Category Archives: CECH Library

Love Data Week Day 4 – The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey 

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A graphic for love data WeekThe 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey 

By Tiffany Grant, PhD, CDE® 

Much of what is included in this post is taken from the Executive Summary (1), which is extremely revealing and detailed regarding the survey and its findings. 

 The U.S Transgender Survey (USTS) was conducted in the summer of 2015 by the National Center for Transgender Equality. It was an anonymous, online survey for transgender adults (18 and older) in the United States that was made available in English and Spanish. It is the largest survey examining the experiences of transgender people in the United States, with 27,715 respondents from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and U.S. military bases overseas. The survey was a follow up to the 2008–09 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which helped to shift how the public and policymakers view the lives of transgender people and the challenges they face. The USTS provided detailed evidence and experiences shared by transgender people from a range of categories including education, employment, family life, health, housing, and interactions with the criminal justice system.  

Survey findings reveal disturbing patterns of mistreatment and discrimination and startling disparities between transgender people in the survey and the U.S. population when it comes to the most basic elements of life, such as finding a job, having a place to live, accessing medical care, and enjoying the support of family and community. Respondents experienced harassment and violence at alarmingly high rates. The findings reveled that mistreatment, harassment, and violence were pervasive in the lives of transgender people and was present in every aspect of their lives. Over half the respondents had been verbally assaulted, nearly a quarter of them had been physically assaulted, and 13% reported sexual assaults all as result of being transgender1. Nearly 1/3 of individuals reported being fired, denied a promotion, or experiencing some other form of mistreatment in the workplace due to their gender identity or expression. This has led to poverty rates that are more than double than the US average among the transgender community. “Among the starkest findings is that 40% of respondents have attempted suicide in their lifetime—nearly nine times the attempted suicide rate in the U.S. population (4.6%) (1)”.  

The survey data also reveals disturbing higher disparities among transgender people who have disabilities, are of color, and who are disabled. These include higher rates of unemployment, poverty, discrimination, health disparities, violence and suicide. The reports also reveal some glimmers of hope. The survey found that 4x more people responded to the survey than the previous National Transgender Discrimination Survey, suggesting that more were willing to use their voices to impact potential changes. The survey also revealed more acceptance of transgender status among families and friends of those who identify in this way.  

ICPSR has the data collected from the survey and information regarding the survey instrument and topics incuded2. The following information was taken directly from the ICPSR site for the USTS.  

“The survey instrument had thirty-two sections that covered a broad array of topics, including questions related to the following topics (in alphabetical order): accessing restrooms; airport security; civic participation; counseling; family and peer support; health and health insurance; HIV; housing and homelessness; identity documents; immigration; intimate partner violence; military service; police and incarceration; policy priorities; public accommodations; sex work; sexual assault; substance use; suicidal thoughts and behaviors; unequal treatment, harassment, and physical attack; and voting. 

Demographic information includes age, racial and ethnic identity, sex assigned at birth, gender and preferred pronouns, sexual orientation, language(s) spoken at home, education, employment, income, religion/spirituality, and marital status (2).” 

For more information or to access the data, please refer to this link. 

References 

(1) 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey Report. 2022 U.S. Trans Survey. https://www.ustranssurvey.org/reports (accessed 2023-02-09). 

(2) James, S. E.; Herman, J.; Keisling, M.; Mottet, L.; Anafi, M. 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS): Version 1, 2019. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37229.V1. 

 

Love Data Week 2023 Day 3 – Using Geospatial Data to inform Change

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Using Geospatial Data to Inform Change

By Amy Koshoffer

When trying to understand the complexity of our modern society, looking through a geospatial lens can give more insight and lead to possible solutions for complicated challenges such as poverty, healthcare disparities, systemic racism and climate change.  This means we need to examine the “where” as an attribute when we want to bring about changes that matter. We can address questions that include where do people live in relation to industry, healthcare facilities, green spaces and other resources as well as where they live relative to risks such as sea level rise.  Combining location with population demographics can help us delve into these issues to understand if issues impact one group of our society more than another.

Esri is the industry leader for Geographic Information Software and has resources such as data with spatial attributes and tools that help us address our society’s most challenging issues.  Esri has made significant changes to their higher education support which greatly improves our ability to explore research questions through the geospatial lens. Below are some of the tools we have access to here at UC as well as information about the new updates: Continue reading →

Love Data Week 2023 Day 2 – Celebrating Juneteenth with Data and Resources from ICPSR

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Resource Center for Minority Data 

Celebrating Juneteenth with Data and Resources from ICPSR 

Tiffany Grant, PhD, CDE® 

On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth an American federal holiday. Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. 

On June 19, 1865, two years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, US Major General Gordon Granger issued General Order (3). The order began with following lines: 

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer (1).”  Continue reading →

Love Data Week 2023 Day 2 – Open Data, Scientific anti-racism, and the Father of American Anthropology 

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Franz Boas’s Immigrant Study 

Open Data, Scientific anti-racism, and the Father of American Anthropology 

Tiffany Grant, PhD, CDE® 

 Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist who’s work has had him dubbed the “Father of American Anthropology”. In his obituary, published in Science it is written that:  

“Boas’ emphasis on obtaining accurate, detailed knowledge, both intensive and extensive, not only raised the standards of anthropology; it changed its methodology and problems. In phrasing these problems and in insisting that relevant data be used in answering them systematically, he was a great pioneer who led the way into new fields of investigation. He found anthropology a collection of wild guesses and a happy hunting ground for the romantic lover of primitive things; he left it a discipline in which theories could be tested and in which he had delimited possibilities from impossibilities” (1). 

Born in Germany in 1858, Boas immigrated to the  United States in 18962. While in Germany, Boas was exposed to both the human and natural sciences (2), thus the asking and answering of questions based on evidence was a crucial part of the methodologies he instigated in the field of anthropology. Boaz challenged the reigning notions of race during his time and taught his students to do the same (3). During his time, Boas made many enemies as he professed a belief that was antithetical to the notion that culture was something that evolved within societies by stages from lower forms to higher (2). During a time when scientific racism was rampant with many proponents ascribing to the evolutional classification of races, Boas was strongly opposed to the idea that one’s own culture or “race” was superior to others and asserted that this view was not only wrong, but also harmful (3). While scientists and anthropologists believed race to be a biological characteristic that could explain human behavior, Boas’ set out to prove through scientific means that this was faulty thinking.   Continue reading →

Love Data Week 2023 Day 1 – Data: Agent of Change 

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By Tiffany Grant, PhD, CDE® 

University of Cincinnati Libraries Research & Data Services 

A graphic for love data Week

Love Data Week kicks off today, February 13 and runs through Friday, February 17, 2023. 

Love Data Week is an international event celebrating data and raising global awareness about the importance of data science and management. Typically, this week is used to as an opportunity to convene a community of data scientists and discuss contemporary issues affecting data management, sharing, privacy, preservation, reuse, and delivery. 

The theme this year is Data: Agent of Change. Love Data Week is about inspiring your community to use data to bring about changes that matter. Policy change, environmental change, social change…we can move mountains with the right data guiding our decisions. This year, we are focused on helping new and seasoned data users find data training and other resources that can help move the needle on the issues they care about. 

Members of the University of Cincinnati Libraries Research & Data Services group will be posting blogs with content relevant to the theme of Data: Agent of Change. In an effort multitask while also celebrating Love Data Week, the Research & Data Services Unit is using the week to accomplish several goals. First, we will use the week to highlight the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy that went into effect on January 25th. We will release a document entitled “The New NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing and What it Means for You at the University of Cincinnati” to the UC community. We intend for this comprehensive document to serve as a great resource for those seeking funding from the NIH. Second, we will highlight ICPSR and several datasets that relate to the week’s theme of Data as an Agent of Change. These datasets have been used to create change and to bring awareness to topics/individuals/groups who have been historically marginalized. You can find links to these datasets below. Third, we will discuss how GIS (Geographic Information Systems) can be used for social justice, and we will provide information on two websites with information concerning timely and relevant content relating to the Black Lives Matter and Police Shootings. Lastly, we will have an interactive event in the Health Sciences Library that will engage participants on Scholar and how it can be used to address the new NIH Policy (see Liblog Post). More information on this latter event can be found below. 

Love Data Week LiBlog Post Schedule 

 February 13: NIH Policy Document 

February 14: Franz Boas’s Immigrant Study and the Research Center for Minority Data (ICPSR datasets) 

February 15: Esri Resources, Using GIS for Social Justice 

February 16: ICPSR Transgender Survey 

February 17: Data for Black Lives and Fatal Force Police Shootings Database 

 On February 14th, we will host Scholar@UC and the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy Informational and Chat. Faculty, staff, and student researchers are encouraged to interact with Scholar developers and learn how they can simultaneously meet grant and publisher requirements while also contributing to the intellectual output of UC. Participants will receive a free Scholar@UC coffee mug filled with Lindor Truffles (available while supplies last). 

UC Resources to help you navigate the new NIH Policy

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The New NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing and What it Means for You at the University of Cincinnati 

Tiffany Grant and Amy Koshoffer 

Co-leaders UC Libraries Research & Data Services 

NIH Policy UC_Resources document

Introduction 

“Data without context are inert, but data within contexts become information, knowledge (1).” 

Researchers submitting for funding through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on or after January 25, 2023, should be aware of the requirement to submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) for any NIH-funded or conducted research that will generate scientific data. Previously, the NIH only required grants with funding of $500,000/year or greater in direct costs to provide a short explanation of how and when data resulting from the grant would be publicly shared. However, this new mandate requires all grant applications or renewals to include a detailed plan for data management and sharing for the funded period. This requirement is mandated through the Final NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing that emphasizes the importance of good data management practices and establishes the expectation for maximizing the appropriate sharing of scientific data generated from NIH-funded or conducted research. The NIH defines scientific data as the recorded factual material commonly accepted in the scientific community as of sufficient quality to validate and replicate research findings, regardless of whether the data are used to support scholarly publications. The NIH has long championed the proper management and sharing of scientific data to accelerate biomedical discovery through the promotion of data reuse for future research studies.  

The NIH encourages data management and sharing that is consistent with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) Data Principles. The FAIR Data Principles are a concise set of principles designed by representatives from academia, industry, funding agencies, and publishers, that serve to support and enhance reuse of data (2). In the first formal paper documenting the FAIR Principles, the authors suggest that good data management is critical not only for knowledge, discovery, and innovation, but also for the integration and reuse of data post-publication. The FAIR principles refer very specifically to data that is “open”. Open data is simply defined as “data that anyone can access, use, and share (3)”. The NIH has a long-standing commitment to open data to increase the utility of data produced by federal funding and has done so through mandating data management and sharing initiatives. Proper management and sharing of research data have numerous benefits to researchers. Authors found that articles that include statements that link to data in a repository were associated with an up to 25% higher citation impact (4). In another study, the authors showed a 69% increase in citations when data was made publicly available, and this increase was independent of impact factor, publication date, or the author’s country of origin (5). Citations are a type of currency in the scholarly community, as they can be directly tied to research funding, promotion, and notoriety in the respective field by facilitating increased visibility of the author’s works. Moreover, allowing for greater access to data can foster collaboration opportunities, increase transparency in research, and maximize the reuse of data all while meeting funder and publisher requirements.  

 This document will serve as a single resource for researchers at the University of Cincinnati to learn about the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy that went into effect on January 25, 2023. Researchers can use this document and the embedded links to find information on what is required of them as they prepare to submit NIH grant proposals and what resources UC has available to them to facilitate the process. Throughout this document, researchers will find links to information and tools that will aid them as they prepare Data Management and Sharing Plans as well as information about available data repositories for data sharing.  

Continue reading →

Announcing the 2021/22 UC Libraries Annual Progress Report: A Year of New Beginnings…

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annual progress report header

Announcing the 2021-22 University of Cincinnati Libraries Annual Progress Report: A Year of New Beginnings…a year that saw the broad return of students, faculty and staff to campus for fall semester. The transition from virtual to in-person was an extensive process as library spaces were re-evaluated to allow for a safe return to working and studying on campus. We welcomed students, faculty and staff back to campus with refreshed spaces, enhanced safety protocols for social distancing and a revived appreciation for working together in person.

The year also saw the announcement of our renewed Strategic Framework: NEXT Directions. The University of Cincinnati’s NEXT Lives Here Strategic Directions focus on the core areas of Academic Excellence, Urban Impact and the Innovation Agenda in order to engage people and ideas – and to transform the world. The University of Cincinnati Libraries is key to what’s NEXT.

In this Annual Report, we look back at the top News & Events, applaud Staff Accomplishments & Milestones and look at the Libraries By the Numbers and Financially.

While we celebrate the accomplishments of the past academic year, we also continue to move forward in pursuit of our vision of being the globally engaged, intellectual commons of the university – positioning ourselves as the hub of collaboration, digital innovation and scholarly endeavor on campus and beyond. I invite you to be a part of our journey – a journey led by our Guiding Principles of Investment in our People; Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; and Digital Transformation.

The Annual Progress Report is available online via Sway. Happy Reading!

New Furniture at the CECH Library

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Since coming back for spring semester, you may have noticed that the CECH Library looks a little different. We are happy to announce that we have added additional furniture to our space to accommodate more users and diversify our seating options. An additional 33 seats in total have been added to our 3rd and 4th floors!

The textbook alcove:

Our textbook alcove, located on the 3rd floor, now houses four individual study desks, one group study table, and two comfy chairs for individual use.

The 4th floor:

Four group tables have been added to the seating area on our 4th floor and the existing furniture has been moved around to better compliment the space.

We can’t wait for you to come visit us to check out our new furniture. As always, you can find Spring Semester Hours on the CECH Library website, as well as a complete listing of hours across UC Libraries locations.

It is our pleasure to serve CECH, and we wish you all a fantastic semester.

Rachel Hoople
Operations Manager, CECH Library

UC Libraries closed Monday, Jan. 16 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

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Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. from LIFE Magazine

UC Libraries will be closed Monday, Jan. 16 in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.The Libraries will resume normal hours on Tuesday, Jan. 17.

Want to read up on Martin Luther King, Jr., his impact and legacy, and how you can make a difference? Check out these library resources and the Racial Justice Resources for Activists, Advocates and Allies Research Guide.