“Developing Breakthrough Services and Stimulating Cutting-Edge Scholarship”: Read the Sherman Centre’s 2022-23 Annual Report
The last year marked a period of tremendous growth and activity in the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship. We successfully coordinated a wide variety of events including three workshop series and a popular interdisciplinary lecture series, along with launching major initiatives such as the RDM Institutional Strategy and the Digital Research Commons Pilot. We maintained educational offerings including the annual undergraduate course and the graduate residency; we also enhanced workshop programming by revamping the Centre’s certificate program and by developing our collection of Online Learning modules. SCDS staff also amplified community engagement activities by working with a local organization to provide specialized data science training for marginalized groups.
2022-2023 SCDS Highlights
- 38 workshops delivered (including 24 new workshops), forming 70 hours of presentations and reaching 2300 registrants
- 91 total e-resources (including 45 new e-resources), garnering 16,700 views from 6,600 users
- 40 instructional collaborations, forming 71 hours of presentations and reaching 685 students
- 810 research consultations, forming 486 hours devoted to supporting research
- 11 special events reached 850 registrants
- 9 new Graduate Residents, 6 new Student Employees, 3 new Affiliates, and 2 new Research Assistants
- 250+ open-access data tables on the Hamilton Community Data Portal
- 13,000 inventoried air photos and 255 ArcGIS licenses distributed
- 8 open-access publications
In the Sherman Centre’s 2022-2023 Annual Report‘s “Message from the Directors” (reproduced in full below), Dr. Jay Brodeur (Administrative Director of the Sherman Centre) and Dr. Andrea Zeffiro (Academic Director of the Sherman Centre) reflect on the Centre’s accelerated development and innovative goals for the future:
“In our last annual report, we concluded our message by looking forward to working closely with our expanded Sherman Centre team. The influx of new team members has enabled us to refine our outreach and communications and rapidly scale our research support services, programming, and activities. Our workshops have grown from 5 in 2015-2016 to 38 in 2022-2023 with 2300 registrants. In addition to the Centre’s initial workshop series, Do More with Digital Scholarship, we now boast two additional ones: Data Analysis Support Hub (DASH), which focuses on developing analytical and visualization skills, and Research Data Management, which focuses on data management and stewardship topics.
We see an opportunity to support the development of our campus’s AI readiness for research through unique programming and training to navigate AI in research over the longer term.
Jay Brodeur and Andrea Zeffiro, Co-Directors of the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship
This report documents the Centre’s far-reaching activities from June 1, 2022 to May 31, 2023. The past 12 months saw the Centre expand its existing services to better meet the diverse and changing needs of the McMaster research community, as well as develop and launch new research support services (Data Visualization, Research Impact) that address areas of growing demand. Members of the SCDS team were also central to broader, campus-wide research support initiatives, including the development of McMaster’s inaugural Research Data Management Institutional Strategy, and the collaborative and silo-breaking Digital Research Commons Pilot. We continued to innovate in teaching and learning through instructional collaborations, guest lectures, and teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. We trained thousands of established and emerging scholars and professionals through our hands-on workshops and special events and through the development and sharing of multifaceted open learning resources.
Over the next year, we will advance training by further developing innovative models for transforming workshop contents into Open Education Resources that can easily be integrated into teaching or used for self-guided learning. We will continue to nurture community-based collaborations and partnerships by strengthening existing relationships while thoughtfully forging new connections as we further develop community-engaged programming and services.
We are excited to cement the Sherman Centre’s reputation for accelerating innovation, developing breakthrough services, and stimulating cutting-edge scholarship.”
Jay Brodeur and Andrea Zeffiro, Co-Directors of the Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship
We also see new avenues for the Sherman Centre as we build on our existing activities. Notably, the Centre can lead in Artificial Intelligence readiness for research. The rapid advancement and take-up of generative AI has garnered significant interest and attention for its potential to disrupt post-secondary education. As the sector grapples with AI’s potential to enhance teaching and learning, while assessing the challenges associated with its use, we need parallel conversations about the possibilities for AI to augment research while appraising the ethical implications of these opaque systems. We see an opportunity to support the development of our campus’s AI readiness for research through unique programming and training to navigate AI in research over the longer term.
As we set our goals for the next year and the next decade of the Sherman Centre, we find ourselves continually returning to our founding objective: to be a “campus-wide resource that fosters library/faculty collaboration in interdisciplinary digital research and scholarship” by “providing infrastructure, expertise, and opportunities for collaboration.” By embodying these principles and leveraging our successes, we will continue to strive to be at the forefront of digital scholarship. Looking ahead, we are ready and excited to cement the Sherman Centre’s reputation for accelerating innovation, developing breakthrough services, and stimulating cutting-edge scholarship.”
Read the open-access report on MacSphere.