Council on Research Meeting Minutes
October 15, 2014
Life Sciences Research Building, Conference Room 1143
11am-1pm
Members present: James Dias (by phone), Lisa Donohue, Keith Earle, Kajal Lahiri, Janet Marler, Klil
Neori, Ian Tucker
Members absent: Ilham Almahamid, Aiguo Dai, DawnMarie Helin
Also attending: Adrienne Bonilla, Lorre Smith (guest)
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order by Council on Research Chair, Kajal Lahiri, at 11:03am.
In a slight change to the agenda, it was agreed that the presentation by Lorre Smith of University
Libraries about the launch of the Scholars Archive open access repository should begin the meeting,
followed by COR business.
1. Presentation by Lorre Smith, University Libraries- Launch of Scholars Archive open access
repository
Lorre Smith of University Libraries attended the October meeting to give a presentation to the Council on
Research about the new Scholars Archive open access repository, and to invite members of the Council on
Research to the launch event to be held on October 21. The event featured a presentation by Jim DelRosso,
Digital Projects Coordinator at Cornell University’s Hospitality, Labor, and Management Library, and one
of Cornell University Library’s current group of Digital Scholarship Fellows. DelRosso would be providing
examples of exciting ways the repository can be used to good effect, and provide a look at what the software
has to offer.
The new Scholars Archive is a digital open access repository where faculty can upload documents in many
formats for anyone to retrieve, which will be easily found through search engines. Scholars Archive is
hosted on the Bepress Digital Commons platform, the leading hosted institutional repository software for
universities, colleges, law schools, and research centers in the United States, and can be accessed from the
University Libraries’ website. A wide variety of scholarship can be uploaded to the repository, including
everything from faculty papers, student accomplishments, annual reports, data, image collections and audio
visual materials. There is also a component in the software for journal publishing and conference
management, which will be rolled out over the coming months as practicable. Many grants require that data
be made available through an open access repository, and the Scholars Archive would enable UAlbany
faculty to meet that requirement through a resource provided and maintained by the University.
The floor was then opened to questions and comments from the Council on Research. Dr. Dias expressed
that he was excited about the initiative, and asked if there were ways that the Division for Research could
help get the message out to researchers in order to help make the initiative successful. Lorre Smith agreed
to ask Elaine Lasda-Bergman, also of University Libraries, in touch with the Office of the Vice President
for Research to discuss ways to get the message out to researchers. It was also suggested that an article
could be featured in the next issue of the Division newsletter Accent on Research highlighting the launch
of the repository, and Ms. Smith offered to provide email text to be sent to researchers. Dr. Dias also offered
Page 1
to put a link on the Division website to more robust information for researchers on the open access
repository.
The point was made that many researchers already use open access repositories such as ResearchGate and
LinkedIn, and the question asked why researchers might also use the UAlbany Scholars Archive. Lorre
Smith explained that it was up to the researchers to determine where their document might have the best
impact and that it would be a personal choice for researchers. Results hosted on the Bepress platform rank
highly in search engine results, and using the UAlbany repository would give researchers an opportunity to
keep all of their work together, as well as allying them with the strength of the UAlbany brand. It was also
suggested that research centers in particular might find it useful to have all of their work tied in with the
University at Albany.
It was also suggested that the best way to ensure the new repository’s success is to make the transfer of
documents from other repositories to the Scholars Archive as simple as possible, especially as a better
repository would better reflect the scholarship going on at the University at Albany, leading it to be better
used. It was asked if there was a way to search for published items already available on other open access
repositories to import them to the Scholars Archive; Lorre Smith confirmed that she would investigate the
option and let the Vice President for Research know what she found out.
The question was also raised if grad students will be able to upload data, documents etc. to this repository.
While University Libraries realize the value of graduate and undergraduate publications, Scholars Archive
will be focused on faculty first to ensure that it runs smoothly, with the opportunity to expand it to graduate
and undergraduate work in the future. It’s expected that the archive will be starting with a reasonable group
at first, and expanding to include more participants as logistics are worked out.
The issue of liability for proprietary data that’s uploaded to the repository was raised, and it was explained
that the liability falls on the user who uploads the data to acknowledge the proprietary restrictions on any
data they upload. The details are delineated in the Memorandum of Agreement which users must accept in
order to use the service.
Approval of September 29 minutes
No changes were proposed to the minutes, and the minutes were approved by a unanimous vote.
2. Old Business
a. Review of subcommittee lists
It was requested that phone numbers and email addresses be added to the members list (actionLisa). The importance of balance across the disciplines for the FRAP committee was discussed,
and it was agreed that a good first step to finding members of that committee would be to contact
the people who served on the committee last year to see if they would be willing to serve again
(action- Lisa). Seeing no volunteers to serve as chair of the review committee for the Presidential
Awards for Excellence in Research and Creative Activities, and none for the Researchers’ Liaison
committee, it was agreed that an email request would go out so that people could consider
volunteering that way (action- Lisa). The Graduate Student Association would contact grad
students to find a person willing to serve as student representative on the Excellence in Research
and Creative Activities award review committee (action- Klil Neori). The Office of the Vice
President will also liaise with the Provost’s Office to arrange the President’s designee and Senate
designee for the Excellence in Research and Creative Activities award review committee (actionLisa).
Page 2
In discussing the FRAP review committee makeup, the question was raised as to whether or not
someone should review an application from a colleague in their department. On the one hand, it
could be considered a conflict of interest to have someone review a colleague’s application, but on
the other hand, it was proposed that they would be best placed to review the application as they
would be best able to judge the merits and significance of the proposal within their field. As there
are always 3 reviewers for each proposal, it was generally agreed that it was best to have someone
from within an applicant’s department be one of the reviewers on a given application, where
possible.
Moving on to the Excellence in Research and Creative Activities award review committee, it was
recommended that the committee should be cognizant of the potential for focusing too much on
grants, rather than the quality of their research. The question was put to the council asking how
people can be researchers without grantsmanship. It was suggested that the focus should be on the
research output, rather than on grant amounts or number of grants obtained, particularly as there is
often not the infrastructure to obtain grants in some disciplines.
b. Review of FRAP guidelines
It was noted that it’s often difficult to get federal funding in any discipline, and the FRAP awards
are seed money to get an external agency- not necessarily just federal funding- to engage with
research at UAlbany. The example of SUNY Stony Brook was mentioned, which has a “discovery
fund” encouraging research funding from philanthropic, private industry and foundation sources.
It was suggested that the guidelines should be revised to reflect the changed reality that funding is
difficult to often impossible to get from Federal sources, and the new guidelines should indicate
the purpose of the FRAP in engaging external sources, not simply Federal funding. It was agreed
that this could be a task for the FRAP subcommittee to identify and revise the relevant wording in
the FRAP guidelines.
Other business
The new data center was brought up for discussion, with a question as to the research implications of the
new facility and what new resources might be available. It was generally agreed that there is a serious need
for support for computer-related activities, software, and statistics across campus.
It was generally agreed that it would be worthwhile to bring Chris Haile or David Anderson to a future
COR meeting to discuss the resources available at the new Data Center on campus.
Vice President Dias also brought attention to the nascent Data Analytics constellation, which draws on
experts from across campus to provide expertise on data analytics projects in a variety of disciplines.
Meeting adjourned 12:23pm
Submitted by Elizabeth Rooks
Page 3