RDAP2025 Core10 Poster
Assistance in finding data is a quintessential question most Data Services departments encounter on a regular basis. Unsatisfied with our resources to aid with this quandary, our department decided to pilot a project we labeled Core10. As the project took shape, it became evident that it would be beneficial as an experiential learning opportunity for our library's summer internship program.
A core tenet of our strategic plan, the donor-funded summer internship employs undergraduates as paid interns, and assigns unique projects that improve library services. Experiential learning emphasizes the process of learning by doing and highlights active participation and reflection. As data skills are in demand, and the proposed project would benefit from student ingenuity and reflection, we proposed Core10 as one of the internships.
Core10 was conceived in response to consultations from students seeking help with data discovery. Requests spanned multiple classes and disciplines, and required considerable librarian effort. The Core10 managers envisioned addressing this with a curated data course reserve featuring open, multidisciplinary datasets. The intern first conducted a community needs assessment to identify patron data requirements, and then used this assessment to curate ten datasets that could be easily adapted for general use. The intern conducted research on varying datasets based on identified community needs. Dataset selection was based on parameters including dataset size, subject, and application (e.g. data cleaning, visualization, machine learning, and mapping). The Core10 collection was deposited in an institutional repository and was made available for coursework and research.
Core10 highlighted the importance of understanding community needs and engaging with users through creative data curation. It also provided the intern with career development opportunities, project management skills, and material for their professional portfolio. In this presentation we will discuss the summer internship program, the Core10 project, and the experiential learning internship.
