Author Archives: Library Systems Admin

New Interim Dean of Library Services, Judy Farrar

We are excited to announce the appointment of Judy Farrar as the new Interim Dean of Library Services. Ms. Farrar joined the UMass Dartmouth library in 1996 as the Archives and Special Collections Librarian. As Provost Huang noted in his campus announcement, “Ms. Farrar has seen the Claire T. Carney Library Archives and Special Collections grow exponentially, from less than 100 linear feet to a collection of over 2,000 linear feet. She has been part of major initiatives like the establishment of the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese American Archives, the addition of the papers of former Congressman Barney Frank, the acquisition of the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Archives, and a major facility renovation.” Ms. Farrar also has a long history of innovation and collaboration with library, campus, and community partners. We look forward to her applying her knowledge and experience in this new role!

Welcome to the Digital Scholarship Hub (DiSH)!

The Claire T. Carney Library introduces a student-centric space where workshops will be held to demonstrate online tools and scholarly research methods. Digital Scholarship is a broad concept that refers to using digital platforms and methods to answer scholarly inquiries, conduct research, and create scholarly outputs. The DiSH is a multidisciplinary center that engages with data and digital content. This includes managing data, developing a project, digital mapping, and more. Think statistics, temperatures, product comparisons, finances, rankings – essentially, any scholarly scenario where conclusions can be drawn from organizing and manipulating information in a digital format.  The hub offers an opportunity for students to engage with and create knowledge outside of a traditional class setting. It is also an opportunity for multidisciplinary collaboration across campus.

The DiSH is piloting a data workshop series in November called “Fall in Love with Data” where graduate students in the Data Science program will facilitate workshops intended for an interdisciplinary audience. Please RSVP (emma.wood@umassd.edu) to attend a workshop, and join us for snacks and collaboration in a casual setting, room 135 on the first floor of the library. The facilitators of the first workshop in the series, “The Art of Problem Solving,” are enthusiastic about their area of expertise and about sharing their knowledge with others:

“I fell in love with data only when I realized that data is of no use unless you are searching for an answer or trying to solve a problem. Curiosity is my necessity.” – Vijay Mohan Yeddu, Data Science graduate student

“I believe data is the new oil and refining it wisely will supply an abundance of insights which help solve real-world problems!” – Abhiram Raju, Data Science graduate student

Contact Information for DiSH:
Emma Wood, Scholarly Communication Librarian
Email: emma.wood@umassd.edu
Phone: 508-999-8681

Open Access Week Featured Faculty Member: David Kagan, PhD, Physics Department

International Open Access Week (October 24-30, 2022) is a time to recognize free, accessible information online and to inspire scholars to engage in this advantageous model in scholarship and research. The term Open Access refers to scholarly information that is available digitally free of charge and without other access barriers. Some teaching and learning materials, referred to as Open Educational Resources (OER), are published online under flexible licenses called Creative Commons Licenses that allow for sharing and tailoring the information. This includes textbooks – Yes, we said FREE textbooks. Each day this week we will feature a UMass Dartmouth faculty member who uses OER in their classroom or publishes scholarly work under a Creative Commons license. Today’s UMD faculty member is an instructor who has adopted an Openstax textbook, a digital book which is completely free to students.

David Kagan is a professor of physics who has taught at UMass Dartmouth for about 10 years. The foundational concepts of physics don’t change much over time – gravity and magnetism are quite reliable – but student learning styles and modes of teaching continue to evolve. So to keep students engaged, Prof. Kagan opts for dynamic teaching resources, sometimes replacing a standard reading assignment with a video or seeking interactive ways for students to do assessment and learn the material. In class, Prof. Kagan relies heavily on content that he creates himself such as slides and notes. Like many faculty members, teaching during the pandemic accelerated Prof. Kagan’s multimodal approach because one has to get creative when trying to reach students via Zoom. Prof. Kagan uses a trusted resource from Openstax that carries a Creative Commons Attribution License v4.0, and can be shared and adapted. Students need only visit the website and download the book to have access to the required reading. This OER option is comparable in content to the textbooks by Halliday and Resnick that have historically been the cornerstones of introductory physics classes.

Kudos to Prof. Kagan for seeking cost-savings for students and a dynamic classroom experience! For more information about OpenStax textbooks, check out their website https://openstax.org/.

If you are a faculty member who wants to know more about OER, please reach out to our Scholarly Communication Librarian, Emma Wood.

Open Access Week Featured Faculty Publication: Journal of Feminist Scholarship, An Open Access Journal Founded by University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Faculty Members

International Open Access Week (October 24-30, 2022) is a time to recognize Open Access (OA), and to inspire scholars to engage in this beneficial model in scholarship and research. The term Open Access refers to scholarly information that is available digitally, free of charge, and without other access barriers. Some teaching and learning materials, referred to as Open Educational Resources (OER), are published online under flexible licenses called Creative Commons Licenses that allow for sharing and remixing. This includes textbooks – Yes, we said FREE textbooks. Each day this week we will feature a UMass Dartmouth faculty member who uses OER in their classroom or publishes scholarly work under a Creative Commons license. Today we highlight an Open Access Journal that was founded by 3 UMD faculty members, Catherine Villanueva Gardner, Anna M. Klobucka, and Jeannette E. Riley,  in 2011. Anupama Arora, PhD, Professor of English & Communication, and Women’s and Gender Studies, currently serves as co-Executive Editor with Jeannette E. Riley of University of Rhode Island.

Professor Anupama Arora, PhD

The Journal of Feminist Scholarship is an open access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes twice yearly on topics that encourage a discussion of feminist thought for the twenty-first century. In addition to its regular issues, it publishes a unique interview series with important national and international feminist artists, practitioners, or scholars of color who have reshaped their fields, such as the Chicana historian Vicki Ruiz who was awarded a 2014 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama; and the Afro-French filmmaker Amandine Gay whose documentary, Ouvrir la Voix (Speak Up; 2016), on Black women in France, is the first of its kind. JFS has also published special issues on relevant contemporary topics such as “Education, Intersectionality, and Social Change,” “Feminist Disability Studies,” and the “Queer Archive.” Since 2011, JFS has emerged as a highly regarded platform with frequent submissions, downloads, and citations in national and international fora. The journal is an excellent resource for researching feminist scholarship across the disciplines. The Journal of Feminist Scholarship is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License which means that researchers are free to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles.

“From its inception, JFS has been committed to a mission to disseminate peer reviewed feminist interdisciplinary scholarship across the social sciences and humanities at no cost to authors or readers. The journal has always maintained a commitment to open-access publication, academic rigor, and political relevance, as well as privileging transnational, intersectional, and interdisciplinary orientations.” – Prof. Anupama Arora

Open Access Week Featured Faculty Member: Marilyn Ardito, Full Time Lecturer, Management & Marketing

International Open Access Week (October 24-30, 2022) is a time to recognize free, accessible information online and to inspire scholars to engage in this advantageous model in scholarship and research. The term Open Access refers to scholarly information that is available digitally free of charge and without other access barriers. Some teaching and learning materials, referred to as Open Educational Resources (OER), are published online under flexible licenses called Creative Commons Licenses that allow for sharing and tailoring the information. This includes textbooks – Yes, we said FREE textbooks. Each day this week we will feature a UMass Dartmouth faculty member who uses OER in their classroom or publishes scholarly work under a Creative Commons license. Today’s UMD faculty member is an educator who uses Open Education Resources in all of her Management and Marketing classes.

Marilyn Ardito is a professor in the Charlton College of Business, and she has been with the university for about three years. Prof. Ardito does not require a traditional textbook for any of the classes she teaches. Rather she opts for free, openly licensed textbooks available through OpenStax which saves her students money and ensures that everyone has the course material on day one. Openstax is a publisher who’s mission is “to improve educational access and learning for everyone.” They accomplish this by producing material for high school and higher education that is accessible online without paywall or special credentials required for access. Prof. Ardito made the move toward adopting Open Education Resources in place of expensive textbooks in her previous teaching position at Providence College. She recognized the ethical dilemma that traditional textbook publishing creates with frequent publication of costly new editions. Further, Prof. Ardito adopted OER textbooks to disengage with textbook bias.

Open Access Week Featured Faculty Member: Elisabeth Buck, PhD, Associate Professor / Director, Writing & Multiliteracy Center, English & Communication

International Open Access Week (October 24-30, 2022) is a time to recognize Open Access (OA), and to inspire scholars to engage in this advantageous model in scholarship and research. The term Open Access refers to scholarly information that is available digitally, free of charge, and without other access barriers. Some teaching and learning materials, referred to as Open Educational Resources (OER), are published online under flexible licenses called Creative Commons Licenses that allow for sharing and remixing. This includes textbooks – Yes, we said FREE textbooks. Each day this week we will feature a UMass Dartmouth faculty member who uses OER in their classroom or publishes scholarly work under a Creative Commons license. Prof. Elisabeth Buck has experience with OER in the classroom as well as Open Access publishing.

Elisabeth Buck is a professor in the English & Communication Department, and she directs the Writing & Multiliteracy Center where UMD students receive free tutoring services. Something that students will not find in any of Prof. Buck’s courses such as ENL 352 Public Relations Writing is an expensive required textbook. Prof. Buck has made the leap to Open Educational Materials (OER), and saves students money on their bookstore bills by assigning free, openly licensed materials in her classes. In addition, she is author of a book called Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) which was nominated for the 2018 International Writing Centers Association Outstanding Book Award. Chapter Five of the text is available open-access. We commend Prof. Buck for her OER efforts in the classroom and in academic publishing.

UMass Dartmouth staff, faculty, and students can access the complete e-book of Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies using this library link. The library also retains a non-circulating print copy of this book and other faculty publications in the Archives & Special Collections – UMass Dartmouth | Claire T. Carney Library.

Open Access Week Featured Faculty Member: Shouhong Wang, Commonwealth Professor of the Charlton College of Business

International Open Access Week (October 24-30, 2022) is a time to recognize Open Access (OA), and to inspire scholars to engage in this advantageous model in scholarship and research. The term Open Access refers to scholarly information that is available digitally free of charge and without other access barriers. Some teaching and learning materials, referred to as Open Educational Resources (OER), are available for free online under flexible licenses called Creative Commons Licenses that allow for sharing and remixing. This includes textbooks – Yes, we said FREE textbooks. Each day this week we will feature a UMass Dartmouth faculty member who uses OER in their classroom or publishes scholarly work under a Creative Commons license. Today’s faculty member is a person who does both.

Shouhong Wang is a Commonwealth Professor of Decision & Information Sciences who has co-authored an open education textbook, and adopted it in his classroom for the past seven years. He has also published extensively on the challenges, strategies, and benefits of open education resources in higher education. We commend Prof. Shouhoung Wang for his contributions to the scholarly literature in open education and for the innovation that he has brought to the classroom. Take a look at some of Prof. Wang’s publications below, and if ever you need help accessing an article or traversing a paywall, please reach out to the library for assistance.

Librarian/Yoga Teachers: Uncovering a Unique Population

Kari Mofford, UMassD Librarian and certified yoga instructor, co-authored “Librarian/Yoga Teachers: Uncovering a Unique Population” for the Journal of New Librarianship. The article is available at https://newlibs.org/index.php/jonl/issue/current.

Abstract: A survey was created to determine whether or not there is a community of librarians/library workers who are also certified to teach yoga. The survey helped to identify the size of the community and explored the participant’s experiences associated with the dual skills sets. Results show there are strong benefits for those library workers who have their yoga certification, but there are also concerns and challenges that demonstrate a need for a more formal community and further research. 

Introducing our Scholarly Communication Librarian, Emma Wood

A Scholarly Communication Librarian has joined the Claire T. Carney Library team this Fall! Although the position is new, Emma Wood has been with the university for 13 years, including as a librarian at the UMass Law Library where she assisted students and faculty with legal research. She is interested in supporting research and publication on campus as well as promoting OERs (free and low- cost teaching materials).  Read on to learn more about our new librarian.

What is a Scholarly Communication Librarian?

It’s an exciting and relatively recent development in the world of librarianship. I have the opportunity to enhance and encourage scholarship on campus by supporting research and publication. This means meeting with faculty to help to make their research and scholarly articles more discoverable, creating faculty profiles, and by identifying resources to help with their digital projects. For example, I hope to see an online repository of faculty scholarship developed in the near future. I will also work with students on data management tools and best practices and will provide reference help. An important part of my job will be getting the word out about the advantages of Open Educational Resources, not only how they save students money but also how they improve teaching/learning in the classroom. Everyone benefits from accessible, affordable textbooks and class materials!

Where are you from and where did you go to school?

Way out in the western part of the state – The Berkshire Mountains – a town called Adams, MA. I moved to Dartmouth more than a decade ago to work at UMass Dartmouth. I received my undergraduate degree in English/Communications from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and I completed my Masters in Library Science at Simmons College (now Simmons University) in Boston, MA.

What are your hobbies/interests?

Food, travel, 80s movies, books, cats, writing, Stranger Things, Cobra Kai, and metal bands!

What are you looking forward to this fall semester?

I’m eager to get to know more UMass Dartmouth faculty members and their research interests. Not only is their teaching important to our success, but the articles and original studies and projects they produce are vital to our culture and profile as a university. I’m looking forward to working with both faculty and students to enhance the resources they need to find, produce, and disseminate scholarly works. And I am thrilled to be working with open education materials – a concept that has interested me since my time as a student trying to buy textbooks and as a librarian helping students get access to what they need for class.

What do you want students and faculty to know about you?

That I am dedicated to supporting them, and I want the library to be everyone’s favorite place!

How can someone contact you?

Email me at emma.wood@umassd.edu or call 508-999-8681

Interested faculty members are encouraged to schedule a Scholarly Check-In with me where we can discuss ways to increase the visibility and discoverability of your scholarly publications. You may also schedule an OER Consultation to consider free and low-cost materials that you may integrate into your classes.

Are you a student who has experienced the benefits of low or no cost textbooks or a faculty member who uses OERs? I want to hear from you!