Layne M. Johnson

Direct2Experts: A pilot national network to demonstrate interoperability among research-networking platforms

Research-networking tools use data-mining and social networking to enable expertise discovery, matchmaking and collaboration, which are important facets of team science and translational research. Several commercial and academic platforms have been built, and many institutions have deployed these products to help their investigators find local collaborators. Recent studies, though, have shown the growing importance of multiuniversity teams in science. Unfortunately, the lack of a standard data-exchange model and resistance of universities to share information about their faculty have presented barriers to forming an institutionally supported national network. This case report describes an initiative, which, in only 6 months, achieved interoperability among seven major research-networking products at 28 universities by taking an approach that focused on addressing institutional concerns and encouraging their participation. With this necessary groundwork in place, the second phase of this effort can begin, which will expand the networks functionality and focus on the end users.

Developing E-science and Research Services and Support at the University of Minnesota Health Sciences Libraries

ABSTRACT This article describes the development and implementation of e-science and research support services in the Health Sciences Libraries (HSL) at the University of Minnesota (UMN). A review of the broader e-science initiatives within the UMN demonstrates the needs and opportunities that the University Libraries face while building knowledge, skills, and capacity to support e-research. These experiences are being used by the University Libraries administration and HSL to apply support for the growing needs of researchers in the health sciences. Several research areas that would benefit from enhanced e-science support are described. Plans to address the growing e-research needs of health sciences researchers are also discussed.

Library-based clinical and translational research support.

There has been a shift in the workflow at academic biomedical research and clinical care centers to promote more efficient clinical and community implementation of bench discoveries. Strong financial support for this effort is provided by the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health (NIH), awarded to about sixty biomedical research institutions constituting the CTSA Consortium [1]. CTSAs offer an opportunity to speed the translation of bench discoveries to improved human health by transforming the

Launching: university partnership for health informatics

The University Partnership for Health Informatics (UP-HI) is a private-public partnership between the University of Minnesota and the College of St. Scholastica that builds on 11 existing health information technology (HIT) certificates and degrees. It is a newly funded University-Based Training Program enabled by the ARRA HITECH Act. The overall goals and objectives of this partnership are to: 1) rapidly train students to serve in all six HIT professional roles identified by the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT requiring university-level training, including: a) Clinical/Public Health Leaders; b) Health Information Management/Exchange Specialists; c) Health Information Privacy/Security Specialists; d) Research and Development Specialists; e) Programmers/Software Engineers; and f) Health Information Technology Sub-Specialists; and 2) enhance existing HIT certificates and degrees with unique features, including: program access, communication, and asset management through a shared web portal; improved alignment of course content and assignments with role-specific competencies; enhanced online delivery of courses, and enhanced training/mentoring through work context immersion and a journal club. This paper reports on the innovative features of this newly-launched program.

Community engagement and outreach as curricular and pedagogical tools for consortial delivery of health informatics curricula

The objective of this paper is to identify and characterise two grand challenges in the consortial delivery of health informatics curricula: (a) challenges of curriculum and pedagogy and (b) challenges of community engagement. We discovered that we could broadly depict the first challenge along four dimensions and the second challenge along six dimensions. Solutions to these challenges are provided along with a depiction of how the solutions have been successfully implemented in the University Partnership for Health Informatics, a university-based training programme funded by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.