DAREnet

Integration of DAREnet into NARCIS!

2008-04-11

On 2 June the DAREnet website will be closed down, with www.darenet.nl and related URLs automatically linking to the NARCIS portal.

In January 2007 the KNAW took control of DAREnet, with the intention of integrating this website into the NARCIS scientific portal. Since then, much effort has gone into achieving the integration. This is not to say that all the functionalities of DAREnet have been incorporated into NARCIS; sometimes other choices had to be made. As of 1 April 2008 a new NARCIS release has been on line. Besides new functionalities a so-called 'DAREnet tab page' has been implemented. This is a part of the portal where the user can search full text publications from all Dutch universities, KNAW, NWO and some other research institutes. This completes the integration of DAREnet into NARCIS. On 2 June the DAREnet website will be closed down, with www.darenet.nl and related URLs automatically linking to the NARCIS portal. After 2 June, further development of NARCIS is set to continue.

Improved Access to Research Outputs

2008-01-18

The access via the internet to research outputs such as scientific publications and student theses is getting better and easier due to improved retrieval via digital repositories, especially designed databases. The number of universities and research institutions that use repositories to disperse their research outputs is growing steadily. By 2006, more than 230 European institutions owned a repository, as is shown in the study 'The European Repository Landscape', by Maurits van der Graaf and Kwame van Eijndhoven.

The EC-funded DRIVER project is leading the way as the largest initiative of its kind in helping to enhance repository development worldwide. Its main objective is to build a virtual, European scale network of existing institutional repositories using technology that will manage the physically distributed repositories as one large scale virtual content source. As part of the DRIVER project, three strategic and coordinated studies have been conducted on digital repositories and related services. They are aimed at repository managers, content providers, research institutions and decision makers - all key stakeholders who are taking an active part in the creation of the digital repository infrastructure for e-research and e-learning. SURffoundation is the Dutch partner in the DRIVER project, and responsible for the publication of the studies. The studies are published on the 16th of January 2008 together with Amsterdam University Press.

The 'European Repository Landscape' is a study on different aspects of the European repository infrastructure. The study presents a complete inventory of the state of digital repositories in the 27 countries of the European Union and provides a basis to contemplate the next steps in driving forward an interoperable infrastructure at a European level.

A key question in the development of institutional repositories is how to make a digital repository and related services work for an institution. This question is addressed in the study 'A DRIVER's Guide to Repositories', edited by Kasja Weenink, Leo Waaijers and Karen van Godtsenhoven. It focuses on five issues which are essential to the establishment, development or sustainability of a digital repository. These are covered by the contribution of Alma Swan (Key Perspectives Ltd.) who provides guidelines that are significant to business modeling for digital repositories and related services; Wilma Mossink (SURF) who addresses Intellectual Property Rights issues; Vanessa Proudman (Tilburg University) who offers insight into the populating of repositories; and René van Horik (DANS, Data archiving networked systems) and Barbara Sierman (KB, National Library of the Netherlands) who address issues concerning data curation and long term preservation. Good practices and lessons learned will assist stakeholders in both the day-to-day issues and long-term challenges. This edited study focuses on inter- and transnational approaches which go beyond local interests.

The 'Investigative Study of Standards for Digital Repositories and Related Services' by Muriel Foulonneau and Francis André (CNRS-ISTI) reviews the current standards, protocols and applications in the domain of digital repositories. The authors also explore possible future issues - that is to say, which steps need to be taken now in order to comply with future demands.

For more information and free accessible downloads of the studies, please see: http://www.driver-support.eu/en/studies.html .

E-mail: communicatie@surf.nl

Official launch: "Utrecht University Gallery of Honour"

2007-10-31

On October 30th at the University Library, Igitur launched the website "Utrecht University Gallery of Honour". Thousands of full-text publications of Utrecht University Nobel prize winners, Spinoza prize winners as well as other university laureate professors will be freely available via the Utrecht University institutional repository.

The Gallery of Honour began in 2005, as a cooperative project amongst all Dutch scientific institutions in connection with the national DAREnet project. During this project, the full-text publications of approximately 200 renowned Dutch scientists were made freely available via the internet. As a continuation of this project, the Utrecht University Library has added the publications of an additional 24 scientists to the original selection: primarily Spinozaprijs winners and other laureate professors. Now one can find the publications of 39 prominent academics. About 85% of these can be accessed full-text.

The "Utrecht University Gallery of Honour" is a showcase for the Igitur Archive, Utrecht University’s digital scientific archive (repository). The university strives to collect and provide access to the full-text versions of her complete scientific production through the digital repository. By doing so, the Igitur Archive plays a significant role in increasing the overall accessibility to scientific research, an issue that the University Library (with the support of the Board of Directors) has championed for the past several years.

See the Igitur Newsletter for more information about Igitur.

European e-Theses demonstrator project

2007-08-01

The organisations JISC (UK), the National Library of Sweden and the Dutch SURFfoundation have tested the interoperability of repositories for e-theses. The result is a freely accessible European e-Theses portal providing access to over 10,000 doctoral theses. This portal was developed following the example of the Promise of Science site, a DAREnet section containing over 15,000 doctoral e-theses.

For the first time ever, various local repositories containing doctoral e-theses have been harvested on an international scale. Five countries were involved in the project: Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Doctoral theses contain some of the most current and valuable research produced within universities. Still, they are underused as research resources. Nowadays, theses and dissertations no longer have to gather dust in attics or on the shelves of university libraries. By making them available on the Internet, both the author and the university can showcase their research, benefiting not only fellow scientists, but a broad public as well. And when they are publicly available, they are used many times more often than printed theses available only at libraries or by inter-library loan.

The result of this pilot project is described in the report A Portal for Doctoral e-theses in Europe; Lessons Learned from a Demonstrator Project. The report gives practical recommendations to improve the interoperability between the service provider and the data supplier. The recommendations are entirely in line with the guidelines of the DRIVER project (www.driver-support.eu). The report may be useful for institutions that wish to show the world the results of their research. By making their material accessible in a standardised manner and using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), they can reach beyond any boundary.

See the demonstrator temporarily at http://e-thesis.sharelab.cq2.org
For more information, please contact Maurice Vanderfeesten (vanderfeesten@surf.nl).

Wanted: projects that enhance knowledge-sharing in higher education

2007-07-06

Three calls for projects under the SURFshare programme

SURFfoundation issued three Calls for Tender on Friday 6 July, challenging the education sector to submit project proposals focusing on three different topics: collaboratories (web-based collaborative environments), open access plus (publication of research data) and knowledge dissemination for universities of applied sciences. The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2007. A total of EUR 420,000 has been made available for the projects.

SURFfoundation is calling for tenders for short-term pilot projects that focus on innovating the process of communication and collaboration in higher education and enhancing the knowledge infrastructure at universities of applied sciences. The proposals should involve the following:

Collaboratories: web-based collaborative environments that enable researchers based in different locations to work together and share their knowledge and sources;
Open Access plus: publishing articles or other research publications such as dissertations along with their underlying research data, models or visualisations; other possibilities include open review systems or a structured open annotation process.
Applied science knowledge dissemination: improving the dissemination of practical knowledge accrued and developed at universities of applied sciences, not only among the universities themselves but also between them and the public and private sectors.

The Calls for Tender have been issued under the SURFshare programme, the successor to the DARE programme (which concluded in late 2006). Whereas the emphasis within DARE was on creating a network of Digital Academic Repositories, in the SURFshare programme the main focus is on Sharing of Academic Resources. DARE resulted in open access to more than 125,000 scientific and scholarly articles via www.darenet.nl. SURFshare aims to make the datasets, simulations, models, visualisations and other material used in research available in addition to the published results (working designation: enriched publications). It also intends to facilitate the research process by means of “collaboratories" (web-based collaborative environments).

SURFfoundation has made a total of EUR 420,000 available for the projects. Projects involving Collaboratories and Open Access will be awarded a maximum of EUR 60,000 each, and projects involving Applied Science Knowledge Dissemination EUR 80,000 each. Matching funds are required, with SURFfoundation covering a maximum of 50% of the costs. The deadline for submitting project proposals is 30 September 2007.

For more information please contact Annemiek van der Kuil: vanderkuil@surf.nl

German universities launch information platform about open access

2007-05-15

The Universities of Bielefeld, Goettingen, Constance and the Free University of Berlin jointly operate an information platform on open access.

Open-access.net intends to inform on the growing scientific and political significance of open access issues. At the German E-Science Conference 2007 hold on 2 May 2007 in Baden-Baden the online information platform was launched to the public for the first time.

Funding is received from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG.It is also supported by the German Rectors' Conference, the Volkswagen Foundation and the German Initiative for Networked Information (Deutsche Initiative für Netzwerkinformation e. V., DINI). Moreover, the Helmholtz Association (Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft) and the Max Planck Society (Max-Planck-Gesellschaft) provide additional information on their open access policies. An academic advisory council will regularly evaluate the platform to meet the needs of researchers.

New leaflets about DAREnet and SURFshare

2007-03-28

SURFfoundation has launched two leaflets about DAREnet and digital repositories.

In the period 2003-2006 all universities in the Netherlands, as well as the Academy (KNAW), the Research Council (NWO) and the Royal Library (KB) created a joint network of repositories within the framework of the DARE programme. DAREnet is a search service which gives free access to these repositories. From 1 January 2007 KNAW Research Information has taken over responsibility for the DAREnet website. The leaflet Tailor-made access summes up the results of the DARE programme and the added value of repositories.

With the successor of the DARE programme, the SURFshare programme, SURFfoundation intends to assist researchers by facilitating the production, use and dissemination of their digital material. The inteded result is an innovative knowledge chain without any superfluous links that accelerates the scientific process and makes it run more smoothly. The leaflet SURFshare innovates the knowledge chain shows the ambition of the SURFshare programme about enhanced publications, transparant quality assessment and collaboration, both nationally and internationally.

Support growing for open access to scientific publications

2007-03-07

Efforts to ensure open access to scientific publications are gaining support. The latest breakthrough is that all the universities in the Netherlands have now signed the Berlin Declaration. In the declaration (an initiative of the Max Planck Society), a large number of universities throughout Europe and beyond declare to make all their scholarly and scientific articles available in open access archives. The results of publicly funded research will then be available to all, free of charge, via online databases. At the moment, access to such articles is impeded by the high subscription fees for scientific periodicals. The European Commission intends experimenting with open access in the coming years. SURF and the KNAW were one of the first signatories of the Berlin Declaration.

According to the European Commission, the results of research financed by the European Union should be accessible to all, free of charge, after a certain period of time. Scientists submitting research proposals to the Commission are therefore invited to apply for a grant to publish the results of their research in an open access database. The Commission nevertheless favours an embargo period on free access in order to avoid antagonising publishers.

In response, SURF initiated an Internet petition in early February calling on the Commission to restrict the embargo period for research articles to six months following publication. After that six-month period, articles should be available via open access databases. Researchers may still add their names to the Internet petition, which can be found at www.ec-petition.eu. The signatures will be presented to the European Parliament in the spring.

Worldwide call for free and open access to European research results

2007-02-06

Nobel laureates Harold Varmus and Rich Roberts are among the more than seventeen thousand concerned researchers, senior academics, lecturers, librarians, and citizens from across Europe and around the world who are signing an internet petition calling on the European Commission to adopt polices to guarantee free public access to research results and maximise the worldwide visibility of European research.

Organisations too are lending their support, with the most senior representatives from over 500 education, research and cultural organisations in the world adding their weight to the petition, including CERN, the UK's Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Italian Rector’s Conference, the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts & Sciences (KNAW) and the Swiss Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW), alongside the petition’s sponsors, SPARC Europe, JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee), the SURF Foundation, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Danish Electronic Research Library (DEFF).

The petition calls on the EC to formally endorse the recommendations outlined in the EC-commissioned Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe. Published in early 2006, the study made a number of important recommendations to help ensure the widest possible readership for scholarly articles. In particular, the first recommendation called for 'Guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results shortly after publication'.

The EC will host a meeting in Brussels in February to discuss its position regarding widening access and the petition is intended to convey the overwhelming level of public support for the recommendations of the EC study.

Please sign the petition in support of the European Commission's proposed Open Access Self-Archiving Mandate

Balancing rights and interests in the digital age

2006-10-25

New international model agreement for authors published

SURF and JISC today published a model agreement that will help authors make appropriate arrangements with publishers for the publication of a journal article. This “Licence to Publish” is the result of several years of international consultation and aims to establish a balance of rights and interests in the emerging scholarly communications environment.

The rise of digital channels of communication has meant that the process of publishing research material has been undergoing major changes over the last few years. SURF and JISC – two organisations that promote the innovative use of ICT in higher education in the Netherlands and the UK, respectively – have pressed for some years for carefully thought-out arrangements to be made regarding copyright, with the interests of all parties being maximised. The overarching principle behind their activities in this field is that the results of publicly funded research should be made freely and openly available, and as quickly as possible, to all who want to access them.

The main features of the Licence to Publish are that:

copyright in the published work remains with the author;
the author grants the publisher a licence to publish the work;
the licence takes effect as soon as the publisher has indicated that it wishes to publish the work;
once the article has been published, the author can make it publicly accessible – in the form in which it was published by the publisher by making it available as part of a digital scientific collection (a “repository”).
if the publisher so requests, the start of such public accessibility can be delayed for a maximum of six months.

The new model agreement will be particularly useful where articles are published in the traditional way, with publications being made available only to subscribers. The agreement is available in both Dutch and English and can be used for publications involving more than one author.

Use of the Licence to Publish is supported by the Wellcome Trust, a charity and the UK’s largest non-governmental funder of biomedical research.

For further information, please go to: www.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/authors/licence/

SURF DARE project gains European-wide adoption

2006-09-28

The successful SURF DARE project (Digital Academic Repositories) has resulted in a European successor under the name DRIVER. In the DARE project, the universities in the Netherlands provided free digital access to all their research results. The aim of the European DRIVER project is to create a single, large-scale virtual content resource that provides access to all European research materials. DAREnet (www.DAREnet.nl), the network of repositories in the Netherlands that provides easy access to Dutch scientific materials, is its source of inspiration and its guiding example. SURF is an important partner in this project that is funded by the European Commission.

European knowledge infrastructure

The “Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research” (DRIVER) project responds to the vision that any form of scientific-content resource, including scientific/technical reports, research articles, experimental or observational data, rich media and other digital objects should be freely accessible through simple Internet-based infrastructures. DRIVER enables researchers to plug into the European knowledge infrastructure, gaining access to the scientific content of others on the one hand, and providing access to their own scientific content on the other, in a standardised, open way. Open Access to research information is vital for researchers and helps the public appreciation and understanding of science.

European DAREnet

The project is a joint collaboration between ten international partners with the intention to create a knowledge base of European research. DRIVER will put a test-bed in place across Europe to assist the development of a knowledge infrastructure for the European Research Area. The project will develop over the next 18 months, building upon existing institutional repositories and networks, from countries including the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium and the UK. This network of repositories allows the publication of any form of scientific-content resource, including scientific/technical reports, research articles and experimental or observational data.

User services

Several user services will be implemented in the test-bed, including search, data collection, profiling and recommendation. DRIVER will demonstrate the potential of a future pan-European Digital Repository service to researchers, research-funding agencies and institutions. Availability of such a basic scientific content infrastructure should encourage academic and/or non-academic service providers to build high-valued and innovative services on top of it.

Assessments

The DRIVER project will undertake a number of assessments under the responsibility of SURF focussing on technical standards, long-term storage and intellectual property rights. The current situation in Europe in the field of repositories will also be inventoried and described.

“The Netherlands is regarded as an important example for the entire world with respect to the developments in and of repositories. Especially the experiences that we, together with all universities in the Netherlands, gained in the DARE programme are seen as important input for other projects,” states Leo Waaijers, the DRIVER project manager for the Netherlands and also the DARE programme manager at SURF.

Digital archive for Dutch archaeologists

2006-09-27

Long-term ‘safe place’ for results of excavations made accessible for re-use

Excavation is a process in which archaeologists have only one chance to record what has been preserved in the ground of the activities of our forefathers. The finds and their spatial context are registered and documented with care in line with legal requirements. Using forms, maps and  increasingly  digital equipment they record what was in the ground on what location. The scientific publication, in which the interpretation of the current researchers is laid down, is only one important aspect. It is the entire excavation documentation that forms a unique source of information for future scientific research.

Employing computers in the archaeological field of action and in the analysis of the finds has become common practice. That is why most excavation documentation is currently (also) available in digital form. However, the storage of the digital files of the excavation pays insufficient attention to preservation. When the publication has appeared, the disks are often proverbially shelved. Archaeologists in the Netherlands are insufficiently aware of the possibilities of an electronic archive for the management and future research of our archaeological heritage.

The DARE project ‘e-repository for Dutch Archaeology (eDNA)’, subsidised by SURF, undertook a preliminary assessment of how an electronic repository for Dutch archaeology could work. In collaboration with the scientists of the universities and the Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek, Leiden University compiled a catalogue of the existing digital data on excavations at their institutions. These files are usually stored on storage media and in file formats that quickly become obsolete. By gathering, converting and documenting them a first step has been taken towards awareness of one’s own unique digital resources.

A representative selection of excavations was also archived in full and was made available via the web (www.edna.nl) in the project, building up a ‘showcase’ and demonstrating the added value of an e-repository.
The message is: do not keep the cd-roms undocumented in a safe any longer, but take action now to ensure that other scientists can still use them in 10 years’ time.

Dutch National site for Doctoral Theses officially launched

2006-09-13

Over 10,000 doctoral theses available

Professor Blom, the University Rector of the Radboud University Nijmegen, launched the National site for Doctoral Theses ‘Promise of Science’ on behalf of all University Rectors in the Netherlands. At the initiative of the SURF Foundation over 10,000 doctoral theses are currently available worldwide on the www.DAREnet.nl/promiseofscience website. The doctoral theses originate from all universities in the Netherlands. They are no longer gathering dust in attics or on academic shelves. Now everyone can have access to new and sometimes groundbreaking research in the Netherlands.

Launch Promise of Science Site: Prof. Kees Blom with Eddy Rijntjes

Each year approximately 2500 doctoral theses are published in the Netherlands. Through them young scientists present the most recent theories in a certain field. Until now these research results were hard to access. By making them available over the Internet both the author and the university can showcase their research. A broad public can benefit from this, not only fellow scientists. Public exposure of research results also is a major contribution to highlighting the Netherlands as a knowledge economy.

“The quality of our doctoral research is very high. Dutch universities have every reason to create maximum exposure“ according to professor Henk Zijm, the University Rector of the University of Twente and chairman of the ICT and Research platform of SURF.

Eddy Rijntjes, Board member of Promovendi Netwerk Nederland (Dutch network for doctoral students), is very pleased with the National site for Doctoral Theses. He states: “It is important for us as young researchers to break new ground and to gain more recognition. A thesis that is publicly accessible now will be our global business card!”

Gerard van Westrienen, project manager at SURF Foundation, comments on the National site for Doctoral Theses: "Providing public access to all doctoral theses creates a true treasure trove of research results. The academic world provides enthusiastic cooperation. Other countries appear somewhat envious of this Dutch initiative that has no match anywhere in the world, with this many doctoral theses on a national scale.”

The National Site for Doctoral Theses ‘Promise of Science’ was developed within the national DARE (Digital Academic REpositories) programme. This is a joint collaboration of all universities in the Netherlands, a number of scientific organisations and SURF. The aim of the DARE programme is to make research publications publicly accessible without any restrictions. The website DAREnet (www.DAREnet.nl) is developed to realise public access to this material, through one site. DAREnet also contains a selection of ‘Cream of Science’, this gives access to publications of 200 prominent scientists in the Netherlands. With Promise of Science there is now also room for young, rising researchers next to the ‘established’ scientists.

About SURF Foundation
SURF is the higher education and research partnership organisation for network services and information and communications technology (ICT).

DARE also means dare

2006-07-13

A chapter in the new book 'Open Access : Key strategic, technical and economic aspects' by Neil Jacobs (editor) that will be published 17th July.

'DARE also means dare : The institutional repository status in the Netherlands as of early 2006' is chapter 14 in this book. A book that brings together many of the world’s leading open access experts (among them SURF’s Leo Waaijers, program manager DARE) to provide an analysis of the key strategic, technical and economic aspects on the topic of open access. Open access to research papers is perhaps a defining debate for publishers, librarians, university managers and many researchers within the international academic community.

Starting with a description of the current situation and its shortcomings, this book then defines the varieties of open access and addresses some of the many misunderstandings to which the term sometimes gives rise. There are chapters on the technologies involved, researchers’ perspectives, and the business models of key players. These issues are then illustrated in a series of case studies from around the world, including the USA, UK, Netherlands, Australia and India. Open access is a far-reaching shift in scholarly communication, and the book concludes by going beyond today’s debate and looking at the kind of research world that would be possible with open access to research outputs.

Many of the chapters are, of course, available open access on the web.
Click here for chapter 14: ‘DARE also means dare : The institutional repository status in the Netherlands as of early 2006’, by Leo Waaijers (SURF)
Further details of the book available at: Chandos Publishing

VetPortal personalises veterinary medicine

2006-05-23

User portal to Vetinary Information

VetPortal is a website that contains all relevant educational and research links of the Veterinary Medicine Library of the Utrecht University. Scholars and students visit the site to find the scientific information they need. It is a single umbrella for library services and Utrecht University’s scholarly archives (i.e. repository) as well as external sources. In the first place, the portal is intended for use by scholars and students in the Utrecht academic veterinary environment. But external users, like veterinary surgeons, also have (restricted) access to the selected sources.

Users can set up the page exactly as they please, making all relevant links just a mouse-click away.

The advantages of using VetPortal:

All relevant sources and information on veterinarians / veterinary medicine gathered in one place
Clearly organised, in consultation with users
Personalisable web interface, i.e. only required information is visible
Add your own links and bookmarks; automatic URL updates..

Future developments:

Single log-in, access to all sources
Access to all functionalities for external users
Integration with other university information
Metasearch: a single search command combs every source

To start with, the portal is mainly intended for use by scholars and students in the Utrecht academic veterinary environment. By logging on they can use the portal’s personalised functionalities and access all information sources. External users cannot personalise the site, but relevant sources identified by experts are also simple for them to access through the portal.

Initiated and sponsored by SURF as part of the DARE programme, VetPortal is a project carried out jointly by the Utrecht University Library and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.

More info about VetPortal on DAREnet: services.

Making a researcher's profile easier with PROMAS

2006-04-27

Integrating multiple academic information resources into a researcher's profiling tool.

Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Radboud University Nijmegen cooperated in the DARE project 'HARVEX' (Harvesting Excellence).
The outcome of the project is a Profile Management System (PROMAS), a browser-based tool which integrates existing information from various academic data sources (CRIS, repositories, teaching info, plus others). PROMAS enables academics and institutes alike to create academic profiles in various formats, depending on the situation. The system is based on an ORACLE database with a JAVA interface. Advantages are that the information is always up-to-date and only already existing information is being used.

Results

The HARVEX-project has realized not only a prototype, but a fully working production system.
Core features of PROMAS are:

The system is explicitly directed toward archiving the results of academic labour and in so doing giving the opportunity to fully make use of the possibilities and objectives of the universities DARE repositories;
It gives the academics and institutions the possibility to strengthen the communicative aspects of their work toward the relevant stakeholders, by putting specific accents or structures in his profile which he / she thinks his stakeholders will find important;
It is in connection with the modern way in which communication and interaction take place in the academic community. Information is being communicated through (text) files in different formats (RTF, HTML, PDF) directed towards human reading and understanding. Information is also used more and more by stakeholders through harvesting meta-data by way of XML / RSS-feed standards (machine reading and understanding).

Perspective

Most universities in the Netherlands use the METIS repository for information about their publications. Therefore, the PROMAS tool has been developed together with the department (University Centre for Information services) within the Radboud University Nijmegen that has developed and maintained the METIS system. After the project period the PROMAS tool will be positioned as an add-on for METIS.