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Open Science Conference 2023: Old Hurdles and new Practical Successes for the Anniversary

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by Birgit Fingerle and Guido Scherp

The tenth edition of the Open Science Conference 2023 took place on June 27-29, 2023 online. The 228 participants from 34 countries were offered a diverse program of 14 presentations, 21 practical solutions, eight workshops, and one panel.

As in previous years, the conference was opened by Professor Klaus Tochtermann, Director of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Center for Economics. He outlined the development of the conference since 2014, when it was established as Science 2.0 Conference. Its topics initially focused on the use of participatory tools, or rather on the influence of social media on research and the associated changes. Since 2017, Open Science has been the main focus, at first still strongly influenced by policy topics and a focus on research data, for example in the context of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). In addition to a broader range of topics, Open Science at the conference is increasingly viewed from a global perspective, for example topics such as inclusion and equity are being more and more addressed. The program nowadays is also strongly characterized by successful practical examples of Open Research, but current challenges are always considered as well. This blog post takes up some of the fascinating insights from the conference.

Good practices: Taking up Open Science strategically

Several contributions impressively demonstrated how Open Practices can be strategically anchored and implemented with very different objectives.

Ludwig Hülk, scientist and project leader at the Reiner Lemoine Institute, presented in his talk“Unite behind the (Open) Science – Open Science for a Global Energy System Transformation” how embedding Open Practices in the energy system research community has been successful. With energy-related CO2 emissions accounting for a large share of total emissions, decarbonizing energy systems is of particular relevance when addressing the climate crisis. And time is running out. Thus, efficiency and high re-usability of results were key triggers to consistently embed open practices. This has resulted in a collaborative Open Science ecosystem, with various platforms and tools for sharing open and FAIR data, for example. Some of the tools can also be used by the public.

In the presentation “Leading Change in Organizations: Towards an Open Knowledge Infrastructure for Nature” gab Jana Hoffmann, co-leader of the science program “Collection Future” at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (MfN), which is also a research museum, gave an insight into a transformation process underway there.

The goal is to develop the entire collection into an open knowledge infrastructure and to make it completely accessible in a new way, especially via digital methods. This serves research itself, but also brings research and the public closer together. With numerous examples, she showed how knowledge can be made accessible and new opportunities for public participation can be created in virtual space as well as on site – and how both worlds can be brought together. This made the collection a unique environment for trying out and reflecting on open practices.

Open Science against wasted research and further inefficiencies

The challenges facing researchers in ecology were the subject of the keynote talk “Meta-Science and Open Science for Ecology: The Revolution We Need” by Antica Culina, senior scientist at the Ruder Boskovic Institute. Her work on local and global challenges around climate change, which she hopes to solve with Open Science, is hampered not only by the extreme complexity of ecological systems, but also by the poor accessibility and re-usability of existing research. To this end, Antica Culina presented several case studies.

For example, she worked with other researchers to calculate “Wasted Research” in ecology. Result: Out of more than 10,000 studies, 45% were not even published. Of the published studies, in turn, a large proportion had serious quality deficiencies. This resulted in 82% wasted research in the best-case scenario and 89% in the worst-case scenario. She sees Open Science as a key enabler to improve these inefficiencies and solve the complex research challenges as quickly as possible.

There are a few examples of near-instantaneous data sharing in ecology. But in general, Open Science practices are still not widespread there. An analysis of Open Data found by the team in terms of its reusability was not very successful. In many cases, the data’s poor quality hindered its reusability. In another case, they found a lot of Open Data on a research question, but upon closer inspection were unable to conduct the planned study at the end of the day, again because of poor data quality.

Another area Antica Culina looked at was Open Code. Given the serious impact on research results that even small programming errors can have, she said it is surprising that code is not part of the peer review process, as it is in software development. Sharing code allows better understanding of analyses, evaluation of conclusions, and reuse of code, which can save a lot of work time. It also increases confidence in science because it boosts reproducibility. However, an analysis of data from 400 random papers from journals with code-sharing policies showed that 73% of the papers nevertheless had no code available. In conjunction with other problems, this led to only 21% of the paper being potentially computationally reproducible.

Motivation and commitment as drivers of Open Research

For the first time, this year’s conference featured so-called “highlight talks” on the latest research findings on Open Science.

Ronny Röwert, research associate at the Institute for Technical Education and University Didactics at the Technical University of Hamburg, presented his study “What Drives Open Science Pioneers? Evidence from Open Science Award Winners” conducted as part of his doctoral thesis in which he had asked 13 thirteen winners of Open Science Awards about their motivations for Open Research. The most frequently cited reasons were the subsequent use of one’s own research results (benefit for science), citation advantages (benefit for researchers), and public interest or the social relevance of the research (benefit for society). Despite existing differences between the disciplines, there could always be observed a balanced interplay between egoistic and altruistic motives. In his conclusion, Röwert emphasized the importance of motivation in the implementation of Open Science and that appropriate framework conditions must be in place for a strong commitment. Otherwise:

“Research culture eats open science strategy for breakfast”.

In the contribution “Results of Monitoring on Open Science and Research in Finland: Perspective of the UAS Sector” Anne Kärki, researcher at Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, presented the results of an Open Science monitoring for universities of applied sciences (UAS) in Finland.

The “Declaration for Open Science and Research 2020-2025”, (PDF) is a shared vision for the Finnish research community, and the 23 UAS are united by their strong commitment to it. Questionnaire-based monitoring (the data is open) was used to measure the degree of implementation of openness for the first time. This covered the areas of culture for Open Science, Open Access to scientific publications, Open Access to research data and methods, and Open Education and Open Access to educational resources. It showed that the majority of UAS are already doing very well, especially in terms of Open Access. Deficits were identified with regard to Open Science culture, among other things because concepts such as Citizen Science are not yet really tangible. The area of Open Education was found to be very heterogeneous in its degree of implementation; some UAS have not yet taken it up at all. Kärki emphasized that the first monitoring deliberately did not yet include everything and was not as rigorous.

Involvement of young scientists central to reform of research assessment

The currently very present topic of reforming research assessment, which is driven in particular by CoARA (Coalition for advancing research assessment), and the connection of CoARA with Open Science were discussed at the panel on “Reforming Research Assessment in the Spirit of Open Science” diskutiert.

Youtube: Panel Discussion with Lidia Borrell-Damian, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Claudia Labisch and Iris Lechner: Reforming Research Assessment in the Spirit of Open Science, zbw©

With Lidia Borrell-Damian (Science Europe) as a member of the CoARA Steering Board, Iain Hrynaszkiewicz (PLOS) as a representative of a publisher, Claudia Labisch (Leibniz Association) as a representative of a research organization, and Iris Lechner as a young scientist, different perspectives were represented.

After initial hesitation, around 600 organizations have now signed the CoARA agreement , including PLOS and the Leibniz Association. There were and are definitely concerns from the research community. Among other things, there were fears that the reform process launched by the European Commission was too strongly guided by science policy and would take control away from the scientific community. In the meantime, these concerns have been dispelled. In the panel, it was stated that research assessment must of course remain science-led and existing systems must be taken into account.

The course of the discussion showed that Open Science is seen as an integral part of CoARA, being one of the key drivers. Therefore, the involvement of Open Science advocates must be ensured everywhere, including in the working groups to be established. The panel gave a clear message to the Open Science community:

“Get involved! After all, CoARA and Open Science have a common goal, to improve research.”

However, the role of publishers in this process has yet to be determined. At the moment, it is more of an observational role. Ultimately, part of the reform process is to enforce the recognition of more diverse research outputs, such as data and code. This will have implications for future publication formats, their linkage to each other, and their peer review.

The most important aspect emphasized several times was the consideration of early career researchers. They are already represented in the CoARA Steering Board and this will also be ensured for all working groups. In the context of the reforms, there must also be a broad discussion of what a future researcher actually is and what achievements are recognized, for example, team leadership, science communication and public involvement. The panel also emphasized that this process would take time and that young researchers should not lose patience. It is all the more important, they said, to design the transitional phase of research assessment in such a way that early career researchers are always given guidance. In a statement, the following applies to the reform process:

“Generation of young researchers must be the winners.”

We cannot turn the wheel back

To sum up the conference, a statement from the panel can be taken up: “We cannot turn the wheel back”. Even though there is still a long way to go, Open Science is well on its way to becoming the modus operandi of science, and with each passing year, more and more foundations are being laid. In 2023, the Open Science Conference again provided good insights into what Open Science can look like in practice.

All talks and the panel were recorded and can be found on YouTube. The slides for the presentations are available on Zenodo.

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About the Authors:
Birgit Fingerle holds a diploma in economics and business administration and works at ZBW, among others, in the fields innovation management, open innovation, open science and currently in particular with the “Open Economics Guide”. Birgit Fingerle can also be found on LinkedIn.
Portrait, photographer: Northerncards©

Dr Guido Scherp is Head of the “Open-Science-Transfer” department at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. He can also be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Portrait: ZBW©, photographer: Sven Wied

The post Open Science Conference 2023: Old Hurdles and new Practical Successes for the Anniversary first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Open Access Barcamp 2023: Live and in Colour

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by Danny Flemming

No journey was too far: participants came from Hamburg, Berlin, Austria and Switzerland, among other places, to Konstanz on Lake Constance on 28 March 2023 – despite nationwide train strikes. The enthusiasm was too great to finally be able to discuss Open Access developments and challenges in person, after the online formats of previous years. The Open Access Barcamp 2023 was organized as part of the open-access.network project, which not only operates the portal of the same name , but also plays a key role in networking the Open Access community. The event was held at the Communication, Information and Media Centre (KIM) of the University of Konstanz. Its premises offered ideal conditions for productive face-to-face work and exchange in small and large groups, which formed spontaneously depending on the programme item.

Host Dr Anja Oberländer, deputy director of the KIM, warmly welcomed all participants and, after introductory words, handed over to project coordinator Andreas Kirchner, who broke the ice with an interactive round of getting to know each other and thus laid the foundation for a motivating, relaxed and yet concentrated working atmosphere.

Tailor-made programme with session planning

The actual programme was designed by the participants themselves according to their wishes and preferences using session planning. To this end, project team member Dr Martina Benz visualized all the suggestions for 90-minute long sessions that had been received online in advance, which could then be spontaneously supplemented with additional ideas.

Figure 1: A programme tailored to the wishes of the participants. Photo: Andreas Kirchner©.

In total, nine different sessions with lectures, discussions and workshops on Open Access as well as a library tour came together, from which the participants could choose their respective favorites and the KIM organization team worked out the schedule for the rest of the day.

Keeping track – and setting up a publishing house yourself?

The first session, “Open Access Monitoring (Automate),” was offered by Dr Andreas Walker (Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven) and Christian Berger (Freiburg University of Education). Together with them, participants discussed how best to determine an institution’s Open Access rate. One possible solution mentioned was to take the topic of Open Access into account as early as beginning the establishment of a research information system and to set up a reliable data source through an interface to the institutional repository. This would help the library to generate publication lists and quarterly reports – which in turn would offer added value for the institution’s researchers.

Figure 2: From Session 1: How do we actually know what our Open Access rate is? Photo: Danny Flemming©

In parallel, the session “Founding an Open Access University Press” proposed by Gerhard Bissels (PH Schwyz) took place, in which possibilities for founding university-owned publishing houses were discussed. Here, the example of the publishing house “Berlin Universities Publishing” was mentioned, in which four Berlin universities, FU, HU, TU and Charité, founded a joint publishing house. Based on this, the participants discussed various organizational and financing models and emphasized the importance of cross-institutional, ideally state-wide initiatives.

In the following session, Anke Rautenberg (KIM) outlined the concept of an information budget encompassing all revenues and expenses of a library for scientific information (for the concept of the information budget, see Pampel, Heinz, Auf dem Weg zum Informationsbudget: zur Notwendigkeit von Monitoringverfahren für wissenschaftliche Publikationen und deren Kosten, working paper. Potsdam 2019, (German) and Mittermaier, Bernhard, Das Informationsbudget: Konzept und Werkstattbericht, in o-bib 4 (2022) pp. 1-17. (German), which is already under development at the University of Konstanz. As success factors in the practical implementation, she emphasized the trustful cooperation between the departments involved and the increasing use of automated solutions.

Meanwhile, in the parallel session, Dr Martina Benz presented results from the project “Open4DE: Status and Perspectives of the Open Access Transformation in Germany” (documents, data and results of the project (German)). According to Benz, the further development of the Open Access transformation requires a transformation of Open Access funding, the development of information infrastructures, and a reform of research evaluation.

Speed dating and future perspectives

After the lunch break, a speed dating session ensured movement and individual networking before the participants had to choose between a workshop on the question “How can we better reach researchers?”, a session on financing models for Open Access, and a library tour by KIM subject specialist Livia Gertis.

In the workshop, Dr Danny Flemming (KIM) addressed the challenge of better communicating information and networking services on Open Access to the target group of scientists and scholars. Many experiences and best practices were collected, and it was emphasized that scientists must be offered a service with added value if they are to be persuaded to take a closer look at Open Access.

At the same time, Dr Daniela Hahn (University of Zurich) and Dr Martina Benz presented PLATO and KOALA, two model projects in the field of Diamond Open Access (see also the Action Plan for Diamond Open Access presented in 2022 by Science Europe, cOAlition S, OPERAS and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), which is now also available in German).

This area was taken up again in the following session, which raised the question “Open Access funding quo vadis?”. During the discussion on developments and future perspectives of Open Access funding, it became clear that Diamond Open Access is a particularly promising and desirable model.

A long and productive day

At the suggestion of Marc Lange (HU Berlin), another session explored how to counter so-called “predatory journals” – a dubious business model of publishing everything unchecked against payment of often excessive fees. In particular, a Swiss Open Access publisher was hotly debated.

In a third parallel session, Nicolas Bach (Stuttgart Media University) presented a practical example of data-sovereign Open Access publishing. He showed how a decentralized distributed file system and a blockchain supported by the research community can be used to guarantee the integrity and authenticity of a publication.

Figure 3: Concentrated work in a professional atmosphere. Photo: Danny Flemming©

In a closing session, the most important results of all sessions were compiled and feedback on the event was collected. The participants emphasized the pleasant and constructive cooperation, which had noticeably benefited by the exchange in presence. Further barcamps are planned for 2024 and 2025. Locations, times, and registration options will be posted on the open-access.network calendar as soon as they are known. The calendar provides a continuously updated overview of future events.

You may also find interesting:

About the Author:
Dr. Danny Flemming (contact via mail), Graduate Psychologist, received his doctorate from Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, where he conducted research at the Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media and is now part of the Open Science team at the Communication, Information, Media Centre (KIM) at the University of Konstanz. He works in the open-access.network project, which promotes competence development and networking in the Open Access field.
Portrait, photographer: Christian Hartz©

Photos: Danny Flemming© and Andreas Kirchner©

The post Open Access Barcamp 2023: Live and in Colour first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Open Science Meet Up: Creating the Future Together

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by Doreen Siegfried

Since 2020, the ZBW has been conducting interviews with business studies and economics researchers from all associated disciplines and career stages for the Open Science Magazine. The question is always: What experiences have you had with individual practices in the context of “Open Science”, be it pre-registrations, data sharing, replications, scholarly communication, registered reports, open access publications and much more. By now, interviews have been conducted with more than 50 people from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and even Great Britain for the Open Science Magazine.

What is special about these interviews is that the researchers are dynamic, active, inspired, and are setting up Open Science training courses, mentoring programmes, peer2peer exchanges, and much more locally at their university or research institution. Each and every one of them on their own. Hardly anyone knows about the activities of Open Science proponents from business studies and economics at other locations.

We wanted to change that and bring together researchers of business administration and economics who are already interested in and committed to Open Science for the first time. The goal of our first Open Science Meet Up on 27 April 2023, was mainly to get to know each other and then to work together on a concrete agenda of how to raise the topic of Open Science jointly with the ZBW to a new level and bring Open Science into the mainstream of working in business studies and economics.

It was important for the ZBW to create an inspiring space and connect people who want to take tangible steps. Below you can read about how the first Meet Up was designed specifically and what work results were.

Environment supports the out-of-the-box thinking approach

As a venue we chose the Schleswig-Holstein State Representation in Berlin, which is centrally located on Potsdamer Platz and offers a stimulating ambience. We stripped the room of standard furniture for the Meet Up and brought our own cardboard materials instead (see photos). This was firstly to make the environment as aesthetically pleasing as possible for these 3.5 hours, secondly to support the out-of-the-box thinking approach and thirdly to have as much space as possible for moving participation. The Meet Up was moderated and prepared by the ZBW together with Henning Humml from Weltenerbauer (German).

Researchers work co-creatively at three stations

15 committed participants from business research and economics being Open Science proponents for their discipline at the same time met at the invitation of the ZBW to work out important topics for the further development of Open Science in a co-creative workshop format. Three stations were used to collect, discuss, and prioritize ideas. In the end, teams were formed for future work on the selected topics. We present the process in detail here:

Welcome board with Polaroids

In order to break the ice from the beginning and create an easy working atmosphere, we photographed the participants with a Polaroid camera at the beginning.


The portraits were pinned on the welcome board so that those arriving could immediately get an overview of the others present. After a round of getting to know each other, we went straight to the first table.

Station 1: Collect!


Each participant first wrote down her or his own ideas for important topics that could contribute to the advancement of Open Science on post-its.


Then the topics were categorized into the following clusters at the first table:

  • Open Science culture
  • Education
  • External communication
  • Incentives
  • Replications
  • Funding
  • Implementation of infrastructures

Station 2: Vote!

The collected topics were jointly transferred to the second table and prioritized based on two criteria: Relevance to the community and feasibility (time).

In the upper right corner, thus categorized as “very relevant to the community” and “quickly implementable”, were found after extensive discussion the topics of (1) leading debate on “How do we receive replications?”, 2) highlighting the importance of meta studies & meta analyses, and 3) discussing conflict readiness of Open Science. Somewhat below that, that means “relevant for the community” and “feasible in the medium term”, were the topics “offering events for the exchange of experiences” and “critically discussing the feasibility of Open Science”.


Station 3: Agenda!

The prioritized topics were presented on the third table. The participants then chose their personal favorites and formed two teams. The favorites of this Open Science Meet Up were:

  1. Incentives, Culture, Conflict Readiness: here aspects such as conflict readiness of Open Science, debate about replications, importance of meta studies/meta analyses, Open Science culture, incentives and causes of the replication crisis were discussed.
  2. Education: In this topic area, the focus was on education on Open Science, guidance on challenges in implementing Open Science, Open Science as a course offering in PhD programmes, and methodological as well as stylistic training in degree programmes.

Other interesting but less prioritized topics were: Events, Funding, Community of Practice, and Infrastructure.




Productive start to joint work on Open Science.

The first Open Science Meet Up of the ZBW was a productive start to the joint work on important topics for the further development of Open Science in business and economics research. Two teams were formed and will now focus on “Incentives, Culture, Conflict Readiness” and “Education”. In the next Open Science Meet Up, these teams will deepen their work and jointly develop concrete solutions. We are eager to see the results and look forward to continuing this exciting process.

You may also find interesting:

About the Author:
Dr Doreen Siegfried is Head of Marketing and Public Relations at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. She can also be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Portrait: ZBW©

Photos: ZBW©, photographer: David Außerhofer

The post Open Science Meet Up: Creating the Future Together first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

ChatGPT & Co.: When the Search Slot turns into an AI Chatbox

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by André Vatter

The claim that AI language models are here to stay should be irrefutable by now. Although just introduced to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT has made rapid progress in this short time. How rapid? Let’s compare: After its founding, it took Twitter two years and Facebook ten months to build up a base of one million users. ChatGPT managed to reach this milestone in only five days. Two months after its launch, almost forty percent (German) of all Germans said they had heard of the chat robot or had already tried it.

A brutal race

But as impressive as the private adoption rate is today, what is more exciting is the escalations that ChatGPT has caused hitting the corporate world. Microsoft’s announcement of its plan to integrate the generative language model into its own search engine Bing caused sheer panic among the undisputed global industry leader Google. Google has been tinkering with an AI-supported web search for some time, but it has not yet been able to demonstrate that it is really ready for the market. There is a name, “Bard“, but CEO Sundar Pinchai is silent about concrete integrations. On the other hand, Microsoft was able to announce just a few days ago that its own search engine, which had hardly been noticed by users for decades, had to cope with a sudden rush of visitors:

“We have crossed 100M Daily Active Users of Bing. This is a surprisingly notable figure, and yet we are fully aware we remain a small, low, single digit share player. That said, it feels good to be at the dance!”

Redmond, Washington, is in an AI frenzy. In the future, there will hardly be a business area at Microsoft – whether B2B or B2C – in which ChatGPT does not play a role.

The disruption is also leaving its mark on the smaller competitors. Brave Search, the web search engine created by the US browser manufacturer Brave Software Inc. recently got a new AI feature. The “Summarizer” not only summarises facts directly at the top of the search results page, but also provides relevant content information for each result found. There are also changes at the privacy-focussed search engine DuckDuckGo, which has just launched “DuckAssist“. Depending on the question, the new AI feature taps Wikipedia for relevant information and offers concrete answers while still being on the search results page. But this is just the beginning: “This is the first in a series of generative AI-assisted features we hope to roll out in the coming months.”


All these integrations of AI language models into search engines are not about creating extensions to the existing, respective business model. It’s about a complete upheaval in the way we search the web today, how we interpret results and understand them.

How finding replaces searching

Whereas the previous promise of search consisted of an effortful “I’ll show you where you might find the answer”, in combination with AI it suddenly advances to: “Here’s the answer.” Since their invention, search engines have only ever shown us possible ways where answers to our questions might be found. In fact, it has never been the inevitable goal of advertising-based business concepts to provide users with a quick answer. After all, the goal is to keep them in one’s ecosystem as long as possible in order to maximise the likelihood of ad clicks. This is also the reason why Google at some point began to present generally available information – such as times, weather, stock market prices, sports results or flight information – directly on the search results pages (SERPs), for example, in the so-called OneBox. The ultimate ambition is that no one leaves the Googleverse!

Intelligent chatbots, like ChatGPT, get around this problem. On the one hand, they transform the type of search by replacing keywords with questions. Soon, many users are likely to say goodbye to so-called “search terms” or even Boolean operators. Instead, they’ll learn to tweak their prompts more and more to make their communication with the machine more precise. And on the other hand, intelligent chatbots reduce the importance of the original sources; often there is no longer any reason to leave the conversation. Those who search with the help of AI want and get an answer. They do not want a card catalogue with shelf numbers.

Despite all answers, questions remain open

We can already see that comfort does not come without critical implications. For example, with regard to the transparency of sources that we may no longer be able to see. Where do they come from? How were they selected? Are they trustworthy? Can I access them specifically? Especially in the scientific sector, reliable answers to these questions are indispensable. Other problems revolve around copyright. After all, AI does not create new information, but relies on the work of journalists who publish on the internet. How will they be remunerated if no one reads their texts and only rely on machine summaries?

Data protection concerns will not be long in coming. In communicating with the machine, a close relationship develops over time; the more it knows about us and can understand our perspective, the more accurately it can respond. In addition, the models need to be trained. Personalisation, however, inevitably means a critical wealth of data in the hands of third parties in return. In the hands of companies that will have to build entirely new business models around a question-answering game – quite a few of which, if not all, will be ad-supported.

AI provides answers. But not really to all questions at the moment. Search will change radically in a short time. Academic libraries with online services will also have to orient themselves accordingly and adapt. Perhaps the “catalogue” as a static directory or list will take a step back. Let’s imagine for a moment the scenario of an AI that has access to a gigantic corpus of Open Access texts. Researchers access several sources simultaneously, have them sorted, summarised in terms of content and classified: Have these papers been supported or falsified? The picture that emerges is of a new mechanism for making scientific knowledge accessible and comprehensible. Provided, of course, that the underlying content is openly accessible. From this perspective, too, here is once again a clear plea for Open Science.

So, how do academic libraries implement these technologies in the future? How do they create source transparency, how do they build trust and which disciplines of media literacy move to the foreground when new, machine-friendly communication is part of the research toolbox? Many questions, many uncertainties – but at the same time a great potential for the future supply of scientific information. A potential that libraries should use to actively shape the unstoppable change.

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The post ChatGPT & Co.: When the Search Slot turns into an AI Chatbox first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

ChatGPT & Co.: When the Search Slot turns into an AI Chatbox

Posted on by
Reply

by André Vatter

The claim that AI language models are here to stay should be irrefutable by now. Although just introduced to the public in November 2022, ChatGPT has made rapid progress in this short time. How rapid? Let’s compare: After its founding, it took Twitter two years and Facebook ten months to build up a base of one million users. ChatGPT managed to reach this milestone in only five days. Two months after its launch, almost forty percent (German) of all Germans said they had heard of the chat robot or had already tried it.

A brutal race

But as impressive as the private adoption rate is today, what is more exciting is the escalations that ChatGPT has caused hitting the corporate world. Microsoft’s announcement of its plan to integrate the generative language model into its own search engine Bing caused sheer panic among the undisputed global industry leader Google. Google has been tinkering with an AI-supported web search for some time, but it has not yet been able to demonstrate that it is really ready for the market. There is a name, “Bard“, but CEO Sundar Pinchai is silent about concrete integrations. On the other hand, Microsoft was able to announce just a few days ago that its own search engine, which had hardly been noticed by users for decades, had to cope with a sudden rush of visitors:

“We have crossed 100M Daily Active Users of Bing. This is a surprisingly notable figure, and yet we are fully aware we remain a small, low, single digit share player. That said, it feels good to be at the dance!”

Redmond, Washington, is in an AI frenzy. In the future, there will hardly be a business area at Microsoft – whether B2B or B2C – in which ChatGPT does not play a role.

The disruption is also leaving its mark on the smaller competitors. Brave Search, the web search engine created by the US browser manufacturer Brave Software Inc. recently got a new AI feature. The “Summarizer” not only summarises facts directly at the top of the search results page, but also provides relevant content information for each result found. There are also changes at the privacy-focussed search engine DuckDuckGo, which has just launched “DuckAssist“. Depending on the question, the new AI feature taps Wikipedia for relevant information and offers concrete answers while still being on the search results page. But this is just the beginning: “This is the first in a series of generative AI-assisted features we hope to roll out in the coming months.”


All these integrations of AI language models into search engines are not about creating extensions to the existing, respective business model. It’s about a complete upheaval in the way we search the web today, how we interpret results and understand them.

How finding replaces searching

Whereas the previous promise of search consisted of an effortful “I’ll show you where you might find the answer”, in combination with AI it suddenly advances to: “Here’s the answer.” Since their invention, search engines have only ever shown us possible ways where answers to our questions might be found. In fact, it has never been the inevitable goal of advertising-based business concepts to provide users with a quick answer. After all, the goal is to keep them in one’s ecosystem as long as possible in order to maximise the likelihood of ad clicks. This is also the reason why Google at some point began to present generally available information – such as times, weather, stock market prices, sports results or flight information – directly on the search results pages (SERPs), for example, in the so-called OneBox. The ultimate ambition is that no one leaves the Googleverse!

Intelligent chatbots, like ChatGPT, get around this problem. On the one hand, they transform the type of search by replacing keywords with questions. Soon, many users are likely to say goodbye to so-called “search terms” or even Boolean operators. Instead, they’ll learn to tweak their prompts more and more to make their communication with the machine more precise. And on the other hand, intelligent chatbots reduce the importance of the original sources; often there is no longer any reason to leave the conversation. Those who search with the help of AI want and get an answer. They do not want a card catalogue with shelf numbers.

Despite all answers, questions remain open

We can already see that comfort does not come without critical implications. For example, with regard to the transparency of sources that we may no longer be able to see. Where do they come from? How were they selected? Are they trustworthy? Can I access them specifically? Especially in the scientific sector, reliable answers to these questions are indispensable. Other problems revolve around copyright. After all, AI does not create new information, but relies on the work of journalists who publish on the internet. How will they be remunerated if no one reads their texts and only rely on machine summaries?

Data protection concerns will not be long in coming. In communicating with the machine, a close relationship develops over time; the more it knows about us and can understand our perspective, the more accurately it can respond. In addition, the models need to be trained. Personalisation, however, inevitably means a critical wealth of data in the hands of third parties in return. In the hands of companies that will have to build entirely new business models around a question-answering game – quite a few of which, if not all, will be ad-supported.

AI provides answers. But not really to all questions at the moment. Search will change radically in a short time. Academic libraries with online services will also have to orient themselves accordingly and adapt. Perhaps the “catalogue” as a static directory or list will take a step back. Let’s imagine for a moment the scenario of an AI that has access to a gigantic corpus of Open Access texts. Researchers access several sources simultaneously, have them sorted, summarised in terms of content and classified: Have these papers been supported or falsified? The picture that emerges is of a new mechanism for making scientific knowledge accessible and comprehensible. Provided, of course, that the underlying content is openly accessible. From this perspective, too, here is once again a clear plea for Open Science.

So, how do academic libraries implement these technologies in the future? How do they create source transparency, how do they build trust and which disciplines of media literacy move to the foreground when new, machine-friendly communication is part of the research toolbox? Many questions, many uncertainties – but at the same time a great potential for the future supply of scientific information. A potential that libraries should use to actively shape the unstoppable change.

This text has been translated from German.

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10 Years of OERcamp: Community Get-together on Digital and Open Educational Resources

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An interview with Kristin Hirschmann

Around ten years ago, the first Barcamp to focus especially on the topic of Open Educational Resources (OER) was held in Germany. For the anniversary event in October 2022 there were 446 registrations, 19 workshops, 56 Barcamp sessions, 235 minutes of video, keynotes and live podcasts ranging from Austria to New Zealand.

In this interview Kristin Hirschmann, project manager of the OERcamps organised by the J&K – Jöran und Konsorten training agency, reports on the development of the Barcamps and further OERcamp formats.

The anniversary OERcamp took place in autumn 2022 in Hamburg. Which topic did the community explore in particular?

At the OERcamp in October 2022, the main focus was on the OER strategy of the federal government, introduced in the summer by Jens Brandenburg, parliamentary state secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The third day of the OERcamp was therefore completely dedicated to the strategy: Stakeholders of the OER community discussed and reviewed the different areas of activity of the strategy. We also made it possible for members of the OER community who were not able to be present at the OERcamp to comment on the results realised at the event. This commentary phase took place during the two weeks following the event via a collaborative document; 100 contributions were also added.

By agency J&K – Jöran und Konsorten for the OERcamp 2022 under CC BY 4.0

What’s more, after almost 3 years without face-to-face events, people felt it was important to bring the community together in one place. I received this feedback from many participants: the personal networking and exchange was even more important.

 
 

What were the milestones during ten years of OERcamp?

The first OERcamp took place at Bremen University in 2012. Since then, the OERcamp format has developed further according to current requirements: An OERcamp took place in Berlin every year until 2016. In 2017 there were then two innovations: the OERcamp was extended to four events for the first time: in the north, east, west and south. The OER Award was also established to select the best open educational materials in German-speaking countries. In 2018, the principle of one OERcamp in each of the four points of the compass in Germany was established. In 2019–2020, the OERcamp formats were refined so that the 5 aims of the OERcamp (qualification of OER, OER mainstreaming, networking and exchange, creation of specific materials and enabling a culture of sharing) could be implemented even more successfully. This means that alongside the participatory format of the Barcamp, there are now OERcamp workshops that focus on the creation and publication of OER as well as small, compact OERcamps that are affiliated to other events.

By agency J&K – Jöran und Konsorten for the OERcamp 2022 under CC BY 4.0

In 2020, the OERcamps were held in a virtual format owing to the coronavirus pandemic. With online formats such as the OERcamp webtalks or the OERcamp SummOERschool, we were able to respond to the urgent need of teachers to find, use and create digital teaching and learning materials quickly.

Further milestones that we were pleased about were the „Open Innovation Award 2020“(German) of the OE Awards Committee of “Open Education Global” at the 2020 OERcamp, the recognition of the work of the OERcamps with the 2020 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report the first international OERcamp in December 2021, OERcamp.global. This was, moreover, the first 48-hour festival on OER, and received 1063 registrations from 87 countries.

What makes the OERcamp so unique in your opinion?

At the OERcamps, I am struck time and again by the participants, who are exceptionally enthusiastic. Of course, this comes on the one hand from the participatory format of the Barcamp. On the other hand, the formats of the OERcamp, such as the OERcamp workshop, are very needs-based and offer many more programmes than the participants can use: the participants therefore need the courage and openness to decide what they need for their personal OER journey from the abundance of programmes.

By agency J&K – Jöran und Konsorten for the OERcamp 2022 under CC BY 4.0

I also enjoy the great mix of people: those who are attending the OERcamp for the first time, and OER connoisseurs and pros. Experience has shown that around half the participants at the events are OERcamp newbies. The exchange that takes place there is very fruitful and also serves the aim of making OER accessible to a wider group of people.

In the OERcamp workshop, great focus is placed on the creation as well as the publication of OER. This is owing to the concept, because OER newbies receive a low-barrier start to working with OER thanks to the concrete utilisation of OER. This very specific learning-by-doing thereby enables them to experience the culture of sharing. I find this experience in particular a very important basis for continuing to engage with OER, and therefore also using the potentials of the OER community. The fact that we promote this active engagement with OER through the OERcamp format is something special, in my opinion.

The members of the OER community are not merely participants at an OERcamp who consume one-sidedly, but also central components who give input, ensure exchange and networking, thereby also ensuring the further development of OER and its dissemination.

Are there comparable events at international level?

From an international point of view, OER has even greater relevance than in German-speaking countries. The CC summit of Creative Commons, the Open Education Global Conference with the Open Education Week, the Open Education Policy Forum, the OER22 Conference, the Open Science Conference and the OpenEd are just a few events that focus on OER. At the events, it also becomes clear that OER plays a role on all continents. There is even more value placed on OER as a correct step towards more educational fairness and, above all, equity and social inclusion.

What are your tips for employees in libraries who want to get started with OER?

There is already a wide range of materials available for getting started in OER. This includes the #OERklärt video series (German), which explains the OER basics. This is published via OERinfo (German), the information centre for Open Educational Resources. The platform iRights.info (German) focuses on OER from a legal perspective. And the OERcamps themselves have published diverse materials that can also be further used. The campus of the OERcamps (German), for example, offers 12 online courses with know-how on OER. These include “100 great sources for OER”, “videos and audios as OER” or “online courses with and as OER”.

For librarians in particular, I recommend Fachstelle Öffentliche Bibliotheken NRW (German) – which emerged from the “oebib” blog, which has already been very active since 2015.

This text has been translated from German.

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We were talking to:

Kristin Hirschmann is a cultural and educational scientist. She works as project manager for the J&K – Jöran und Konsorten (German) training agency – a “think and do tank” for contemporary training. In this context, she designs and organises educational events for all educational fields and works in a content-related capacity on the topic of Open Education/Open Training.
Portrait: Kristin Hirschmann©

The post 10 Years of OERcamp: Community Get-together on Digital and Open Educational Resources first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Social Media in Libraries: Best Practice of the ETH Library in Zurich

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In this interview, Lea Bollhalder, who is responsible for the social media channels of the ETH Library, gives us an insight into the work of the social media team.

Why do you think it is important for libraries and digital infrastructures to be active on social media?

Social media enable direct communication not only between the library and its customers, but also between the library’s customers themselves. This opens up a variety of perspectives. Libraries can use social media to increase their visibility, raise their profile and generate additional website traffic – just to name a few examples. Through social media, libraries can provide relevant, quality information to their target audiences and build relationships between the library, its customers and other stakeholders. The content complements a library’s existing marketing and communication channels.

With the ETH Library, you operate your own channels in various social networks. Why did you decide to use them? Who are your target groups there?

The ETH Library is active on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We have either deleted other channels or no longer actively operate them.

ETH Centrum©, working stations

At the time we chose the channels, we took our goals, target groups and capacities into account. We are constantly checking which channels are becoming more relevant for customers of the ETH Library and which are becoming less popular, and we compare whether our goals can be achieved on the respective channel. For example, we are currently keeping a close eye on current developments on Twitter and Mastodon and are in contact with the ETH Zurich Communications Department.

One of the communication goals of the ETH Library, which also guides our social media strategy, is to sharpen our profile. We want to achieve this on social media by identifying specific target groups for each channel and focusing specifically on them there. On our channels, we address the scientific community of ETH Zurich (students and researchers), the interested public as well as other libraries and their employees, depending on the objective. We have subdivided these target groups even more precisely, defined personas and consistently focus on them when creating social media content.

What topics take place on your social media channels?

The topics are very broad. However, we always strive to provide relevant content for our target groups and continuously collect content ideas. For example, we share tips and tricks for studying and academic writing on Instagram and Twitter, industry news on LinkedIn and content related to our collections and archives preferably on Facebook. On social media, we promote our services, products and events, new blog articles and share curated content – but there should also be room for entertaining content. We regularly involve our followers and ask them about their wishes, e.g. regarding content that is useful and interesting for them.

To fill the social media channels for an institution with good content, you need people who think of the social media team and share information, insights and stories. How do you manage to activate other staff members to provide you with content ideas?

We work with an editorial plan that includes social media as well as all other communication and marketing channels. This makes content planning much easier and we know exactly what is coming up and when. In addition, we maintain a close exchange with various departments of the ETH Library and are included when new communication and marketing activities are planned.

Furthermore, the social media team curates content and asks the specialists at the ETH Library for their opinion regarding the quality and target group relevance of the source found. If we receive subject-specific questions on social media, the respective specialists provide us with the answers.

In addition, we are planning to set up an internal network that will enable us to spontaneously get in touch with the ETH Library staff. This should enable our colleagues to share content inspirations, ideas and images even more effectively with the social media team. Furthermore, employees should help with content curation by sharing interesting news articles, blogs, social media posts, etc. that they have come across. The idea behind this network is not only to curate content more efficiently and to create it faster, but also to allow employees to help shape the ETH Library‘s presence in social media.

Which topics or posting formats work particularly well for you?

Video content generally achieves better results than photo posts – with a few exceptions. On Instagram, we’ve been focusing heavily on Stories since mid-2021, and we’ve also been creating more Instagram Reels for a few months now. However, there are always surprises as to why a certain post was particularly popular or, on the contrary, met with no interest at all. Basically, any format can achieve good results as long as it generates added value for the relevant target group – regardless of whether the post provides useful information or is simply entertaining.

Has a content idea ever backfired?

Yes! In February 2022, the course “How to use the ETH Library in 8 steps for new staff and doctoral students, or what you need to prepare for a zombie apocalypse” took place, which – from our point of view – finally had a really snappy title that we obviously wanted to use for ourselves on social media. We promoted the course on the second day after the start of the war against the Ukraine. The illustration of the course content with zombie illustrations was rightly perceived by our followers as tasteless and inappropriate. We immediately deleted the Instagram Story and apologised. Of course, it was not intentional. This unfortunate incident occurred partly because the course content was prepared particularly early and the social media manager was on vacation at the time of publication. During the preparation time, we had not yet made any connection between the chosen zombie images and the war.

Do you have any good tips for libraries that want to get started with social media?

Always start with the goals and the target groups and consider how a post will generate added value for the relevant target group. The choice of channel should be secondary. A solid social media strategy can help set the right goals and a plan for how to achieve them. It is also important to consider your own resources. If these are limited, it is better to limit oneself to individual channels instead of being present on all social networks, even though one does not have the capacity to regularly provide content on them.

Finally, a little peek into the magic box: what are your favourite social media tools?

  • Hootsuite – makes it easy for us to plan content in advance and analyse our social media activities.
  • Animoto – a simple tool to create video content quickly and without prior knowledge.
  • Canva – no longer an insider tip! With Canva you can create visually appealing content without any design knowledge.
  • Microsoft Excel – sounds boring, but the Excel editorial plan makes content planning and collaboration much easier.
  • chatGPT – we are currently experimenting with this AI text tool. Just ask the AI and never sit in front of a blank page again.

This text has been translated from German.

The ETH Library on the internet:

This might also interest you:

We were talking to:

Lea Bollhalder has been working at the ETH Library since July 2018 and is responsible for the social media channels. She studied Human Biology at the University of Zurich and has an additional Master’s degree in Marketing, Service and Communication Management from the University of St. Gallen. She can also be found on LinkedIn.
Portrait: Lea Bollhalder©

Featured Image, ETH outside view: ETH Zürich© / Gian Marco Castelberg

The post Social Media in Libraries: Best Practice of the ETH Library in Zurich first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Back to the Future: Amazing Discoveries in a Futurology Card Index from the 1980s

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Guest article by Anna Kasprzik

The principle of knowledge organisation

Semantics is the study of meaning, and knowledge organisation is semantics made explicit. A great deal of the time I have spent studying, engaged with my Ph.D., and working has been taken up with these two topics and I particularly love eccentric examples of them, such as Luhmann’s card index (German).

During my librarian traineeship in Munich, our subject indexing lecturer Gabriele Meßmer left a lasting impression on me when she told us how, many years ago, she had to beg for three years (!) as a little light at a large German library to be allowed to sort cards into the subject catalogue, because at that time only officially qualified subject indexers in the higher service were allowed to do so – I guess that at some point she wore down the resistance of her superiors. Later she was very eager to follow how the library world entered into electronic data-processing, initially with punch cards … and, after several decades of persistent work on the topic, she became one of the leading lights in the world of committees and education regarding subject indexing in the German library system. Now she is retired. Her unwavering passion for knowledge organisation moved and inspired me.

A few years ago, when I had recently arrived at ZBW, I was therefore delighted to be allowed to rummage around in the card indexes in Kiel, which contained the precursors of the Thesaurus for Economics (STW) … and was pleased to find a set of particularly interesting cards. I was all the more alarmed when I heard rumours this spring that these boxes were to “go over the ramp” (or something like that, I couldn’t help thinking of “walk the plank”) – “oh no! I absolutely have to save ‘futurology’!” ?

Photo 1: Futurology card index

Fortunately I was able to infect my superiors with my impetuosity and in a cloak and dagger operation (ok, it was actually during a regular site trip to Kiel in broad daylight), I was allowed to “extract” the box and evacuate it via the internal mail to my office in Hamburg, where it is now safely stored. Since then, this box has been an endless source of amusement whenever I need a break from the more serious side of our work.

A melange of meta-levels resembling an Escher painting

Why was I so fascinated by “futurology” in particular? Or to put it the other way round: What’s not to like? For nerdy semantics enthusiasts, futurology and this box with cards dating from the 1960s to the 1980s represent a huge crazy bouquet of meta-levels and mind-blowing twists – a (not-at-all complete) list:

  • In bygone days people thought about the future, and I am now in their future, thinking about the people who in the past thought about the future …
  • Futurology (also known as future studies) isn’t merely concerned with the future, however, but with the science of thinking about the future …
  • The cards in this box deal with literature that represents the contemporary view of the science of how one should best think about the future and how people are thinking about the future …
  • … and the knowledge organisation system back then tried to use the keyword “futurology” to classify literature that represents the contemporary view of the science of how … and so on.

How many meta-levels is that already? Never mind, I’m feeling pleasantly dizzy.

I was also fascinated to discover how much one can glean from the titles – without having read the listed publications themselves! – about the attitude to life at that time, and perspectives at that time on the next century, and how shockingly visionary or also how shockingly up-to-date these perspectives still are. Some things were simply amusing, others made me choke on a cynical laugh.

I thought I would share a few examples with you in this blog post and add my two cents’ worth ( ? ) as well.

An astonishingly clairvoyant potpourri of visions

“Too stupid for the future? People from yesterday in the world of tomorrow” (German, publ. by Theo Löbsack, 1971)
? Apparently, people were scared of being left behind 50 years ago as well…

 

“The desire for doom. Pessimistic future prognoses, a modern illness?” (German, Ivo Frenzel, special issue “Zukunft konkret”, 1978)
? Now we can answer this question too: Whether it’s illness or a valid immune response, it is still rampant – you simply have to scroll through Twitter for half an hour.

 

“The most dangerous years since the Ice Age. Our future up to the year 2000” (German, Karl Deutsch, “Presentations in the context of the gala to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Edeka juniors group”, 1980)
? “The most dangerous years”? Wait until the year 2020, you ain’t seen nothing yet …

 

“Only one working day per week in the future? Microelectronics and its social consequences” (German, Frank Niess, 1981)
? Also highly topical! From fears of being cast aside due to the progress of automation through to pandemic-accelerated flexibilisation of our working methods and work locations with the help of “microelectronics”… although: to my knowledge, Google and other Silicon Valley companies have not yet managed to compress working hours to a single day per week – dear Civil Service, perhaps a chance for you to make a name for yourself as being particularly innovative…? ?

 

“The problems with personal privacy in the year 2000” (German, Harry Kalven, 1968 !! )
? There’s almost nothing more I can say about this. They SAW IT COMING! ALL OF IT!

 

“Wrongly programmed. About the failure of our society in the present and for the future, and what actually needs to happen (German, Karl Steinbuch, 1968)
? Also has a ring of familiarity to it! ? I really wanted to know what “actually needs to happen”, so I started searching for the book and here you are: number 226604144 in EconBiz (German). From the single-view page, you at least get to an amusing review in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung (German, PDF, from 25.09.1968 )- excerps:

    “This book is aggressive: In an age of sensory overload, information no longer reaches its target without the vehicle of provocation.”
    ? No kidding.

    “The object of this aggression is the ‘hidden world’, by which the author means everything that prevents us from developing a scientific culture based on research and technology.”
    ? Science sceptics! We know about them!

    “A future superiority of computers over the human brain regarding all rational mental processes will make possible the establishment of a ‘cybernetic state’ superior to all previous forms of political organisation. […] “This requires a careful analysis of which principles are suitable for making human life possible and worth living in the engineered world of the future and dense mass society.” That gets to the heart of the matter. Who analyses? Who decides what is valuable and ethical?”
    ? The fear of “artificial intelligence” and all that “it” could come up with – that too is highly topical.

    “But: [this also requires a new faith.] In the quality of the future person, who […] must have not only the opportunity, ‘to develop patterns of thinking and behaviour in freedom, which were previously unknown’. Who has to be not merely […] an original personality, which, as might be expected, does indeed require a high level of optimism, but who must also be more humane, a ‘better person’ in the deepest sense of this hackneyed term. This kind of ‘moral mutation’ would be an innovation in the history of homo sapiens.”
    ? And this 300 years after the dawn of the age of the Enlightenment … oh well. Sic transit gloria mundi. ?

On that note: I hope that you enjoyed this trip “back to the future” and wish you all a pleasant turn of the year. Stay healthy and in good spirits!

P.S.: My journey down the rabbit hole with the previous publication went on ? my parents’ two cents’ worth:

Parent 1: “I think ‘Wrongly programmed’ is on the book swap shelf. I’ll go and see if it’s still there.”
Me: “I wonder if the author ever dreamed that he would end up on the book swap shelf …”
Parent 1: “That was a bestseller. Basically everyone had that book. That means there still must be a lot of copies around that are now being thrown out.”
Parent 2: “Yes, Steinbuch was a technocrat – he didn’t understand much about society. Many people had it in their cabinet at that time, including your grandfather. He was unpopular with the 1968ers and the young Green Movement.”
Ho-hum. ?

Read more

More articles by and with Anna Kasprzik on ZBW MediaTalkk

About the Author:

Dr Anna Kasprzik, coordinator of the automation of subject indexing (AutoSE) at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. Anna’s main focus lies on the transfer of current research results from the areas of machine learning, semantic technologies, semantic web and knowledge graphs into productive operations of subject indexing of the ZBW. You can also find Anna on Mastodon.
Portrait: ZBW©, photographer: Carola Gruebner

The post Back to the Future: Amazing Discoveries in a Futurology Card Index from the 1980s first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

EconStor Survey 2022: Repository Registers Satisfied Users, but More Marketing Efforts Needed

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Guest article by Ralf Toepfer, Lisa Schäfer and Olaf Siegert

Back in 2009, the ZBW launched its disciplinary Open Access repository EconStor. Now in 2022, it provides more than 240,000 academic papers from the economics and business studies disciplines, coming from over 600 institutions and about 1000 single authors worldwide. All papers are available in Open Access. After thirteen years of developing and connecting EconStor we thought, it was high time to hear from our research community, what they think about the repository and its services.

In this short report, we would like to present the results of a user survey we conducted this year. First, we will give some background information about the survey and how it was conducted. Then we describe who the actual respondents were. Last but not least, we present some results on specific aspects of the survey.

Background information

The idea to conduct a survey came up in a brainstorm meeting of the EconStor team in 2020. Our aim was to address the following topics:

  • Satisfaction of the research community with EconStor,
  • Environment analysis (which other tools are used in economic research?),
  • Special look at our authors (who is uploading papers on EconStor?),
  • Suggestions for further development.

Since we are no survey experts, we knew, we would have to rely on some external assistance. This was provided from two sides: First, our ZBW marketing team, who had conducted surveys on other issues before. And second, from a course of students in library and information science at the HAW -Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (German). Their professor, Petra Düren, contacted us in spring 2021 to ask for practical examples regarding user surveys. We decided to organise an international EconStor user survey together at the start of 2022. We developed the questionnaire and used Limesurvey as our tool for the survey. After some pretesting, we were ready to start.

The survey was conducted between the 10th and the 24th of January 2022. We promoted it via the EconStor website and through mailings among researchers in Germany and abroad. Overall, we received 756 responses, of which 441 were fully completed questionnaires.

Profile of respondents

Most of the respondents came from Europe (87%): Half of them (45%) was based in Germany, other major European countries were Italy (16%), Spain (5%) and France (4%). From the rest of the world about 3% overall came from the United States and 3% from Australia.

Regarding their affiliations, most respondents were coming from universities (78%), another 10% were from universities of applied sciences and 6% from non-university research organisations. The rest mainly came from central banks or the private sector.

With regard to the age of the participants, we received fairly even answers from different age groups according to the academic career span: i.e. 9% were younger than 30 years, 45% were between 30 and 49 years and 56% were 50 years or older. Looking at their academic status, 58% were professors, 20% were researchers or postdocs and 18% were PhD Students (see illustration 1).

Illustration 1: EconStor User Survey 2022: Participants by academic status

Regarding the scientific disciplines, most of the respondents came from the field of economics (65%) or business studies (25%), the remaining 10 % were allocated to neighbouring disciplines such as sociology, political studies, statistics or geography.

Results of the EconStor survey

The survey addressed various aspects of the use of EconStor such as awareness and familiarity of the services, usage of searching and browsing options, evaluation of the services and suggestions for improvement. In the following, we briefly present some key results.

Usage & environment analysis

The majority of respondents have known EconStor for more than three years, but there are differences by discipline, as researchers in economics are aware of EconStor longer than their colleagues in business studies (see Illustration 2).

Illustration 2: EconStor User Survey 2022: Awareness of EconStor

In terms of usage, almost half of the respondents use EconStor at least once a month and about 14% even weekly, indicating that the majority of respondents are quite familiar with the platform.

Illustration 3: EconStor User Survey 2022: Usage of EconStor

About one third of the respondents from the field of economics first discovered EconStor via RePEc, while most researchers from business studies became aware of EconStor via Google Scholar. This is in line with the answers given concerning the use of other platforms the researchers use to access economic papers, where besides ResearchGate, Google Scholar, RePEc and SSRN are mentioned.

Illustration 4: EconStor User Survey 2022: Usage of other platforms than EconStor to access economic papers

Coincidently ResearchGate and to a lesser extent RePEc and SSRN are the most used platforms to distribute research papers in economics and business studies. Researchers also consider their own research institution important for disseminating their papers. This suggests that institutional repositories are still relevant even if large disciplinary and interdisciplinary platforms exist.

Illustration 5: EconStor User Survey 2022: Platforms to distribute research papers

Searching & browsing

EconStor provides several options to navigate through the website. Users can find papers by searching specifically for individual titles or by using the browsing function to view documents sorted by institution, type of document, author, etc. Considering the answers given, searching and browsing options are not very important. Only about 50% of respondents even use the options provided by EconStor. One of the respondents wrote, “I search for papers mostly via Google or Google Scholar, where I may find EconStor papers. It did not occur to me to search on EconStor itself, or to explore its functionality.” This answer seems to describe the typical use case of EconStor accurately. Our monthly usage statistics tell the same story: Researchers use EconStor primarily as a source to get the full text after searching databases or using search engines.

Illustration 6: EconStor User Survey 2022: Usage of browsing and searching functions

Self-upload & quality management

More than 600 institutions use EconStor to disseminate their publications. Authors can also upload their papers themselves, although this feature is reserved for Ph.D. researchers in economics and business studies at academic institutions. After registering, authors can upload working papers as well as journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, etc. The majority of about 55% of the respondents did not know about this option. However, of the authors who actively use the self-upload feature, more than 95% are satisfied or even very satisfied with the self-upload process.

Illustration 7: EconStor User Survey 2022: Satisfaction with the self-upload process

Once a paper is uploaded, the EconStor team checks several points for quality assurance: namely plagiarism check, personal requirements for registration, document type, journal listing in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and formal checks of the paper. About two thirds of the authors appreciate this quality assurance measures. The plagiarism check and formal check are most important to them.

Illustration 8: EconStor User Survey 2022: Importance of quality assurance checks

Evaluation of other EconStor services

EconStor provides some more services than the self-upload feature or the searching and browsing options. To the EconStor users the most important other services are the distribution service and the provision of download statistics. The distribution service includes distribution to search engines like Google, Google Scholar or BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) and to academic databases like WorldCat, OpenAire and EconBiz . More than 90 % of the respondents agree that these two services are important for their work. The possibility to export metadata and to link papers with their underlying research data are relevant too, but to a lesser extent.

Illustration 9: EconStor User Survey 2022: Importance of different services in EconStor

Overall evaluation of EconStor

More than 95% of the respondents are satisfied or very satisfied with EconStor and its services overall. This applies to the two research areas of economics and business studies.

Illustration 10: EconStor User Survey 2022: Evaluation of EconStor and its services overall

About 67% of the respondents feel sufficiently informed about the services on the EconStor website. While this is by no means a bad result, there is room for improvement. Some respondents for example suggest providing a newsletter informing about new content indexed in EconStor.

Suggestions for improving EconStor

54 respondents were kind enough to share their views on possible improvements to EconStor. The suggestions ranged from the desire for higher visibility or awareness of EconStor and the desire for more information about the product to suggestions for improving individual functions.

Illustration 11: EconStor User Survey 2022: Suggestions for improving EconStor

Conclusions on the 2022 EconStor survey

Overall, the researchers evaluated EconStor very positively. In particular, users who have known the service for several years and those who actively use the self-upload feature are very satisfied with it. Its users perceive EconStor primarily as a full-text source that can discovered via search engines, while its own search and browsing functions are less well known. The environment analysis shows differences between researchers from economics on the one side and business studies on the other, e.g. regarding the relevance of RePEc or ResearchGate. The potential for greater use could be tapped through stronger marketing (including promotion of the self-upload service) and through supplementary services.

The EconStor team very much appreciates the answers and opinions provided. This will help us to make EconStor even better. As a first response, we have created two promotional videos, one regarding EconStor in general, and the other one regarding the self-uploading process in particular. Other improvements will follow soon.

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About the authors:

Ralf Toepfer works in the Publication Services Department of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, where he is responsible for discipline-specific services for the management of economic research data, among other things. You can also find him on Mastodon.
Portrait: ZBW©, photographer: Sven Wied

Lisa Schäfer has been supporting various Open Access transformation projects at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics since 2020.
Portrait: Lisa Schäfer©

Olaf Siegert is head of the Publication Services department and Open Access Representative of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. He is involved with open access as part of his work at the ZBW and is also active for the Leibniz Association, where he represents the Leibniz Open Access working group in external committees. He is involved in the Alliance of Science Organisations in the working group Scientific Publication System and at Science Europe for the Leibniz Association.
Portrait: ZBW©

The post EconStor Survey 2022: Repository Registers Satisfied Users, but More Marketing Efforts Needed first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Self-organised network: does Mastodon have what it takes to become the “scholarly-owned social network”?

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by ZBW MediaTalk-Team

Ever since Elon Musk, holding a sink in his arms (“Let that sink in!”), entered the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco at the end of October, a sense of dark foreboding has been spreading in the online world. The richest man in the world had orchestrated a hostile takeover of the short message service: It is rumoured to have cost him 44 billion US dollars to turn his hobby into a new enterprise, which he can add to his business empire (Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity, Neuralink and others).

The billionaire had previously assured the world that he is a “free speech absolutist”. His plan was now to make Twitter into a place of uncensored freedom of speech. Those who were sanctioned and blocked for violating the community rules, would sooner or later receive a general absolution and be able to return to the platform. Even Donald Trump – former president of the United States and co-instigator of the most spectacular attempted coup in the USA to date – would have the red carpet rolled out for him.

Toxicity 2.0

Now Twitter has never been a cosy refuge of mutual understanding, consideration and the cultured exchange of arguments. Twitter has polarised opinions for years. But as the increase in social division has continued, particularly in the west, hate and toxicity have been constantly increasing on the platform. They are expressed in threats, open racism, discrimination, fake news, doxing and cyber-bullying. More than a few German politicians have therefore recently pulled the plug and turned their backs on the network.

How Twitter will develop in future years is anyone’s guess. However, on the evidence of the few days since Elon Musk has been at the helm, it doesn’t look good. The new CEO appears to be nervously driven, almost erratic. His first act after taking the wheel was to fire the moderating powers within the company, thereupon to bark contradictory commands to the remaining workforce. In the meantime, Twitter Inc. has neither a press department nor a data protection officer, causing the data protection officers of German companies and organisations to break out in a collective sweat, because the operation of Twitter accounts under consideration of GDPR aspects can only be legally justified with a great deal of good will.

Fear of loss of reach

Ministries, authorities but also the science sector is now facing a dilemma. There is a strong moral obligation to pack up, shut down the account that you have been nurturing and maintaining for many years and bid farewell, softly but firmly, to Twitter. On the other hand, there is an understandable fear of loss of reach: How can politics stay in touch with the public? How can universities, museums and libraries fulfil their public mandate if, at the same time, they leave their online communities?

Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

It is questions like these that, since the dimming of Twitter, have led to one name in particular being floated around: “Mastodon”. At the moment it’s individuals in particular, who are looking for a new home – and the short messaging service alternative seems to have a certain appeal to members of the science community especially.

Much has been written in recent days about this actually not-so-very-new platform. Started in 2016 by German software developer Eugen Rochko, it is a distributed micro-blogging service that lies completely in the hands of the community, thanks to its open source code. In contrast to Twitter, Mastodon is not a centrally organised entity but a network that is created from hubs “instances”. Every instance can function autonomously or alternatively stretch its arms out to the big network where it then becomes part of the large Fediverses that is home these days not only to social networks but also to video streaming services, image sharing services and the like. Theoretically, every imaginable service and every kind of content can be added to the Fediverse using compatible open source communication protocols – the possibilities are boundless!
Theoretically, at least.

Crisis as chance

Although the developments regarding the Twitter takeover are to be evaluated critically, they were – at the same time – a collective wake-up call for openness in the digital sphere. The idea of decentralised systems that are in the hands of the communities – such as for scientific exchange and scholarly communication – is closely aligned to the wish of many people for more openness in science. There is no gatekeeper; there are no paywalls, no evolved, incomprehensible hierarchies; just the self-organisation of the community.

ZBW MediaTalk succumbed to the charm of Mastodon at a quite early stage. In 2019 we set up the account for the blog; a few months ago we really got going and since then we have been posting content regularly from the library and Open Science world.

And it’s working.

But after several months of operation, maybe it’s time to do a stocktake – not a performance evaluation, though; it’s definitely too early for that. But a summary of the experiences we have made to date. Because naturally even this much lauded network (perhaps occasionally praised with too much uncritical euphoria) is not entirely free of problems. Let’s refer to them as unusually deep puddles that lurk out of sight, and that Mastodon newbies can easily put their feet into. Because they do exist.

At that time we decided to create our account on the Openbiblio Instance. Purely theoretically though, we could have decided to use any one of the dozens of official and even hundreds of unofficial instances. Or to operate our own server. So why Openbiblio? This instance has been operated by the Berlin State Library (SBB) since 2019, and we therefore know the team behind it. There is a data protection statement, server rules and thanks to the maintenance by the SBB IT department, one can assume that the accessibility of the server is relatively reliable. All this is not necessarily a matter of course. As a result of its decentralised nature, Mastodon and the Fediverse in general have been born with structural weaknesses that have still not been ironed out.

Three critical points

1. Data protection

Firstly the topic of data protection. Unlike commercial platforms that track, log and process the behaviour of their users down to the smallest detail in order to sell targeted advertising, Mastodon instances are exempt from such blanket data collection frenzy. Is data protection therefore automatically guaranteed in the Fediverse? Not at all. With one click, the administrator has an overview of everything at all times: on Mastodon, posts and messages are not even end-to-end encrypted, which is why most instances today pre-emptively warn that if someone wants to send a DM, “don’t share any sensitive information on Mastodon!” And the way in which private user data is protected from the eyes of third parties is also left to the discretion of each administrator. With some servers, there is no mention of a contact person for data protection issues; others completely neglected to provide a privacy policy worth mentioning at all.

2. Data security

Next keyword: data security. This too depends completely on the knowhow and commitment of the server administrator. It doesn’t take much to bring a Mastodon instance to life. But it doesn’t take much to destroy it again either. The founder of the Social.Bonn server found this out in the year 2017. When trying to install an update on his instance, the whole system crashed: all postings and all the accounts that had been previously set up were irretrievably lost. There was no backup.

Do the administrators of the chosen instance handle it with care? Do they install critical fixes to the code in a timely manner? Do they even install updates at all? Can they guarantee regular data security? From the outside, these questions can almost never be answered, which means that choosing an instance is reduced to a game of chance. The hint that you can change your instance at any time is no help here, because when would be the right time to do this? However much the world mistrusts the major commercial platforms: no-one seriously worries about a complete loss of data there.

3. Moderation

A third point of criticism concerns the climate – the social discourse on the platform. How can it be ensured that the instance is a place of civilised discourse? Mastodon is by default equipped with features that allow the members to report offensive or criminal content. But how and whether the administrators react to the reports is initially left solely up to them. The Fediverse does not have a common canon of values for content evaluation; there are no generally-valid community guidelines and no overriding committee that members can call on for clarity if no action is taken or suspicions are false. What mobbing is, what fake news is, where offensiveness stops and open hatred begins – all this is decided by the administrators of the respective server, initially under their own steam. Sometimes their rules are laid down specifically; sometimes not. Factors such as the size of an instance and the resources available can also make content moderation more difficult. The large commercial networks rely on artificial intelligence and outsourced moderation teams to fish out evil, dirty and forbidden content from the timelines. How can just one person take on this task round the clock if they are maintaining an instance with thousands of members? And the issue of toxicity is only one element of the supervision: we haven’t even mentioned how copyright-protected content is handled (German).

Cooperation is now called for

Data protection, data security and moderation – these are the three critical weak points that you need to bear in mind with Mastodon, when choosing an instance. There is always only an approximation of security (and at this point, thanks again to the SBB in Berlin), but no guarantees. If you want to play it safe, you logically have to rely on self-hosted instances.

Operating your own instances as an alternative to using the services of the major commercial players sounds like the promised land in a science environment that is becoming increasingly more open, transparent and independent. This is also true in the light of current efforts to have the operation of Open Science infrastructures completely in the hands of scientific communities (scholarly-owned) or at least under their control /scholarly-led). But in order for this plan to become a reality, institutions must cooperate more closely, come to agreements, and develop a common vision of what such a network could look like and the values it could reflect. And the time is now. Consolidation, clear responsibilities and transparency are required to minimise the three structural weak points. One idea could be to establish a consortium, within which several scientific institutions can join forces, either on an institutional or target group-specific basis, in order to jointly operate an instance that is secure for everyone. The fact that Mastodon is an open source project means that there is even the opportunity to actively push the development of the network forward or promote it in another way.

Alternatively or additionally, the development of a certification process is a possibility for existing and new instances such as those in the scientific sector. A joint criteria catalogue has been defined for this purpose – compliance with it offers registered users a certain degree of security. Are there specific contact persons? Is data protection maintained? Are data pools backed up regularly? Does moderation take place, and if yes, on the basis of which rules? If there was simply a seal, a formal certification, then outsiders would have many of their questions answered. Even today, timid attempts at an initial regulation have been made: For example, the official Mastodon website currently only lists those servers, who fulfil certain criteria, although this tends to concern merely rudimentary rules.

These are just a few suggestions. There are sure to be a few clever ideas out there on this topic that could help to make Mastodon a viable alternative to Twitter – or much more, perhaps. One thing is certain: the momentum to start thinking about it has arrived right now.

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Featured Image: Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0.

The post Self-organised network: does Mastodon have what it takes to become the “scholarly-owned social network”? first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Digital Long-term Archiving: Discovering Networks With the nestor Community Survey

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Guest article by Svenia Pohlkamp, Stefan Strathmann and Monika Zarnitz

The idea of the nestor community survey

Digital preservation is a task that is complicated and resource-intensive. Cooperation, communication and mutual support is necessary to cope with the different challenges of this matter. nestor is active in all these areas.

That`s why the idea emerged to start a survey among the national and international communities that cope with digital preservation. nestor installed a small working group that developed the questionnaire and analysed the result of the community survey. The aim of this survey is to create transparency about the international landscape of communities in this field and to collect information for all those who wish to collaborate.

The questionnaire for the survey, which was conducted online, consisted of 40 questions. We gathered 54 valid answers as basis for our analysis.

The nestor community survey

The survey distributed through multiple channels, such as mailing lists, direct contact to colleagues and so on from autumn 2019 until May 2020. The results of the survey were evaluated, edited and published in 2022 in the series of nestor materials.

Besides this publication, another result of the survey was the development of so-called community profiles, which you can find on nestor’s website. These profiles are self-descriptions of the involved communities and may serve as a sort of registry of national and international communities. They provide the first ever overview of the various facets, resources and focal areas of long-term archiving networks worldwide. The aim is to improve transparency and facilitate cooperation of the different communities worldwide.

Of the 54 participants who completed the questionnaire in full, 32 have so far allowed us to publish their community profile. We hope that more will give their consent. The communities had the opportunity to update and/or correct their data while reviewing their profiles.

What is a community?

One basic decision during the project was how to define and circumscribe the term “community” in the context of the survey, since there are manifold possibilities to define a community and it should be fitting to our object of investigation. Following intensive discussion, the working group agreed on the following definition:

  • An open community of persons and/or institutions that engages with the subject of long-term archiving. Digital long-term archiving can be one of several topics, which the community deals with.
  • A community whose members are committed to digital long-term archiving in a manner that goes beyond pure self-interest. Its central or sole purpose is not to supply a product or provide a commercial service.
  • A platform for discussing the topic of digital long-term archiving and its advancement, including the development of tools and/or the provision of services.
  • It can be local, regional or international.
  • It does not matter how big the community is. It can be large or small.
  • Whether the community is product-related or not is also irrelevant.
  • In the following paragraphs, we present some selected results of the survey.

Digital preservation communities: Where are they situated?

In question 6 we asked in which country or part of the world the community is located. Several communities mentioned more than one country in the text entry field. We chose either the country where they are based or the first country they mentioned.

Digital preservation communities: Where are they situated?

Interpretation: Almost all communities represented in this survey are situated in industrial countries. Either we couldn’t reach out to the communities in other countries or there are very few digital preservation communities in the developing and less-developed countries. This may be due to the lack of resources, and shows that in the most countries there is either few digital preservation activity or the actors in this field do not have the resources to join a community and benefit from the exchange with colleagues in other countries. The latter aspect may be not so important because communities increasingly communicate digitally and there is abundant literature and software freely accessible in the web.

Digital preservation communities: Are they silos or do they cooperate with each other?

In question 25, we asked how many cooperations with other communities the participating communities currently have. Four check boxes were provided. Only one answer could be given.

Percentage of cooperations

Interpretation: Our data shows clearly, that communities are no silos and that they interact with other communities intensively. Only 17 % of the communities do not have a cooperation with another community, while 19 % of them cooperate with more than ten other communities. Institutions and persons who engage in digital preservation are often members of several communities, so there is a broad exchange of ideas, tools, publications and other results of community work. Digital preservation is a task too complicated to tackle on one’s own and this not only on the individual level but at the level of communities as well. This may be the reason for the intensive exchange between the communities.

Digital preservation communities: What kind of organisation are they and what kind of finance do they use?

In question 11, we enquired how the communities are organised. The majority of 93 % stated to be non-profit organisations. In question 14, we asked how the communities finance themselves and their work. Six check boxes were provided. Multiple answers were possible. The sixth check box was “Other” with a text entry field.

The entries for “Other” have been re-categorised and are shown in the table below alongside the five given response options. The entries re-categorised and reassigned in “Other” are displayed in italics.

Digital preservation communities: What kind of organisation are they and what kind of finance do they use?

Interpretation: This table shows that the main sources of finance are membership fees, revenues from services, sponsoring, third party fund / grants and in kind contributions. None of the other sources has a comparable importance for financing. This, together with the fact that communities are mainly non-profit organisations (see above), shows that digital preservation has no commercial aims and that the self-conception of these organisations is comparable to the self-conception of libraries, archives and museums as heritage organisations. Indeed, the persons active in the communities originate from organisations such as these and carry the same mentality into the communities.

Digital preservation communities: What makes a community successful?

In question 40 we asked about the most important success factors of the community. Participants often entered several options into the text fields. This means, there were many different answers to this question. For this reason, we assigned the answers given in the text entry fields to different categories (where possible) and displayed them in a word cloud. It contains all the categorised answers as well as those for which no category was found.

This word cloud contains all the categorised answers as well as those for which no category was found.

Interpretation: This word cloud shows the most important aspects for the success of a digital preservation community. Three aspects are particularly significant:

  1. Critical success factors are the engagement, the collaboration and the sharing of knowledge and resources.
  2. Communities support the creation of knowledge and technologies for digital preservation.
  3. The broadness of a community is important since there are so many details in digital preservation that the manifoldness of competencies and perspectives is necessary..

Conclusion on digital preservation communities

The nestor community survey offers a rich source of data that explains the behaviour of digital preservation communities. The cases we picked up in this blog post show that the communities cluster in industrial countries and that they are in close contact and interaction with each other on several levels (the communities themselves, individual members, institutions, persons). The institutions that are parts of the communities are mainly non-profit organisations with the typical sources of finance and the typical mentality of heritage organisations.

Repetition in 2023

We would like to repeat the survey in 2023 and hope to improve it with our experiences from the first run. We aim at reducing the time between the beginning of the next survey and the date of publication of the results and we will reformulate some questions so that they are clearer and the evaluation is easier. We hope that with the publication of the first survey there may be more awareness for the second round and that then more communities participate.

We invite all communities that are active in the field of digital preservation to suggest improvements of the survey and to take part in its upcoming repetition. If you are interested in participating, please contact us:

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About the authors:

Svenia Pohlkampworks at the German National Library (DNB) and manages the nestor office there. She is responsible for the coordination between nestor’s partners and organisational matters of the network. She also takes part in two of nestor’s working groups, Community Survey and Certification.

Stefan Strathmann works at the Göttingen State and University Library (SUB) in the Digital Library Department. He is responsible for SUB’s activities in the area of digital preservation. In particular, he represents the SUB at nestor, the German national network of excellence in digital preservation.

Dr Monika Zarnitz is an economist and Head of the Programme Area User Services & Collection Care at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. She is head of the nestor working group „Community Survey“.

Portrait Monika Zarnitz: Fotograf: Sven Wied, ZBW©

The post Digital Long-term Archiving: Discovering Networks With the nestor Community Survey first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Social Media in Libraries: Best Practice From the Austrian National Library

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An interview with Marlene Lettner, Claudia Stegmüller and Anika Suck, part of the social media team in the Communication and Marketing Department of the Austrian National Library.

The reach of the Austrian National Library is one of the widest on the social web among libraries in German-speaking countries. Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or LinkedIn – the institution keeps its public up to speed through text, photo and video, and it does it successfully! We asked Marlene Lettner, Claudia Stegmüller and Anika Suck, who are in charge of the channels, what the National Library’s social media goals are, which formats generate followers and what the workflow behind the scenes looks like.

Hello! In your opinion, why is it important for libraries and digital infrastructure institutions to be active on social media?

Firstly, to increase our visibility and secondly, because we want to reach our target groups where they like to hang out. Beyond this, as the Austrian National Library, we have a legal mandate to make our collections accessible to a wide public, and social media is perfect for this.

The Austrian National Library runs its own channels on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Why did you decide to use these specific networks and who are your target audiences there?

We cater to our target audiences on all of the channels they use. This means that on Facebook, we communicate with our older target groups who mainly visit our museums. Facebook still offers the best option when it comes to telling our visitors about events too. Instagram is most popular with the target group of 25- to 45-year-olds and it offers some playful features. We mostly use YouTube as a home base for our videos, which we then share on our website or via other social media channels.

What kind of topics do you feature on your social media channels?

We’re not just a library – we’re also home to six museum areas and eight collections – so we need to cover a wide range of topics.

From special exhibitions to events and current blog posts, offers for guided tours and seminars, follower reposts and bizarre discoveries in the archive – we do it all.

To create good content for an institution’s social media channels, you need people who remember the social media team and pass on information, insights and stories. How do you manage to motivate other employees to give you ideas for content?

We are a relatively large institution with almost 400 employees. Luckily, colleagues from the most varied of departments provide us with content on a regular basis. This includes special discoveries from the photo archives, from ANNO (Austrian Newspapers Online) and finds from the hashtag #AriadneFrauDesMonats (“#AriadneWomanOfTheMonth”).

What topics or posting formats work particularly well for you?

Our users like photos of our magnificent ceremonial hall the most, as well as old cityscapes of Vienna.

Antique bookshelves with ladders ladders always work well, as does anything ‘behind-the-scenes’ in addition to unusual, particularly beautiful perspectives. Unusual finds from our collections are also popular.

Has a content idea ever backfired?

Fortunately, we haven’t had a shitstorm yet. And we’ve never had a real fail either. There are, however, some sensitive topics we deal with that might cause a stir. That’s why we try to stick to the facts, stay neutral and not get political. But sometimes people react to something when you’re not expecting it: we recently advertised an event that is taking place throughout Austria that focuses on climate protection this year. Some people misunderstood and reported the post.

In your opinion, what is a good tip that libraries should bear in mind if they want to get started on social media?

As it’s difficult to influence the algorithms, it’s important to experiment and find out what your target audience actually likes. In terms of content, you should aim for quality and stay true to your principles. So don’t share daily politics, polemical content and so on.

And finally, please tell us which formats go down particularly well – both with the public and with the editors.

Stories with GIFs, reels or short videos and anything that gets users interacting with you like exclusive Instawalks, reposts and quizzes. Recurring content like #staircasefriday is also good because the editing is faster, but it still keeps things interesting for users.

Thank you for the interview!
This text has been translated from German.

The Austrian National Library

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About the authors:

Marlene Lettner (LinkedIn), Claudia Stegmüller (LinkedIn und Xing) and Anika Suck (LinkedIn) are part of the social media team in the Austrian National Library’s Communication and Marketing department.

Portraits:
Anika Suck: private©, Claudia Stegmüller: FOTObyHOFER©

All other pictures: Austrian National Library©

The post Social Media in Libraries: Best Practice From the Austrian National Library first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Social Media in Libraries: Best Practice and Tips for Successful Profiles From the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

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Especially when looking at the Facebook (around 11,000 followers) and Instagram channels (3,700 followers) of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB), it quickly becomes clear that they are doing something pretty right on social media. In addition, the BSB is active on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr in various ways. We asked two members of staff about their target groups, recipes for success and topics that are doing particularly well.

An interview with Peter Schnitzlein and Sabine Gottstein from the press and public relations division of the Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in Munich.

Why do you think it is important for libraries and digital infrastructure institutions to be active on social media?

Here we can only refer to the interview published on ZBW MediaTalk on the seven “glorious” reasons: Why libraries have to be permanently active on social media!

Today, certain target groups can simply no longer be reached with “classic” communication channels such as press relations or a library magazine – regardless of whether they are published in analogue or digital form. These target groups are more likely to be reached – differentiated according to age and content – via the appropriate and corresponding social media channels. This does not mean that classic communication work will disappear in the foreseeable future – on the contrary. However, it can be stated that social media engagement is taking up an increasingly larger share of a library’s overall communication. We have to take this into account.

You are very active on social media at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. What are your goals with and target groups on the different channels? Why did you choose these of all channels?

The aim of the engagement in social media is primarily to inform about the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, its services, holdings and information and usage offers, to interest people in the library or to positively influence the perception of the library and, if necessary, to strengthen the bond with the library through entertaining elements. The activities serve to make the library visible to the digital or virtual public as an internationally important general and research library as well as an important cultural institution on a local, regional and national level. The social media ideally support the strategic goal of the BSB to be perceived as Germany’s leading digital library with extensive, innovative digital usage offers and as a treasure house of written and visual cultural heritage. We attach great importance to participation and networking with specialist communities and stakeholders in our communication.

As extensive and wide-ranging as the fields of action of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek are, as diverse and varied are the target groups that need to be considered and served. We operate our own channels on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. With these five social media channels selected by the library, we hope to be able to address the majority of the target groups in an appropriate manner. Roughly formulated and certainly strongly generalised, we can state the following:

  1. Twitter primarily serves professional communities, thematically related institutions or multiplier groups such as press and media representatives.
  2. Instagram is intended to reach a younger target group (20-35 years of age),
  3. Whereas Facebook is aimed more at the 30 to 55 age group. The two channels should appeal to users as well as to a broad audience with an affinity for culture and libraries.
  4. With YouTube, we want to address not exclusively, but primarily everyone over 16, actually everyone who is at home in the digital world. Explanatory videos on webinars, on how to use the library or a new app are just as much in demand here as the presentation of special library treasures. Video content is currently the measure of all things and we will pay special attention to this channel in the future.
  5. We use the photo portal Flickr less as a social media channel than as a documentation site, to offer important pictures of the building or of exhibition posters in one central place, and for external requests for pictures of the BSB.

In addition to the corporate channels, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek also operates numerous specialist channels for individual departments, projects or specialist information services. The reason for this is the fact that certain (specialist) target groups cannot be successfully addressed through corporate channels. In view of the immense range of subject areas covered by the BSB, the central social media editorial team cannot have the professional expertise needed to cover all these topics in detail. Coordination processes would be too time-consuming and lengthy to successfully create content and to be able to act quickly and efficiently – a very important aspect in social media communication.

How long have you been present in social media?

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek dedicated itself to this field of communication relatively early on. We have been active on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube since 2009, on Flickr since 2007 and on Instagram since 2016. At present, we have no plans for further expansion of activities. In view of the short-lived nature and speed of innovation in this area, however, this may change in the short term. In this respect, only a daily status report is possible here.

What topics take place on your social media channels?

The content that the BSB posts can be summarised well, as mentioned above, under “inform, interest, entertain”. The same content is often published on Facebook and Twitter, although more specialist topics that are primarily intended to interest the specialist community and multipliers tend to be published on Twitter. On Instagram, the decisive criterion is always the appealing picture, and recently video. In general, a certain entertainment factor plays just as much a role on Instagram as on Facebook as the primary approach of informing.

In order to “feed” the social media channels well for an institution like yours, you need people who think of the social media team and pass on information and stories, who are perhaps also willing to make an appearance themselves. How do you get other staff to provide you with information, stories and ideas for your channels?

The topics are recruited in close cooperation and constant exchange with our internal specialist departments. There are social media contacts there who report relevant content from their own department to the central social media editorial team. The latter, in turn, also inquires specifically in the departments if necessary. Our directorate expressly supports and welcomes the active participation of the departments, project groups and working groups in the social media work of the house.

The social media team also actively establishes references to other cultural and academic institutions, picks up on library-relevant topics and comments on them. The creation of a thematic and editorial calendar with anniversaries, jubilees, events, etc. also facilitates the identification of suitable content for the social media channels.

In the press and public relations division, something like a central “newsroom” is currently being set up. This is also, where information for press topics or content for library magazines should come in. The social media editorial team will automatically learn about topics, which are primarily intended for other communication channels. The team can then decide to what extent they should be included in the social media work.

Which topics or posting formats work particularly well for you and why?

In general, we can see that postings related to current events work well:

Tweet of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek regarding the participation in the SUCHO (Search for Ukrainian Cultural Heritage) project (German)

For example, our tweets condemning the invasion of Ukraine (German) or our participation in the SUCHO project (Search for Ukrainian Cultural Heritage, German) achieved a wide reach, as did a humorous tip to cool off in the hot summer month of July. The start of a library exchange with colleagues from the German National Library (DNB) and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin State Library; SBB), which just started in Munich, triggered many interactions on Twitter.

On Facebook, the World Book Day post (German) on 22 April referring to the Ottheinrich Bible, one of our magnificent manuscripts, together with a series of archive photos of archive photos of Queen Elisabeth II (German) ) on the occasion of her death were very successful.

Appealing images on Twitter and Facebook – especially posts with three- or four-image compositions – are still crucial for success. Embedding videos on these two social networks, on the other hand, surprisingly does not achieve the desired result on our channels. On the contrary. These posts and tweets achieve low reach and popularity.

On Instagram, on the other hand, short videos in the form of reels are becoming more and more important alongside good picture posts in the feed (German), accompanied by casual, often humorous descriptions. We used this format successfully, especially for our exhibition #olympia72inbildern (#olympia72inpictures, German). Both formats also benefit from being referred to via stories.

Sometimes things go wrong in social media. What was your best fail?

Fortunately, nothing has ever really gone wrong – with one exception (see below). However, every now and then we are (justifiably) reminded that we should not forget to gender in our tweets.

Have you ever had a shitstorm? What have you learned from it?

Yes, we had, at least to some extent – and we don’t like to think back on it. However, we have learned a lot from the incident in dealing with social media. The basic mistake at the time was not to have taken into account the specific requirements of each channel with regard to the wording, the approach to followers and fans and the willingness to explain.

Tips & tricks: What are your tips for libraries that would like to get started with social media?

First of all, it is important to do an honest and thorough analysis. Social media ties up resources, and quite a lot of them. Just doing it “on the side” will not lead to the desired result and harbours dangers. If you want to be active, you must have affine personnel with the appropriate know-how and sufficient time resources. It is indispensable to define the target groups and to identify a permanently sufficient number of topics.

While social media was text-based in the early days, today there is no post or tweet without a picture. On some channels, video content is now the measure of all things, just think of the reels on Instagram, video platforms like YouTube or the omnipresent TikTok. They are currently becoming more and more popular and setting trends. These developments must be taken into account in all considerations of online communication.

If you want to use social media as a means of library communication, you have to check whether you can actually afford to operate all the channels that are currently important and which target groups you actually want to serve with which channels. Creating a written concept – even a short one if necessary – helps to answer these questions precisely. For example, concentrating on one channel, true to the motto “less is more”, may be an effective means of operating successfully with limited resources.

Finally, a little peek into the magic box: What are your favourite tools for social media?

With “Creator Studio”, feed posts for Instagram can also be posted conveniently from the computer and not only from the mobile phone, which makes work considerably easier. Then, of course, there is the editorial and topic plan mentioned above. It is the central working tool for keeping track of and working through topics and content across all channels. In addition to news from the management and the departments, it contains as many events, occasions, relevant (birth or death) anniversaries, etc. as possible. Finally, the apps “Mojo” and “Canva” should be mentioned. With their help, we create and edit Instagram stories, reels, social media posts and visual content. This even goes as far as adding royalty-free music to clips.

This text has been translated from German and is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND.

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek on the net

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This blog article is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND.

We were talking to:
Peter Schnitzlein passed the final examination for graduate librarian (upper level- graduate of a specialized higher education institution (research libraries)), in 1993 and the modular qualification for the highest career bracket for civil servants in Germany (QE4) in 2018. He has been head of press and public relations and spokesman of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek since 2007.
Portait: BSB©, photographer: H.-R. Schulz

Sabine Gottstein studied language, economic and cultural area studies, worked in the field of communications in Germany and abroad and has been working for the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek since 2015. She is the head of the social media team in the press and public relations division.
Portait: BSB©, photographer: H.-R. Schulz

The post Social Media in Libraries: Best Practice and Tips for Successful Profiles From the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Anniversary of re3data: 10 Years of Active Campaigning for the Opening of Research Data and a Culture of Sharing

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Interview with Nina Weisweiler and Heinz Pampel – Helmholtz Open Science Office

The Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data) was established ten years ago. Today, the platform is the most comprehensive source of information regarding research data – global and cross-disciplinary in scope – and is used by researchers, research organisations, and publishers around the world. In the present interview, Nina Weisweiler and Heinz Pampel from the Helmholtz Open Science Office report on its genesis and plans for the service’s future.

What were the most important milestones in ten years of re3data?

Heinz Pampel: I first introduced the idea of developing a directory of research data repositories in 2010 in the Electronic Publishing working group of the German Initiative for Networked Information (DINI). A consortium of institutions was soon created that made a proposal to the German Research Foundation (DFG) in April 2011 to develop the “re3data – Registry of Research Data Repositories” The initiating institutions were the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and the Helmholtz Open Science Office at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. The proposal was approved in September 2011. We started developing the registry in the same year. As a first step, a metadata schema to describe digital repositories for research data was created. In spring 2012, we came into contact with a similar initiative at Purdue University in the USA, known as “Databib”.

Fig. 1. Number of research data repositories indexed per year in re3data. [CC BY 4.0]

The idea of combining both projects soon developed, in dialogue with Databib. After the conception and implementation phase, this cooperation and internationalisation was decisive for re3data. Many stakeholders on an international level supported it. After Databib and re3data had merged, the service was continued as a partner of DataCite. Up until today, various third party funded projects support the continuous development of the service – currently “re3data COREF” for example, a project Nina Weisweiler manages here at the Helmholtz Open Science Office.

What makes re3data so unique for you?

Nina Weisweiler: re3data is the largest directory for research data repositories and is used and recommended by researchers, funding organisations, publishers, scientific institutions as well as other infrastructures around the world. It not only covers individual research fields and regions, it also targets the holistic mapping of the repository landscape for research data.

With re3data, we are actively supporting a culture of sharing and transparent handling of research data management, thereby encouraging the realisation of Open Science at an international level. re3data ensures that the sharing of data and the infrastructural work in the field of research data management receives more visibility and recognition.

In terms of Open Science, why is re3data so important?

Heinz Pampel: The core idea of re3data was always to support scientists in their handling of research data. re3data helps researchers to search for and to identify suitable infrastructures for storage and for making digital research data accessible. For this reason, many academic institutions and funding organisations, but also publishers and scholarly journals, have firmly anchored re3data in their policies. Furthermore, diverse stakeholders reuse data from re3data for their community services, for example regarding the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The data retrieved from re3data are also increasingly used to monitor the landscape of digital information structures. Particularly in information science, researchers use re3data for analyses relating to the development of Open Science.

In your birthday post on the DataCite blog, you write that inclusivity is one of your aims. How do you want to achieve it? How do you manage, for example, to record repositories in other regions of the world? Isn’t the language barrier a problem?

Nina Weisweiler: Yes, the language barrier is a challenge of course. We responded to this challenge early on by establishing an international editorial board. There are experts on this board who check the entries in re3data, and who kindly support the service and promote it in their respective region. Furthermore, re3data collaborates with numerous stakeholders to improve the indexing of repositories outside Europe and the United States.

Happy 10th Anniversary, re3data! Witt, M., Weisweiler, N. L., & Ulrich, R. (2022). DataCite, [CC BY 4.0]

We are active members of the internationally focussed Research Data Alliance (RDA) and regularly exchange information with national initiatives as well as other services and stakeholders with whom we develop and intensify partnerships. For example, we are currently working with the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, in order to improve the quality of the entries of Canadian repositories.

Are you planning to offer re3data in other languages apart from English?

Nina Weisweiler: In the comprehensive metadata schema, which is used in re3data for the description of research data repositories, the names and descriptions can be added in any language. Basically, the team discusses the topic of multilingualism a lot. We try to design the service as openly and as internationally as possible. In this, we depend on the languages our editors speak in order to guarantee the quality of the datasets. Thanks to our international team, we were able to incorporate many infrastructures that are being operated in China or India for example.

How can the success of re3data be measured?

Nina Weisweiler: We consider the numerous recommendations and the wide reuse of our service as the central measurement factors for the success of re3data. Important funding organisations such as the European Commission (PDF), the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG) recommend that researchers use the service to implement these organisations’ Open Science requirements. re3data also provides information to the Open Science Monitor of the European Commission as well as to OpenAIRE’s Open Science Observatory. The European Research Council (ERC) also refers to re3data in its recommendations for Open Science.

Furthermore, on the re3data website, we also document references that mention or recommend the service. Based on this collection, our colleague Dorothea Strecker from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has made an exciting analysis that we have published in the re3data COREF project blog.

Do you know if there are also companies like publishers that use re3data as a basis for chargeable services?

Heinz Pampel: Yes. We decided on an Open Data policy when starting the service. re3data metadata are available for reuse as public domain, via CC0. Any interested party can use it via the API. Various publishers and companies in the field of scholarly information are already using re3data metadata for their services. Without this open availability of re3data metadata, several commercial services would certainly be less advanced in this field. We are sure that the advantage of Open Data ultimately outweighs the disadvantages.

re3data has many filters and functions. Which of them is your personal favourite?

Nina Weisweiler: I like the diverse browsing options, particularly the map view, which visualises the countries where institutions that are involved in the operation of the repositories are located. We have published a blog post on this topic that is well worth reading.

I am also enthusiastic about the facetted filter search, which allows for targeted searches across the almost 3,000 repository entries. At first glance, this search mode appears to be very detailed and perhaps somewhat challenging, but thanks to the exact representation of our comprehensive metadata schema in the filter facets, users can use it to search for and find a suitable repository according to their individual criteria and needs.

For technically savvy users, who would like reuse our data to prepare their own analyses, we have developed a special “treat” in the context of COREF. The colleagues at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and KIT have designed inspiring examples for the use of the re3data API, which are published in our GitHub repository as Jupyter Notebooks. If anyone has any queries about these examples, we would be delighted to help!

What’s more, in re3data you can also have metrics illustrated, which provide a clear overview of the current landscape of the research data repositories.

In a perfect world, where will re3data be in the year 2032?

Nina Weisweiler: I have the following vision: re3data is a high-quality and complete global directory for research data repositories from all academic disciplines. The composition of our team and our partners reflects this internationalism. We are thereby able to continue to increase coverage in regions from which not many infrastructures have yet been recorded.

Researchers, funders, publishers, and scientific institutions use the directory to reliably find the most suitable repositories und portals for their individual requirements. re3data is closely networked with further infrastructures for research data. In this way it supports an interconnected worldwide system of FAIR research data. Scientific communities use re3data actively and contribute to ensuring that the entries are current and complete.

Through greater awareness of the importance of Open Research Data and a corresponding remuneration of activities in the field of research data management, more scientists are motivated to research and publish in line with Open Science principles.publizieren.

What’s more: In re3data, datasets can be very easily updated via the link “Submit a change request” in a repository entry. We are also always delighted to receive information about new repositories. Simply fill out the “Suggest” form on our website.

This text has been translated from German.

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We were talking to:
Nina Weisweiler, Open Science Officer at the Helmholtz Open Science Office where she is working on the re3data COREF project. You can also find her on Twitter, ORCID and Linkedin
Portrait: Nina Weisweiler©

Dr Heinz Pampel, Open Science Officer & Assistant Head of Helmholtz Open Science Office. You can also find him on Twitter, ORCID and Linkedin
Portrait: Heinz Pampel©

The post Anniversary of re3data: 10 Years of Active Campaigning for the Opening of Research Data and a Culture of Sharing first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.

Open Science in Economics: Selected Findings From the ZBW Awareness Analysis 2022

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by Doreen Siegfried

From 1 March to 10 May 2022, the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics carried out a wide-ranging awareness analysis among economics and business studies researchers. 401 researchers were surveyed online in a targeted way with a layered test sample of ten defined subgroups. The aim was to get a representative image of the total population of scientifically working people in the field of business studies and economics – both in terms of status groups and specialist discipline. Research assistants and professors from the fields of economics and business administration at universities, universities of applied sciences (UoAS) and non-university research institutions in Germany were surveyed.

Part of the representative study deals with the topic of Open Science. We have summarised selected findings that are not specific to ZBW here.

Open Science: general relevance in economics and business studies research

Question: Research funding organisations (for instance the German Research Foundation, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the EU) are increasingly more urgently demanding free access to academic publications and research data from funded projects (keyword: Open Science) (German). Open Science includes for instance Open Access Publications, Open Research Data and disclosure of the entire research process. Has academic policy already had an impact on your work?

Of all of the parties surveyed, 47 percent said that Open Science currently already plays an important role in their work. 77 percent believe that Open Science will play an important role in the future. Only 16 percent can’t really relate to Open Science (see Fig. 1).

Taking a look at the ZBW 2019 Open Science Study (PDF, German), the proportion of business studies and economics researchers who are unaware of the term ‘Open Science’ has reduced slightly. In 2019, one in five business studies and economics researchers had never heard of the term “Open Science” before.

Looking at the different subgroups, the following picture emerges (see Fig. 2):

In economics, Open Science already plays an important role in the current work routine for almost two thirds (64 percent) of those surveyed. By contrast, this figure is less than a half for business administration at just 45 percent. The picture is also similar for future projections: whereas 85 percent of economics academics say that Open Science will play a role for them in the future, this figure is just 76 percent for business administration academics. As a logical consequence of this is that fewer economists have no connection to the topic of Open Science (9 percent) compared to business economists (17 percent).

There are also disparities between the status groups. Open Science already plays a more important role for research assistants than for professors (54 percent) and will also do so in the future (80 percent), where 38 percent of professors consider Open Science to play an important role now, and 74 percent believe that it will do so in the future. Regarding status groups, research assistants can relate to the topic of Open Science better than professors (see Fig. 2).

Relevance of Open Science Practices

Question: How important are the following Open Science Practices for you personally and/or your own academic work? This includes the use of openly shared research and actively sharing own research?

The researchers who rated Open Science as important now and in the future (see Fig. 1) were asked how important specific Open Science Practices are to them. Open Access Publications play the most important role – they are very important to 44 percent of those surveyed and fairly important to 35 percent.

The ZBW 2019 Open Science Study already showed that Open Access plays a very important role for business studies and economics researchers, scoring an average of 2.5 on a scale of 1=very important role to 5=no role at all. In 2019, 23 percent of economists in Germany confirmed that the concept of Open Access played a very important role. Furthermore, in 2019, 62 percent considered Open Access to be important for them personally. In 2022, this figure was 79 percent.

Open Research Data (see Fig. 3) also seemed to be key for business studies and economics researchers. Open Research Data is a very important topic for a quarter of those surveyed and fairly important for another quarter (27 percent) – open research data thus plays a role for 52 percent of those surveyed. Let’s compare this with the findings of 2019: the fact that research data is provided and published in line with open principles played a very important role for 11 percent and a fairly important role for 31 percent in the year 2019. That is 42 percent combined, meaning the importance of it has increased compared to 2019.

Disclosing the research process is very important for 16 percent of those surveyed and fairly important for 13 percent, meaning a total of 29 percent find it to be important. This is less than a third of those surveyed. For the majority, disclosing the research process currently does not play a key role.

Open Science Services: importance for business studies and economics researchers

Question: And what about the following services in the field of Open Science…how important are these services for you personally?

A well-structured search function for research data plays an important role for business studies and economics researchers. 38 percent find it very important, a further 35 percent find it fairly important – a total of 73 percent, almost three quarters of all those surveyed in all specialist disciplines. By way of comparison, the ZBW 2019 Open Science Study showed similar values. At this time, 77 percent of all people working in business studies and economics wanted information on how to locate Open Research Data more easily.

The ZBW’s 2022 awareness study also shows that the support in locating Open Access Publications is very important for 29 percent and fairly important for 34 percent. The 63 percent in total shows the relevance of this field. Comparing to 2019 again, 76 percent wanted information on Open Access Publication three years ago.

Subject-specific information and guidelines on Open Science Practices currently seem to be relevant for 47 percent in total, that is almost half of all those surveyed. 14 percent find it to be very relevant; 32 percent find it to be fairly relevant. By way of comparison, over three quarters of economics researchers wanted an overview of platforms, tools and applications that support Open Science Practices in 2019. These figures indicate that this need is diminishing.

Tangible subject-specific seminars and workshops on how to handle Research Data represent an exciting offer for two fifths of all those surveyed.

Open Science Services: use by business studies and economics researchers

Question: Have you already tangibly used these services in the field of Open Science

Let’s now take a look at the difference between the ascribed importance of Open Science Services and how they are used. Whereas 73 percent of those surveyed said that they find a well-structured search function for business studies economics research data important, only 32 percent said that they had already used such a search function. Among employees of universities of applied sciences, this figure was 49 percent.

Almost two thirds (63 percent) said that they find it important to have support for Open Access Publications. By contrast, less than a third (26 percent) use such a service – calculated based on all subgroups surveyed. Considering the subgroups, it is noticeable that 31 of economists and as many as 44 percent of researchers at non-university research institutions (usually economists too) have already tangibly used this kind of support at least once.

There is also a difference for subject-specific information und guidelines on Open Science Practices and Tools (see Fig. 4). A fifth (19 percent) of researchers use this offering – among researchers at non-university research institutions, this figure is a third (33 percent; see Fig. 5). Among those who find subject-specific seminars and workshops on how to handle Research Data important, half have also already used these kind of educational services.

Archiving publication and research data: trustworthiness of different providers

Question: With respect to archiving publications and research data, how trustworthy do you find the following providers?

We then asked business studies and economics researchers in Germany how trustworthy they consider various archiving providers to be. Public institutions are the most trusted, with approval from 87 percent in total. It is interesting that this figure is even higher among employees at universities of applied sciences, where 94 percent trust public institutions. Publishers, including the publishing companies Elsevier and Springer, also enjoy a high level of trust at 74 percent. Around two fifths of all those surveyed (39 percent) said that they believe publishers to be very trustworthy and a further 35 percent believed them to be trustworthy. Here too, researchers at universities of applied sciences are ahead with 87 percent of them saying that they trust this group of providers. Big tech companies, on the other hand, are only trusted by 14 percent and 21 percent respectively, which is a fifth of business studies and economics researchers say that big tech companies are not trustworthy at all. Most of those surveyed answered “neither trustworthy or untrustworthy”.

Awareness of the German National Research Data Infrastructure

Question: The National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) should be used to systematically access, network, and secure academics and research databases – which are merely temporarily stored in a decentralised way today – in the long-term, while making these accessible across disciplines and throughout different countries. In one place. For the entire research system. It should be possible to easily locate and use many types of data (including social media data, representative population data and much more). NFDI development is module by module, through various consortia, on a subject-specific basis. In business studies and economics, such consortia include the Consortium for Business, Economic and Related Data (BERD@NFDI) and the Consortium for the Social, Educational, Behavioural and Economic Sciences (KonsortSWD). Have you heard of this NFDI project, or the BERD and/or KonsortSWD consortia?

The NFDI pie chart is self-explanatory. The National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) is not very familiar yet. Then again, this is hardly surprising since these infrastructure projects are still in development.

NFDI: relevance to economists’ work

Question: How important will the new National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and/or the two economics consortia BERD and KonsortSWD be in the future for your work?

Compared to the current NFDI familiarity among economics researchers in Germany (see Fig. 7), its expected future importance and/or that of the two economics consortia BERD@NFDI and KonsortSWD is relatively high. Around half of those surveyed (53 percent) view it as relevant for their own work. The NFDI is actually very important for 9 percent (see Fig. 8). But as the NFDI is still unknown among 84 percent, a large proportion of those surveyed did not answer the question (31 percent). Only 4 percent are critical and say that the NFDI is not important to them.

The survey has shown that Open Science and the NFDI in particular are regarded as important or potentially important – but more likely in the future. It is the responsibility of the consortia to make their work and the progress made in developing their infrastructures transparent and well-known, and to communicate this on a continuous basis. Furthermore, the survey shows that the academic library work with publishers and/or publishing corporations needs to become the focus of communication.

Conclusion: status quo of Open Science in business studies and economics

So how can these findings be summarised? Has Open Science already made its mark on economists or has interest plateaued somewhat? In which areas should we – the library and Open Science community – now take action?

Not only research funding organisations but also top economics research journals are now demanding that academics share their data and codes. For this reason, there are numerous special research fields or post-graduate programmes that have integrated training in Open Science Practices into their curricula. It’s almost impossible to ignore the discussion surrounding Open Science. That’s why it is also not surprising that over three quarters of those surveyed believe that Open Science will play a major role in the future.

It is however very clear that younger researchers – that are research assistants – are more interested in Open Science than professors. An awareness of the need for future skills in academic work and a creative drive to change the research system (at least in part) combine to form a “young avantgarde”.

The high level of trust in publishing corporations is noteworthy. Critical scrutiny of power structures and independent community-owned infrastructures has not yet taken place to a sufficient degree.

Libraries can play a role here: it would be good if they could be vocal in communicating their own skills and services for networked and digitally independent academia. The times of libraries quietly working away unnoticed are definitely over.

This text has been translated from German.

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About the Author:

Dr Doreen Siegfried is Head of Marketing and Public Relations at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. She can also be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Portrait: ZBW©

The post Open Science in Economics: Selected Findings From the ZBW Awareness Analysis 2022 first appeared on ZBW MediaTalk.