About the Repository

The beta site for a national digital library for ethics in science and engineering is designed to benefit the national and international scientific and engineering research communities. In April 2009, the National Science Foundation's Office of Integrative Research sponsored a project at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to advance development of an Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse (SES 0936857). The Ethics in Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse (ESENCe) uses state-of-the-art digital tools to preserve and widely disseminate a variety of materials on ethics and the responsible conduct of research in science and engineering disciplines.

The project is a direct response to the America COMPETES Act, which, beginning January 4, 2010, will require "that each institution that applies for financial assistance from the Foundation for science and engineering research or education describe in its grant proposal a plan to provide appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research to undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers participating in the proposed research project" (Section 7009) and "that all grant applications that include funding to support postdoctoral researchers include a description of the mentoring activities that will be provided for such individuals" (Section 7008).

Project Directors

Jane Fountain

Jane Fountain, PI

Jane E. Fountain is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professor Fountain is the founder and Director of the National Center for Digital Government and the Science, Technology and Society Initiative. She is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Hierarchical Manufacturing, principal investigator of the International Dimensions of Ethics in Science and Engineering project (IDEESE) and co-principal investigator of the Commonwealth Alliance for Information Technology Education (CAITE). Among many other publications, Fountain is the author of Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), which was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title in 2002 by Choice and translated into Chinese, Portuguese and Japanese. Fountain holds a PhD from Yale University, in organizational behavior and in political science, and graduate degrees from Harvard and Yale. She has been a Radcliffe Fellow, a Yale Fellow, and a Mellon Fellow.
Website

Marilyn Billings

Marilyn Billings, co-PI

Marilyn Billings is the Scholarly Communication & Special Initiatives Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She provides campus-wide leadership and education in alternative scholarly communication strategies and is frequently an invited speaker at faculty department colloquia. She gives presentations on author rights, alternative digital publishing models and the role of digital repositories in today's research and scholarship endeavors. An important component of her responsibilities is the management of the digital repository ScholarWorks @ UMass Amherst (http://scholarworks.umass.edu/). She also organizes programs on new and emerging topics for librarians, faculty, and researchers.
Website

Jessica Adamick

Jessica Adamick, Ethics Clearinghouse Librarian

Jessica Adamick is the Ethics Clearinghouse Resident Librarian at the University of Massachusetts Amherst W.E.B. Du Bois Library, where she provides primary support for the development of the ethics clearinghouse. She holds a Master of Library Science and a Digital Libraries Specialization from the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University Bloomington, and a Bachelor of Arts in Women's Studies from Earlham College.


Michelle Sagan Goncalves

Michelle Sagan Goncalves, Program Manager

Michelle Sagan Gonçalves is the Program Manager for the Digital Library project. She is a Research Associate with the National Center for Digital Government and the Science, Technology and Society Initiative. She holds a Masters degree in Public Policy and Administration from the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Women's Studies from Providence College.