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Master of Science: Specialization in Data Curation

The Data Curation Education Program (DCEP) specialization within our ALA-accredited master of science offers a focus on data collection and management, knowledge representation, digital preservation and archiving, data standards, and policy. Data curation is the active and on-going management of data through its lifecycle of interest and usefulness to scholarship, science, and education. Data curation activities enable data discovery and retrieval, maintain its quality, add value, and provide for re-use over time, and this new field includes authentication, archiving, management, preservation, retrieval, and representation. Our program will provide a strong focus on the theory and skills necessary to work directly with academic and industry researchers who need data curation expertise.

The Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois is the top ranked LIS school in the nation, situated within a world class public research university. Library and Information Science (LIS) as a discipline emphasizes the use of information technology to support new approaches to the organization of and access to information. As such, GSLIS is well suited to provide this new specialization in which students are taught to plan and manage data curation systems, create and maintain data collections, and to evaluate and apply data and metadata standards for varied uses across the sciences, humanities, and social sciences.

The ALA-accredited Master of Science degree (M.S.) requires a total of 40 credit hours of course work that includes required core courses. Students in the DC specialization work with their faculty advisors to select electives for a more individualized program that will prepare them for either a general or specialized career path. With the support of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), we are able to provide internships with stipends at our partner organizations' sites. In addition, there will be a limited number of fellowships available for qualified students. We anticipate that our graduates will be employed across a range of information-oriented institutions, including museums, data centers, libraries and institutional repositories, archives, and private industry.

Course List

Required Courses

Required of All Master's Students

LIS501 Information Organization and Access
LIS502 (2 hours only) Libraries, Information and Society

Required for the DC Specialization

LIS590DC Foundations of Data Curation
LIS LIS590PD Digital Preservation
LIS453 Systems Analysis and Management

DCEP List of Recommended Electives

Students must take two (2) courses from this list; taking four (4) is advised.

LIS452 Foundations of Information Processing in LIS
LIS590DI Digital Libraries: Research and Practice
LIS590DM Document Modeling
LIS590IM Information Modeling
LIS590MD Metadata in Theory and Practice
LIS590OD Ontology Development
LIS590RO Representing and Organizing Information Resources

Additional Relevant Electives

LIS456 Information Storage and Retrieval
LIS590BDI Biodiversity and Ecoinformatics
LIS590DE Design of Digitally Mediated Information Services
LIS590EP Electronic Publishing
LIS590DP Document Processing
LIS590II Interfaces to Information Systems
LIS490MU Museum Informatics
LIS503 Use and Users of Information
LIS522 Information Sources and Services in the Sciences
LIS530B Health Sciences Information Services and Resources
LIS581 Administration and Use of Archival Materials
LIS582 Preserving Information Resources
LIS590DH Digital Humanities
LIS590BI Introduction to Biological Informatics Problems and Resources
LIS590OH Ontologies in Humanities OR LIS590ON Ontologies in the Natural Sciences
LIS590SD Digital Social Sciences
LIS590TR Information Transfer and Collaboration in Science

Scheduling Options

For a variety of reasons, students who want to earn a degree at Illinois are not always able to relocate to campus. We extend our program to them through our online learning option called LEEP. Via this option, candidates without on-campus access to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are able to complete our M.S. degree with this specialization in data curation. In addition to online coursework, LEEP students participate in brief on-campus visits each semester. Financial support for travel and housing is available for a small number of entering LEEP students each year.

Admissions Information

For general admissions information, contact the GSLIS Admissions Office at (800) 982-0914 or (217) 333-0734, or send e-mail to -lis-apply, at uiuc.edu-. For more specific information on the DCEP, please call Melissa Cragin at (217) 244-5574. Information about GSLIS and the DCEP program can also be found at http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/dcep.