Building Support: Findings and Recommendations from Conversations with Civil and Environmental Engineering Researchers at Two Canadian Universities

Abstract

Librarians from the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo took part in a multi-institution project to learn more about the research practices of civil and environmental engineering faculty. The project, designed and coordinated by Ithaka S+R, and sponsored by ASCE, involved conducting one-on-one interviews with civil and environmental engineering faculty to learn more about their research methods, the types of data they produce, their publishing practices, and more. After transcribing and coding the interview results, each library team produced a report highlighting the key factors discussed by faculty and the implications of those factors for the library at their institution. As the only Canadian schools taking part in the study, the librarian teams from Toronto and Waterloo maintained a line of communication during the project to compare notes on process and findings. In this paper, the authors describe the research methods of the Ithaka S+R project and their findings, focusing on the experiences of the civil and environmental engineering faculty who participated in the interviews from a Canadian perspective. The paper will examine some of the challenges that civil and environmental engineering faculty are facing, especially around research data management and complying with the tri-agency open access policies of governmental grant bodies. The paper will also focus on supporting graduate students as they develop into researchers in their own right, examining opportunities for increased support, and exploring how targeting graduate students may lead to an increased awareness of the library’s services by faculty members as well. Finally, the paper will discuss plans for how the library might respond to these ongoing challenges, and provide updates on how both the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo have used the information from this study to better support researchers at their respective institutions.