Browsing by Author "Porter, Nathaniel D."

Now showing 1 - 17 of 17
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    2018 R & I Annual Report
    Griffin, Julie; Hilal, Amr E.; Brown, Anne M.; Petters, Jonathan L.; Porter, Nathaniel D.; McMillan, Gail; Cross, Carrie; Pannabecker, Virginia; Smith, Erin M. (Virginia Tech, 2018)
    This is the 2018 annual report for the Research & Informatics division at University Libraries.
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    Answering the Hard Questions: Prepare to Succeed in Developing Data Services
    Porter, Nathaniel D.; Comer, C. Cozette (2022-09-21)
    If you are looking to develop or expand your data services, you’ll face some hard questions: How can you use your current service model to identify achievable and flexible goals? What are the unique considerations in building library data services in a university or hospital setting? How can you develop service and funding partnerships with limited time and budgets? In this webinar, you’ll learn how to answer these questions and set a path for success using a model based on SMART principles, which emphasizes general best practices for capacity-building through initiatives and partnerships and avoids one-size-fits-all solutions. You’ll learn how to do outcome-oriented planning with limited resources, build networks of partners and advocates, and use continual evaluation to dynamically adjust as your resources and needs shift. You’ll get access to a website with supplemental materials, including slides outlining the presentation and example templates for needs assessment interviews, and planning and evaluation exercises.
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    Cyberattacks and public opinion - The effect of uncertainty in guiding preferences
    Jardine, Eric; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Shandler, Ryan (Sage, 2024-01-30)
    When it comes to cybersecurity incidents – public opinion matters. But how do voters form opinions in the aftermath of cyberattacks that are shrouded in ambiguity? How do people account for the uncertainty inherent in cyberspace to forge preferences following attacks? This article seeks to answer these questions by introducing an uncertainty threshold mechanism predicting the level of attributional certainty required for the public to support economic, diplomatic or military responses following cyberattacks. Using a discrete-choice experimental design with 2025 US respondents, we find lower attributional certainty is associated with less support for retaliation, yet this mechanism is contingent on the suspected identity of the attacker and partisan identity. Diplomatic allies possess a reservoir of good will that amplifies the effect of uncertainty, while rivals are less often given the benefit of the doubt. We demonstrate that uncertainty encourages the use of cognitive schemas to overcome ambiguity, and that people fall back upon pre-existing and politically guided views about the suspected country behind an attack. If the ambiguity surrounding cyberattacks has typically been discussed as an operational and strategic concern, this article shifts the focus of attention to the human level and positions the mass public as a forgotten yet important party during cyber conflict.
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    Designing and Implementing Active Learning with Data
    Porter, Nathaniel D. (2024-02-09)
    Slides for a workshop at the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy 2024.
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    Development and Feasibility of an Online Brief Emotion Regulation Training (BERT) Program for Emerging Adults
    Gatto, Alyssa Jo; Elliott, Truitt J.; Briganti, Jonathan S.; Stamper, Michael J.; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Brown, Anne M.; Harden, Samantha M.; Cooper, Lee D.; Dunsmore, Julie C. (Frontiers, 2022-06-10)
    Mental wellness is a critical component of healthy development in emerging adulthood and serves to protect against stress and promote resilience against psychopathology. Emotion regulation is a key mechanism for effective prevention because of its role in socio-emotional competence and its transdiagnostic significance for psychopathology. In this feasibility study, a brief, time and cost-effective emotion regulation training program for emerging adults (BERT) was developed and tested using the RE-AIM framework. Importantly, building interventions within the context of an implementation framework, such as the RE-AIM framework, enhances the chances that an intervention will be able to scale out and scale up. First, the brainwriting premortem method was utilized to refine program content, conducting focus groups a priori to identify potential program failures prior to program implementation. Undergraduate students (n = 12) attended four focus groups presenting initial program content. Four clinicians were also interviewed to determine program barriers. Qualitative analyses aggregated participant feedback to identify compliments, changes, and concerns about BERT and critical feedback was immediately implemented prior to initial testing. BERT was rooted in cognitive-behavioral practices and informed by the Gross model of emotion regulation. The 5-week program was then examined in a college sample (N = 42) to evaluate implementation (low attrition, high content engagement, favorable attitudes, low incidence of technical errors, costs), reach (enrollment and completion demographics comparable to the population in which recruitment took place), and efficacy (positive change in emotion regulation pre- to post-program). Of the recruited participants, 36 remained in the study where 27 completed at least 80% of program content. Repeated-measures ANOVAs exhibited significant improvements in emotion regulation, psychological distress, and negative affectivity, suggesting promising initial efficacy. Initial data provide support for feasibility and a future randomized control trial. BERT has potential significance for promoting healthy development as its brief electronic format reduced barriers and the program development process incorporated stakeholder feedback at multiple levels to inform better implementation and dissemination.
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    Enhancing big data in the social sciences with crowdsourcing: Data augmentation practices, techniques, and opportunities
    Porter, Nathaniel D.; Verdery, Ashton M.; Gaddis, S. Michael (2020-06-10)
    Proponents of big data claim it will fuel a social research revolution, but skeptics challenge its reliability and decontextualization. The largest subset of big data is not designed for social research. Data augmentation-systematic assessment of measurement against known quantities and expansion of extant data with new information-is an important tool to maximize such data's validity and research value. Using trained research assistants or specialized algorithms are common approaches to augmentation but may not scale to big data or appease skeptics. We consider a third alternative: data augmentation with online crowdsourcing. Three empirical cases illustrate strengths and limitations of crowdsourcing, using Amazon Mechanical Turk to verify automated coding, link online databases, and gather data on online resources. Using these, we develop best practice guidelines and a reporting template to enhance reproducibility. Carefully designed, correctly applied, and rigorously documented crowdsourcing help address concerns about big data's usefulness for social research.
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    Enhancing Collaboration Across the Research Ecosystem: Using Libraries as Hubs for Discipline-Specific Data Experts
    Ogier, Andrea; Brown, Anne M.; Petters, Jonathan L.; Hilal, Amr E.; Porter, Nathaniel D. (2018-07-24)
    Computationally-intensive, cross-disciplinary research collaborations are difficult to create and maintain over time, though many yield impressive results. The need for researchers to share, maintain, and manage data is increasing, while also integrating new tools and approaches to make their work more impactful. The University Libraries at Virginia Tech has a team of disciplinary data and informatics consultants working to connect research environments on campus with emerging library services enabling collaboration across disciplines. Partnerships with university-level research service providers, such as high-performance computing (HPC) services and statistical data consulting, have presented interesting use cases and innovative solutions to common problems. While traditional library services may not overlap with high performance computing environments, new library services (such as data management, publishing, curation, archiving, and preservation) provide new avenues for collaboration and situate the libraries in a unique position in relation to research ecosystems. Moving large datasets from HPC environments into research environments present significant barriers to research data sharing between collaborators; working with libraries to make these datasets better organized and documented lowers some of these barriers. Discipline-specific informatics consulting allows researchers to integrate new tools and approaches to solve research questions. Here, we highlight the utilization, need, and scope of informatics and research data management services in and around libraries, while also providing examples of how these services have created new collaborations and adoption of improved research practices surrounding data management and integration of computationally intensive techniques (e.g. bioinformatics, humanistic informatics, etc.). This work lays the foundation for these services in an academic setting and the influence of such on the practice and experience of understanding data.
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    Open Education Symposium Panel: Facilitating Openness at the University: Connecting the Opens + Making Change Happen
    Bishop, M. J.; Corl, Benjamin A.; DePauw, Karen P.; Plummer, Ellen Wright; Franco Duran, Diana; Potter, Peter J.; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Walz, Anita R. (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2019-03-04)
    This panel discussion begins with brief presentations of several “core open practices”: Open Access, Open Education/Open Educational Resources, and Open Data by experts from the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. Faculty, administration, and student panelists from diverse disciplines will discuss their rationale for exploring and in some cases adopting and championing open practices -- including overlaps in philosophy and values between different types of open practices, perceptions of the value of open practices for individuals, disciplines, and institutions, and barriers and opportunities to becoming more open on individual, disciplinary, and institutional levels in higher education. Panelists include: MJ Bishop, Associate Vice Chancellor and Director of the William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation, University System of Maryland Benjamin Corl, Associate Professor and Interim Department Head, Department of Dairy Science, Virginia Tech Karen DePauw, Vice President and Dean for Graduate Education, Virginia Tech Diana Franco Duran, Doctoral Candidate, Civil Engineering, Virginia Tech Ellen Plummer, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Administration, Virginia Tech Peter Potter, Director of Publishing Strategy, University Libraries, Virginia Tech Nathaniel Porter, Social Science Data Consultant Data Education Coordinator, Virginia Tech Moderator: Anita Walz, Open Education, Copyright & Scholarly Communication Librarian, Virginia Tech This event is part of the Open Education Symposium at Virginia Tech. Further details: guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/oeweek.
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    QuestionPro Training and Consultation Support
    Porter, Nathaniel D. (2022-03-30)
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    Recognizing Post-Castration Pain in Piglets: A Survey of Swine Industry Stakeholders and the General Public
    Neary, Jessica M.; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Viscardi, Abbie V.; Jacobs, Leonie (Frontiers, 2022-07-22)
    We need validated, practical methods for pain assessment in piglets. Pain assessment can help researchers, veterinarians and industry professionals identify the need for analgesia or other pain management approaches when applying painful procedures, such as surgical castration. A pain assessment tool, the Piglet Grimace Scale (PGS), was previously validated in this context, but it is not widely applied. It is important that the PGS can be applied by a range of people, not just pain assessment experts. Our objective was to study the validity and reliability of PGS ratings applied by swine industry professionals and the general public, to assess its potential utility in non-research applications. To do so, we conducted an online Qualtrics survey in which, after completing a brief online training module and a practice test, 119 respondents were asked to rate 9 piglet images showing facial expressions immediately after surgical castration or sham-handling. Respondents were provided information on the castration treatment for each image and had continuous access to the scale throughout the survey. The survey also contained demographic questions. Industry respondents were recruited through networking, and participants from the general public were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Four trained experts scored each image, and these scores were averaged to produce gold standard scores. Intraclass correlations indicated strong internal consistency among experts, industry and public. ANOVA demonstrated scoring to be moderately comparable between groups. Campbell and Fiske’s Multi-Trait Multi-Method framework provided qualified support for the internal validity and reliability of the PGS scale, even applied by non-experts (industry and public). Both response groups were able to recognize pain in castrated piglets. However, public respondents attributed higher levels of pain to sham-handled piglets than industry respondents (2.83 vs. 2.35; p=0.047), and both response groups systematically overestimated pain experience compared to the experts, suggesting more training may be necessary before using the scale in a diagnostic capacity. Nevertheless, overall findings support wide applicability of PGS, even with minimal training, to improve awareness, recognition and monitoring of swine pain among veterinarians, industry professionals and even members of the public.
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    Relationships, race/ethnicity, gender, age, and living kidney donation evaluation willingness
    Daw, Jonathan; Roberts, Mary K.; Salim, Zarmeen; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Verdery, Ashton M.; Ortiz, Selena E. (Elsevier, 2024-04)
    Racial/ethnic and gender disparities in living donor kidney transplantation are large and persistent but incompletely explained. One previously unexplored potential contributor to these disparities is differential willingness to donate to recipients in specific relationships such as children, parents, and friends. We collected and analyzed data from an online sample featuring an experimental vignette in which respondents were asked to rate their willingness to donate to a randomly chosen member of their family or social network. Results show very large differences in respondents' willingness to donate to recipients with different relationships to them, favoring children, spouses/partners, siblings, and parents, and disfavoring friends, aunts/uncles, and coworkers. Evidence suggesting an interactive effect between relationship, respondent race/ethnicity, respondent or recipient gender, was limited to a few cases. At the p < 0.05 level, the parent-recipient gender interaction was statistically significant, favoring mothers over fathers, as was other/multiracial respondents' greater willingness to donate to friends compared to Whites. Additionally, other interactions were significant at the p < 0.10 level, such as Hispanics' and women's higher willingness to donate to parents compared to Whites and men respectively, women's lower willingness to donate to friends compared to men, and Blacks' greater willingness to donate to coworkers than Whites. We also examined differences by age and found that older respondents were less willing to donate to recipients other than their parents. Together these results suggest that differential willingness to donate by relationship group may be a moderately important factor in understanding racial/ethnic and gender disparities in living donor kidney transplantation.
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    Social network interventions to reduce race disparities in living kidney donation: Design and rationale of the friends and family of kidney transplant patients study (FFKTPS)
    Daw, Jonathan; Verdery, Ashton M.; Ortiz, Selena E.; Reed, Rhiannon Deierhoi; Locke, Jayme E.; Redfield III, Robert R.; Kloda, David; Liu, Michel; Mentsch, Heather; Sawinski, Deirdre; Aguilar, Diego; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Roberts, Mary K.; McIntyre, Katie; Reese, Peter P. (Wiley, 2023-07-03)
    Introduction: Racial/ethnic disparities in living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) are a persistent challenge. Although nearly all directed donations are from members of patients’ social networks, little is known about which social network members take steps toward living kidney donation, which do not, and what mechanisms contribute to racial/ethnic LDKT disparities. Methods: We describe the design and rationale of the Friends and Family of Kidney Transplant Patients Study, a factorial experimental fielding two interventions designed to promote LKD discussions. Participants are kidney transplant candidates at two centers who are interviewed and delivered an intervention by trained center research coordinators. The search intervention advises patients on which social network members are most likely to be LKD contraindication-free; the script intervention advises patients on how to initiate effective LKD discussions. Participants are randomized into four conditions: no intervention, search only, script only, or both search and script. Patients also complete a survey and optionally provide social network member contact information so they can be surveyed directly. This study will seek to enroll 200 transplant candidates. The primary outcome is LDKT receipt. Secondary outcomes include live donor screening and medical evaluations and outcomes. Tertiary outcomes include LDKT self-efficacy, concerns, knowledge, and willingness, measured before and after the interventions. Conclusion: This study will assess the effectiveness of two interventions to promote LKD and ameliorate Black-White disparities. It will also collect unprecedented information on transplant candidates’ social network members, enabling future work to address network member structural barriers to LKD.
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    Subjective Differences in Preparation Between TEEM and MDiv Pastors in the ELCA
    Porter, Nathaniel D. (2016-01-14)
    This report summarizes findings from a 2005 survey of 52 graduates of the Theological Education for Emerging Ministries (TEEM) program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America regarding their ministry preparation and call experiences. It is part of a larger study of non-residential seminary outcomes including the published articles "Preparation in Context" (Porter 2016, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-016-0246-5).
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    Teaching with Data in the Social Sciences at Virginia Tech: An Ithaka S+R Local Report
    Baum, Liesl M.; Feerrar, Julia; McNabb, Kayla B.; Porter, Nathaniel D. (2021-09-30)
    This report recounts an exploratory investigation of the needs and experiences of instructors who teach with data in the social sciences at Virginia Tech, as part of an ITHAKA S+R project. The landscape of teaching with data in the social sciences at Virginia Tech is complex, involving instructors with a variety of interests and expertise, courses across the undergraduate curriculum, and students with a range of prior knowledge and personal goals related to their own learning. Participants discussed a variety of needs related to student competency, access and technology, program structures, and pedagogy. Multifaceted approaches from multiple university collaborators will be key to addressing these needs. By building on existing digital literacies programming, expanding shared resources like online modules, and exploring opportunities for peer education and further professional development, we can better prepare Virginia Tech students to learn, create, and take action with data throughout their lives.
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    What Do Faculty Think About Researcher Profiles, Metrics, and Fair Research Assessment? A Case Study from a Research University in the Southeastern United States
    Miles, Rachel A.; MacDonald, Amanda B.; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Pannabecker, Virginia; Kuypers, Jim A. (Virginia Tech, 2019-09-05)
    How to best disseminate one’s research and get credit for one’s work? How to best and fairly assess the quality and impact of a given individual, group, or institution’s research? These are questions with which many are struggling, from individual researchers to departments, to a global world of research institutions. Recently, the Faculty Senate and University Libraries surveyed the faculty of our large, public research university to explore their perspective on these questions and more. In this presentation we present a summary of results from 501 respondents (out of 4451 faculty in total) representing different types of faculty (both within and outside of tenured and tenure-track positions), at different ranks, and from different disciplines. Results shared will indicate trends within the faculty on topics such as, the current most commonly used profile systems (top 5: Google Scholar, ORCID ID, LinkedIn, Elements (internal system), and ResearchGate); which profile systems are used most for: networking and connecting with colleagues (top 3: LinkedIn, Twitter, and ResearchGate), tracking research impact metrics (top 3: Google Scholar, ORCID, Elements (internal system)), showcasing one’s work to increase visibility (top 3:Google Scholar, ResearchGate, self-published sites); what types of research metrics are relied on (top 3: journal reputation (separate from impact factor), number of publications, and citation counts to individual works); the perceived fairness of evaluation by level of review (e.g., department, college, and university levels) and how they differ; and summaries of qualitative responses to questions such as why faculty rely on certain profile systems or research metrics, and perspectives on how fair research evaluation could be accomplished, within or across disciplines. Results will be summarized at the institutional level with breakout analysis of results from some disciplinary fields or other subsets. For us, these results from faculty across a range of disciplines will help inform institutional policy and practice discussions about research tracking and evaluation, such as a responsible research assessment policy. Results will also inform our in-process implementation of an institutional researcher profiles systems, and training offerings on disseminating research and assessing its impact. As movements such as DORA (Declaration on Research Assessment) and the Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics demonstrate, faculty, institutions, and funders are re-examining the way metrics are used and methods for demonstrating impact. This presentation on a university-wide survey that includes summary data and the survey questions used offers an example that could be adapted and repeated elsewhere to gauge current practices and faculty perspectives on how to change or move forward with research assessment across a range of disciplines and levels within a large, research institution.
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    What do faculty think about researcher profiles, metrics, and fair research assessment? A case study from a research university in the southeastern United States, a lightning talk overview
    Miles, Rachel A.; MacDonald, Amanda B.; Porter, Nathaniel D.; Pannabecker, Virginia; Kuypers, Jim A. (2019-10-01)
    This presentation was provided at the 2019 Digital Science North American User Group meeting. It provides a brief overview of key points from the full presentation, “What Do Faculty Think About Researcher Profiles, Metrics, and Fair Research Assessment?” by Rachel A. Miles, Amanda MacDonald, Nathaniel D. Porter, Virginia Pannabecker, Jim A. Kuypers, presented at the 10th Annual International VIVO Conference, Sep 2019, in Podgorica, Montenegro, http://hdl.handle.net/10919/93360.