Education for eScience Professionals: Integrating Data Curation and Cyberinfrastructure

Abstract

Large, collaboratively managed datasets have become essential to many scientific and engineering endeavors, and their management has increased the need for "eScience professionals" who solve large scale information management problems for researchers and engineers. This paper considers the dimensions of work, worker, and workplace, including the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for eScience professionals. We used focus groups and interviews to explore the needs of scientific researchers and how these needs may translate into curricular and program development choices. A cohort of five masters students also worked in targeted internship settings and completed internship logs. We organized this evidence into a job analysis that can be used for curriculum and program development at schools of library and information science.