Posted October 31, 2025 by Office of Research and Innovation
The following is a guest column from Alian Kasabian, research data and security liaison with the Office of Research and Innovation. The “Year of Data” is a yearlong campaign to bring attention to campus resources and educational resources related to research data. The campaign kicked off in September and runs through April 2026, with monthly topics related to research data management and the research data life cycle.
“Location, location, location.” It is a phrase most often referenced in real estate, but it is incredibly important in research as well. From environmental conditions to geologic composition, social networks to politics and policy, location matters. This month, the Year of Data theme is “The Importance of Place.” Many related resources and great events happening on campus this month reflect this idea.
GIS Day is Nov. 19, which is an opportunity to learn about and share how geographic information system technology informs our understanding of place.
In other GIS celebrations in November, the University Libraries are continuing their annual map competition, and the winners will be announced Nov. 10, which will also include a presentation from Pei-Ying Chen, digital scholarship and sciences research specialist librarian, titled “Exploring Nebraska’s Farmers Markets Using an R Shiny Dashboard.”
Continuing the GIS theme, the Nebraska Academy for Methodology, Analytics and Psychometrics (MAP Academy) will host the presentation “GIS: Case Studies for Winning Grants, Changing Lives and Empowering Communities” from Juan-Paulo Ramírez as part of its Nebraska Methodology Applications series on Nov. 21.
The All Things Nebraska portal is live; it provides access to maps, reports and tools about Nebraska communities. One of the data providers is the Nebraska Rural Poll, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary; it is the longest-running poll of rural life in the U.S. The Rural Poll offers regular webinars sharing information from its findings, and the Nov. 13 topic is Energy Resources and Agriculture.
The Bureau of Sociological Research collects data from Nebraskans for multiple projects. The longest running is the Nebraska Annual Social Indicators Survey, an omnibus survey of Nebraskans ages 19+ that has been collected since 1977. Researchers can add questions to the NASIS, which has both a summer and winter version, but also can request past datasets. Also available is SANDY, UNL’s new data repository. It is not limited to data about Nebraska but has datasets about our state you might not find anywhere else.
The campus has Enterprise licenses for ArcGIS Online and ERDAS, software for working with geographic and geospatial data. The Libraries have various GIS tools and supports, including the Geoportal – a hub for discovering, accessing and using a wide array of geospatial resources. Nebraska Extension has a Community Resources Database that includes resources and potential partners for work in Nebraska. We’ve also compiled some data sources that are from and about Nebraska.
And, of course, Nebraska Research Days is running Nov. 17-21. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the work and creativity of researchers IN Nebraska!
