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NEERI Panel
Collaboration for Data & Tools • Access to data and tools is the quintessence of most digital research infrastructures or e-infrastructures in the (social) sciences, humanities and cultural heritage. It is therefore essential that the collaboration among research infrastructures across disciplines be enhanced. • Yes, different approaches for data-ID‘s will be harmful for cross-disciplinary differentiation (an enhanced publication using different ID-schemes) + how many local environments Atlas-TI and DDI3 can you have? • No, it introduces organisational overheads that will impede the evolution of subject-focused system • Disciplines have to participate in defining high-level standards (IDs, Descriptive Metadata, AA) but will develop and operate the specifics themselves
Grid and cloud computing • Grid and cloud computing (both for data storage and for high performance computing) are important for (future) research in the digital humanities and e-social sciences. As yet, only few researchers in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) are aware of the potential of the grid. It is a challenge for research infrastructures in the SSH to bridge the gap between the grid and the SSH research communities. • Yes, web-based services (e.g. terminology) need to adhere to grid/cloud principles in order to be widely usable + e.g. text-mining or automatic-categorizers will directly need it • No, lightweight protocols and local services will suffice • Grid/Clouds are needed as a capacity and a concept for distributed deployment but may not meet any small and lightweight requirement
Access for Research Purposes • Providing access to digital cultural heritage for research purposes is conceptually more demanding than providing acces to content for the general public. • Yes, OpenAIRE would need to introduce very many specific standards (e.g. a DDI3-search) • No, each research community already itself organizes „deeper“ services anyway • A thin common cross-disciplinary layer is what is needed that is the starting point for researchers
Interoperability and Quality • Data integration and interoperability of distributed resources, adherence to (metadata) standards, and data quality are paramount for the successful provision of data. • Yes, provider-sided standards will prevent explosion of service-sided costs • No, because it‘s not about standards – it‘s about compliance and homogenization will be done by the machines in the future • Syntax standards are needed, semantics remain to be seen.
Single Point of Access • Providing integrated single point access to data produced by scientific research, official statistics, and government administration is a sign of maturity of a research infrastructure • Yes, it provides an authoritative starting point and allows for sustainable funding • No, it will always fail to represent the underlying dynamics of research • A thin, authoritative layer has to be sustainably provided and taking into acount a constant struggle between permanence and dynamics