text+images+data: a more complex way to convey results of scientific research
DESCRIPTION
Talk by Professor Carol Tenopir at the PRATT and King's College London's Symposium: "Can Scholarship Show as well as Tell".TRANSCRIPT
Text + Images + Data: A More Complete Way to Convey
Results of Scientific Research
Carol TenopirUniversity of [email protected]/~tenopir/
In science, images visualize data or are data…
Text, data, and images together convey scientific meaning
Spatio-Temporal Exploratory Model identifies factors affecting patterns of migration
Diverse bird observations and environmental data from 300,00 locations in the US integrated and analyzed using High Performance Computing Resources
Land Cover
Meteorology
MODIS – Remote sensing data
• Examine patterns of migration
• Infer how climate change may affect bird migration
Model results
Occurrence of Indigo Bunting (2008)
Jan Sep DecJunApr
And…together with models can enable scientific discovery
4
Granularity in the Journal World
Granularity=
Divisible: Made up of conveniently small and independent parts
1. JournalTitle 2. Issue
3. Article
4. Objects (figures, tables, pictures)
ProQuest Illustrata: Tables and Figures
Objects DatabaseRecord includes:
• Full image • Captions• Index terms• Link to full text• Other metadata
The Article can also be a starting point to expand…
Data Repositories like Dryad help link datasets to journal articles
ICE Collectors
ICE Users
Information Center for the Environment (ICE) UC Davis
ICE Collects Water Data
ICE Users
agencies
citizens
faculty
Other repositories exist without journals…
ICE Collectors
ICE Users
Information Center for the Environment (ICE) UC Davis
ICE Collects Water Data
ICE Users
agencies
citizens
faculty
Investigator Toolkit
ICE Collectors
ICE Users
DataONE Users
Information Center for the Environment (ICE) UC Davis
ICE Collects Water Data
ICE Users
agencies
citizens
faculty
Investigator Toolkit
Reading patterns may vary with purpose …
Sometimes you need an entire article or most of one (catching up or writing)
Sometimes you need just a part like a paragraph or picture (teaching or to check a fact)
Sometimes you need citations or data beyond the article (research)
Deep Indexing Study of 60 scientists in 7 universities and 2 institutes in US and Europe
Observing 350+ Searches
Pre and Post Surveys
Search Diaries
What scientists currently do
to “be inspired by how other researchers set up figures and tables”
Potential uses: finding, comparing, learning
“Sometimes tables, figures, maps, etc. are ‘hidden’ in other papers.”
“comparing data from other researchers to your own findings.”
Potential Use: To retrieve and use images for Research and Teaching
2005
2007
2009
50%
70%
90%
Test 1Test 2Final
Potential Use: To compare their work with others’
Potential Use: To support analysis
Participants anticipate using the objects retrieved : for review articles to “be inspired by how other researchers
set up figures/tables” to “expose me to different areas in
which similar methods are used”
Potential to change practice
“I discovered some new
publications in areas where
I thought I knew all.”
“…made me think about different ways that data is conveyed…I’ll design my own future graphs and figures to better ‘stand alone’ as a result.”
“I actually did a few
successful searches
where unexpected and
interesting information
came up.”
Suggestions for Success
Images must be of high quality with ability to enlarge thumbnail images
The context of the whole article is very important—in fact it may be dangerous to see images without the context
Allow table contents to be searchable and support extraction of data from tables
Others can access my data easily
Place all of my data into a central data repository
I share my data
Place at least some of my data into a central data repository
0% 50% 100%
36%
41%
75%
78%
Gap Between Willingness to Share and Accessibility
I would use other researchers' datasets if easily accessible
Lack of access to data has restricted my ability to answer scientific questions
Lack of access to data is a major impediment to the progress of science
0% 50% 100%
78%
84%
50%
27%
50%
Consequences of Lack of Access to Other Datasets
In conclusion… Providing access to visual material can help
scientists in many ways Sometimes scientists need just a part of an
article and systems that help them find parts Sometimes they need to read an entire article Sometimes they need data (and many are
willing to share) Think at many levels of granularity—journal
issues AND whole articles AND parts of articles AND extensions to articles such as data
