International Forum on Expert Finder Systems
Charting the Informational Universe
September 16-18, 2025
Cleveland, OH

SPEAKERS

Benjamin Greenawald

Assistant Director, Faculty Data Science

Virginia Tech

Description

Ben works as a data professional in the Office of Analytics and Institutional Effectiveness at Virginia Tech. There, he serves as the liaison for faculty related data, managing the faculty activity tracking system as well as performing the full spectrum of reporting and analysis. He is also involved in the modernization of technologies in their office, helping to automate old processes with Python and move old infrastructure to AWS.

Sessions

Evaluating User Engagement in a Research Information Management System at a Large Research-intensive University
September 17, 2025
2:40 pm - 3:10 pm
PRESENTATION

At the heart of a valued research information management (RIM) service is a well-curated set of easily accessible and trustworthy data that describe an institution's research activity. The cultivation of those data into beneficial use cases requires ongoing collaboration among myriad stakeholders from within the research development community (librarians, faculty administrators, communications specialists, technology licensing agents, facility and equipment managers, IT personnel, etc.).

This presentation will explore the social interoperability involved in nurturing the library-managed RIM services at two major midwestern research universities—from the partnerships involved in unifying previously siloed sources of data to the use cases supported in each campus' quest to understand, report on, and showcase its research accomplishments.

The presenters will discuss several collaborations, including creating a workflow to harvest local patents data and supplement with details from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, leveraging Crossref publication data to support communications professionals in efforts to pitch research-related stories to major news media, and porting legacy faculty activity data into a single, centralized campus repository in order to retire aging unit websites and databases.

Speaker
Rachel Miles
Assistant Director for Research Impact and Information Management
Virginia Tech
Co-speakers
Emily Mazure
Research Impact Librarian
Virginia Tech
Mengyu Yin
Research Intelligence Data Scientist
Virginia Tech
Benjamin Greenawald
Assistant Director, Faculty Data Science
Virginia Tech
Moderator
Alexandra Winzeler
Business Development Manager
Digital Science

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