According to a 2011 survey by Philip Glandon, only 35 percent of the 20 most cited journals in the field of economics have policies requiring as a condition of publication that authors make the data they use in their papers available to others. This is worrying, since empirical research requires quality control and lots of checking. Without access to the primary data a researcher works with, the larger economic community is unable to replicate her results, evaluate her faithfulness to her methodology, or re-use her data for other projects. What's worse, compliance is spotty even at those journals that do require authors post their research data, with fewer than half of all authors publishing the required datafiles. And when authors do make their data available, the files they post are often useless, since there are no discipline-wide standards governing what should be posted, what metadata should be included, or how programming code, procedural records, or explanations should appear. Funds from this grant support a project by Peter King to develop a software platform that has the potential to ameliorate some of these difficulties. King has developed the DataVerse Network, a platform specifically for publishing, sharing, referencing and analyzing social science datasets. With Sloan support, King will create a pilot platform that will allow participating journal editors to use the DataVerse Network in their article evaluation process, giving authors a uniform, standards-based capacity to upload and store research data, which can then be used both by editors and reviewers as an article moves through the publication process, and which will subsequently be available to the wider scientific community post-publication. The project represents a promising avenue in which information technology may help transform for the better scholarly communication.

In early 2011, computational biologist Phil Bourne hosted a meeting at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) titled "Beyond the PDF," which brought together the emerging community of researchers, librarians, publishers, and developers who are rethinking scholarly communication in the sciences. The primary focus of the agenda was a discussion of the future shape of scientific articles. Presentations ranged from models for data or software publication to so-called "executable" papers, in which results are not simply described but are actually computed on the fly in live, adjustable figures. The initial "Beyond the PDF" meeting was unusually productive, bringing together a group of stakeholders to think creatively about scientific communication, and forming a nascent community that has continued to develop through a series of international conversations throughout the year. Funds from this grant support a second "Beyond the PDF" workshop, to be held in the summer of 2011. Support includes funds for agenda development and planning, as well as monies to hire a full-year staff member to focus on providing services to the growing community of scientists and technologists focused on thinking seriously and imaginatively about the future of scholarly communication.

The grant provides partial support for the production and release of a feature film on the life and work of social scientist Stanley Milgram, the researcher made famous through a series of shocking experiments that tested individuals' propensity to defer to authority, even when deference entailed the performance of ethically suspect actions. The screenplay, written by Michael Almareyda, will be produced by Ted Hope, producer of In the Bedroom, The Ice Storm, The Brothers McMullen, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Savages and will focus on taking a wider view of Milgram's life and work, placing his obedience experiments in the context of his larger research program and providing a more expansive perspective on his contributions to science and culture. Funds will provide general support, as well as monies to ensure a qualified science advisor to ensure the accuracy of the film's scientific content.

Launched in 2009 by the National Academy of Sciences, the Science and Entertainment Exchange is a program that seeks to enhance and improve the scientific content of film and television through connecting writers, producers, directors, and other entertainment industry professionals with top research scientists and engineers. To date the Exchange has consulted on over 400 film and television projects, including big-budget film productions like Apollo 18, Battleship, Iron Man 2, and Green Lantern and hit television programs like Castle, House, The Good Wife, and Covert Affairs. It also sponsors salons and panel discussions, bringing together industry insiders and scientists. Funds from this two-year grant provide core support for the Science and Entertainment Exchange, allowing it to reach out to more individuals, studios, networks, and guilds; to target television more aggressively; to expand its database of current science experts and add new scientific fields that are not currently represented; to improve publicity around major releases of films and TV; and to expand its presence and impact on the web and in social media.

This grant to architect Rob Van Pelt and biologist Rob Knight will support a one-year project to create a "proof of concept" detailed 3D map of the "Microbially Visible Home." This map will include both the architectural components and microbial data of a single house and will bring together building scientists, software developers, and microbiologists to create an easily interpretable and visual 3D model. Partnering with Autodesk, a world leader in 3D design software for manufacturing, buildings, construction, engineering, and entertainment, Van Pelt, Knight and their team will conduct dense sampling of homes near Toronto, collecting and analyzing nearly 1,000 samples for bacteria and fungi and using this data to build a biological data layer on top of Autodesk's Building Information Model, a computable representation of a facility that integrates a wide range of building features and functions, including architectural characteristics, materials, relationships, sensor data, and performance metrics. The result will be the creation of a detailed 3D building map with both the architectural components and the microbial data. It will make the invisible microbial world of one home visible. This new tool will help scientists develop exploratory hypotheses about why microbes live in the locations that they do.

We know there are microbes in homes. We know there are microbes in and on people. Are the microbes of homes and their inhabitants the same? Funds from this grant support a two-year project by microbiologist Maria Gloria Domнnguez-Bello, architect Humberto Cavallin, and colleagues at the University of Puerto Rico to collect and analyze microbial samples from homes and their inhabitants in a variety of cultural settings. The team plans to collect samples from traditional dwellings in remote villages in the Amazon as well as more modern rural and urban homes in New York City and South America. The homes in the Amazon villages are round huts constructed of natural materials without windows, closets, or furniture. The inhabitants of these homes have had very little exposure to modern life. The rural homes are far more advanced. They have two or three bedrooms and electricity, but do not necessarily have running water. Each room has a door and window with modest furniture and natural or forced ventilation using fans but no air conditioning. The urban homes are the most advanced and generally have air conditioning. In each home, the team will collect and analyze samples from the home as well as from the human and animal inhabitants. This project promises to generate important new knowledge about the microbiology of homes across cultures as well as shed some light on the relationship between the microbiomes of the home and its inhabitants.

This three-year grant supports the launch of a major initiative by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) to assist graduate students to gain knowledge in the assessment of student learning, both for the improvement of their own course-based teaching and for the reflective analysis of student learning outcomes at the level of a program or major. Partnering with five universities, CGS will partner with five universities to develop programs aimed at training graduate students in the best practices for assessing student learning and in implementing these practices in their courses, with special attention paid to large "gateway" science and math courses with high student attrition. Grant funds will also support three annual meetings and 2 summer workshops where learning assessment will be discussed, and a web-based clearinghouse for resources on the topic.

The National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) has been the Foundation's longtime partner in its grantmaking in the Education for Underrepresented Groups program, administering both the Sloan Minority Ph.D. program and the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership. NACME receives applications from 53 departments at the 34 universities participating in these programs, selects students for scholarships, administers awards, and supports recruitment efforts by faculty. The grant funds new obligations in these programs for the 2012-2013 academic year, including scholarships, recruiting support, and administrative costs.

The grants funds a project by a team led by University of Michigan economist Matthew Shapiro, who will analyze an exciting new dataset to glean insights about the economic behavior of older Americans. Shapiro and his team will analyze member data provided by Pageonce, a firm that has developed a mobile phone app that lets users pay bills online as well as integrate disparate bank accounts, credit card balances, and investment accounts all in one place. Analyzing the Pageonce data, the team will focus on what it can tell us about how older workers spend and save, how they handle debt, and how saving and consumption decisions change after retirement.

Funds from this grant support the work of Nichole Maestas of the Rand Corporation, who is studying how changes in labor demand affects the employment outcomes of older workers. In earlier work, Maestas has catalogued how older workers often "unretire", re-entering the workforce after a previous exit. Some 60 percent of such workers who unretire end up changing occupations, moving from managerial and professional work to positions in sales, administration, and service provision, positions that are often part-time or offer more flexible scheduling opportunities. Maestas will look at existing datasets to understand the extent to which this phenomenon can be explained by changes in the labor demand for such positions, looking at how growth in industries with large proportions of sales, administrative or service jobs, and the subsequent increase in the demand for workers to fill these jobs, explains employment outcomes for older workers.