Kay Bjornen

Author of "Cooking up Community for Advancing Undergraduate Data & Computing Skills" and "Disciplinary Data Literacy: Expanding on What Instructors Already Teach"

January 10, 2022

Kay K. Bjornen, Ph.D. is the Research Data Initiatives Librarian and Assistant Professor at the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Library, where she teaches and consults on data management and data literacy. She is co-coordinator of the OSU Carpentries organization and a certified Carpentries instructor. She began her career as an analytical chemist and her interest in data and information began during her years as a corporate research manager when she had responsibility for organization and maintenance of research and technical records.

About "Cooking up Community for Advancing Undergraduate Data & Computing Skills"

Undergraduates at most institutions do not receive any consistent exposure to data science or data literacy principles. Studies have shown that even in data data-intensive STEM disciplines, faculty are challenged to systematically introduce concepts such as data management, open data, and data cleaning in their curricula. On some campuses, opportunities such as The Carpentries exist to learn about tools for computing and data manipulation, but on our campus, even these opportunities are not easily accessible to undergraduates due to conflicts with classes. Creating a community can provide both formal and informal learning venues, allowing novices to interact with practitioners of a variety of tools at different levels of expertise. Three different types of community community-building suitable for libraries are discussed with the advantages of each described.

About "Disciplinary Data Literacy: Expanding on What Instructors Already Teach in Teaching Research Data Management"

Armed with this guide's strategies and concrete examples, subject librarians, data services librarians, and scholarly communication librarians will be inspired to roll up their sleeves and get involved with teaching research data management competencies to students and faculty. The usefulness of research data management skills bridges numerous activities, from data-driven scholarship and open research by faculty to documentation for grant reporting. And undergrads need a solid foundation in data management for future academic success. This collection gathers practitioners from a broad range of academic libraries to describe their services and instruction around research data. You will learn about such topics as:

• Integrating research data management into information literacy instruction;
• Threshold concepts for novice learners of data management;
• Four key competencies that are entry points for library-faculty collaboration in data instruction;
• An 8-step plan for outreach to faculty and grad students in engineering and the sciences;
• Using RStudio to teach data management, data visualization, and research reproducibility;
• Expanding data management instruction with adaptable modules for remote learning;
• Designing a data management workshop series;
• Developing a research guide on data types, open data repositories, and data storage;
• Creating a data management plan assignment for STEM undergraduates; and
• Data management training to ensure compliance with grant requirements.

URL: https://library-dep.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2022-honorees/kay-bjornen

Last Updated: 21 February 2022