Research recognized SIS professors earn top grant funding by DREW STREIP
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esearchers in the University of Tennessee’s School of Information Sciences started the 2009-2010 school year with much deeper pockets thanks to a handful of impressive
grants. SIS was awarded a $3.2 million grant, the school’s largest to date, to participate in a National Science Foundation project. Researchers also accepted three grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services that equal $1.6 million to be distributed over four years. Those funds, part of the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program, will be used to educate master’s and doctoral students, according to the program’s guidelines.
ONE Mission
The DataONE project, funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to create an international network where earth and environmental scientists can swap their research. SIS professors Carol Tenopir and Suzie Allard will work with local researchers from UT Libraries and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the project’s primary investigator from the University of New Mexico and other nationwide partners to help create the framework for this data-sharing network. “Receipt of the $3.2-million DataONE NSF grant serves as external verification of the world-class research that is going on in the College of Communication and Information’s Center for Information and Communication Studies,” says Michael Wirth, dean of CCI. DataONE will examine how researchers organize their data to ultimately create tools and software to make a more congruous system. Tenopir says this network will serve scientists and social scientists of all disciplines, from biologists to librarians. The UT researchers will work on community engagement and core infrastructure, giving scientists incentives to use the system and building “a robust network for terabytes of data,” Tenopir says. The project also will assess how to keep such a large data-storage system safe and accessible.
The Missing Link
Allard, SIS assistant director, is the primary investigator on the $711,727 grant “ScienceLinks² PhD: Linking Education and Science to Develop the Next Generation of Educators for Science Librarians and Data, Information and Communication.” According to Allard, the goal of this grant is to educate and mentor the next generation of science information and communication professors and researchers. She plans to recruit “a talented cohort of doctoral students” and provide them with the CCI doctoral education, plus specialized seminars in research-intensive organizations Photos by KATIE HOGIN
Grant recipients, from left, Suzie Allard, Bharat Mehra, Carol Tenopir and Vandana Singh.
such as DataONE. These students will have an opportunity to research at UT Libraries, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Information International Associates, among others.
Taking It Slow
To combat lag time in technology literacy in rural Appalachia, information sciences professor Bharat Mehra will use a $567,660 grant to work with regional libraries to bring current and future employees up to speed. The grant, “Rural Library Professionals as Change Agents in the 21st Century: Integrating Information Technology Competencies in Southern and Central Appalachian Region,” will fund a part-time, online-only master’s degree concentration in information technology and rural librarianship. Sixteen individuals already working in rural libraries will be accepted to start coursework, which runs June 2010 through August 2012. Mehra expects to update technology infrastructure including database design, Web design and software for networking systems.
Singh Praises
While it’s only Vandana Singh’s second year at UT, the information sciences professor already brings a career’s worth of research funding to SIS. She is the primary investigator on an Early Career Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, “Technical Support for Integrated Library Systems’ Comparison of Open Source and Proprietary Software,” totaling $321,178. Singh will compare technical support for open-source software with proprietary-software support. Her findings will assist librarians with the technology they use to circulate library materials. According to Singh, her research will provide library decisionmakers with “tangible evidence about the status of tech support” for open source products. The final year of the grant will see the construction of a Web site to “become the default go-to place…a community of open source software users,” she says.
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SCOOP Winter 2010