Proposal Support

The Institute is supported by a state of the art technology infrastructure. UNC’s centralized campus Information Technology Services (ITS) maintains support servers and backup systems to ensure reliable service to Odum operations and research projects. Independent power and cooling systems are provided in order to guarantee an environment suitable for computing platforms in both Odum and ITS facilities. Odum’s systems include multiple hardware-based servers and two VMware based virtualization clusters with up to 144 cores and over 1 TB of RAM. These clusters have the capacity to operate hundreds of production-level virtual servers and infrastructure components. Data storage can be provided by local NAS, as well as a large multi-petabyte NetApp Storage array. The systems are protected, when required, by the UNC campus hardware firewall and scanned for vulnerabilities regularly using a Qualys based automated scan.

The Odum Institute’s primary computing laboratories jointly have nearly 50 high-end workstations arranged in an active learning environment. The systems are supported by multiple network servers and a wide array of quantitative and qualitative software packages. One of laboratories can also operate as a distance education classroom, accommodating up to 22 students. This classroom has many capabilities for presenting multimedia information to a larger audience, with two cameras and advanced audio systems that can capture the students and instructor, while three large screens are capable of displaying various configurations of instructors, students, and media. This facility allows us to support effective multi-site video conferencing for meetings and workshops.

Odum’s RDIS group (5 FTE staff) supports internally and externally funded research projects, developing new technologies to assist social scientists in sharing their data, analyzing new data types, and archiving their data within the UNC Dataverse.

In addition to the facilities available at the Odum Institute, UNC also provides us with access to several high performance computing arrays. These include 1) the Kure cluster, which includes more than 1,800 computing cores across 230 blade servers; 2) the KillDevil cluster, which includes more than 8,000 computing cores across 706 servers; and, 3) a Virtual Computing Lab that provides access to these tools for UNC researchers anytime, anywhere. These resources help support any development and testing of prototype solutions, particularly those dealing with large events data sets.

The Odum Institute provides services for researchers in managing, archiving, and preserving social science data. The Institute’s Archives Group (~3 FTE + 5 part time staff) provides comprehensive data management consultation and support through all phases of the research lifecycle. The Archive group includes staff with expertise in archiving and preservation, data management, and public policy.

The Odum Institute’s Dataverse is an application to publish, share, reference, extract, and analyze research data. The Odum Dataverse facilitates making data available to others and allows researchers and data authors, publishers and distributors, and affiliated institutions to get credit. The Dataverse offers solutions for publishing research data and accessing data from other researchers for replication studies. Our goal is to share and preserve all interesting research data, with a focus on social science data.

The Archives Group guides researchers to solutions for their data management needs. The Group provides information and assistance on key considerations for managing research data, and is a collaborator on DMPTool.org (created by the California Digital Library), which help researchers:

• Create ready-to-use data management plans for specific funding agencies;
• Meet requirements for data management plans;
• Get step-by-step instructions and guidance for data management plan; and
• Learn about resources and services available at our institution to fulfill the data management requirements of their grants.

Through UNC Dataverse, the Institute houses one of the oldest and largest catalogs of machine-readable data in the United States, including an extensive collection of U.S. Census data, and one of the most complete holdings for 1970 Census files. Other sources of data include the North Carolina State Data Center and the National Center for Health Statistics. Many studies are public, but some are restricted.

The Odum Institute has extensive resources in quantitative, qualitative research and survey research. The institute’s Consulting Group (3 FTE + several part time staff) delivers hands-on assistance and instruction to faculty, graduate students, and others on advanced quantitative and qualitative methods, research design, and other research issues. Odum has two PhD statisticians on staff, offering a multitude of services concerning statistical analysis and software, including SAS, Stata, and R.

Additionally, 5-6 part-time statistical consultants are available throughout the year to help faculty and students (on a walk-in basis) with specific research issues or questions (9am-6pm, M-F).

The institute also offers consulting services in qualitative research design, analysis, and strategies for using software, such as ATLAS.ti and MAXQDA. Consulting services include methodological approaches for analyzing documents, focus groups, in-depth interviews, and graphical and video data.

The Odum Institute’s Survey Research Group (1.5 FTE) supports UNC’s primary education program in survey research, the Certificate in Survey Science. In addition, the Survey Research Group offers consultation and services on questionnaire design and pre-testing, data collection (web and mail surveys), sample design and weighting, and data analysis and visualization. Finally, the Survey Group manages UNC’s site license for the Qualtrics web survey platform, a highly sophisticated software system for delivering and managing web surveys for research purposes.

The UNC Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) Service Center is committed to supporting the research mission of the Odum Institute. The CSC’s goal is to provide the highest level of customer service and research administration expertise, supporting researchers with contract and grant applications, financial management, and payroll. The Service Center consists of six permanent employees that provide guidance and instruction with research administration activities: pre- and post-award; generating data for completing agency forms and reports; proposal packaging and submission; establishing and managing financial accounts; and payroll.

The Service Center works in close collaboration with The University’s Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) with regard to all facets of pre-award and post-award administration, and is a liaison between a number of university departments and other campus offices for research administration, financial management, and human resources processes.

Contract and grant administrators are assigned to specific Center investigators, and do not rotate. In this way, there is clear and consistent delegation of responsibilities, which allows investigators to focus on their research rather than on administrative concerns.

The Director for Finance and Research Administration Manager each have over 15 years’ experience in research administration, financial management and human resources at UNC-CH. In addition, the Service Center recruits 5-8 students funded primarily by the Federal Government’s Federal Work-Study Programs. This allows students to obtain hands-on experience in the areas of accounting, finance, and research administration.

The Odum Institute provides audio transcription services to UNC researchers seeking to transcribe qualitative data collected during focus groups, interviews, and other research activities. The Institute’s transcription team is comprised of one full-time staff member and two part-time student employees.

Unlike other transcription services, transcription team members at the Odum Institute (1 FTE + several part-time staff) are required to familiarize themselves with best practices for handling sensitive data by completing CITI IRB training. The team also collaborates with the Institute’s Research Data Information Systems (RDIS) group to facilitate secure data sharing and storage for projects involving highly sensitive data.

Transcriptions are tailored based on project needs and researcher preferences. For example, researchers using the service consult with the transcription team supervisor to determine speaker identification, timestamp intervals, and file formats for final transcripts. The rate for transcription of audio files involving fewer than 5 speakers is $125 per audio hour and includes verbatim transcription, speaker IDs, timestamps, and technical terminology.

For more information about our rates, please view our rates comparison sheet. To inquire about our transcription services, please contact Kasha Ely.

Funding agencies are increasingly requiring researchers to deliver products highlighting the importance of their projects, often in formats project managers lack the resources to produce in-house.

To support researchers during this phase, the Odum Institute offers a wide variety of multimedia production services for the development of broader impact materials, including end-to-end video production, photography, graphic design, and document formatting.

The Institute not only has the expertise necessary to create powerful, professional deliverables, but the equipment as well. Available software and equipment include:

• Adobe Creative Suite
• Camtasia
• 3 DSLR cameras + various lenses
• 2 GoPro cameras + accessories
• Audio recorders

The Institute’s communications team (1 FTE + 1 part-time student employee) is available to support researchers through the entire creative process, from brainstorming to production to dissemination. It is also able to provide guidance on content and marketing strategies, to ensure researchers choose the most impactful formats and most effective channels to showcase their work.