ECU Libraries awarded funding to partner with research faculty on open science

East Carolina University’s 2017-2018 Interdisciplinary Research Awards (IRA) recipients include a collaboration between Joyner and Laupus libraries and the College of Allied Health Sciences.

Interdisciplinary Research Awards (IRA) are seed grants to support interdisciplinary research projects leading to competitive applications for extramural funding.

The project, “Transitioning to Open Science in Research Labs: a partnership between librarians and research faculty,” will explore open science tools for faculty and students to use in the lab, with the ultimate goal of developing an institutional infrastructure to facilitate open science now and in the future at ECU.

Open science is a movement towards making research more accessible to researchers and the public. Open science can encompass all aspects of the research process, including open data, open access articles, and even open lab notebooks. Additionally, open science tools can make it easier for researchers to adhere to public access policies required by federal funders.

Scholarly Communication Librarian for Joyner Library Jeanne Hoover and Dr. John Willson from the Department of Physical Therapy in the College of Allied Health Sciences will serve as primary investigators. The one-year pilot project will be based in the Human Movement Analysis Laboratory at ECU.

“I am looking forward to working with Dr. Willson and colleagues from Laupus Library on exploring ways to use Open Science Framework to help make research more accessible and reproducible,” Hoover said.

Research labs are a key component of teaching and scholarship at academic institutions. Proponents of the open science movement believe that establishing a culture of open science within research labs will drastically improve the exchange of information with the scientific community and general public and as a result, address questions of transparency and research reproducibility.

Co-investigators on the grant include Ting Fu, Laupus liaison to the College of Allied Health Sciences; Roger Russell, assistant director of user services for Laupus Library; and Joseph Thomas, assistant director for collections and scholarly communication for Joyner Library.

“I am very excited about this award, which brings opportunity for exploring Open Science at ECU,” said Fu. “There hasn’t been a project like this before on campus. We hope ours serves as an ice-breaker that will bring change and inspiration to all researchers in the future.”