May 18, 2021 – The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) is pleased to announce that Jeff Moon, Portage Director, was awarded the CARL Award of Merit today during its Annual General Meeting.
The CARL Award of Merit recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding local, regional, or national contribution within an area of research librarianship and whose contribution has had broad and beneficial impact within the CARL community. Mr. Moon receives the CARL Award of Merit in recognition of his outstanding performance as Director of the Portage Network and his significant contributions to the advancement of research data management (RDM) in Canada.
When CARL Portage began its work in 2015, Mr. Moon, who was a respected member of the library data practitioner community, began his engagement with Portage’s Data Management Planning Expert Group. His leadership as chair of that group led to the development and launch of Portage’s first service, the DMP Assistant, in collaboration with the University of Alberta.
In 2017, Jeff Moon succeeded Chuck Humphrey as Director of Portage. In this role Mr. Moon has helped position RDM as integral to the research process and libraries as central to RDM. The goal was to support Canadian researchers in the production of enduring, discoverable data and ensuring its responsible curation and stewardship for reuse.
“Jeff understood that Portage needed to be not about technology but about articulating a compelling vision, developing policy and practice, conducting quiet diplomacy, shepherding grassroots effort, securing funding, building expert HR capacity, ensuring the timely delivery of useful tools, and engaging in ceaseless outreach and promotion,” stated Susan Haigh, CARL Executive Director.
Some of Mr. Moon’s other notable achievements during his secondment to CARL as Director of Portage include:
- Growing Portage operations and funding, including successfully positioning Portage within the New Digital Research Infrastructure organization (NDRIO) and contributing to the development of the Data Management component of NDRIO’s Strategic Plan 2021-2024.
- Growing Portage’s volunteer Network of Experts to over 160 members, including the development of a national curation network and the growth of a nascent network of Preservation Service Providers (PSPs) in Canada.
- Overseeing the development, operations, and governance of RDM platforms and services including the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR) and the DMP Assistant.
- Advancing work on sensitive data management and relationship building between the Portage Secretariat and the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC) for using and working with Indigenous data.
- Increasing the visibility of Portage offerings within the Canadian and international research data management community via in-person and virtual training, promotion, and outreach.
- Managing the growth of the Portage Secretariat from a team of two to a team of fifteen.
- Developing two national funding calls: CoreTrustSeal Repository Certification Pilot and Covid-19 Data Management and Support.
- Promoting the adoption of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) by Canadian repositories through efforts supporting the creation of the DataCite Canada Consortium with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN).
- Accompanying Tri-agency officials on the pan-Canadian Tri-agency Policy stakeholder consultation tour in 2018 and helping to lay the groundwork for the new Data Management Policy.
CARL would like to congratulate Jeff Moon on this very well-deserved award and thank him for his vision and dedicated leadership in the remarkable growth and many accomplishments Portage has made.
