Abstract

Dataset for: A study of fifty-six professors at five American universities found that a majority had little understanding of principles, well-known in the field of data curation, informing the ongoing preservation of digital materials and chose to manage and store work-related data by relying on the use of their own storage devices and cloud accounts. It also found that a majority of them had experienced the loss of at least one work-related digital object that they considered to be important in the course of their professional career. Despite such a rate of loss, a majority of respondents expressed at least a moderate level of confidence that they would be able to make use of their digital objects in twenty-five years. The data suggest a strong correlation between faculty members' digital-object loss and their data management practices. University professors producing digital objects should be aware of fact that these materials are subject to loss. They should also know that the implementation of better data management practices and the development of programmatic digital curation efforts on university campuses show great promise for mitigating university professors' loss of important work-related digital materials.

Publication Date

5-20-2014

Department

University Libraries

Comments

This data set was originally hosted in a Microsoft Access database. It contains a subset of the data from a set of interviews conducted across Northern Illinois University, Chicago State University, Illinois State University, Illinois Wesleyan University, and Western Illinois University in the Fall and Winter of 2012/13. The purpose of the interviews was to ascertain the data management practices and experiences of faculty and staff, the importance of their digital data, and their awareness of the fragility of digital materials. Jaime Schumacher, Director of the Digital POWRR Project University Libraries, Northern Illinois University May 2014

Sponsorship

Institute of Museum and Library Services

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