Open@VT

Last week Virginia Tech’s University Libraries hosted its inaugural Open Data Week with six programs on a variety of open data topics. The new format builds on last year’s Open Data Day, which incorporated a hackathon and roundtable discussions. However, the weekend scheduling and a conflict with spring break this year spurred us to create a new event friendlier to academic schedules, with programs throughout the week. Though we hadn’t heard of anyone having an Open Data Week before, we know that Virginia Tech is supposed to “Invent The Future,” so we did. Here’s a summary of the week’s programs.

In our first program of the week, Data Anonymization: Lessons from an Millennium Challenge Corporation Impact Evaluation, Ralph P. Hall (Urban Affairs and Planning) and Eric Vance (Director, LISA- Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis) described their evaluation of a rural water supply project in Mozambique, which involved household surveys (slides, MCC documentation).

Ralph P. Hall

The first lesson learned from their evaluation was that everything is linked to the informed consent. The primary takeaway here is the importance of distinguishing between anonymity and confidentiality (see slide 18), the latter of which provides researchers much more flexibility. In addition, there were difficulties with the translation of informed consent into Portuguese and local languages. Other lessons include not underestimating the time required to anonymize data, and designing surveying instruments to minimize anonymization challenges. Unfortunately, the anonymization challenges resulted in an analysis that is not reproducible and data that cannot be shared with a follow-up evaluation team. Data anonymization is a persistent and complex issue that needs to be discussed more frequently, and will certainly be on the agenda of future Open Data Weeks.

Our session on The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) featured three speakers: Wat Hopkins (Dept. of Communication), Steve Capaldo (University Legal Counsel), and Siddhartha Roy (Flint Water Study team).

Wat Hopkins

Wat Hopkins focused on FOIA in Virginia. FOIA first emerged at the federal level from a 1964 Supreme Court case, and subsequently Virginia was among the first to implement FOIA at the state level in the late 1960s. FOIA laws vary greatly from state to state. In Virginia, FOIA applies to records and meetings. Record requests must receive a response within 5 days and do not need to be in writing (though federal FOIA does require it), and there are around 130 exemptions. Requests must come from a Virginia citizen, or a news organization with circulation or broadcast in some part of the state. For more information, see Virginia’s Freedom of Information Advisory Council, and the Virginia Coalition for Open Government’s FOI Citizens Guide. Ultimately, we can’t be responsible citizens without access to government information.

Steve Capaldo said that since Virginia Tech is a state agency, it is governed by Virginia FOIA. However, the university responds to requests from everyone, not just residents or the media, and will do so within 5 days. There are many exemptions, including some involving research (proprietary or classified research, and grant proposals), personnel records, and records involving security, such as building plans. He emphasized the importance of making requests as specific as possible in order to reduce the time and effort required to respond. And although it’s not required, Capaldo suggested that it can be helpful when requestors explain the context of their request, because sometimes information needs can be met in alternative ways.

Sid Roy, a member of the Flint Water Study team and a graduate student in Civil and Environmental Engineering, described the Flint water crisis which has spanned 18 months and affected 100,000 people. In the process, an EPA employee was silenced and the fallout has included several resignations. The crisis response involved FOIA requests to the city of Flint, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and the EPA. Interestingly, federal FOIA requires an acknowledgement of the request within 2 weeks, but there is no time limit for responding with the requested information. Roy relayed the FOIA advice of the project’s leader, Dr. Marc Edwards: first, be as specific as possible in your request, and second, make requests to a related agency that is not the primary target. For example, the team made FOIA requests to Flint in order to obtain communications and data from EPA. Although we ran out of time to discuss FOIA costs, according to the Flint Water Study GoFundMe page, their FOIA expenses came to $3,180 (while you are on that page, consider a donation!). In short, Roy recommended that FOIA should be in every scientist’s toolbox.

In Library Data Services: Supporting Data-Enabled Teaching and Research @ VT , Andi Ogier gave an overview of the three services offered: education (data management and fluency), curation (capturing context and ensuring reuse), and consulting (embedding informatics methods into research, and teaching about proprietary formats and the need for using open standards). Data Services strives to help researchers have their data achieve impact on the scholarly record, remain useful over time and across disciplines, and have it openly shared for the benefit of humanity. The library helps with data management plans required by funders, and can assign DOIs to datasets. The presentation coincided with the beta release of VTechData, a data repository to help Virginia Tech researchers provide access to and preserve their data.

Show Me the (Open) Data! with librarians Ginny Pannabecker and Andi Ogier was a conversational, exploratory session devoted to identifying open data sets. At the session, they introduced a new guide to finding data, which in addition to listing data sources also includes definitions and information on citing data.

Web Scraping session with Ben Schoenfeld

Scraping Websites: How to Automate the Collection of Data from the Web was led by Ben Schoenfeld of Code for New River Valley, a Code for America brigade that meets biweekly to work on civic projects. As the slides explain, some programming skills are needed to effectively obtain and clean up data from websites lacking an API, and the basic steps are outlined. The live demonstration, using local restaurant health inspection data, did a good job of showing what is possible. One of our developers in the library, Keith Gilbertson, wrote a blog post about the session and how he applied the skills he learned to a database of state salaries.

Intro to APIs: What’s an API and How Can I Use One? was led by Neal Feierabend, also of Code for NRV (slides follow the scraping slides with slide 17). After an explanation of what APIs (application programming interfaces) are and what types are available, the live demo explored a few APIs, beginning with the Google Maps API. Use of this API is free up to a certain number of page loads, and usage beyond that requires a fee– a model used by many popular APIs. This is one reason Craigslist switched from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap, which as an open mapping tool enables download of the data. Generally, good APIs are those that are well documented. Both Neal and Ben attested to the value of using Stack Overflow and searching the web when encountering coding problems. After the session I found out there are also web services for data extraction like import.io.

Thanks to all of our presenters and attendees, and please let us know if you have suggestions for Open Data Week programs. We hope to do it again next year!

As part of Open Access Week, the University Libraries and the Graduate School offered a travel scholarship to OpenCon 2015, a conference for early career researchers on open access, open data, and open educational resources. From a pool of many strong essay applications, we chose Sreyoshi Bhaduri, a Ph.D. student in engineering education. Sreyoshi attended the conference in Brussels, Belgium on November 13-16, and sent the report below. Be sure to check out the OpenCon 2015 highlights.

Sreyoshi Bhaduri writes:

Towards the beginning of Fall 2015, the graduate listserv announced an opportunity for a graduate student to travel to Brussels for a conference on Open initiatives. As a doctoral student starting my second year at the department of Engineering Education, I had been involved with some open education related citizen science endeavors, but was very new to the world of Open. I had always been fascinated with the idea of Open Access and Open Data, which can be understood as “unrestricted access and unrestricted reuse” of data, however I had never really delved deep into understanding and appreciating Open initiatives. Recognizing this as a perfect opportunity to learn more, I applied, detailing my interest in Open Education and eagerness to learn about the same. Application submitted, I promptly forgot about the scholarship, as course-work and exams and deadlines engulfed and occupied all thoughts and activities. On a busy evening in September as I sat finishing an assignment, I received an email from the University Library informing me that I had been selected for the scholarship. I was to represent Virginia Tech at the OpenCon 2015 in Brussels, scheduled for November 2015. This was the start of my journey to getting to know the Open community, and I slowly become an advocate for all things Open.

The message from the University Libraries notifying me of the travel scholarship was followed by an email from the OpenCon organizers, who warmly welcomed me to join their community. I was directed to a pre-OpenCon webcast, which helped me understand the basics of Open Data, Open Access, and Open Education. I was also asked to join in on a community call, and introduce myself to other attendees. The first thing that I realized about the Open community was that it is comprised of a group of very passionate and dedicated professionals who are determined to build a case for Open initiatives. The next month passed by, as I prepped to attend OpenCon, learning more and more about the community, the cause, and the rationale behind Open. I slowly grew to appreciate and understand the Case for Open, and was eagerly looking forward to exchanging my ideas at the conference.

So we networked and roamed about the streets of Brussels. This is posing with the Manekken Pis.

The day of the flight soon arrived, and after 17 hours of traveling from Roanoke to Charlotte and then to Philadelphia, I finally made it to Brussels. On the flight, I made a few friends who were also traveling to OpenCon. The great thing about OpenCon is that the organizers ensured that most attendees had half a day to themselves before the start of the conference, to familiarize with each other and network. I met a bunch of young professionals and grad students who were doing wonderful work in different disciplines, and learned how some of their work related to Open endeavors.

Days One and Two of the conference comprised various sessions. We had live tweeting (#OpenCon2015) and broadcast of the sessions, so that the larger Open community which wasn’t able to join in physically, was able to contribute in the discussions. Day One had also been the day we had woken up to the news of the France terror attacks. A poignant remark by one of the attendees, who was from Paris, on the importance of Open Education, was that Open resources fights the barriers of access and divide, which in turn seeks to eradicate disillusionment and hence fights terror. This remark truly spoke to me, and I was inspired by the commitment and grit shown by the attendees, especially those from France.

Sneak peek at the sessions at Hotel Thon conference center

On Day Two we had the Unconference sessions. I was totally new to the idea of Un-conferencing, but found it a very useful brainstorming and networking session. I recommend organizers of seminars and educational events to have similar sessions at all conferences. During this session, we grouped with people with similar interests and discussed ideas for implementation in “real-world” scenarios. For instance, in the group I un-conferenced with, we discussed the role of Open in academia. We discussed how difficult it is to convince faculty who are probably tenure track, at R-1 institutions, to publish in Open journals, since a large part of their tenure process depends on publication impact. Our conversations then drifted to the subject of impact factors, and how a single number could not truly capture the essence of a research publication. The second evening ended early, with a reception dinner, and more networking.

Day Three was the most anticipated day. This was Advocacy Day. Basically, we formed teams of 8 individuals and we met with Members of the European Union, and discussed Open initiatives. This was by far the best experience I had at the conference. It was very interesting to meet with and learn from members of the EU, and discuss the challenges of implementing Open policies.

All dressed up for Advocacy Day

Following the meeting with the MPs, we attended the last event for OpenCon, the final reception dinner, in which we had the opportunity to interact with the founder of Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales. Wales talked to the gathering about the importance of Open Education, and of inspiring early career professionals to take up causes pertaining to Open initiatives after the conference.

The conference was only three days, short but packed with information and activities. I had read up about the conference, before attending it, and had anticipated meeting talented and passionate individuals; but the clockwork precision of the management, the energy of the attendees, and the warmth of the community; truly inspired me to learn more and contribute more to the cause. I would definitely recommend learning about, participating in, and potentially even attending Open community events, for all students and early professionals. I would further urge readers to contribute to your immediate academic communities in Open endeavors. The University Libraries at Virginia Tech, for instance, does a fantastic job of making available resources for graduate students, researchers, and faculty to learn about and publish in Open channels. Over time, I have come to view Open as a part of my identity as a graduate student. I believe each one of us should commit to making our research publications easily accessible by everyone. I believe I was truly lucky to have been selected for OpenCon 2015, I learnt so many new things, met some wonderful spirited individuals, am associated with some great work, and hope to continue to advocate for Open in the future.

OpenCon 2015 Memories

The University Libraries are excited to announce our first annual Fair Use Week celebration! Starting on Monday February 22nd, Fair Use Week is an event to “celebrate the important doctrines of fair use in the United States and fair dealing in Canada and other jurisdictions” and promoted by the Association for Research Libraries.

In addition to the Fair Use Week events, the University Libraries will have an interactive exhibit on the 2nd floor of Newman Library (near the Alumni Mall entrance) from Monday February 22 through Friday March 4. Please join us for one or more of the events below!

• Monday, 2/22, 4:30-5pm, Newman Library, 2nd floor
  Fair Use Week Exhibit Opening – enjoy some light refreshments while exploring the interactive exhibit.
• Tuesday, 2/23, 9:30-10:45am, online*
  Workshop: “Is it a Fair Use? A Hands-On Discussion”
  NLI Credit available.
  *Contact Ginny Pannabecker at vpannabe@vt.edu for online meeting information.
• Tuesday, 2/23, 11:00am-Noon, Newman Library, Multipurpose Room (first floor)
  Workshop: “The New International Movement to Standardize Rights Statements – And How We’re Participating”
  NLI Credit available.
• Wednesday, 2/24, 10:00-11:00am, Newman Library, Multipurpose Room (first floor)
  Discussion: “Behind the Scenes of the Fair Use Week Exhibit: How We Made Our Copyright Decisions”
  NLI Credit available.
• Wednesday, 2/24, 1:25-2:15pm, Newman Library, Multipurpose Room (first floor)
  Workshop: “Is it a Fair Use? A Hands-On Discussion”
  NLI Credit available.

So, what is “fair use” and why do we think it’s important enough to celebrate it for a whole week? 

Fair Use is a four-factor exemption of U.S. Copyright Law 17 U.S. Code § 107 which allows anyone to:

• Copy
• Re-distribute
• Perform
• Electronically transmit
• Publicly display
• Create new versions of others’ copyrighted works

…without permission.*

*When the potential use is deemed to be “fair” rather than “infringing.”  Only a court can decide what is truly “fair use.” However, U.S. law allows anyone to conduct a well-informed fair use analysis in good faith to determine if their proposed use of copyrighted material is more fair or more infringing.

For an example of Fair Use in action and an entertaining video explaining some foundational U.S. Copyright and Fair Use information, take a look at Professor Eric Faden’s “A Fair(y) Use Tale.” The version embedded below was re-uploaded to YouTube (under compliance with the video’s CC BY NC-SA 3.0 license) in order to add transcribed subtitles and captioning.

https://youtu.be/lmOa3DFRicY&w=500&h=375

Thank you for taking a moment to find out more about Fair Use, and we hope to see you at one or more of the University Libraries events!

Thanks to the University Libraries’ 2016 Fair Use Week team: Virginia (Ginny) Pannabecker, Anita Walz, Scott Fralin, Robert Sebek, and Keith Gilbertson!

Virginia Tech’s fourth Open Access Week took place October 19-23 with five events, featuring the annual faculty/graduate student panel discussion and a keynote address by Victoria Stodden.

As always, the panel discussion was one of the most interesting events of the week. Sascha Engel, PhD candidate in ASPECT and editor of the graduate journal SPECTRA, spoke about the benefits of moving to library hosting for the journal. Use of the open source OJS software helped automate communication with authors, and the journal was able to retain its domain name. The PDF is still important in the humanities where page numbers are needed for citing. As a graduate journal, SPECTRA allows authors to retain copyright so that articles can be further developed and published elsewhere. Alison Burke, a PhD candidate in Biomedical Sciences, spoke about the difficulty of publishing in fee-based open access journals while in a funding gap between grants. The library’s open access fund bridged that gap and helped her publish in PLOS ONE. She noted that open access articles result in more views and are easier to find. Scott King, Professor in the Department of Geosciences, is an executive editor at the open access journal GeoResJ, a broad, multidisciplinary journal, but notes that in his specialty, deep earth research, open access is not very influential because most researchers are at institutions with subscriptions. In contrast, publishing open access is crucial to Jeremy Ernst, associate professor of Integrative STEM Education, because a large part of his audience is public educators who would not otherwise have access to his research. He noted much higher citation counts in open access journals. Ernst was the first to take advantage of the open access fund when it began. Carola Haas, Professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, has used the open access fund for publication of a hybrid open access article, and said that open access is important for her audience, which includes land managers, independent contractors, and conservationists in developing countries, many of whom lack access to expensive journals. Titilola Obilade, former adjunct faculty in the School of Education, has used the open access fund multiple times to ensure that all have access to her research.

Thanks to the University Libraries’ Event Capture Service for the video below.

A new event to Open Access Week, “Data and Digitization in the Liberal Arts and Human Sciences” was organized by Tom Ewing, Associate Dean for Graduate Studies, Research, and Diversity in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences and a professor in the Department of History. The session featured panelists from Advanced Research Computing (ARC) and the University Libraries. Terry Herdman, Nicholas Polys, and Vijay Agarwala spoke about ARC’s services for researchers, such as consulting, training, support, and collaboration, and highlighted the visualization lab in Torgersen Hall, the Visionarium. From the Libraries, Nathan Hall introduced the digitization services available, and Amanda French spoke about the library’s interest in facilitating interdisciplinary research, and perhaps providing tools for learning text and data mining (TDM).

Mid-week, NLI sessions were offered on our open access fund (apply here) by Gail McMillan and trends in scholarly publishing, a discussion I led. Both are offered regularly, so check the NLI schedule.

Dr. Victoria Stodden

The highlight of the week was the keynote address by Dr. Victoria Stodden, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Scholarly Communication in the Era of Big Data and Big Computation” (slides) focused on what reproducibility means for computation, and also addressed scientific norms and access. She proposed that reproducibility has three facets: empirical, computational, and statistical. While we know that error is ubiquitous in science, computation is new enough that standards are not well established. Computation itself is a research object; an accompanying journal article is simply advertising for it. Interestingly, Stodden highlighted the Mertonian norms of science, just as Brian Nosek did in last year’s keynote address. But while Nosek contrasted Mertonian norms with academic incentives, Stodden put them in an intellectual property framework. In this context, open licenses are aligned with scientific norms, whereas intellectual property protections (e.g., copyright) are not. While a number of platforms have been developed for dissemination and reproducibility of computation, these have been independent efforts, and would achieve greater impact with a coordinated response. Ultimately, it is access that is needed most:

Conclusion: the primary unifying concept in formulating an appropriate norm-based response to changes in technology is access. At present, access to “items” underlying computational results is limited.

Many thanks to Dr. Stodden and all those who came to the keynote. Thanks also to the keynote sponsors, which in addition to the University Libraries include Computational Modeling and Data Analytics, the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Statistics, LISA, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute.

Thanks to the University Libraries’ Event Capture Service for the video below.

Graduate students at Virginia Tech are encouraged to apply for a travel scholarship to OpenCon 2015, the student and early career researcher conference on Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data to be held on November 14-16, 2015 in Brussels, Belgium.

One scholarship will be awarded to a Virginia Tech graduate student, which will cover travel expenses, lodging, and some meals. Applicants must use the following URL to apply by Monday, September 21:

http://opencon2015.org/virginia_tech

To find out more about the conference, see the Participant FAQ and the conference program. This international conference offers an unparalleled opportunity to learn about the growing culture of openness in academia and how to become a participant in it. The travel scholarship is sponsored by the Graduate School and the University Libraries. For questions, please contact Philip Young, pyoung1@vt.edu (please note that the general application process for the conference closed earlier this summer, and related details in the participant FAQ will not apply).

Last year two graduate students received scholarships to the conference (which was in Washington, D.C.), and you can read about their experiences.

This year’s winner will be selected by the Graduate School and the University Libraries based on answers to the application questions, and announced on September 24. Please share this opportunity with all VT graduate students, and best of luck to the applicants!