(This page was mostly machine-translated, German version is published here. See the workshop homepage for more information on the programme etc.)

Summary

The 2nd VIVO-Workshop 2017 at the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) in Hannover focussed on exchange of knowledge and experiences. The workshop was attended by about 40 participants from German-speaking universities and research institutes. It was divided into two different sessions. The first part included presentations about VIVO implementations and technical adaptations in several institutions. The application of VIVO was discussed in different contexts. In the subsequent interactive second part, requirements and challenges were discussed and collected, which were then prioritized by the participants. Challenges for the VIVO developers have been identified regarding  some features like reporting, data integration, and an integrated role management. The workshop was very successful in addressing the widely expressed desire for networking, knowledge exchange and training within the VIVO community and beyond.

Introduction

At the VIVO Workshop 2017, held at the Technical Information Library (TIB) in Hanover on 28 September 2017, the use of VIVO was discussed. The focus was on project and workshop reports, mainly from German-speaking countries. The event was held under the motto "Research information in practice", with a clear focus on promoting networking and the exchange of knowledge between VIVO users and interested parties. The 40 participants came from all over the German-speaking countries. In institutional terms, they belonged to different facets of the scientific landscape. Representatives of universities and non-university institutions were predominantly present.

Presentations

Sören Auer (Director of the TIB) welcomed the participants and addressed in his introductory remarks the DEAL negotiations on the nationwide licensing of offers of major scientific publishers. The products of the involved suppliers do not leave the area of research information systems untouched.

Christian Hauschke (TIB) then summed up his subjective highlights of the VIVO Conference 2017 in New York in a lecture. Among other things, he reported on new developments in data integration, visualization, bibliometrics and in the public relations work for research information systems (FIS) in his own institution. In addition, he summarised news on the upcoming VIVO release 1.10 and gave an overview of the focal points of TIB activities in the VIVO context.

Stefan Wolff (Technical University of Dresden) presented the connection of VIVO to commercial FIS using Pure from Elsevier as an example. He compared the Connector for VIVO available for Pure with the Information Integration Tool Karma (http://www.isi.edu/integration/karma/). His conclusion was that although Karma is more complex to implement, it is adaptable. Stefan Wolff argued for the use of karma from a computer scientist's point of view with the greatest possible flexibility and available capacities.

In her lecture, Tatiana Walther (TIB) presented the TIB-FIS-Discovery project, in the course of which research profiles based on VIVO for the TIB's research output were developed. She described the progress made in the project with regard to the various objectives set and focused in particular on the technical implementation of the project. She also emphasized the need to deal in detail with the existing data protection problems in the FIS context and to clearly describe and define the processes and responsibilities involved.

Annika-Valeska Walzel (Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden) described an application scenario of a completely different kind. The Arthistoricum-VIVO (http://vivo.arthistoricum.net/) presented by her is not intended to reflect the research activity of an institution, but serves as a semantic index of persons in a discipline, art history. The system aggregates data from existing and freely available sources such as the Common Standard File or Wikidata. With the establishment of a curated search, it addresses a specific need of the art sciences and is part of the services of the specialized information service Art, Photography and Design, which is operated cooperatively by the University Library of Heidelberg and the SLUB Dresden.

In her lecture, Ina Blümel (TIB / HsH) gave insights into a student VIVO project at the Faculty III of Hannover University of Applied Sciences (HsH). Based on an analysis of the own presentations from websites and other self-marketing activities of the faculty III scientists at the HsH, the needs of the researchers with regard to FIS visualizations should be determined. The scientists were questioned in detail about this. As a result of this project, which was supervised by Ina Blümel and Christian Wartena, a VIVO was created that was not initiated by the university management, but was developed directly from the faculty's own initiative. According to Ina Blümel, three aspects are decisive for the successful introduction of an FIS: the identification of the scientists with the FIS, the integration of additional institutional web offers and a variety of filter options, e. g. to visualize profile formation and cooperation possibilities.

The lunch break was used very actively for the exchange between VIVO users and VIVO newcomers.

Eiken Friedrichsen (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) then took an excursion with the workshop participants to "Research Information Systems and Data Protection", a topic which, independently of VIVO, concerns all organisations dealing with the establishment of research information systems. In her opinion, the following applies:"What is not allowed is forbidden": Therefore, the knowledge and observance of federal or state data protection laws and, from May 2018, the basic European data protection ordinance (EU DSGVO) is indispensable. She also pointed out that there are no regulations on FIS in almost all university laws. As the right strategy in the context of an FIS, Eiken Friedrichsen recommends:"Control your processes! Document this! Set up a data plan."

Anna Kasprzik (TIB) gave a lecture entitled "VIVO-DE-Extension and VIVO-KDSF - Ontologys for the German-speaking area". In it, she pointed out that Ontologys are not so easy to translate because there are not exact and useful equivalents for all terms in all languages. The level (local, national, international) at which the adjustments are made is also decisive. Anna Kasprzik explained the development and application of the VIVO ontology extension for the German-speaking countries (VIVO-DE extension) and the VIVO KDSF extension, which enables data to be collected in VIVO according to the specifications of the core data set Research (KDSF).

Martin Barber (TIB), who also dealt with the KDSF in his lecture, presented "Lookup-Services (not only) for the KDSF". It is primarily concerned with the subsequent use of externally hosted vocabulary for the application of the KDSF. For this purpose, a service based on Fuseki (http://jena.apache.org/documentation/serving_data/) and SKOSMOS (http://skosmos.org/) was presented, with which the vocabulary provided in this way can be accessed from VIVO and other applications. The subject classification of the Federal Statistical Office served as an example.

Jürgen Wastl (University of Cambridge) reported in his lecture on the University of Cambridge's efforts in research information and linked data. He explained the basic functionalities of the FIS in Cambridge. In particular, he pointed out that not all data can be changed by scientists and controlled vocabulary should be used where possible. In Cambridge, so-called "public profiles" of the scientists from the FIS are mapped using VIVO, which are then publicly visible. Wastl emphasized that "VIVO shows the errors in our data management very quickly". Therefore, caution and checking of the data quality is necessary.

An interactive session – challenges for further VIVO development

After a coffee break we went into an interactive session. Following the motto "Make a wish - further development of VIVO", suggestions and desiderata were collected for the further development of VIVO and around the topic of research information systems, and then prioritised by the participants.

At the end of the event, Ina Blümel and Christian Hauschke summarised the topics of the day, following the prioritisation by the participants. At the top of the participants' wish list was a “reporting tool” with five identical cards, for which a total of 20 votes were cast. Improved functionalities for research reporting are heavily desired here.

The topic cluster “data integration” was prioritized even higher overall, although the 28 points awarded were distributed over ten different cards. The high priority of this point coincides with the international community's desire for improved data integration features. In his "VIVO Updates" on October 1, 2017, Mike Conlon (CONLON 2017) reported on an attempt to collect the priorities of the community at the VIVO Conference 2017:

We need much better ways to get data into VIVO, and there need to be many more ways to get data out – packaged ways such as visualizations and reports, and open ways such as data publication and APIs.

Photo: Collection of VIVO desiderata. Some of the participants noted their wishes for VIVO development, which were then prioritised by the attendees.

Other topics in which those present saw room for improvement were the work on ontology (5 wishes with 3 points), on the surface (GUI; 6 wishes with 11 points) or new features (8 wishes with 9 points). Here, the desire to integrate role management into the administration area is clearly to be emphasized. Two cards with a total of 9 points clearly showed the community's need for greater networking, more intensive exchange and further training. As a suggestion for future events, one participant said that the programme could have differentiated more strongly between VIVO as a research information system primarily for reporting and as a research profile system. Finally, they expressed their wish for further similar events.

Table 1: Results of the interactive session

Presentations / Sources

Barber, Martin 2017. Lookup-Services (nicht nur) für den KDSF. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1002699.

Blümel, Ina 2017. Profile, Studiengänge, Fakultäten: Bottom-Up-Entwicklung eines VIVO an der Hochschule Hannover. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1002715.

Conlon, Mike 2017: 2017-10-01 VIVO Updates. URL: https://wiki.duraspace.org/x/xglsBQ

Friedrichsen, Eiken 2017. Forschungsinformationssysteme und Datenschutz. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.999455.

Hauschke, Christian 2017. Quo Vadis, Vivo?: Stand Und Entwicklung. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1000484.

Kasprzik, Anna 2017. VIVO-DE-Extension und VIVO-KDSF: Ontologien für den deutschsprachigen Raum. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.998739

Walther, Tatiana 2017. TIB-FIS-Discovery: VIVO an der TIB. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1000540.

Wastl, Jürgen 2017. Forschungsinformation & Linked Data: VIVO@Cambridge. FigShare. DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.5480212.v1.

Wolff, Stefan 2017. VIVO-Anbindung an Fremdsysteme am Beispiel einer kommerziellen FIS-Software. Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.998881.