Assessing the Research Practices of Civil & Environmental Engineering Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: An Ithaka S+R Local Report

Abstract

In Fall 2017-Spring 2018, the University of Wisconsin-Madison participated in Ithaka S+R’s ‘Supporting Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars’ research study, along with nine peer institutions in North America. For this project, sponsored by ACSE (American Society of Civil Engineers), local teams comprised of librarians at participating institutions, conducted interviews that considered the research needs of civil and environmental engineering faculty. With the goal of developing recommendations toward libraries supporting these researchers’ work, these teams collected qualitative data from researchers with the intent of both developing a local report and submitting the data to Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit service specializing in strategic guidance, research, and publications for academic and cultural communities, for analysis and publication in a final capstone report (“Research Support Services | Ithaka S+R,” n.d.). This local report covers four basic themes identified in the study: Interdisciplinarity, Research, and Collaboration; Finding and Managing Information; Working with Data; and Publishing.