Dr. Gabriel M Peterson
Curriculum Vitae: GMPeterson-CurriculumVitae2016
I am an Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Sciences at North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC. I hold Bachelors degrees in Biochemistry (BS), Chemistry (BA), and Spanish (BA) from New Mexico State University, an MS in Biotechnology from the University of Texas at San Antonio and earned my Doctorate in Information Science from the University of Missouri in 2006.
I am an information scientist; my areas of specialization are Scholarly Communication (especially Anomalous Literature), Information Policy (especially Information Security), and Inforamticw (especially Health Information Disparities). My research lies at the intersection of health sciences, biomedical literature, and the information society. I study the impact of errors in the scientific record as a way of evaluating the self-correcting properties of science.
My research focuses on scholarly communication and the use of health sciences & biomedical literature; I study the self-correcting attributes of science, the integrity of the scientific record and the changes that open access is having on the nature and use of health information. Health literacy and open access to scientific and health information can improve lives by reducing health information disparities. It is important to understand how to make high-quality information accessible to those who can benefit most from it.
Previous Research Experience:
I have been involved in research projects that have explored problems from an array of topics in the fields of information science and informatics. These include studies regarding vocabulary, information retrieval, information behavior, bio-informatics, health informatics, the electronic medical record and academic communication. These projects have equipped me with skills in statistics (SPSS & R), web administration, database management, and scripting with SED, php, Perl and SQL.
Prior to my doctoral studies in Information Science, I worked in a variety of bench-science environments, and have skills in numerous disciplines, including molecular biology & biotechnology, electron microscopy, cell culture, fermentation science and analytical chemistry.
I teach a variety of courses in both LIS and MIS curricula; please see the “Courses” section below for more detailed information.
Teaching Philosophy: My role as instructor is the most important part of my work for NCCU-SLIS and I pride myself on my efforts to make the curriculum useful, engaging and innovative. I consider my task as instructor to be a facilitator rather than an obstacle the students must overcome. Specifically, my tasks as instructor are to provide useful skills & information and to help students develop the excellent communication skills required in the workplace. Accompanied by a heavy reading load, MIS core courses are heavily focused on practical application of theory. Electives place a heavy emphasis on critical thinking, coding fundamentals and writing; I have been told that my courses are full of puzzles or brainteasers, each of which must be solved before the student can advance.
The use of technology in the classroom is an exciting aspect to modern instruction. We use web 2.0 technologies, podcasting, Blackboard, elluminate and other distance learning technologies to create a distance learning environment that is enhanced by rather than warped by DE technology. One major challenge is to integrate and exploit the opportunities presented by the presence of distance learning technologies in the face-to-face teaching environment and to promote the social aspects of the classroom experience in the online learning environment.
Students in my courses receive practical training, develop useful skills and make contacts with potential local employers. The friends of NCCU-SLIS in the RTP community and have come to NCCU as invited speakers and have invited MIS students to tour the headquarters of Fortune 500 companies such as Cisco and RedHat.
Classes Taught: Below you will find links to syllabi for courses I currently teach at NCCU-SLIS.
- LSIS 5110 – Information Policy Syllabus
- LSIS 5115 – Intellectual Property Syllabus
- LSIS 5245 – Health Resources for Librarians Syllabus
- LSIS 5442 – Network Security Syllabus
- LSIS 5475 – Communication Science Syllabus
- LSIS 5451 – Databases 1 Syllabus
Projects & Funding:
E-HEALTH
Health disparities, which occur disproportionately in under-served communities, have numerous negative social consequences. Despite the fact that the NLM offers many free, high quality eHealth resources to the public, eHealth literacy (the awareness of and use of online consumer health information resources) is too low. Greater awareness of these resources among under-served populations will increase health literacy and reduce health disparities
ANOMALOUS LITERATURE
Open access publishing’s rise in the scholarly community has been rapid as authors and institutions have adopted the model as a cost-effective alternative to traditional publishing. (Albert 2006) Despite the growing acceptance of peer-reviewed open access publishing in the biomedical sciences, few, if any, studies of the self-correcting characteristics of such literature have been undertaken
OTHER PROJECTS
Open science and the free flow of quality information give everyone the opportunity to improve their lives with knowledge. I am interested in the flow of information and its reliability and utility to the people who need it.
OPEN SOURCE
I am interested in exploring the scientific and societal changes that open, shared information is effecting. Open source and open access are changing science and scholarship. The impact of open source software is self-evident, universities and libraries are feeling pressure to adopt open access publishing. Just as the Internet has changed every information-based discipline, open hardware and the “Maker” movement are bringing disruptive changes to the world of objects. These technologies empower individuals, institutions and society, but can also work orthogonally to our various interests. Understanding the nature and effects of pervasive information is essential to using these tools well.
SUGGESTED READING
The Information By James Gleick
Who Controls the Internet? By Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu
The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer By Neal Stephenson