Researcher Spotlight
Heidi Imker
Heidi Imker is the Director of the Research Data Service at Illinois and an Associate Professor at the University Library. Prior to joining the Library, Heidi was the Executive Director of the Enzyme Function Initiative, a large-scale collaborative center funded by the National Institutes of Health. Heidi holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois and did her postdoctoral research at the Harvard Medical School. Her current research focuses on understanding and improving data management, sharing, and archiving practices.
What do you see as the primary benefit to you of archiving your data in a repository?
This data was collected from heterogeneous sources to examine the vigorous proliferation of open, online databases published a popular journal over the past 25 years. Sustaining such resources is a challenge that will only grow in magnitude as data sharing becomes increasingly more common across many disciplines. I want to enable research in this area and believe this data can be used to address additional questions. Being familiar with those supporting the Illinois Data Bank (full disclosure, I’m the team leader), I have complete confidence and respect for the curators and developers that stand behind this service. I also find myself returning to the data archived here as an authoritative copy simply out of convenience.