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At the end of 2017, OpenAIRE launched an open call for tenders for a total of 80.000 Euros, seeking innovative ideas that would improve the OpenAIRE infrastructure services and/or its overall uptake. 5 out of 13 proposals received, have been selected for funding, 2 in the area of  “Repository tools and services” and 3 in the area of “Value-added services”.

The call had a dual purpose:

  1. Develop applications with special focus on novel ideas that may improve the operation and uptake of the OpenAIRE infrastructure and show how open access to publications, data, software and other research artefacts are key in advancing open science and innovation;
  2. Bring the OpenAIRE consortium closer to the innovation community to gauge the trends and ideas of the scholarly communication emerging market.

Below you can find a short description of the selected proposals:

A. Repository tools and services 
Repository tools
Organisation:   4Science
Person in charge:   Andra Bollini
Funding:  24K Euros

The Repository tools pilot  by 4Science aims at increasing the interoperability features supported by the most widely used platforms in the open science ecosystem.

The project focuses on two main topics:

  1. Implementation and customization of new protocols;
  2. Implementation of OpenAIRE metadata guidelines and OpenAIRE-APIs interaction.

In particular, 4Science will implement the following tools for Literature Repositories, Data Repositories, Journals platforms, and CRIS/RIMS (such as DSpace, Dataverse, OJS and DSpace-CRIS):

  • Signposting patterns in OJS;
  • ResourceSync framework in DSpace;
  • OpenAIRE Guidelines for Data repositories in Dataverse and DSpace-CRIS;
  • OpenAIRE project API in DSpace-CRIS.

These new protocols were selected based on recent recommendations by COAR.


Metis4OpenAIRE: Adding CRIS systems to the list of OpenAIRE data providers
Organisation:   euroCRIS
Person in charge:   Pablo de Castro
Funding:  14K Euros

The METIS2OpenAIRE project, submitted by euroCRIS, will implement the recently released OpenAIRE CERIF-XML Guidelines for CRIS Managers v1.1 on the first institutional CRIS, METIS at Radboud University in the Netherlands.

By providing a first best practice case study and delivering a minimally sufficient validator for testing compatibility with the Guidelines for CRIS through METIS, this project aims to improve CRIS systems’ ability to become data providers for OpenAIRE significantly.

METIS is just the first instance where this compliance will be tested, but besides making the technical requirements for OpenAIRE compatibility openly available, METIS2OpenAIRE is also collaborating with two external stakeholders who agreed to join the project to implement the OpenAIRE Guidelines onto their own CRIS platforms; OMEGA-PSIR at the Warsaw University of Technology and Elsevier Pure. The latter is becoming next October, upon the release of their system v5.13, OpenAIRE compatible. The goal is to ensure that the list of OpenAIRE-compatible CRIS data providers grows quickly.

b. Value-added services
VIPER
Organisation:   Open Knowledge Maps
Person in charge:   Peter Kraker
Funding:  15K Euros

The Visual Project Explorer (VIPER) enables funders, institutions and researchers to get an overview of the output of research projects indexed by OpenAIRE, to systematically explore this output, and to understand its impact in different areas. A project’s representation in VIPER consists of an interactive knowledge map, a visualization showing a topical clustering of the project’s publications and datasets, complemented by a list view of these outputs. Users can interact with the visualization by clicking on topical clusters, which enables them to zoom into a particular topic and inspect the underlying outputs and even view open access publications within the same interface.

While VIPER can be used on its own, project representations can also easily be embedded on other websites, e.g. on project websites or within institutional dashboards using a simple JavaScript snippet. VIPER will help projects keep track of the reception of their project within academia and in the wider society in the context of different topical areas. On institutional and funder dashboards, VIPER can be integrated to gain an easy overview of projects and assess their impact in a multifaceted way that goes beyond simple aggregated numbers and rankings.

To realize this idea, it will visualize publications and datasets of projects in the OpenAIRE database with its award-winning open source mapping software Head Start. VIPER will exploit a unique property of OpenAIRE data:  the link between projects and publications and datasets, which will in turn realize a unique open science application.

OpenAIRE MatchMaker
Organisation:  Know-Center
Person in charge:  Tony Ross-Hellauer
Funding: 14.5K Euros


How can researchers, in the spirit of Open Science, move beyond their traditional networks to forge new connections?

How can the new worlds of open information made possible by public infrastructures like OpenAIRE further enable Open Science by bringing the right organisations into partnership to stimulate innovation and address the grand societal challenges?

Know-Center is proud to partner with OpenAIRE to create a novel recommender service, provisionally titled OpenAIRE MatchMaker. OpenAIRE Matchmaker will build upon the OpenAIRE scholarly graph to enable organisations to keyword search for organisations with the strongest records of funding success from the ever-expanding range of funders included in OpenAIRE.

Drawing information from OpenAIRE on institutions, projects and funders, OpenAIRE Matchmaker will enable scientific institutions interested in forming consortia to identify potential partners with the exact disciplinary strengths and competences they need, rank them according to their previous success in securing funding, and specify searches according to specific national or international funders or even individual funding streams. Work on this prototype service has already begun and will be completed by May 2018.

Data2Paper
Organisation:  Jemura Ltd
Person in charge:  Neil Jefferies, Fiona Murphy
Funding: 10 K Euros

Data2Paper is a ‘one-click’ process to streamline the data paper publication workflow. Metadata about a dataset (together with a link to the dataset) are transferred from any suitably configured data repository, via the cloud-based Data2Paper app, which allows adding methodological detail (the body of the paper) and metadata editing, to a relevant publisher as a data paper submission.

Suitable data repositories need to support DataCite DOIs and ORCID author/contributor identifiers since the app leverages the metadata associated with these standards to minimize data re-entry, saving time and avoiding errors. Making the publication process as friction-free as possible, incentivizes researchers to deposit their data in repositories and, through data papers, encourages and enables its sharing, verification and re-use. In addition, data papers themselves are increasingly considered first class research outputs.

We aim to integrate Data2Paper with the OpenAire SCHOLIX hub (and potentially other hubs), allowing Data2Paper to indicate when a dataset-linked publication has been published, thereby “closing the loop” on the data paper publishing workflow. This will improve user experience by extending the Data2Paper workflow to end with a “published” status rather than “submitted” - which is not only more satisfying for the user but can also prompt them to chase the publisher in the event that there is a delay in either publication or the updating of SCHOLIX metadata.

In the coming weeks, you will read more on these services in our blog! Stay tuned!