SPEAKERS

Athabasca University is pioneering an innovative approach to address the growing demand for universities to demonstrate the societal impact of their research. As the need to showcase tangible outcomes becomes increasingly critical, measuring and articulating impact remains a complex challenge.

Our session will offer an exploration of our journey with Elsevier's Pure Impact AI tool. With the support of Elsevier's Pure Impact AI, Athabasca is leading the way in developing a holistic, nuanced, and multifaceted solution to capture both qualitative and quantitative metrics of research impact. Attendees will learn how this advanced AI tool enables academic leaders and research administrators to efficiently find, measure, and communicate the societal impact of their research. We will share insights from our pilot testing phase. Through this partnership, Athabasca is setting a new standard for research impact communication, with Elsevier's technology playing a vital supporting role.

Athabasca University is Canada's open university, renowned for its commitment to digital innovation. Our research enterprise is both community-focused and impact-driven, challenging conventional methods by breaking down barriers to knowledge creation and dissemination. Pure, a robust research information management system that centralizes a diverse range of research data types, is focal to our efforts and is being used to enhance transparency and foster collaborative innovation across disciplines. And the Pure Impact AI tools discussed in this presentation features in this work.

As Research Information Management Systems (RIMS) become more central to institutional research infrastructure, library professionals are increasingly recognized as essential partners in their implementation and ongoing management. This panel will explore the metadata expertise and service orientation that library workers bring to RIMS, especially in managing the complexities of research output metadata across disciplines and platforms.

Panelists will discuss how their work contributes to RIM system stewardship, from developing metadata crosswalks and interpreting publication data to integrating open access resources and institutional repositories. Specific challenges, such as copyright compliance, data deduplication, and reconciling repository content with RIMS, will be explored, along with lessons learned from outreach, cleanup, and system configuration efforts.

We will also address how library values—privacy, transparency, responsible metrics, and user-centered support—inform how library staff design services and workflows. This includes support strategies like documentation, workshops, one-on-one consultations, and acting as a liaison with both faculty as well as offices across campus.

Finally, the panel will spotlight the unique challenges of representing creative and performing arts outputs in RIMS, where standard data structures often fall short. Presenters will discuss the hands-on work of structuring data for arts activities, the high-touch support this requires, and the importance of incentivizing and recognizing faculty participation in the system.

Attendees will come away with practical insights into the evolving role of library workers in RIM system management, and the competencies that position them as both technical experts and trusted campus partners.