92 · Representative Documents: Strategies to Support Innovation and Research
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Annual Report FY 2012–2013. Research
https://app.box.com/s/xj86il1g6euazirwqhkc
-Digital preservation
The research program recently completed an IMLS-funded collaboration
with UNC, Chapel Hill, University of Michigan, Harvard University, and
University of Connecticut to develop an open-source system for
systematic policy auditing of distributed digital replication systems. This is
being used by the Data-PASS partnership, US GovDocs replication
network, CLOCKSS, and others to improve the preservation of critical
content, and has revealed substantial gaps between high-level policy and
execution in existing preservation methods.
In the 2012-2013 fiscal year the program received three awards for its work in
crowd-sourced geographic information systems:
-The 2013 Antonio Pizzigati Prize for Software in the Public Interest was
awarded by the Tides Foundation to the program’s head, Micah Altman,
for development of software in the public interest.
-The 2012 Data Innovation Award for Data Used For Social Impact was
presented at the O’Reilly Strata Conference.
-The 2012 Outstanding Research Software Development Award was
presented by the American Political Science Association (Information
Technology and Politics Section) for development of software useful for
political science research.
In FY13 the program has conducted outreach and dissemination activities
including:
-Publications of six professional articles and book chapters related to
research conducted by the program. This included a chapter in a National
Academies report on data citation, and an issue of one of the top-three
political science journals.
-Delivering over a dozen invited talks at local workshops, national, and
international forums. These talks included a keynote presentation on
issues related to data open access presented for the National Academies’
meeting Public Access to Federally-Supported Research and
Development Data.
-Developing a new website for the program and its research projects based
on the OpenScholar system: informatics.mit.edu.
-Establishing a monthly “brown-bag” seminar series cover a broad range of
developments in information science relevant to libraries and scholarly
communications.- Authored and delivered three IAP courses in the areas
of developing research proposals and managing confidential data. This
attracted students, postdocs, and research staff representing departments
across the Institute and beyond.
Finally, the Libraries’ research program engaged with a number of key
organizations that are developing or guiding broad standards, infrastructures and
community efforts:
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