluation and synthesis of research literature

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IMPORTANCE OF THE COMPETENCY TO ME

Research continues after an MLIS is conferred. In fact, research should continue for a professional in any occupation if they want to continue to keep up with new developments in their field and grow in their depth of understanding. Therefore, understanding research–how to perform it and how to read it–is part of being a professional data curator.

Research can be divided into qualitative and quantitative approaches. Quantitative research, according to Montello and Sutton (2006), is more about measuring a specific phenomenon: "…[it involves] a prior choice of constructs to study, a prior choice of variables with which to measure those constructs, and prior numerical categories with which to express the measured values of those variables" (p. 39). By comparison, qualitative research is more about investigating a research question without specific variables in mind, allowing the variables to develop as a greater understanding of the phenomenon is gained (p. 39). In analyzing remote sensing data, quantitative research could consist of such work as searching datasets in the Arctic region for areas that have more sea water than sea ice; qualitative research could involve discussing the impact of diminishing sea ice on food supplies with Inuit, Eskimo, and Greenlanders. Both forms of research would be important in understanding what is happening with Arctic sea ice and how it is impacting humans.

A data curator needs to know how to find and assess research literature and how to understand it in order to use it and recommend it to patrons. Sometimes this needs to happen at the level of reading an abstract or skimming an article; sometimes it needs to happen at a slower, deeper level. Part of being adept at reading research literature is being able to skim through many articles in order to find the few that are most closely related to the topic being researched. This provides "a good sense of what has been thoroughly investigated and in what areas useful new work might be done, and a broader understanding of your research question as it relates to other, related areas of knowledge" (Luo, 2012)–in other words, knowing my way around research literature will give me context and direction if I choose to perform research myself. In order to do my job well–especially in a technical field which is evolving and advancing swiftly–I need to be able to evaluate and synthesize research literature quickly and on a continuous basis in order to be using the best data curation methods and in order to best understand my customers, be they scientists, politicians, or curious citizens.
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WHAT WORK PREPARED ME TO UNDERSTAND AND PERFORM THIS COMPETENCY?

While I did not end up doing a thesis for my MLIS (that was my original plan, before "real life" got in the way), I did take a class that prepared me for the possibility of a thesis, "Research Methods in Library and Information Science" (LIBR285). In this class, I learned a lot about how carry out research properly; in fact, I am rather shocked that I was not exposed to most of these ideas in high school or undergraduate university. This is possibly because my degree was in computer science, and the focus was more on practical skills such as programming, with less emphasis on theory, such as algorithmic analysis. Regardless, I learned the fundamentals of intensive social science research in LIBR285. These include:

  • The purposes of research: exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory (Babbie, 2012, p. 27)
  • Idiographic versus nomothetic approaches (studying individual cases versus studying a class or group of individuals) (p. 27)
  • Inductive (theorizing a pattern based on observations) and deductive (testing a theory with observation) reasoning (pp. 21-22)
  • Quantitative measurement methods: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio (Montello & Sutton, 2006, pp. 22-23)
  • Research design options
  • Ethical research

Almost all of my classes in iSchool helped me to hone my skills at reading and digesting research literature. Especially helpful in this were "Reference and Information Services" (LIBR210), "Vocabulary Design" (LIBR247), and LIBR285. Most of my classes also required processing large amounts of assigned readings and prowling through the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library looking for information about projects. I have become adept at understanding the pieces of an abstract, the basics of persuasive argument, and the general structure of research literature. A discussion with my co-workers at Cytobank, a bioinformatics expert and a microbiologist, opened my eyes to the minimal editing and vetting that some journals do (see also "Setting the Record Straight", Cossins, 2014) and helped me to remember to read journal articles with the understanding that the authors are human, editors can be extremely busy, and that mistakes can be made.
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EVIDENCE

Paper: "Abstract Writing"

In order to understand abstracts at a deeper level than "this is the summary of a paper", I had an assignment in LIBR247 to write an abstract in both an indicative and informative format. This exercise made me focus on individual words and phrases and their shades of meaning. Not only was it preparatory in case I myself need to write abstracts in the future, but it also made me a more perceptive, analytical reader of abstracts, which will serve me well as a data curator in keeping up with literature.

Paper: "Annotated Bibliography: Information Flow During the Apollo Space Program"

As preparation for writing a term paper, I was required to create an annotated bibliography, which helped greatly as I had to do a thorough review of literature related to my topic. In fact, most of the available literature was not directly related to my topic, which was a study of information communication in the Apollo space program, but instead touched on various facets of the topic, which is admittedly rather broad. This was good practice in exploring multiple types of sources and prepared me for open-ended research that I might do in my new career.

Presentation Slides: "Analyzing the Impact of the Internet in the Classroom"

As part of LIBR285, I evaluated a research article that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods. I was able to assess the article and the research it described in light of the research theories and practices that we were learning about in class. (The research was found wanting, compared to the ideals of our class.) This was an opportunity to think more about the principles of research, such as sampling (implied, not described), control groups, pre- and post-testing (inadequate due to disparity of the test subject demographics), and statistical analysis.

Research Proposal: "Studying the Usability of Geoscience Datasets"

The final project of LIBR285 was to create a research proposal. This included a statement of the problem to be investigated, a literature review, a statement of the methodology and analytic techniques, and a schedule (the schedule is used as evidence in Competency 4: Management). My research proposal was to study the usability of geoscience datasets. I intend to focus my data curation career on making geoscience datasets more easily usable–findable, accessible, obtainable, and able to be referenced in research–and understanding the baseline of how usable datasets are now would be an excellent metric to use to evaluate how successful my efforts to increase usability would be. My proposal planned to use a questionnaire to dataset users to gain a qualitative understanding of the current state of dataset usability. Even though I did not do this project as my thesis, it may still be a valid project when I begin my new career. If I carry out this study, I would add a quantitative section that would evaluate a large number of datasets, using objective measures, such as: completeness of metadata, findability, quality of data (and presence of data quality measures), format, geolocation information, completeness of data, size of files, and permissions needed. In addition to giving an overview of the state of geoscience dataset usability, these measures could also be combined to give a Harvey Balls style or a sparkline style ideogram to provide patrons a usability assessment at a glance.
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CONCLUSION

Keeping up with the literature in my field will be an important part of being a data curator for geoscience datasets. "My field", in this sense, will include the fields of digital curation, geoinformatics, geology and geography, remote sensing, metadata standards, information science, and data science, among others. That does not include keeping up with less formal documentation of advances in applications, analysis tools, and research announced via social media. Seven years of studying for my MLIS and learning the specifics about how research literature is created has prepared me for this exciting part of my next career. If I am lucky, perhaps I will be contributing my own well-designed research literature to the body of knowledge that is ever-growing.
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REFERENCES

Babbie, E. (2012). The practice of social research (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

Cossins, D. (2014, October 1). Setting the record straight. The Scientist, 18(10). Retrieved from http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41056/title/Setting-the-Record-Straight/

Luo, L. (2012). LIBR285 research methods in library and information science: Unit 5–Sampling [PowerPoint slides].

Montello, D. R., & Sutton, P. C. (2006). An introduction to scientific research methods in geography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

U. S. Coast Guard/DoD. (2005, June 18). USCGC Healy (WAGB-20) north of Alaska [Online image]. Retrieved from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USCGC_Healy_(WAGB-20)_north_of_Alaska.jpg

Last updated: Friday, April 17, 2015

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