1. Following Workflow
of a
Digital Scholar
Smiljana Antonijević and Ellysa Stern Cahoy
Penn State University
eHumanities, KNAW
January 17, 2013

3. Project
• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded study.
• April, 2012 – June, 2013.
• Method triangulation:
– web-based survey
– ethnographic interviews
– focus groups
• Sciences, humanities, social sciences.

4. What are the critical challenges for our
users?
• Marshall’s user challenges
– Accumulation
– Distribution
– Curation
– Long-term access
Marshall, C., Bly, S., Brun-Cottan, F., (2007). The Long Term Fate of Our Digital
Belongings : Toward a Service Model for Personal Archives. Arxiv preprint
arXiv:0704.3653. Retrieved from http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1032046

5. Initial questions
• How do faculty create, manage, share, and archive
personal information collections?
• Is there a natural place to integrate personal
archiving in the online scholarly workflow?

6. Initial outputs
• A proposed model for integration of archival
practices into the online scholarly workflow.
• Identification of critical digital literacies for faculty
management of online scholarly workflow.

7. Ellysa Stern Cahoy & Scott P. McDonald. Personal Scholarly Workflow

8. 0%
SHARE GATHER
FIND
ARCHIVE
REFLECT
ANALYZE
CITE ORGANIZE
WRITE
ANNOTATE COMMUNICATE
Smiljana Antonijević. Research process

9. Web-based survey
• September 17-30, 2012
• 324 responses

10. Web-based survey
• September 17-30, 2012
• 324 responses
• faculty (56%)
• 21-30 (35%)
• female (60%)
• sciences (73%)

11. Searching
Humanities Sciences
84%
68%
62% 64%
60% 58%
42%
27%
Library databases Google Scholar Google Search Library catalog

12. Using citation managers
Humanities Sciences
No No
Yes 67% 34%
Yes
33% 66%

13. Sharing
Humanities Sciences
Yes No
31% 37%
Yes
No
63%
69%

14. Storing and archiving
97%
store relevant
materials
86%
back-up
materials

15. Storing
93%
51%

16. Archiving
64% 34%

17. Storing, archiving, losing
97% store 74% cannot
86% back-up access files

18. Inaccessible files
Humanities Sciences
27%
23%
18% 18%
16%
11% 11%
7%
Lost files Format Left behind Deleted

19. Training wanted
Humanities Sciences
60%
48% 47% 47%
45% 45%
37%
34% 34% 33%
29%
26%
Citation Research help Web apps Personal Management of Repository
management archiving research data service

20. ―None; it's the scholar's responsibility to learn how to deal with
these issues.‖
―None - This stuff is my job as a researcher.‖
―None; people should be able to fend for themselves.‖
―It varies with discipline.‖
―None—training would not be specific enough for the
discipline.‖
―None, most of these are self-explanatory and the rest are too
case-specific.‖

21. Interviews

22. Big problem across disciplines
Inadequate institutional services
Big datasets/files
Lack of funding
Privacy and sustainability
Fragmentation and accessibility
Data
management

23. Need for linked data and linked practices.
Repository should also have annotation
functions, sharing, personal profile …
"I want [a tool] to get my full research
circle closed, where I can go from
searching through annotation and
everything else to publication.‖
"I use Dropbox for everything. It has
saved my life, it has changed my life."
Data
management

24. Publications perceived as
logest-lasting contribution.
Thinking about preservation in
terms of end products.
Task of publishers, scholars.

26. Sciences: sharing as
preservation.
“Religious” about sharing.
Differences in social media use.
Open source/open access.
Tenure-track faculty tend to be
more territorial.

27. ―We all teach ourselves.‖
―They learn it on their own through
their interactions with their
mentor, colleagues …‖
―I think the majority of people are
kind of a little bit geeky, like me, and
just enjoy the gadgetry and enjoy the
technological, the software. It’s a little
bit of a hobby.‖

28. Thank you!
www.scholarlyworkflow.org
scholarlywork@psu.edu
#scholarly_work