iSchool’s Associate Professor Besiki Stvilia and his collaborators and iSchool alumni Dr. Shuheng Wu of Queens College and Dr. Dong Joon Lee of Texas A&M University received an IMLS National Leadership Grant to explore researcher participation in research information management systems. The $50,000 grant will help them address the need to have greater knowledge of how to design scalable and reliable solutions for researcher information and data curation by examining researchers’ perceived value of research identity data and services and motivations to engage in and commit to online research information management systems.

This exploratory research will result in a qualitative theory of research identity data and information practices of researchers; quantitative models of researchers’ priorities for different online research information and data services; information about the factors that may affect participation in and commitment to online research information systems; and information about motivations to engage in research identity data curation. Overall, the findings will enhance our knowledge of the design of research identity data and metadata models, services, quality assurance activities, and mechanisms for recruiting and retaining researchers for the provision and maintenance of identity data. Design recommendations based on this study can help a variety of stakeholders of research identity data such as researchers, librarians, students, university administrators, funding agencies, government, publishers, search engines and the general public.

More information about the award can be found on the IMLS website here.