The symposium series allowed stakeholders to network and explore promising practices, technologies, and data-sharing strategies related to university expertise systems. The free series brought together entities in Florida’s universities that collect and disseminate information about faculty research, publications, and professional activities.

Many Florida universities maintain expertise and research information management systems—sometimes several in the same institution. Additionally, multiple entities at each university are producers, managers, and consumers of research and scholarly data. These organizations include libraries and faculty advancement, communications, research, industry engagement, and commercialization offices. There is also the statewide research portal for promoting expertise across Florida’s universities—Florida ExpertNet.

One goal of the symposium and similar future events is to create a community of practice to promote collaboration within and across universities to maximize the value of these systems.