In the third episode of our EOSC blog series, we touch upon the many ways in which DARIAH contributes to the EOSC. We discuss, what does it mean to contribute to the EOSC federation as a distributed infrastructure and what are the challenges and opportunities we see for DARIAH members.
Well-functioning infrastructures tend to become invisible. Working remotely (even more so) adds a very sensitive twist to this premise, as it makes apparent how much we are dependent on, and even exposed to crucial everyday IT infrastructures. Our collective struggles with the limitations, misalignments or even ecosystem wars encoded in their use do not only affect our work-life and productivity (and mental sanity?) but also highlight serious ethical, conceptual issues underlying them.
Jennifer Edmond’s satirical take on this state of affairs below gives us a massively relatable insight of how vendor lock-in feels in a work setting that is already locked enough. What are our options to realign information management systems with our own workflows and not the other way around? How to take into account that many of us have wide collaborative networks, and thus we can’t just stay by one platform or one brand chosen by our institutions? Where are our collective investments in developing competitive but public alternatives, or do we really need to sacrifice community control and transparency on the altar of reliability and stable performance?
Read, relate, think, enjoy.
On the 20th of July, the EOSC Executive Board launched a large-scale open consultation on the EOSC Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA). The aim of this consultation was to shape the strategic objectives, action areas, implementation priorities and partnerships for the 2024-2028 phase of the EOSC development. In this post, we put forward the key points of DARIAH’s response to the consultation.
In the first episode of the DARIAH Open Scholar Stars interview series, we talk to Dr. James L. Smith, Irish Research Council postdoctoral fellow in geography at Trinity College Dublin, editor and Open Access advocate about the many ways in which creativity and openness fuels his scholarship.
On 16 May 2019, Knowledge Unlatched announced the launch of a new hosting platform for Open Access books, the Open Research Library (ORL). Since the announcement multiple actor groups involved in the production of open monographs have voiced their concerns about the new platform as it goes against the fundamental principles and values that define open, transparent and community-led scholarly infrastructures. At DARIAH, we believe that the sustainability, optimal coverage, and most importantly the openness of scholarly infrastructural components are key in shaping the future of scholarly communication for the better. Therefore, we would here like to express our endorsement for the statement by our sister infrastructure, OPERAS, in response to the Open Research Library. The full text of their statement can be found below. In support of open infrastructures: A statement from OPERAS in response to the ‘Open Research Library’, a new initiative from Knowledge Unlatched On May 16,...
