Population Science Research Center Computing, Information Technology, and Information Dissemination Core

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The CITID core combines computing, information technologies, and information services to provide a flexible and cost-effective infrastructure that facilitates innovative population research, enhances access to information, and expands dissemination of the findings of PSC researchers. The two arms of the core are computing and information services. Their integration in a common core is the result of recognizing that distinctions based on 20th-century technologies for delivering and processing information—computer hardware vs. books and Journals - ignores commonalities in content; that the traditional library environment is now an internet-based environment; and that, conversely, computer-based treatment of information is increasingly decoupled from static machine environments. Although we continue to maintain a Demography Library, and to install and fix computers, information access, processing, and dissemination are now tightly coupled within the PSC. The CITID Core is significant because it: provides critical physical and human capital resources necessary for population research and dissemination; supports a stable and secure computer environment; facilitates access to information by providing tailored research assistance; assists in the incorporation of new technologies among PSC researchers; improves dissemination of findings for individual and collective projects; and enables international and collaborative research by providing virtual resources and infrastructure as well as high-tech space for meetings. The CITID core is innovative in that the coupling of computing and information services provides a flexible environment with a high degree of collaboration and cross-feeding that facilitates training, testing, and implementation of new computing and dissemination technologies. Integration with SAS allows the PSC to provide high-end services to individual projects at the same time that it provides an enhanced infrastructure available to PSC researchers. The continued and dynamic incorporation of new technologies greatly enhances the ability of PSC researchers to conduct international research. Over the next grant cycle the main objectives of the CITID are: (a) Development and maintenance of a state-of-the-art computing . infrastructure to promote population-related research within the PSC, with an emphasis on meeting the various and evolving needs and skills of R24 program scientists and their research teams; (b) Provision of assistance for database development, data management and archiving, and support for advanced quantitative analysis; (c) Dissemination of research results and data collected by PSC researcher associates; (d) Support for international research and collaboration with foreign investigators and institutions; (e) Provision of training in the use of CITID resources, including reference- and research-related assistance; (f) Incorporation into population research of internet related developments, including web-page design and maintenance, file sharing, and new forms of communication; (g) Administration of the Demography Library; and (h) Provision of support for the technological and informational needs of the Administrative and Development Cores.