Rolando Garcia- Milian

1. Role of Librarians in the Development of Computer-Mediated Social Networks: Challenges and Lessons Learned from VIVO Implementation and Outreach Rolando Garcia-Milian Hannah F. Norton, Beth Auten, Valrie I. Davis, Nita Ferree, Kristi L. Holmes, Margeaux Johnson, Nancy Schaefer, Michele R. Tennant, Mike Conlon, VIVO Collaboration This project funded by the National Institutes of Health, U24 RR029822, “VIVO: Enabling National Networking of Scientists.”

2. What is VIVO? VIVO contains detailed profiles of researchers that display items such as publications, teaching, and grants. These profiles are linked to each other and to additional departmental information. VIVO is an open-source semantic web application that enables the discovery of research and scholarship across disciplines in an institution. VIVO supports faceted searching for quick retrieval of data. This is a powerful search functionality for locating people and information within or across institutions.

3. What is VIVO? • Some history: • VIVO originated at Cornell University in 2003 as an open source product. • Through a $12.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, 7 partner institutions, led by the University of Florida, are expanding VIVO for national use. • The Goal: Improve all of science by providing the means for sharing and using current, accurate, and precise information regarding scientists’ interests, activities and accomplishments.

4. How does VIVO work? • External data sources: • Publication warehouses e.g.PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus • Grant databases: e.g. NSF/ NIH • National Organizations: AAAS, AMA • Internal data sources: • Human Resources • Sponsored Research • Institutional Repositories • Registrar System • Faculty Activity Systems • Events and Seminars Datstored as RDF triples using standard ontology • Faculty and unit • administrators can • then add additional • information to their • profile. VIVO data is available for reuse by web pages, applications, and other consumers both within and outside the institution.

8. Role of librarians Locating and selecting subject vocabularies Developing core and local ontologies Performing usability studies and focus groups Providing local support and training on the system Engaging with local and external data providers Developing user-centered interface design Providing project management and leadership Engaging potential users

9. Aim and methods 9 librarians interviewed Open questions: challenges, skills gained, lessons learned Analyze the challenges and barriers librarians have encountered during VIVO implementation and outreach Investigate the impact of VIVO on librarian’s professional development and skill sets

10. Identified areas of discussion Interaction with technology Communication Project management Team work and team dynamics Workload balance Engaging the community Changing nature of the project

11. Interaction with technology • Challenges: • VIVO requires some aptitude for technology • Interaction between librarians and information technology specialists • New Skills: • Learning about semantic web / technical aspects of the project • Familiarity with terminology (e.g. Linked Open Data, SPARQL) • Learning to interpret the progress of the project and translate for end users • Lessons Learned: • Ensuring each team member’s understanding increases individual input and problem solving, strengthens the end product

12. Changing nature of the project • Challenges: • Working with a product that is in development • Roles and responsibilities have shifted • New Skills: • Team leaders have learned to hire individuals with the right skill sets for each position • Lessons Learned: • Be flexible and agile, get use to making changes to the original plan because it is required by the technology • Feel comfortable working with beta versions of the product

13. Workload balance • Challenges: • Balancing the work on the VIVO project with regular job duties (e.g. teaching and reference services) • Large amount of travel for some team members • Observations: • Compensate by letting colleagues outside the project team know what is going on • Interest in VIVO has offered librarians opportunities to present at local, regional, and national meetings – advancing their careers • Lessons Learned: • Delegate work giving away something finite instead of portions of an ongoing project. • Learning new skills and technologies prepares librarians for new library directions (e.g. support for e-science / translational science initiatives)

14. Engaging with the wider community • Challenges: • Navigating campus political environment for those in leadership positions • Contacting and engaging faculty • Opportunities: • Pretext for presenting on other library initiatives/services: Open Access, Institutional Repositories, ILL services • Gained more visibility within departments: more contacts and consultations from faculty • Developing connections at the national level with team members and partner institutions (e.g. Annual VIVO Conferences)

15. Engaging with the wider community • New Skills: • Learned more about institution’s various cultures (e.g. working with administrators) • Increased librarians’ level of comfort in talking to people across the scholarly spectrum • Lessons Learned: • Librarians have a better understanding of the different needs, concerns, and driving forces that affect campus administrators, departments data stewards, and faculty

16. Engaging with the wider community

17. Project management • Challenges: • Little previous experience on a project of this magnitude • Very difficult to know what to expect and how to prepare • New Skills: • Better ability to prioritize • More efficient decision making process • More task-driven orientation, centered around an action plan • Lessons Learned: • The team would benefit from a team member with training and/or experience in project management • A project of this size should be fully integrated within the library system or a particular library department

18. Communication • Challenges: • Communicating across diverse groups within the team and user populations • Includes engaging in writing and oral communication through presentations and papers. • New Skills: • Identify the appropriate information for specific and diverse audiences • Enhanced skills in summarizing and organizing both oral and poster presentations • Lessons Learned: • Talk openly as a team • Use every possible communication channel (from phone calls to teleconferencing) • Empathy is important when navigating multidisciplinary conversations

19. Teamwork and team dynamics • Challenges: • Massive, multi-team, and multi-institution project

20. Teamwork and team dynamics • New Skills: • Team became more efficient, developing trust and unifying against common challenges • Lessons Learned: • Those in leadership positions learned that not over-reacting to setbacks helps the team move forward • Help team members see the positive without disregarding what they have to say

21. Teamwork and team dynamics Skills required in collaborative scientific research teams (Stagel & Salas, 2008) Understanding team members’ specific roles Leadership High tolerance for change Communication by leadership of expectations Communication The VIVO team has learned many of these skills in the process so it is better prepare for new multidisciplinary team projects in the future

22. Second Annual VIVO Conference August 24-26, 2011 Gaylord National, Washington D.C. Register at vivoweb.org/conference THANK YOU! VIVO is supported by NIH Award U24 RR029822