Evaluating new technologies and organizational structures

Abstract

Welcome to the last issue of IASSIST Quarterly for 2024, IQ 48(4).

We are excited to share news of several developments that we have been working on over the last few months:

The IASSIST Qualitative Social Science and Humanities Data Interest Group (QSSHDIG) is planning an IASSIST Quarterly special issue dedicated to the complexities of sharing qualitative data. For this special issue, we invite submissions of abstract proposals focused on the ethical challenges, methodological concerns, and labor involved in making qualitative data and research materials publicly available. The full CfP and details on how to submit an abstract can be viewed on the IASSIST Quarterly website: https://iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/announcement/view/7 .  The deadline for proposing articles is January 31st (full articles won’t be needed until later).

We are delighted to welcome Minglu Wang as a new IQ Editorial Board member (as of October 2024). Minglu is the Research Data Management Librarian in the Open Scholarship Department at York University Libraries, York, Ontario, Canada. Among other qualifications, she brings experience as a member of the Editorial Board for ACRL’s College & Research Libraries (C&RL) (2019–2025), and she led the project group for that Board to investigate a data policy for C&RL.

A new feature recently enabled on the OJS platform allows reviewers to link their profile with their ORCID iD. We mentioned last time that this will enable auto-loading of your articles to your ORCID profile, but the other effect is that it provides an opportunity for reviewers to receive credit and be acknowledged for their professional contributions. Note that the credit will merely note that you have served as a reviewer for the IQ—it will not indicate which article(s) you reviewed.

Unfortunately, the IQ editorial team had to retract a paper from publication this fall due to plagiarism. The paper titled “Data protection and right to privacy legislation in Kenya” by Mankone, A. M. (2023), was published in IQ, 47(3-4). The full retraction notice can be found here. 

This new issue of IQ 48(4) presents four excellent papers. The first two evaluate methods to enhance findability of data deposited in data repositories. The subsequent two papers focus on organizational structure and improving organizational workflows.

Kokila Jamwal in ”Boosting data findability: The role of AI-enhanced keyword” examines the use of Artificial Intelligece (AI) to supplement keywords that may be missing or inaccurately defined as a method to improve metadata and boost data findability. The author suggests that using this relatively new technology may reduce the time and effort required by data repositories staff for data curation and may enhance data findability and usability.

Co-authors Knut Wenzig and Xiaoyao Han are examining the findability of data deposited in data repositories that are using DDI metadata standards. Their paper ”State of DDI Cloud” invetigates the availability and the comprehensive element usage of DDI standards across 29 repositories registered on re3data.org. Based on their findings they provide recommendations for various stakeholders including the repositories, Dataverse developers, re3data.org, and the DDI Alliance.

The article ”The IPUMS Business Process Model: Instituting a workflow mapping strategy to support archival processes” introduces the IPUMS workflow from external submission of data, harmonization process, documentation, extraction systems, and archival preservation of metadata. Author Diana Magnuson explains the value of instituting this mapping approach, and demonstrates the power of a clear business process model for developing archival goals in an organizational setting in which the archive function is vital but secondary to the main product.

In ”Understanding motivations and future needs for data depoists at Korea Social Sciences Data Archive”, authors Hyowon Kim, Do Won Kim and Jungwon Yang evaluate the current data deposit process of the Korea Social Science Data Archive (KOSSDA). The data archive recently transitioned into an idependent researh center under Seoul National Univerity. Using interviews with stakeholders, they identify future needs and suggest a long-term strategy to ensure that the archive meets the needs of the academic community it supports.

Wishing you a happy holidays season, and peace, health, and happiness in the New Year.

Ofira Schwartz and Michele Hayslett, December 2024