Digital Scholarship Services recently published its Summer 2021 newsletter. The current issue, as well as past issues, can be found here. Subscribe to receive future newsletters in your inbox.
Data @ Rice: Summer 2021 Workshops
This free workshop series sponsored by Fondren Library and the Center for Research Computing provides hands-on training in the basics of organizing, documenting, analyzing, and visualizing your data. Workshops will take place on Zoom and Canvas.
Summer sessions include:
- Introduction to MySQL
- Data Management
- Python for Beginners
- Python-Pandas
- Python Visualization with Matplotlib
- Python for Excel Users
- Census with Python
- Containerized Data Visualization with Docker and Plotly
- Text Analysis Concept and Practice
- ORION Virtual Machines – Private Cloud for Research
- Excel Pivot Tables
Course descriptions and registration can be found on the library website.
Data@Rice: Spring 2021 Workshops
The Data @ Rice Workshop Series, sponsored by Fondren Library and the Center for Research Computing, provides hands-on training in the basics of organizing, documenting, analyzing, and visualizing your data. Spring sessions will be offered via Zoom and Canvas.
Spring sessions include:
- Introduction to SQL
- Data Management
- The Absolute Basics of Jupyter Notebooks
- GitHub Intro
- GitHub for R Users
- Python for Beginners
- Python-Pandas
- Python Visualization with Matplotlib
- Python/R Project – Covid 19 Data Analysis with Python & R
- Python for Excel Users
- Census with Python
- Introduction to R Programming
- R Data Manipulation and Visualization
- R Visualization with ggplot
- Intro to Predictive Modeling with Multiple Linear Regression
- Interactive Data Visualization Apps with Plotly (Python and R)
- ORION Virtual Machines – Private Cloud for Research
- Remote Access to Computing Resources
- Excel Pivot Tables
Course descriptions and registration can be found on the library website.
Fondren Open Access Resources
Happy International Open Access Week! Fondren Library’s Digital Scholarship Services is celebrating by highlighting the library’s support for open access (OA). The library supports OA in a number of ways, including:
- Financial support for OA publishing: Fondren Library supports Rice authors publishing in Open Access (OA), peer-reviewed research journals through membership discounts and through offering funds for OA fees. We also support OA scholarly book publication by Rice authors. Information about the program can be found in this research guide.
- Rice Open Access Policy: This policy, which was passed by the Faculty Senate in 2012, directs faculty to make copies of journal articles available in the Rice Digital Scholarship Archive. Learn more here.
- Rice Digital Scholarship Archive: This repository enables faculty to share their work openly; librarians manage the content to ensure that it can be found and is preserved. Most materials come from Rice faculty members’ research, electronic theses and dissertations, and digitized collections of rare or unique books, images, musical performances, and manuscripts. Use this webform to submit your work.
- Open Educational Resources: As part of its support for affordable course material, Fondren provides resources for finding and using Open Educational Resources (OER).
If you have questions or want to learn more about the library’s OA initiatives, please contact openaccess@rice.edu.
Fall 2020 DSS Newsletter
The Fall 2020 issue of the department’s electronic newsletter was recently distributed to campus via email. It can also be found here.
We welcome feedback on this newsletter and questions about Digital Scholarship Services. Contact cds@rice.edu.
Summer 2020 DSS Newsletter
The Summer 2020 issue of the department’s electronic newsletter was recently distributed to campus via email. It can also be found here.
We welcome feedback on this newsletter and questions about Digital Scholarship Services. Contact cds@rice.edu.
Finding Creative Commons Licensed Content
At the end of May, Creative Commons celebrated the first birthday of CC Search, a discovery tool for online openly licensed and public domain works:
CC Search searches across more than 300 million images from open APIs and the Common Crawl dataset. It goes beyond simple search to aggregate results across multiple public repositories into a single catalog, and facilitates reuse through features like machine-generated tags and one-click attribution.
Currently CC Search only searches images, but we plan to add additional media types such as open texts and audio, with the ultimate goal of providing access to all 1.4 billion CC licensed and public domain works on the web. [Creative Commons]
DSS staff have found CC Search a very useful tool for finding Creative Commons-licensed content. Below, are several additional tips and tools we’ve found useful:
- Google Advanced Search: Using Google’s Advanced Search, select an option under Usage Rights, to search for CC content.
- Flickr: Allows users to search images by type of Creative Commons license.
- ccMixter: A community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons licenses.
- Europeana: Facilitates searches for content found in European cultural institutions. Once you run a search in their search bar, you can limit your results to items that are freely usable or available under a Creative Commons–found under “By Copyright” in the left menu.
- Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Image Library: All images found in this collection are licensed CC BY-SA, meaning that you are allowed to use the image only if 1) you cite the Folger Shakespeare Library as the source, and 2) you license anything you create using the images under the same or equivalent license.
If you want to use any CC-licensed content you find, be sure to provide proper attribution. Fondren’s Creative Commons guide provides some best practices.
Open Educational Resources and COVID-19
As Rice prepares for dual delivery (in-person and online) of most classes for the Fall semester, DSS encourages instructors to consider including Open Educational Resources (OER) in their course material.
Fondren Library has long-supported OER as a way to reduce student course material costs and provide instructors ways to customize content to their pedagogical needs. OER are teaching and learning resources that are licensed in a way that allows anyone to freely use and re-purpose them. Examples of OER include textbooks, syllabi, lectures, learning activities, assignments, and tests or quizzes. Benefits of using OER include customization of course materials, easy online access, and reducing student cost–particularly important at a time when many students are experiencing economic hardship related to the pandemic.
The current situation highlights the importance of making–and using–high-quality, no-cost educational material available to anyone with internet access. To help support Rice adoption of OER, DSS staff have developed an Open Educational Resources Guide, which provides resources for finding and using OER. If additional help is needed, DSS staff are here to help! Email us to schedule a consultation (cds@rice.edu). If suitable OER are not available in your subject area, see our Affordable Course Materials guide to learn other strategies for saving your students money, such as by using library materials in your course.
DSS Resources Online
Even though most Digital Scholarship Services staff continue to work remotely, support for library users continues. In addition to providing virtual workshops (see Research Data Services and Digital Media Commons) and individual consultations, a number of DSS resources are available online. Check them out!
Author Resources
Accessible PDFs: Provides steps to create accessible PDFs in compliance with accessibility standards.
Fondren DOI Services: Information about the library’s Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Services.
Finding and Using Images in Publications: This guide is intended to provide information on finding and using images in art and art history publications. Topics such as copyright, Fair Use, public domain, and Creative Commons are discussed.
ORCID and Other Author Identifiers/Profiles: Resources for creating and using ORCID, ResearcherID, and Scopus Author ID.
Perma.cc: Guide to using Perma.cc, a web tool used to create permanent, reliable, unalterable links to the online sources used in citations.
Copyright and Licensing
Finding Images and Text in the Public Domain
Creative Commons: Guide for choosing a Creative Commons (CC) license for your own work and finding and using CC-licensed content.
Open Access and Open Education
Open Access @ Rice: Information about Fondren’s support for various open access initiatives, including Rice’s Open Access Policy
Rice Author Open Access Fees: Outlines Fondren Library’s program to subsidize open access fees for current Rice faculty, students and staff.
Searching for Open Access Articles: Tips for finding open access articles.
Open Educational Resources: Resources for finding and using open educational resources (OERs).
Funder Public Access Policies: Information about federal funder public access policies (for publications and data)
Patents and Trademarks
Patent Information for Rice University Researchers and Classes
Patent Resources for Area Inventors
Patente, Marcas Registradas, y Derechos de Autor Información en Español
Trademarks: Videos and guides to help understand the trademark process.
Research Data
Research Data Services: Provides tips for the whole data lifecycle, including managing and sharing data.
Data Resources: Links to a wide variety of data from local, state, national and international sources.
Census Data: Resources that guide users in locating and using census data.
Find additional resources and learn more about what’s going on around DSS:
Data@Rice: Summer 2020 Workshops
This free workshop series, sponsored by Fondren Library and the Center for Research Computing, provides hands-on training in the basics of organizing, documenting, analyzing, and visualizing your data. Summer 2020 sessions will be held virtually via Zoom.
Summer 2020 workshops include:
- Introduction to Access
- Introduction to SQL
- Data Management
- The Absolute Basics of Jupyter Notebooks
- Introduction to R
- R Visualization & Data Manipulation
- Python for Beginners
- Python-Pandas
- Python Visualization with Matplotlib
- Parallel Python
- Python/R Project – Covid 19 Data Analysis with Python
- ORION System
- R visualization with ggplot2
Course descriptions and registration can be found on the library website.
The Research Data Services team is also available to consult on data management, Excel, Python, R, and other data topics. To schedule an appointment, fill out this request form.