School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) Associate Professor Kyong Eun Oh has received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation award for her project, "Collaborative Research Information Management in Cloud-Based Repositories." The research will explore the most effective ways for researchers to manage files in collaborative projects. Oh’s personal experience inspired this research project.
“Compared to file management in my own local computer,” explains Oh, “I found that it was more challenging to manage files that are created, saved, and organized by multiple people. This made me wonder how other researchers manage files in cloud-based shared repositories and what would be the most effective ways of managing them.”
Cloud-based repositories have become even more popular in response to the pandemic, making the topic particularly timely. Oh plans to investigate how researchers manage their files in cloud-based shared repositories such as Google Drive or Dropbox while working on collaborative research projects, identifying the challenges, and examining disciplinary differences in terms of practices and needs.
“I plan to develop best practices for effective collaborative research information management in cloud-based shared repositories and create an online venue to share those best practices,” says Oh. “I would like to empower researchers and support their projects by increasing researchers' productivity, enhancing the integrity of the research files, and helping researchers to maximize their resources.”
“This grant award is a recognition of Dr. Oh’s research accomplishments in the area of personal information management and organization of information,” says Sanda Erdelez, SLIS Director. “Her background provides an excellent basis for understanding how to make researchers’ online collaboration in various disciplines easier and more productive.”
This project idea was conceived in Proposal House, a collaborative workspace created by Dean Marie desJardins for Simmons University’s College of Organizational, Computational, and Information Sciences faculty to share and gather feedback on grant proposals. The Sloan Foundation supports research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics.