From: Kristen Garlock <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:00:48 -0400

Apologies for cross-posting….

October 22, 2012

JSTOR Enabled Data Mining Project Signals Next Wave in Research

New York, NY – A team of researchers led by Jevin West and Carl
Bergstrom of the University of Washington released today the results
of an 18-month long study of gender inequality among authors of
academic papers.  The study is based on an analysis of the authors of
more than 1.8 million published research articles available through
the not-for-profit digital library, JSTOR.

This project exemplifies the kind of research made possible by new
digital technologies that JSTOR has supported for more than a decade
and that was first publicized in 1999 by the work of Yale University
legal scholar and law librarian Fred Shapiro.  Shapiro used data from
JSTOR to document first uses of words that pre-dated the Oxford
English Dictionary.

Fast forward to 2008 when JSTOR launched its self-service Data for
Research website enabling anyone in the world to explore its holdings
and to freely create datasets for use in their research. Today the
site sees about 700 datasets created and downloaded annually. Larger
scale projects like the one undertaken by West, Bergstrom and their
co-authors: Jennifer Jacquet, Molly King, Shelley Correll, and
Theodore Bergstrom are handled upon request and in close collaboration
with JSTOR’s Advanced Technologies Research team.

“It’s beyond exciting to see the digital library we have spent years
creating being tapped into by computer scientists, digital humanists,
and other researchers around the world,” said Ronald Snyder, Director
of the Advanced Technologies Research team.

"By providing us information about millions of papers published over
centuries, these data allow us to ask questions about the structure of
scholarly communication on unprecedented scales,” said Bergstrom.” “
We see the gender project as just the beginning,” added West.  “The
data really is a gold mine, and we are excited to continue to work
with JSTOR and utilize this powerful research environment."

While the research itself is ground-breaking, the benefits of projects
like the one just released by the West-Bergstrom team can reach beyond
the findings themselves. The West-Bergstrom team also created an
interactive tool that allows others to explore the underlying content
based on the work they have done.  This demonstrates how sharing large
corpora of data can also lead to the creation of new ways of exploring
and discovery scholarship – effectively giving researchers another
lens through which to view the published literature.

“Enabling new scholarship that was previously impossible, or nearly
so, is at the very heart of our mission to advance education through
the use of new technologies,” said Laura Brown, JSTOR Managing
Director. “As more scholars and students across disciplines are
trained in data mining and textual analysis, we look forward to
supporting and advancing their work through our Data for Research
Program.”

More information on JSTOR’s Data for Research Program is available at
http://dfr.jstor.org or by contacting JSTOR at [log in to unmask]

JSTOR

JSTOR (www.jstor.org) is a digital library of more than 1,500 academic
journals, books, and primary sources. JSTOR helps people discover,
use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful
research and teaching platform, and preserves this content for future
generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization
that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico.