Karen Nourse, a research and data librarian and full professor at Middle Tennessee State University, presents her project conducted at Iméra.
Dedicated to breaking down the hidden barriers of conducting research, she focuses on producing and publishing social sciences research. Her current project explores the use of open government data (OGD) by researchers in France.
• Open Government Data (OGD): Identifying how data collected by government agencies—such as census, educational statistics, or health data—is reused for analysis.
• Breaking Funding Barriers: Highlighting OGD as an underutilized resource for doctoral students who need to conduct research but lack funding for original data collection.
• Instructional Support: Learning about French university libraries, their services, and how they assist in instructing students to become strong researchers.
• Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Working directly with Aix-Marseille University researchers, particularly at the MMSH laboratory, and assisting with instruction to students.
Transcript generated by artificial intelligence (Whisper speech recognition model), not yet checked by a human. It may contain errors, particularly in proper nouns, specialised terminology and passages in other languages. Where there is any doubt, the recording prevails.
Video transcript
Click a timestamp to play the video from that point.
0:10 I'm Karen Norse. I am the research and data librarian at Middle Tennessee State University, which is located outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I've worked at Middle Tennessee since 2013, and I hold rank as a full professor. As the research and data librarian, I help students and faculty with all aspects of the research life cycle, from the initial design of their study, to the data collection and analysis, and finally dissemination of their results. I am interested in the techniques of producing and publishing social sciences research,
0:45 earning a doctorate, and subsequently using this knowledge. to produce research was a very empowering experience for me, and it was something I wanted to share with others. Prior to academia, I worked in public school education in middle grades with children who were approximately 12 to 14 years old. This experience was for me a beautiful laboratory in which I was seeing psychology and social issues in real time, but also socioeconomic, cultural, and political issues in my country. My work in public school education showed me a world outside my own.
1:22 It showed me children who were struggling academically, but also demonstrating a range of codependent variables that impacted their educational attainment. It showed me how difficult it can be for educators to try to reach these children. My favorite thing about my current work is empowering others to conduct research within their discipline of study. Research is an extremely creative endeavor and in my work as a data librarian, I emphasize this point with the university students in my care. My job is to break down the hidden barriers of conducting research so that university
1:55 students can learn the language and methods of academia. My project at iomira looks at the use of open government data by researchers in France. Open government data or OGD is data collected by government agencies and made available to the public for analysis or reuse. Some examples are the census or educational statistics or health data such as disease tracking. I see this open government data as an underutilized resource for teaching research design or analysis or methods. Open government data has applications for reuse, which is very important for doctoral
2:34 students in particular. They need to conduct research, but they oftentimes lack the funding to pursue original data collection. My project at IMERA seeks to identify ways that French researchers are already using open government data in their research and subsequent publication. Along the way, I hope to also learn more about French university libraries, their services to students, how they assist in the instruction of these students to become strong researchers, and also how they're helping faculty in the social sciences to conduct
3:11 research. I am very much looking forward to speaking with as many researchers as possible during my stay at the IMERA. My colleagues will be very important to me as I hope to follow their progress and see their data collection in real time. I will also be working directly with ex-Marseille researchers, particularly those at a laboratory devoted to the social sciences called the MMS OSH. And very happily for me, I will have the opportunity to assist with instruction to students at the MMS OSH. And I'm really looking forward to working with them and I hope to convey my enthusiasm for
3:48 research to them.
