ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 LEHIGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT 2022-2023 Imagine. Innovate. Inspire.
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES ANNUAL REPORT 2022-2023 In this report, we review our accomplishments from the past academic year, highlighting LTS’s role in educating students, conducting research, producing and disseminating scholarship, and conducting the business of the university. | | | | | | | | | | | Message from the Vice Provost 1 Fostering Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning 2 Advancing Research and Scholarship 9 Empowering the Lehigh Community through Technology and Expertise 14 Learning while Earning: LTS Student Employees 19 Events & Exhibitions 20 Places & Spaces 26 Strengthening Community, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion 28 Our Staff 30 Strategic Planning 36 LTS Leadership 38 EDITOR: Kathleen Frederick GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Kayley LeFaiver EDITORIAL CONTENT: LTS leadership and managers EDITORIAL SUPPORT: Tara Coyle, Helen Zuercher PHOTOGRAPHY: Kathleen Frederick, University Communications PRINTING: Brilliant Graphics
PAGE 1 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - - MESSAGE FROM THE VICE PROVOST As you read through the pages of this Annual Report, you’ll find stories and statistics that showcase our activities and accom plishments of the past year. I hope these pages inspire you to partner with us in the coming year, for our goal in reporting on the past is not only to celebrate what we’ve done together with our colleagues, but also to invite new partnerships, inspire new programs, and ignite new opportunities. Every academic year brings new possibilities and excitement about the future. This was especially true in 2022-23, a year of conversations across campus that culminated in the launch of Lehigh’s new strategic plan, Inspiring the Future Makers. Library and Technology Services staff served on several strategic plan ning working groups, attended many campus outreach events, and provided thoughtful input, suggestions, and feedback through online and on-campus forums. Even as we contributed to that work, LTS staff simultaneously developed a new strategic plan of our own. We did so because it was clear to us from the start that, wherever Lehigh goes, LTS will play a crucial role in getting us there. Our updated plan communicates who we are and what we are committed to doing in the coming years. Lehigh’s Plan calls for bold innovations in educational approaches; enhancements to equity and inclusion; ambitious growth in our research productivity, graduate enrollment, and interdisciplinary educational programs; improvements to student success, and a commitment to creating a Lehigh of the future, for the future. To support these ambitious initiatives, we set four goals for LTS: 1. Strengthen Support for Research and Scholarship 2. Spark & Sustain Innovations in Teaching and Learning 3. Systematically Improve Campus Technology, User Experience, and Cybersecurity 4. Create and Cultivate Connections — Across Campus, Across Communities, Across Higher Education We also updated the language we use to communicate our mission: “LTS provides leadership in academic innovation; research, teaching, and learning resources; expert guidance, academic consultations, and IT support; library facilities, class rooms, and computing labs; stewardship of Lehigh’s history, data, and records; events that promote inquiry, deepen learning, and build community; robust, reliable information systems and network infrastructure.” Our vision is that Lehigh is a place where everyone has access to top-tier scholarly resources, academic technologies and support; where information systems are user-friendly and reliable; where innovation is encouraged and rewarded; where faculty, students, and staff work together to advance learning through the integra tion of teaching, research, and service to others. To see more about how LTS goals and strategic initiatives connect to those of Lehigh’s Strategic Plan, see Chapter 9. Lastly, as you read this report, I hope that you see yourself, your colleagues, and your neighbors in these stories. And I hope you are inspired to connect with us on the things that matter to you. For now is the time to begin making the future together, and LTS is here to help. Greg Reihman, Ph.D. Vice Provost, Library and Technology Services
PAGE 2 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES - 1 Fostering Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning The CITL Symposium on Teaching and Learning The 14th annual CITL Symposium on Teaching and Learning at Lehigh took place over two days in April, focusing on generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its integration into education. Attended by over 80 members of the Lehigh community with over 26 faculty presenters, the event aimed to explore practi cal applications of new pedagogies and technologies in the classroom. Provost Nathan Urban, in his welcome, addressed the potential of generative AI in higher education, highlighting the opportunity for Lehigh to become an expert in this area, noting that “doing it well” also means “doing it ethically.” The symposium featured a panel discussion on the implications of generative AI for teaching and learning, analyzing both its potential and limitations, followed by faculty presentations covering topics such as 3D virus structure modeling, AI-assisted question-asking, data visualization in education, and multidisciplinary learning through art and material culture. The remote session on Day 2 included presentations from CITL Faculty Fellows who highlighted their collaborations with CITL and from faculty across the colleges who shared their new and effective approaches to teaching at Lehigh. Panelists participating in a discussion on “The Implications of Generative AI for Teaching and Learning at Lehigh,” led by Greg Reihman, Vice Provost for Library and Technology Services. From left: Larry Snyder, the Harvey E. Wagner Endowed Chair Professor and Director, Institute for Data, Intelligent Systems, and Computation (I-DISC); Suzanne Edwards, Associate Professor in the English Department; Greg Skutches, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum; and Elizabeth Young Miller, Social Sciences Librarian.
PAGE 3 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - Nearly 30 students from Greg Reihman’s Philosophy and Technology course gave poster presentations showcasing their work on generative AI's impact on education. Colleagues, former students, and members of the Lehigh community helped wrap up Day 1 of the symposium with a tribute to Greg Skutches, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum and Co-Founder of the TRAC Fellows Program, who retired this summer. Greg Reihman (l) and Jeremy Littau (r), Associate Professor of Journalism & Communication, share their perspectives on large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT along with Greg Skutches and three student TRAC Fellows, at the CITL-sponsored panel discussion, The Implications of Generative AI for Teaching and Learning at Lehigh, held in March. Spring 23 CITL Faculty Fellows Each semester CITL invites faculty to submit propos als for collaborations with LTS staff to enhance and advance their pedagogical approaches. During the spring 2023 semester CITL staff and Instruction & Outreach librarians collaborated with six faculty on a wide range of projects including: • 3D printing of virus models as “means to study virus structure and understand the structural determinants that permit receptor binding, infec tivity, immune evasion/mutation, etc.” (Professor Larry Tartaglia) • Evaluation of the effect of “VR on the profi ciency (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and pragmatics of Chinese language learning.” (Professor Limei Shan) • Implementation of active learning methods to practice science communication skills in the classroom, as well as collaborate on how to structure assignments and utilize the resources here at Lehigh to best support students in their independent inquiry. (Professor Kayleigh O’Keeffe) • Incorporating a hybrid learning component in which students created immersive VR learning experiences including the collection of digital recordings, photos, videos, etc. to document their experiential learning. (Professor Teresa Cusumano) • Development of projects for a fully remote course for pre-service and active teachers on effective data visualization, including how to present time-series data, location-based data, qualitative data, and patterns in data. (Professor Zilong Pan) • Using a flipped classroom and active learning approach to create an engaging new course, “On the Origins of Racism: W.E.B. DuBois.” (Professor Hugo Ceron-Anaya) The entire Symposium was informative and interesting. – FEEDBACK FROM FACULTY ATTENDEE ChatGPT is the major issue today, so to hear best practices from experienced colleagues was tremendously helpful. – FEEDBACK FROM FACULTY ATTENDEE Supporting Student Projects At the suggestion of senior TRAC Fellow and CSE major Alex Kline, Greg Skutches met with George Witmer, Director of the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Senior Capstone program to plan a CSE capstone project aimed at developing a system of collecting feedback from students on the performance of TRAC fellows as peer tutors and directing the results immediately to individual dashboards for each TRAC fellow. Developed in the spring 2023 semester, the new system is expected to drive improved performance for all TRAC fellows and provide greater program transparency. It will be deployed in fall 2023 with plans to continue this TRAC/CITL partnership for further innovation
PAGE 4 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES in the years to come with potential expansion into other courses and programs. - - - - - The seal of King Philip II of Spain (1527-1598) on display at the What's So Special about Special Collections 5x10 for first year students. Student projects that use Amazon Alexa were deployed into the Lehigh-managed AWS infrastructure with the help of LTS staff. The Systems Engineering Team pro vided technical expertise in support of innovative student projects with real-world applications like the PA-100 Index, an equity index representing the 100 largest public companies headquartered in Pennsylvania by market capitalization, developed by students in the Master’s of Financial Engineering program. Students benefited from access to new and expanded JupyterLab and RStudio environments. LTS launched Storage Finder, a tool that helps guide faculty, staff, and students on storage decisions. Our Learning Space Technology and Design Team completed upgrades to 14 classrooms, including upgrades to one with HyFlex capability and thirteen with computer and classroom control systems; upgraded 10 conference rooms; built out 12 digital signage systems; and upgraded 200 computers in public computing sites. CITL staff supported the introduction of electronic port folios as a mode of learning and assessment in Greg Skutches’ last course taught at Lehigh, the student- directed, peer-learning course ENGL 191—What’s the Story?: Literature the Instructor Has Not Read. Special Collections partnered with faculty from astron omy to zoology to introduce students across the curriculum to Lehigh’s rich special collections. A high light was Professor Santiago Herrera’s “Biodiversity in a Changing Planet” (Bios 90) class learning about extinct birds from curator Lois Black, who shared images of the Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon, Great Auk, and Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, among others, while our Science Librarian explained the evolution of thinking about the concept of extinction. Special Collections also introduced students to the Field Guide to Extinct Birds, an artist’s book that cap tured the attention of students. Teacher Development Program for Graduate Students The Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CITL) and Instruction & Outreach librarians once again offered our year-long Teacher Development Series for graduate students looking to improve their instructional and classroom skills. Topics included Giving and Receiving Meaningful Feedback, Navigating Difficult Topics and Conversations, Inclusive Teaching, Reflection in Teaching and Learning, Cycles of Learning, and Teaching with XR. Support for Online and Distance Education LTS Instructional Technology and Digital Media Studio staff worked with the Deputy Provost for Graduate Education and College of Business faculty to develop three courses in Lehigh’s professional certificate in Business Analytics Fundamentals for Data Driven MAKING THE FUTURE: Plans for 2024-25 To support Lehigh’s strategic focus on new interdisciplinary educational programs and innovative teaching, we will partner with the Provost’s Office and college deans to promote the adoption of high-impact pedagogies that promote student success. We will also launch a new version of Course Site, which offers enhanced features and a more user-friendly interface. And we will double down on our commitment to our faculty partners with whom we collaborate to discover how emerging technologies and effective pedagogies can improve student learning and deepen engagement.
PAGE 5 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - - - CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE ► Decisions offered through edX. This certificate will provide prospective Lehigh master’s students with the skills they need to begin their formal studies while also inviting a global audience of learners to earn this credential. This is a crucial first step as Lehigh expands its presence on the edX platform. Distance Education (DE) continued support of eight fully online graduate degree programs in both syn chronous and asynchronous formats, offering 111 courses to 1,117 registrants. DE also began partnering with the College of Health to offer and support online courses as part of the college’s Master’s of Population Health and Master’s of Public Health degree programs. New TRAC Fellows in the TRAC 100 Seminar presented findings from their group research projects on grading and assessment in a November symposium. SPOTLIGHT ON COURSES Library Instruction and Outreach Librarians expanded their instructional footprint across disci plines, programs, audiences, and all levels of education includ ing curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular learning, reach ing over 3,000 learners. We re-envisioned our first-year seminar support toward a more interactive and multimodal engagement that taught students research fundamentals while encourag ing curiosity and inquiry; piloted a data literacy seminar series that explored the nuances of data discovery, visualization, and sharing; and supported global experiential learning programs including the Marcon Fellows, Martindale Honors Program, and Global Village: • For Electrical and Computer Engineering students, our Engineering Librarian created an online tutorial and met with upper-level undergraduate students to help students find, access, organize, and evaluate research information to support investigation and analysis of their Senior Lab and design projects on integrated circuitry. • For the Martindale Student Associates Honor Program, our Business Data Librarian presented an in-depth library and research strategy session for twelve students who spent the academic year researching and writing on specific research topics related to Denmark, upon returning from their trip there. Their final papers were published in the College of Business Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise journal, Perspectives on Business and Economics. The journal can be found through the Library's digital repository, Lehigh Preserve. • In support of the Eckardt Scholars Program, our Humanities Librarian collaborated with Special Collections to host a combination library instruction/pop-up exhibition on the topic of banned books. The class learned how to conduct college-level research, and discovered the many resources available to them through Lehigh Libraries including the rare and unique primary sources available from Lehigh Libraries’ Special Collections. After the instruction session, library staff guided students through an exhibition of banned books such as the Limited Editions Club edition of Charles Baudeliare’s Les fleurs du mal, illustrated by Auguste Rodin, and the 1962 Traveller’s Companion Series edition of John Cleland’s Fanny. • For students in Norrin Ripsman’s “The Quest for Peace” (IR 332), our Social Sciences Librarian led an exploration of primary and secondary sources from policy briefs to political science scholarship to think tank digital archives. Students reflected on the value and relevance of different types of resources to their topics, giving them new path ways to and perspectives on the breadth of information possibilities in support of their intensive research projects. -
PAGE 6 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES - - - - • Our Science Librarian worked with Yvonne Lee, Program Director of Graduate Writing Support in the Graduate Life Office, to help Psychology grad students through the ins and outs of the literature review process. As an exercise, attendees at the session took cards describing elements of the research and writing process and put them into a logical order. The ensuing discussion highlighted best practices for effective searching while also making space for the individ ual differences that arise between researchers. • With a group of first-year students, our Education Librarian explored the question of how archiving, a practice often seen as liberatory, might run counter to the needs, philos ophies, and sovereignty of a community. Together they used Hopi legal scholar Trevor Reed’s work on “The Right to Be Forgotten,” to look at case studies on North American Indigenous archives, objects, and rituals, defining concepts like care, harm, repatriation, and dignity. Students also dis cussed how digital spaces can reimagine the preservation of Indigenous cultural heritage and traditional knowledge through an analysis of the archiving platform Mukurtu. High Performance Computing The following courses provided students with access to Lehigh’s High Performance Computing systems: • Wonpil Im, Intro Molecular Modeling and Simulation, BIOS 237 • Chinedu Ekuma, Special Topics in Physics, PHY 472 • Patrick Zoro, Financial Engineering Practicum Capstone II, GBUS 487 Digital Research and Scholarship The Digital Research and Scholarship Team consulted on and supported audio/video, geospatial and data visualization assign ments, websites for courses, and faculty research projects: • Provided support and GIS instruction to students in Professor Karen Beck Pooley’s “Mapping Data for Policy Making” (POLS 319/419) throughout the semester and met with students individually for support with final projects. • Instructed students in Professor Allison Mickel’s “Doing Archaeology” (ANTH 112) on the use of GIS and the creation of a multi-part lab that conducted an archaeological excava tion behind the Humanities Center. - • Demonstrated WordPress and other possible platforms for publishing an OER textbook chapter in Professor Jennifer Swann’s “Writing and Biological Sciences” (BIOS 251). • Supported Professor Debra Kreider and Ed Yeakel’s “Energy & Water Dashboard” (CSE 280) in GIS and Python script development for a capstone project to develop an energy and water use dashboard for the university. • Led class demonstrations and instruction on using Tableau for data visualizations and on ArcGIS and StoryMaps in Professor Ed Whitley’s “Cultures of Data in 19th-century U.S. Literature” (ENGL 473-010). • Supported GIS application and development for the Lehigh RiVR project in Professor Al Bodzin’s Creative Inquiry course (CINQ 389). • Consulted with faculty and provided class demonstrations on using WordPress for student blogs in Professor Michelle LeMaster’s “Pirates of the Caribbean and Other Rogues of the Atlantic World” (HIST-025). • Provided exploratory exercises for search engine tuning and GIS-based predictive policing (using Witch trial data) and the Qualtrics-based human training component for an image categorization exercise in Professor Suzanne Edwards’ “Algorithms and Social Justice” (ISE/WGSS 296). • Supported GIS application for two Mountaintop Summer Experience (MTSE) projects: “Lehigh RiVR” and “Synergy of Care for Infant and Toddlers: Advancing integration of health, developmental, and educational services for children who are in Native American and Latino Communities.” • Provided GIS application support for Professor David Anastasio’s Structural Geology and Tectonics (EES 223) in the overall course and two lab periods. • Supported GIS application and data visualization for a course taught by CITL Faculty Fellow, Professor Zilong Pan. • Continued support for WordPress components of the Mothers of Sierra Leone Global Social Impact Fellows docu mentary film project. - DIGITAL MEDIA STUDIO 2022-23 ► 693 hours of video and audio production
PAGE 7 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 250 class meetings hosted in the DMS 309 DMS lab hours and instruction time 1,753 pieces of equipment loaned Instructional Technology and Design • The IT Team researched a variety of new teaching and learning tools, resulting in the selection of four new tools for campus use: Poll Everywhere, a student response and engagement app, Gradescope, an AI-assisted grading and feedback tool, and accessibility checking tools Grackle and Brickfield. • In conjunction with the creation of the Student Developer Lab, the team now provides access to and instruction on the use of Uptale, a web-based authoring platform for creating custom immersive and interactive learning experiences. • The team also conducted a Learning Management System (LMS) benchmarking project to evaluate and compare the major LMS applications in use at colleges and universities – Moodle, Canvas, and Brightspace – in order to inform deci sions around the LMS environment at Lehigh. This project included a pilot with 10 faculty members using Moodle 4.1 during summer 2023. Faculty feedback will assist the team as they develop training and documentation for the rollout of this new version of Course Site in Spring 2024. - • Instructional technologists led training sessions on Course Site and other teaching tools throughout the year for spe cific audiences including new first year English professors, College of Education faculty teaching in a hybrid environ ment, new COE adjunct faculty, participants in the RCEAS Rossin Teaching Fellows program, and teaching assistants new to the university. - - • Throughout the year the team met with faculty during online drop-in sessions for informal 1:1 consultations on their teach ing on topics such as course design, use of Course Site for student assignments and assessments, and the use of team-supported applications to support student learning. - • The Instructional Technology and Learning Space Technology and Design teams provided training in the Business Innovation Building to help College of Business faculty think about using the newly installed classroom tech nology to create engaging and interactive learning environ ments for students. - - Visualization Lab • For Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): VR exploration of empathy building apps, workshop training in Uptale, peer exploration of student-created immersive experiences in VR • Creative Inquiry project student group: Testing and explo ration in VR headsets of 3D rendered campus spaces using Matterport camera - • Mike O'Neill (ESLP 004): Building custom immersive learning experiences using 360 video and imagery with Uptale; exploration of peer experiences in VR headsets • Brett Reed, Men's Basketball head coach: Using Data Visualization iWall to present data driven content and game film to prospective recruits • Shan Li (POPH 395/495): Exploration of VR based health science tools including surgical simulations, medical training tutorials, and 3D anatomy platforms • Limei Shan (CHIN 003): Building custom immersive learning experiences using 360 video and AI voice analysis with Uptale; exploration of various VR language learning plat forms as well as custom interactive learning experiences in both 3D and 2D - • Teresa Cusumano (StepUp program): Connecting classroom reading on Anne Frank with VR exploration of Anne Frank House VR • Scott Garrigan (TLT 475): Introductory VR exploration of several interactive VR titles • Numerous lab consultations with faculty interested in explor ing class options utilizing XR for the fall semester and forward - Writing Across the Curriculum Our Writing Across the Curriculum program trained 30 new Technology, Research, and Communications Fellows as part of the 83-strong TRAC Writing Fellows program in supporting 42 courses in the spring and fall, including 6 large courses (Fall: BUS 003, ENGR 005; Spring: BUS 003, BIOS 041, BIOS 042, CSE 252) and held approximately 4,000 individual and group writing consultations.
PAGE 8 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES BY THE NUMBERS LTS seminar teaching hours: 1,022 Instruction and Outreach Librarians taught 3,000+ students in classroom visits 20,800 library circulation and ILL service requests filled LTS Help Desk service contacts: 17,417
PAGE 9 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - - - - 2 Advancing Research and Scholarship Library Digital Repository Work began upgrading “The Preserve,” the Lehigh Libraries’ unified digital repository platform, to better support preservation, curation, and sharing of digital special collections, faculty and student publications, and research data to make them accessible to the broader research community and the public, espe cially regarding compliance with external funding or other regulatory requirements related to data management, sharing, and open access. This re-envisioned archive will unify digitized col lections from Special Collections and Open Access faculty and student scholarship. The first phase of development includes an updated user interface and migration of all digital collections to the new system. Future local development phases will then focus on adding additional features to enhance collection discoverability, usability, research metrics, and to provide support for research datasets. Library Special Collections Special Collections received a number of gifts this year that expand the body of primary source collec tions available for research in the Lehigh Libraries. For example: the John C. Hirsh Collection of rare Medieval Manuscript Leaves and Fragments, a collection of over 150 separate items. Debby Barcan donated over 500 vintage postcards, primarily of Swiss origin, along with a collection of salesman’s sample books, and Victorian literature. Another note worthy donation, the Wilbur Family papers, was an important addition to Lehigh and South Bethlehem history. Donated by Marina Pachini, the archival collection contains correspondence relating to the Packer and Wilbur families. Special Collections worked closely with professor Allison Mickel and students from Archeology 112 to research the history of the property currently occupied by the Humanities Center. With librarians, students mined genealogical, topographical, and his torical research collections to determine the history of the site. Community members had the opportunity to find out what was excavated here on campus by viewing a display of artifacts during an evening event sponsored by the Lehigh University South Side Initiative at the South Branch of the Bethlehem Public Library in May. The team also facilitated the research of Kevin Federico, recipient of a Dale S. Strohl Undergraduate Research Grant, who conducted research into an astronomical medieval manuscript from Lehigh’s col lection in collaboration with astrophysics professor Ginny McSwain. His research has documented how medieval scholars calculated dates and religious
PAGE 10 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES - - - - - - - - holidays. This work has helped to date and geolo cate the production of the manuscript to a specific city of Italy. Special Collections hosted William Crow’s class ART 175, Introduction to Museums and Museum Professions, which incorporated archival research into the course’s final project. Students were required to select a piece of public sculpture on campus and research the history of the piece and its artist. These students delved deep into The Philip I. and Muriel M. Berman Papers to read personal corre spondence and acquisitions records. New Resources The Libraries acquired new resources in support of lifelong learning and emerging research and curric ular areas including PitchBook, a leading resource for comprehensive data, research, and insights on global capital markets; TDM Studio, a text and data mining tool that facilitates the large-scale analysis of resources including newspapers, dissertations, and journals; MEDLINE Ultimate, a health and medicine full-text research database; Ancestry.com Library Edition, a genealogical research and primary source database; and ComicsPlus, a digital graphic novel and comics platform. I’m writing to let you know how appreciative I am of Lehigh's recent purchase of annual membership in PitchBook, allowing faculty access to financial data that cannot be found elsewhere. I had used this data for my recent book but had to piece together the money for my personal access that lasted only a year. Indeed, because of the cost I couldn’t continue work in this line of research and now I can pursue it again. – PROFESSOR LAURA OLSON, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, POLITICAL SCIENCE The Digital Research and Scholarship Team consulted on faculty research projects. Major projects included: • Continued technical support for Gloria Naylor Archive project (Suzanne Edwards) by consult ing on metadata creation and enhancement for existing and newly digitized materials. • Continued support of Lehigh Valley LGBT+ Community Archive project (Mary Foltz), mainly through consultation on WordPress compo nents of the project. • Continued support of Vault at Pfaff’s project (Ed Whitley) through consultation and research assistance for expansion of bibliographic and biographic data on the site. • Developed data pipeline and visualizations for the Lehigh County Breathes research project, funded by Lehigh and Northampton Counties (PI, Breena Holland). • Supported the GIS infrastructure and skills development for the socio-environmental science investigations (SESI) research project, funded by NSF (PI – Thomas Hammond). • Supported GIS application and database devel opment for Pennsylvania Asthma Syndromic Surveillance (PASS) research project and pro posal development (PI – Hyunok Choi). • Provided GIS support for College of Health research project looking at health outcomes based on distance to green space trailheads outside of urban Philadelphia (PI – Russell McIntire). • Provided GIS support for research looking at changes in wealth centers over time in Guadalajara, Mexico (PI – Hugo Ceron-Anaya). Open Access pilot • With support from the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the Libraries assessed, extended, and expanded pilots supporting the Open Access publica tion of research articles via agreements with publishers. Pilots with ACS and Wiley led to the Open Access publication of more than 35 journal articles and conference proceedings. The Libraries will continue to assess these pilots as one component in a broader strat-
PAGE 11 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - egy around supporting open and equitable access to the University’s research output. Supporting Undergraduate Research • A four-member panel of seasoned undergraduate researchers from varied disciplines shared their path to research, successes, learning experiences, and advice with 66 first-year students in the Undergrads Do Research 5x10, co-sponsored by LTS. Virtual International Exchange (VIE) Community of Practice workshop, February 2022. The Digital Research and Scholarship Team consulted or provided support for courses and student or faculty research projects: • Taught an R programming workshop series. • Provided GIS support for projects with the following groups: Office of International Affairs, Development and Alumni Relations, Facilities and Campus Planning, Real Estate, and LTS Telecommunications. • Provided consultation, support, and initial development of a WordPress component for the 2023 Iacocca International Internship Program (IIIP 2023). Developed a platform for student reflection during the various phases of prepar ing for and completing their internships and offered continued consultation and support of its use to the Office of International Affairs staff. • Co-taught data visualization session for Data Literacy workshop series. Provided information design instruction and hands-on demonstration of the web-based RAWGraphs data visualization tool. • Continued to provide general WordPress support and troubleshooting for students, faculty, and staff. • Exploration and consultation of use of AI-based tools in educational contexts. This included collaborating with other LTS staff on creation of a short video guiding use of ChatGPT in edu cational settings as well as consulting with stu dents and faculty on the use of AI-based tools. MAKING THE FUTURE: Plans for 2024-25 To support Lehigh’s strategic focus on new interdisciplinary research areas and overall research growth, we are creating a new Research and Scholarship support team to make it easier for researchers to find and consult with LTS staff with research support expertise. We are also launching a new LTS website to simplify discovery of and access to Lehigh’s scholarly materials, research computing resources, research-related software packages, and consulting services. And, by supporting Open Access publication, we will be helping the world find and use Lehigh research publications.
PAGE 12 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES - - - - - - - - RESEARCH COMPUTING Research Computing at Lehigh continued to deepen and enrich its core services to the research community while looking to the future by building new initiatives on this solid foundation. The most mature, well-established research computing projects are hosted by our on-premises high-performance computing (HPC) cluster, which continues to provide millions of hours of compute cycles (measured in core-hours) to dozens of research groups, while offering hundreds of software packages and a high-performance file system. Our NSF-funded Hawk cluster provided 2.7 million corehours to external partners who use the Open Science Grid. We have improved our onboarding procedure while supporting screening and compliance for export-controlled projects and upgraded our operating systems to improve security and usability. Our group continues to build storage solutions for projects that use big data. This includes a new proof-of-concept plan to use upcom ing lifecycle upgrades to our storage system, which uses our two petabyte Ceph filesystem, to establish a new backup service along with faster storage tier for researchers who require higher-through put storage space. Alongside steady growth in the total number of cores funded in part by faculty “condominium” investments (i.e., researcher buy-in to our shared HPC cluster), we have also introduced new graphics process ing unit (GPU) architectures and begun planning to standardize and bundle faculty hardware investments in order to improve usability and maximize the number of core-hours that our community can access. As we work to incrementally improve the usefulness of our HPC cluster, we are also preparing infrastructure upgrades to the datacenter that support future growth. These include a pending project to upgrade our cooling systems and a feasibility study for adding liquid cooling. This latter project would provide a step change to our maximum capacity and an opportunity to scale our existing comput ing services in coming years. Cloud computing continues to provide critical support for expand ing our research computing capacity, particularly for secure data, which includes personally-identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI). LTS has recently invited its first tenants to use the Lehigh Secure Research Cloud (SRC), a cloud computing environment built using Amazon Web Services which is capable of performing analysis of secure data. We expect this initiative to grow alongside the University research footprint, particularly as Lehigh attracts new faculty whose research depends on secure data, for example, new faculty in the College of Health. As always, teaching, direct consultation with faculty, and outreach to the community provides a glue that binds these services to novel and creative research projects. The Research Computing group provided ten advanced seminars in 2023 which followed an addi tional ten introductory seminars provided by peers in other groups within LTS, in order to provide an integrated seminar series that teaches students, faculty, and staff the best practices for building their unique research computing projects. Our HPC infrastructure supported three credit courses during the academic year along with a Quantum Chemistry workshop during the summer. In the spring, students from Southern Lehigh High School toured the data center to learn more about how Lehigh University infrastructure facili tates research across academic domains. In the coming year, the Research Computing group will look forward to working with many of our colleagues in LTS to apply our infrastructure and expertise to new and exciting research projects led by the faculty. Number of seminars/workshops taught last year, and the topics • A series of four Python seminars friendly to novice users for the staff, faculty, and students. • A series of four seminars that teach the basics of “R,” a statistics-friendly scripting language. • Six interrelated High-Performance Computing (HPC) semi nars in Spring 2023 delivered both in-person and remotely, covering the basics of HPC; optimizing our use of Lehigh resources; writing parallel scientific software; best practices for research data management; and building reproducible, collaborative workflows. • HPC training and support for the computational Quantum Chemistry workshop held in the summer, with participants from multiple departments and collaborators from other institutions. • Four summer consulting and office hours sessions for HPC projects. WHO’S USING HPC ► 199 active users 54 active project investigators
PAGE 13 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 23 PI departments 49 majors and departments 2.5M individual calculations (jobs) 2.73M core-hours delivered to the Open Science Grid BY THE NUMBERS 18.1M core-hours (delivered) 136 nodes 4624 cores 181 GPUs 32.3TB CPU memory 2.9TB GPU memory 2 petabyte storage 212TB fast storage The Research Computing and Consulting Team at LTS has greatly enhanced the efficiency of my research group. They not only offer seamless access to the essential high-performance computing resources we need, but also provide exceptional support in terms of hardware and research software optimization. Their assistance has been instrumental in producing over 15 peer-reviewed publications and 13 invited talks since 2019. Moreover, their support has facilitated the training and mentoring of thirteen graduate students as well as eleven undergraduates. – CHINEDU EKUMA, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, PHYSICS
PAGE 14 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES 3 Empowering the Lehigh Community with Technology and Expertise Digital Media Studio Business Innovation Building ► Created an introduction video for UN Eighth International Day of Women and Girls in Science Assembly, in collaboration with Bill Hunter, Director of Fellowship Advising and UN Programs at Lehigh University. ► Recorded interviews of College of Health faculty, students, and health industry executives for pro motional and recruitment purposes. - ► Conducted a photo shoot for the creation of a photo calendar with portraits of 20-30 students for the Center for Gender Equity. ► Supervised the videotaping of 105 lectures, events, and happenings across the Lehigh campus. These events were then edited for either internal or video streaming distribution. All events were recorded by trained DMS student staff. ► Recorded interviews of returning alumni during the Alumni Oral Histories at Reunion 2023 for the “I Remain Project.” ► Recorded interviews of members of the College of Health Dean’s Advisory Council, with graphical and musical editing support, for internal and exter nal audiences. - ► Provided instruction for students in two courses, Journalism 24 taught by Meredith Cummings, Journalism, and CINQ 389, taught by Michael Kramp, English, on the vital skills and information needed to start piloting drones safely and legally. Topics included safety best practices, piloting skills, and drone photography and videography, as well as hands-on, one-on-one flight instruction. ► Enterprise Systems introduced a new and vastly improved Connect Lehigh, a central hub that
PAGE 15 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - - - - consolidates and organizes frequently-used campus applications and information. Built on the Ellucian Experience cloud-based platform, Connect Lehigh offers a customizable dashboard and responsive design allowing for access to real-time data at a glance. ► LTS staff continued supporting streamlining of the grants administration process for researchers across campus through implementation of LIRA, the Lehigh Integrated Research Administration system that went live in spring 2023. ► The Learning Space Technology and Design Team collaborated with an outside audiovisual design firm and campus stakeholders to create AV design plans for the renovation of the Clayton University Center. ► The team also worked with AV design and installation firms on project implementation plans for the Business Innovation Building, providing oversight for all facets of AV and computer tech nology installations, testing all systems for proper performance, and providing training for campus stakeholders on system use cases. ► Information Security continues the 24/7/365 effort to protect the Lehigh community from security threats. Last year we deployed Keeper Security password manager campus-wide to improve our security posture by reducing the need to remember passwords, increasing the use of complex passwords, and securely sharing interdepartmental passwords. ► In the fall, the Technology and Infrastructure Operations team launched LUapps, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), to provide students and faculty with a consistent experience in accessing applications virtually. The team also developed and rolled out secure administrative virtual desktops for staff use. ► Deployed Secure Research Cloud in Amazon Web Services to store and analyze secure data, including personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI). ► Launched Lehigh Administrative Data Lake in Amazon Web Services to securely store and analyze large institutional datasets. ► Modernized EWFM Data Center by replacing a 38-year old fire sup pression system to provide the earliest possible warning of an impend ing fire hazard and rapidly suppress fires. ► The Office of Distance Education provided audio, video, and web con ferencing support for high profile events across the university includ ing President Helble’s Community Conversations, Strategic Planning Campus Conversations, a Town Hall on Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Plan Progression, the 2023 Inclusive Excellence in Teaching and Learning Workshop, and numerous meetings, events, and workshops in support of academic and administrative offices. ► Throughout the year Instructional Technology team members provide tours, demos, and support of CITL spaces — the DIY studio, Visualization Lab, and CITL classrooms to enhance content and events offered by administrative units across the university. ► Conducted extensive consultations with administrative units on the use of Course Site, Zoom, Panopto, and Google collaborative tools in support of business continuity and process improvement. 6.2M logins protected with Duo two-factor authentication 942,756 security events evaluated Libraries ► Implemented a Purchase Request Platform that expedites the purchasing and processing of requested resource materials for all Lehigh stu dents, faculty, and staff. ► The Library Metadata and Technology teams worked with the College of Health to launch the Lehigh University Libraries Data Catalog. The data catalog offers the Lehigh community an easy-to-use inventory to share and discover available health datasets as well as connect with fellow researchers that are part of our campus community. ► Lehigh Libraries continued the collaboration with national and international libraries and consortia to
PAGE 16 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES develop the innovative open source library services platform FOLIO. The Libraries were also a leading early adopter of and contributor to the ReShare Project. This open source, community-owned resource sharing platform enables Lehigh users to take advantage of resources shared within and beyond the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration and Innovation (PALCI). Consortium partners include: University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, New York University, Rutgers, Temple, and 73 other organizations. ► Lehigh Libraries began work on the IMLS National Leadership granted Collaborative Collections Lifecycle Project (CCLP). As co-PI on the grant and initiative lead, Lehigh works together with 32 organizations across the United States, Canada, and Europe to develop a network infrastructure to allow library experts from across the world to expand access, enrichment, and preservation of research collections. ► Web and Mobile Services (WMS) launched “wms drupal,” a standardized install profile for Drupal 9 websites at Lehigh. With its launch came the cre ation of a “living style guide” for website editors to reference and a showcase website for newly released theme and functionality additions. Since its launch WMS has: - - • Created 8 new websites in Drupal 9. • Manually migrated 21 websites from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9. • Wrote migration scripts to automate the migra tion of remaining websites from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9, with two automated migrations so far. - ► Other WMS projects included: • Coordinated with DAR to launch their new Alumni website (vendor-developed site handed over to WMS). • Creation of the Storage Finder website to help people choose among various storage solutions. TOP 10 LTS HELP DESK TOPICS ► 1. Identity management accounts 2. Endpoint consulting/configuration 3. Software (including LUapps, excluding Office, Google apps) 4. Course Site 5. Enterprise applications 6. Instructional technology (general topics) 7. General/Non-LTS 8. Duo two-factor authentication 9. Printing 10. Classroom technology LUapps VIRTUAL SOFTWARE ► Total LUapps launches: 29,298 Unique Users: 3,609 Total hours of use: 50,847
PAGE 17 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - ► As digital access to library collections becomes more seamless and ubiquitous, Special Collections has continued to update its infrastructure and advance its digitization program. Newly available digital resources of note include: • The Rave Records Collection, donated by LTS Media Production Specialist Jarret Brown, includes 35 digitized LP (Long Play) vinyl records produced by the record company owned by Bethlehem arts staple Jolly Joe Timmer. • Externally funded digitization of audio record ings from the Godfrey Daniels listening room. These live music recordings date back to the venue’s opening in 1976. Digitization of the 900+ recordings is actively underway with an anticipated spring 2024 completion. • Digitization of over 1,200 pieces of obsolete and at-risk audio-visual recordings from the Rodale Archives. This diverse collection spans family home movies from the 1920s, internal corporate resources, documentaries, and public television programming. • Special Collections student employees devel oped two in-house software programs designed to facilitate the efficient capture and description of born-digital Lehigh resources, including offi cial podcasts and videos. • Specialized cataloging and digitization of medieval manuscript leaves and fragments from the John C. Hirsh Collection in collaboration with librarians and photographers from the University of Pennsylvania. This will facilitate addition of this material to the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis collaborative project. Additional description and metadata for these items were produced by Special Collections student employees. ► Lending Services circulated over 10,000 physical materials from Library collections and over 500 laptop loans. We loaned over 5,000 materials to other libraries and borrowed nearly 4,000 from other libraries in support of Lehigh researchers. ► We strengthened our computing desk-side support for other teams, expanded our hours of availability, consolidated and added to our laptop pool (serving students with financial needs), and increased our online seminar offerings. 491 STARS student computing help requests 34,513,407 Zoom minutes 169,687 Zoom meetings
PAGE 18 LIBRARY AND TECHNOLOGY SERVICES MOST-ACCESSED LIBRARY ONLINE RESOURCES ► ► ASA Library Catalog: Books and Articles (22,583 users; 58,763 sessions; 257,650 page views) ► Databases A-Z ► E-Journal A-Z ► Library Research Guide ► Interlibrary Loan (Illiad and PALCI EZBorrow) ► Hours and Locations ► Special Collections ► Library Staff ► Visitor Services MAKING THE FUTURE: Plans for 2024-25 As campus operations become ever more reliant on technology, we anticipate a continuation in the increases we have seen in the traffic to LTS webpages, access to our resources, visits to our Help Desk, downloads of our software, and consultations with professional staff. Our job is to make sure faculty, students, and staff can access the tools they need and get help putting those tools to use.
PAGE 19 ANNUAL REPORT 2022–2023 - - - - - 4 Learning while Earning: LTS Student Employees LTS is one of Lehigh’s largest student employers, with opportunities ranging from entry-level positions to highly specialized roles working with innovative and cutting-edge technologies. In AY 22-23, LTS employed 222 students in areas such as Lending Services, LTS Help Desk, the Digital Media Studio, Special Collections, the TRAC Fellows program, Student Technology & Repair Services (STARS), and more. Carisa Fogt ’26, Finance, LTS Help Desk Consultant: “I have strengthened my communication skills as well as learned how to navigate new software and tech nologies. This includes working with different programs in LUapps as well as learning how to commu nicate efficiently with our students and staff members. The thing I enjoy most about working in LTS is the fact that every email I have answered or phone call I have taken has allowed me to learn something new. Rather than trying to have all the answers to questions, this position has taught me how to go about solving issues I am unfamiliar with. I have learned to gather as much information about the issue as possible in order to quickly troubleshoot the situation. To do so, one has to be able to ask the right questions for the situation and reassure the individual that we will do everything possible to resolve their issue.” Kush Oak ’23G, Mechanical Engineering, CITL Graduate Assistant: “I’ve gained skills in tech support, mainly focused on working with VR devices and high flex classrooms, while learning the operations of these devices on a fundamental level. This position has also offered opportunities for networking and professional engagements, connecting with numerous faculty and students from different departments while supervising the Visualization Lab. Hopefully this skill will serve me well in the future as I begin my career this year. I’m a person who’s always fascinated by technology in general and I’m always looking forward to new tech releases. So demo testing and setting up the new devices that were brought in was one of my favorites tasks. Working with Steve Sakasitz to find innovative solutions of implementing VR into teaching and learning has also been a fascinating endeavor.” Andy Lau ’25, Computer Science & Business, Software Developer & Digital Data Archivist, Special Collections: “The work I do [in Special Collections] is very differ ent from my classwork, and I’ve enjoyed the independence in my work and solving problems on my own and learning as I go. I have gained proficiency in the programming language Python, scripting down loads of many videos and podcasts, along with pop ulating the metadata of the downloaded content to fit a specific schema. The metadata and contents are then uploaded to Lehigh's public library website for consumption. I also learned how to use the software Git for version control of my code and team-based sharing and access. These skills are crucial to my relevant coursework and my aspiration to become a software engineer.” Michaela Gualano ’23, Finance, Graduate Associate Fellow Mentor Fellow, TRAC: “The chance to work with LTS has served me with an immense amount of opportunities. Through LTS’s guidance, I have enhanced my analytical, communication, and problem-solving skills. Specifically, within the areas of teaching and research. Jasmine Woodson was very influential in my discovery of how to properly research: how to build a storyline behind your explorations through using Lehigh’s databases. Gregory Skutches is someone I highly look up to. He is a person who inspires me to think differently and pursue uncharted territory. Single-handedly the biggest influence in my Lehigh career. This is a small tribute to the LTS faculty as a whole. Their work allows me to teach vulnerability, explore perspective, and build my voice and the voice of others. A community I am extremely proud to be a part of.”
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