EuroCrisNews Edition #9 - 14 October 2001 |
(1) EuroCRIS News(1.1) The Planning Group Initially the Planning Group consisted of Marga van Meel (as Secretary), Keith Jeffery, Vigdis Kvalheim and Eric Zimmerman; with assistance of Harrie Lalieu. The PG has been mainly dealing with constitutional matters, i.e. the draft charter and election and voting procedures. It is realized that a subtle balance has to be found between the desired practical and informal way of operating and the minimum formal requirements needed to become a serious discussion and contract partner. During the next Platform Meeting, 1-2 November, the Planning Group will analyse the constitutional matters in detail and bring them up for final discussion. We cannot run ahead of the results of this discussion, but the first contacts with the European Commission have revealed that the best chance of continuing interested follow-up on CRIS may be in the Centres and Networks of Excellence. So, a light structure in the form of professional association/network will be most obvious. The constitutional matters will be finalized after the Platform Meeting. Regardless of the eventual outcome, working in a more structured setting is the way to get jobs done and to arrive at tangible results. Therefore, the Planning Group has proposed four Task Groups, i.e. Common European Research Information Format (CERIF), European Research Information System (ERIS), EuroCRIS Conference and Promotion. It is intended that these groups implement the practical matters which are already under discussion (newsletter, brochure, best practice database, scientific "content", (European) research information portal, website...) or will come up from future developments and decisions - which, in their turn, may be also reason for stopping task groups or establishing new ones. The first milestone, on the occasion of which EuroCRIS hopes to unfold its action plans, is the EuroCRIS 2002 Conference, to be held in Kassel, Germany 29-31 August 2002. The members are invited to think over all these matters. We look forward to vivid discussions! Recorded by Harrie Lalieu. Documents of the PG under development may be found at http://www.ub.uib.no/avdeling/fdok/cris/workingpage.htm. The committee very much seeks the feedback of the entire membership. Let us hear from you. (1.2) EuroCRIS Member Profile Wolfgang Adamczak He is one of the fathers (besides many mothers) of the project ELFI (ELectronic & research Funding Information system: http://www.elfi.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/) and a member of the advisory board through the first phase of running time (1996 – 1998), which was funded by German Ministry of Education and Research. Since 1974 Wolfgang has been a member of Bund demokratischer Wissenschaftler (Union of democratic scientists: http://www.bdwi.de/), over the whole time actively in the field of research and technology policy. He has also been a member of trade-union since 1976. He has been married for over 30 years (with the same wife), and has two sons. From 1986 to 1997 he did active work in the parents council of primary school and the Georg-August-Zinn-School (European school). Further connected to the European school as a member of supporter club. In earlier times he played football all the day long. Now he plays only once a year but likes to see especially his favourite club F.C. St. Pauli http://www.fcstpauli.de/. One of his other hobbies is cooking which you can see without difficulty looking to his figure. Wolfgang is an active member in EuroCRIS, a frequent contributor to previous CRIS conferences since Milan, and host of CRIS 2002 in Kassel. Publications (selected) Adamczak, Wolfgang, Peter Döge: Hochschulforschung, in: Georg Ahrweiler, Peter Döge, Rainer Rilling (Ed.): Memorandum Forschungs- und Technologiepolitik 1994/95 Gestaltung statt Standortverwaltung., Marburg: BdWi-Wissenschaftsverlag 1994, S. 440. Adamczak, Wolfgang: Finanzierung von
wissenschaftlichen Aktivitäten (Förderer - Programme - Adamczak, Wolfgang: Forschungs- und Technologiepolitik 2000 - Thesen, in: Benjamin Hoff und Petra Sitte (Ed.): Politikwechsel in der Wissenschaftspolitik?, Berlin: Dietz 2001, S. 188-195. Brochures to research promotion: Information about Funding of
Scientific Research (in German) Lectures at conferences: CRIS 2000 1. The CRIS Product EUNIS 99 Information Technology Shaping
European Universities 7th - 9th June 1999 in
Espoo Politics & Internet 2nd internationally Congress on electronics Media & Citizenship in information Society 6th - 8th January 1999 in Espoo 15. Internet, information society and new societal movements Internet, Sciences, and Democracy 20th Annual EAIR forum Higher Education institution: open to of innovation, willing to learn 9 - 12th September 1998 in San Sebastian 5. Management of the learning and
research processes CRIS 98 Current Research information of system in Europe: The Way to of innovation 12th - 14th of March 1998 in Luxembourg The future of CRIS: to a "LINK" system Workshop in Prague from 5th - 10th October 1997 Improving the Teaching and Learning of Agricultural Economics at the University level in central and Eastern Europe EUPRIO meeting in Strasbourg 4th - 7th September 1997 Impact of new Technologies on the Communication of Universities in Europe" Introduction to the Workshop Internet as Intranet: From public relation to tools of internal communication Contact Wolfgang at: Tel: +49 561 804 2224; Fax: +49 561 804 2237 adamczak@uni-kassel.de http://www.uni-kassel.de/wiss_tr/english/ (1.3) CRIS2002 Conference Update Other conference information may be found at http://www.uni-kassel.de/wiss_tr/Veranstaltungen/prepCRIS2002.ghk. (1.4) CRIS Profile FIDES Database FIDES stands for "Research [= Forschung] Information, Documentation, Evaluation, and Services" and is the respective research support office at Vienna University of Business Administration & Economics (WU Wien). FIDES Database is an Oracle-based Research Information System with full WWW interoperability. Its prime goal is to supply information about all aspects of research at WU Wien and to support the management and academia in documentation, monitoring, reporting, research evaluation, and public relations duties. The web-based user interfaces offer public or password access to the database: A. The publicly accessible search area covers research profiles of 70 departments, of almost 600 researchers, as well as more than 500 projects (since 1998) and currently more than 12,500 titles of publications. Users may search by names (for experts), or search strings (e.g., in project titles and abstracts, or publication lists), or chose from dropdown-menues (institutes, countries of co-operation partners and funding organizations, classification and keywords). Users are invited to visit the site (available in both English and German) under http://efern.boku.ac.at/fao/en_research_database.search B. In the password-protected departmental area staff members can enter new data or amend earlier recorded ones. In addition they get access to index numbers for statistical purposes such as research assessment exercises and reporting. As data quality depends largely on the data providers at the departments, we decided that data must be acquired directly and continuously by the researchers themselves, even though there is considerable support from FIDES-helpdesk to make this duty more attractive. The final quality control is warranteed by the research information officer, who is in charge of reporting to the rectors and the ministry on an annual basis at a universitarian level and who publishes evaluation reports, research guides and faculty profiles (the latter of which is yet to come), that are automatically generated from FIDES Database. Last but not least, it is worthwhile mentioning that the system has been fully implemented at two universities as yet, the University of Agricultural Sciences, Vienna and WU Wien. Only recently, the Vienna University of Veterinary Medicine has joined. The principle of "three universities, three databases, one system" helps us share resources for continuous development and upgrade, while assuring specific adaptations for individual needs. For further information on any of the points mentioned above, or any other aspect of our systems or services, please contact Hermann Huemer, hermann.huemer@wu-wien.ac.at, phone: +43(0)1-31336-5107. Alternatively, visit our website at http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/fides/ (1.5) International database to collate all nuclear
research information? The Organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD) , along with the nuclear science committee (NSC) from the nuclear energy agency (NEA) are calling for the establishment of international databases containing information on nuclear research. The report, written by six experts from France, Slovenia, Hungary and the USA sees the databases as containing relevant information on reactor physics, shielding and the physics of the fuel cycle in a standard format in computer accessible form. The information would be used on an international basis for the validation of current and new calculational schemes including computer codes and nuclear data libraries, assessing uncertainties, confidence bounds and safety margins and to record measurement methods and techniques. The proposal states that current information is not sufficiently exploited and that 'this wealth of information needs to be preserved in a form more easily exploitable by modern information technology and for use in connection with novel and refined computational models with limitations of the past removed.' The experts believe such a database would be a catalyst leading to further research into more advanced nuclear technology as it would facilitate identification of gaps in current knowledge. The report writers also emphasise that every country with nuclear capabilities is carrying out experiments and that 'reactor physics experimental data represents a massive amount of data that needs to receive full attention now if it is not to be lost'. The passing on of information from the older to the younger generation of researchers is also highlighted as an incentive for such a database. The European Commission was unavailable for comment on the proposal. Data Source Provider : Nuclear Energy Agency (1.6) CERIF Update "Due to limited resources at the European Commission for the follow up of the CERIF2000 initiative, the core implementation effort of the latter is now in the hands of EuroCRIS (the European Current Research Information Systems)." (1.7) EuroCRIS Meeting and CERIF Workshop News The two-day meeting agenda is taking shape. Look at http://www.ub.uib.no/avdeling/fdok/cris/UKmeeting/agenda.htm. Important sessions on the future of EuroCRIS and CRIS2002 will be held. For registration, contact BITDSEC@rl.ac.uk. (2) Project Funding(2.1) Call 8 News Points of focus, of interest to EuroCRIS members, include:
(3) Technology(3.1) The Open Source Movement http://www.infotoday.com/it/oct01/poynder.htm (3.2) Rivals Encroach on Oracle's database lead Although previous battles in the database software market were waged over features--with Oracle comfortably in the lead--the new battle is over pricing and customer service. IBM, which recently strengthened its database lineup, and Microsoft, known for ease of use and low cost, have surfaced as the software maker's strongest foes. Full Story: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7531191.html <Orafans.Com Newsbriefs - 10/20/2001; Volume 4, Issue 5> (3.3) 'Recording Bibliographic Citation Information for
Journal Articles in Dublin Core'. (3.4) Why Metadata is Important http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2001/nt_2001_10_01_metadata.htm (3.5) Towards the Semantic Web (3.6) W3C debate invites open-source views http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7543377.html (3.7) The Invisible Web: Finding Hidden Internet Resources Search Engines Can't See, By Chris Sherman and Gary Price http://www.invisible-web.net/ (3.8) The World Wide Translator by Alan Leo http://www.technologyreview.com/web/leo/leo092101.asp (3.9) Semantic Problems of Thesaurus Mapping (4) Europe(4.1) New approach needed to link science and society,
says Busquin General Information : Speaking at a conference on 'linking knowledge and society' organised by euro-CASE (European council of applied sciences and engineering) , EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin emphasised the importance of bringing science and society closer together and using the European research programmes as a means to this end. The conference was a chance for euro-CASE member academies to reflect on the measures undertaken thus far to improve the links between knowledge and society. Vice president of euro-CASE and president of the Italian council for applied science and engineering, professor Sergio Barabaschi concluded the conference, saying that the three ways in which links between science and society can be strengthened are improving communication, problem solving and assisting the lawmaker. Mr Busquin stressed that linking science and society in the European research area (ERA) is a key element in the transition towards a knowledge-based society. He also told CORDIS News that there is a need for a change of approach in European research policy in order to effectively address the often visible lack of understanding between scientists and citizens. 'In the past the European programmes didn't see the necessity of having links between science and society. I think that in fact we must have more links and a new approach. In the past scientists considered that science is the truth and they didn't have to reply. Now citizens want to know scientific [...] and technological facts', he told CORDIS News. Mr. Busquin used the examples of BSE and GMOs (genetically modified organisms) to illustrate cases where scientific knowledge has led to citizens becoming more careful. 'It's important to be careful and also to explain that zero risk does not exist,' he said. 'We must have an open debate between the scientific community and the people, not in each European State, but at a European level,' he added. The Commissioner offered a diagnosis of the current situation: 'European society does not value science and technology as much as it should. Europeans doubt the power of science and technology to do good to our society. This is one of the reasons for European under-investment in research compared with the United States or Japan. Mr Busquin stated that 'high quality scientific journalism is of key importance. The role of the media is very, very important,' he said. 'It is very important to use the best way to develop in the population a threshold of knowledge to understand the world in which we live. Using television to improve links between science and society is particularly important, stressed Mr Busquin, saying that 'many people in Europe get information from the TV, they don't read enough.' Professor Barabaschi, who declared the role of the media 'fundamental', echoed these views on the importance of the media. 'We must help the media in explaining,' he told CORDIS News. 'But we must provide simple information, easily understandable, and try to get the cooperation of the media in order to amplify these simple messages to the European people and society,' he continued. He highlighted CORDIS as a reliable publication, which provides good quality information and said that CORDIS Focus should be more widely distributed Data Source Provider : CORDIS News interviews (4.2) Eurostat: A new Eurostat Internet site pools the main short-term economic indicators (4.3) 4th European Data Protection Report (4.4) Window on Italian Research (4.5) UK Research to Benefit from Scientififc Knowledge
Transfer Funfing Boost... (4.6) First Phase of CERN Grid Project Launched (4.7) How to create a knowledge policy - Busquin General Information : Speaking at a Sciences Politiques event in Paris, France on 19 October, EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin stressed the importance of defining a policy for knowledge in Europe and identified five factors which need to be addressed in creating one. The five issues confronting the development of a knowledge policy are, according to Mr Busquin sustainable development, divisions between the needs of developed and developing countries, higher education, intellectual property rights (IPR) and science and society. A knowledge policy consists of measures permitting the stimulation of the production of knowledge by research, its transmission through education and its diffusion and exploitation through innovation, in socially desirable conditions according to certain political ideals, said Mr Busquin. He explained that, in his opinion, knowledge is fundamentally different to information. It is 'information intellectually structured and socially organised, a dynamic reality, a process as much as a gift,' he said. A knowledge policy is confronted by and must respond to five issues, said the Commissioner. Sustainable development was the first area selected by Mr Busquin - actions which contrast the needs of industrial competitiveness and the requirements of quality of life in terms of health, security and the nvironment. Although he claimed that such contradictions could theoretically be resolved by sustainable development, he highlighted the inadequacy of this term, stating that currently it is little more than a concept which needs to be translated into actions. In the same sense, the second issue confronting a knowledge policy is the tension between the needs of developed societies and those of the rest of the world, said Mr Busquin, referring to the prevalence of medical research for illnesses endemic in the West. He stressed the importance of stimulating research into problems facing the global population, and said that this is what Europe is trying to do by launching an initiative to tackle transmissible diseases rife in those areas confronted with poverty. Mr Busquin underlined his third category, higher education, as particularly important, saying that higher education establishments have been consigned a central role in the knowledge society.' The fourth category identified by the Commissioner as vital in the construction of a knowledge policy was intellectual property rights (IPR) . The number of patents awarded in Europe, the USA and Japan has grown by 8 to 10 per cent every year for the last five years. In terms of financial consequences for institutions, the impact in terms of royalties varies from a few per cent of financial resources in universities to 44 per cent for an institution like the Pasteur Institute, said Mr Busquin. This growth in the number of patents raises questions such as what sort of knowledge is it legitimate to protect in this way, how to avoid restricting public access to information and in domains such as life sciences, and identifying the line between discovery and invention. Finally, Mr Busquin stressed the importance of the science/society issue for creating a knowledge policy. He cited a recent survey indicating European citizens' ambivalence to technological progress. 'At the same time, a good number of them think that science is changing their lifestyle too quickly,' he said. The European Commission embraces both precaution and proportionality, meaning that all decisions are taken according to what is perceived as a socially acceptable risk, said Mr Busquin. He called for a debate on this issue between researchers, citizens and political decision makers at European level, although he was keen add that this debate should not release politicians from the responsibility of holding an open dialogue, making informed decisions and then executing them with resolve. Data Source Provider : European Commission, Research DG (5) Events(5.1)CRIS2002 (5.2) IST 2001 (5.3) DMA 84th Annual Conference & Exhibition (5.4) DLM-Forum 2002 (5.5) Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in
Archaeology Conference (5.6) IEEE International Conference on Software
Maintenance, (5.7) 3rd South-Eastern European Conference on E-Commerce (5.8) 6th PROMETEUS Event (5.9) IST Mobile & Wireless Telecommunications Summit
2002 (5.10) Sharing schemas: progress and future plans (6) Publications and Websites(6.1) Metadata Research Program "The Metadata Research Program comprises ongoing work in several research areas, as well as a number of individually funded projects such as the Seamless and Unfamiliar Metadata projects." http://metadata.sims.berkeley.edu/ (6.2) New from the OECD New SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDUSTRY OUTLOOK just published: http://electrade.gfi.fr/cgi-bin/OECDBookShop.storefront/EN/Product/922001131P1?affiliate=oecddirect (6.3) ITpapers: The Yellow Pages of White Papers URL:
http://itpapers.com/ Description: "ITpapers is the Yellow Pages of White Papers, with links to tens of thousands of White Papers. A free service, ITpapers enables visitors to find links to precisely the White Papers they need, quickly and easily, with summaries and visitor reviews guiding their selection... In the IT community, a White Paper is an informational brief offering an overview of a technology, product, issue, standard, policy, or solution - its importance, use and implementation, and business benefits." <INFOMINE Alert Service: update> (6.4) searchpdf.adobe.com (6.5) ScientificWorld Journal Alongside the current dramatic scientific progress in the life sciences, similar advances are occurring in the generation, distribution and management of scientific information. Critical to these advances are innovative methods of publishing that meet today's needs of authors, readers and their organizations. TheScientificWorld (ISSN 1532-2246) is a new concept journal that takes full consequence of these advances. The journal is not 'print first, electronic second' . It has an editorial concept and structure designed to capture the benefits of the internet - unhampered by restrictions of print and offering immediate global dissemination. It retains the essential criteria for peer-review and quality, while exploring the new and linked information needed by scientists of today. The journal offers a single unified environment for the publication of all high-quality peer-reviewed science drawn from over a hundred networked scientific domains within the life, biomedical and environmental sciences. Research work submitted for publication is overseen for quality and topicality by prominent Principal and Associate Editors and Editorial Boards of leading scientists acting as referees (see list of Principal and Associate Editors. Upon acceptance, all published research is made immediately available to the worldwide scientific community through TheScientificWorld website. Abstracts are available in HTML format. Full-text articles are available in HTML and PDF formats, some for a fee. Email: editorialhelp@thescientificworld.com (6.6) Free Online Scholarship (FOS) Newsletter "If you haven't seen this, it may be of interest to you. As well as articulately and thoughtfully presenting an editorial viewpoint that you may or may not agree wtih, FOS is a very good, wide-ranging survey of much that's of interest in the world of networked information, scholarly publishing and related areas. The URL for this is http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/index.htm."<Clifford Lynch, Director, CNI> (6.7) Vitual symposium on the written word in the digital
world Sponsored by UNESCO New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT) are transforming our world as radically as did the invention of the printing press. How will this affect the written word and its uses in society? There may be no immediate answers to these questions, but we can -and should- investigate the issues involved. In this context, the Bibliothque publique d'information (BPI), the Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS and EHESS), the non-profit organization EURO-EDU and GiantChair, have decided to set up a virtual symposium in French, Italian and English. Launched on October 15th, 2001, it will focus on the impact of NITC on our relationship with information and the written word. This international symposium should contribute to enriching current debates about the emergence of hybrid tools of communication (e-books, Internet and e-mail) and the social changes that accompany them. The contributors papers will be published directly on the symposiums host site, www.text-e.org and will be accessible from the BPIs main site (www.bpi.fr). It will involve theorists and other professionals affected by changes in their professional and personal lives brought about by e-mail and the Internet, and it will examine the impact of these technologies on reading, journalism, scholarship, libraries, archives, literature and so on. The symposium will provide participants with a forum for the discussion of all points of view. Through this program, we aim at once to engage in a collective research project, to enact the new relationship to the written word and to stage a public event using Web-based communication. The result will be published in book as well as in electronic format. PROGRAM The focal point of the project is the establishment of a Web-based event, beginning on October 15th, 2001 and ending in March 2002. Ten contributors, including theorists and those involved in new information technologies, will be invited to submit a paper for discussion. A new paper will be published on the site every two weeks. Each paper will be discussed on-line for the two weeks following its publication by some forty participants, comprising the ten contributors and thirty guests. Discussions will be chaired by the organizers. TOPICS AND SCHEDULE 15-31 October 2001 Conclusions <Clifford Lynch, Director, CNI> (6.8) Farewell web freedom? http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,578204,00.html
(6.9) How free content has damaged the content industry By Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2001/nt_2001_10_22_free_content.htm (6.10) Playing Politics: the EU and the US on IT by Michael Ramsussen, Giga Information Group http://www.cio.com/analyst/101901_giga.html (6.11) Locked Doorways? by Andrew Gerhart (6.12) Sourcebank: the search engine for developers Description: "Sourcebank is a collection of source code and other resources gathered from hundreds of technical sites around the Web and brought together in one searchable, browsable repository." Languages covered include: C Code; C++ Code; Java Code; Perl Code; Assembler; JavaScript; ASP; PHP; XML. You will find code, articles and/or Web sites. <From INFOMINE Alert Service: update> (6.13) Building Sustainable Collections of Free
Third-Party Web Resources Description: "This report identifies and synthesizes existing practices used in developing collections of free third-party Internet resources that support higher education and research. A review of these practices and the projects they support confirms that developing collections of free Web resources is a process that requires its own set of practices, policies, and organizational models. Where possible, the report recommends those practices, policies, and models that have proved to be particularly effective in terms of sustainability, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and applicability to their stated purpose. The report outlines the similarities and differences between print and free Web resources and describes how the nature and complexity of free Web resources comply with or challenge traditional library practices and services pertaining to analog collections." <From INFOMINE Alert Service: update> (7) Suggestions and general comments to: cris@uib.noPlease send Eric information you want to see published in this newsletter. Information may include: reports on conferences attended, new and emerging CRIS technologies, best practices, trends and news regarding your CRIS, and the like. (8) Subscription InformationCurrently, EuroCrisNews is sent to all members of the CRIS mailing list. In the future, there might be a seperate subscription service. Our membership page may be found at http://www.eurocris.org/members.htm.
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25.06.2003