Virtual Research Environment Research Articles

TextGrid – Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities

The TextGrid research group, a consortium of 10 research institutions in Germany, is developing a virtual research environment for researchers in the arts and humanities that provides services and tools for the analysis of text data and supports the curation of research data by means of grid technology. The TextGrid virtual research environment consists of two main components: the TextGrid Laboratory (TextGridLab), which serves as the entry point to the virtual research environment, and the TextGrid Repository (TextGridRep), which is a long-term humanities data archive ensuring sustainability, interoperability and long-term access to research data. To support all stages of the research lifecycle, preserve and maintain research data, and ensure its long-term usefulness, existing research practices must be supported. Therefore the TextGridLab provides common functionalities in a sustainable environment to intensify re-use of data, tools, and services, and the TextGridRep enables researchers to publish and share their data in a way that supports long-term availability and re-usability.

Virtual carrots, sticks and student engagement: supporting student researchers

This article describes a three-year research project which aimed to introduce a technological innovation in working with three cohorts of undergraduate students to support them in completing their final-year dissertations through the use of a Virtual Research Environment (VRE). An additional aim of the project was to establish, amongst the students, a Community of Enquiry. Drawing on evidence from module evaluations, focus group interviews and user logs, the article highlights how students engaged with the VRE to support their research projects and their peers. By examining the activities of the three cohorts the authors were able to apply the seven key factors for building an educational Community of Enquiry outlined in previous research by the first author and colleagues to assert that the third cohort worked collaboratively to the degree that they could be said to have formed a Community of Enquiry.

The Research on Service-Oriented Virtual Environment Visualization Platform for Coal Mine

It uses virtual reality and visualization technology to develop the coal mine production 3d visualization platform, providing strong management and technical support means for coal mine production is one of the main research aspects of Digital coal mine. This paper starts from the status of coal virtual environment research, the function this System should have and the relevant technology of the SOA, providing three layers of architecture of service oriented 3d visual information platform of coalmine virtual environment system。It details the engineering construction ideas of 3d visual information platform of coalmine virtual environment，and also details All levels function model and the related services protocol architecture.

Agile Project Management: A Case Study of a Virtual Research Environment Development Project

In this paper we use a case study of a project to create a Web 2.0-based, Virtual Research Environment (VRE) for researchers to share digital resources in order to reflect on the principles and practices for embedding eResearch applications within user communities. In particular, we focus on the software development methodologies and project management techniques adopted by the project team in order to ensure that the project remained responsive to changing user requirements without compromising their capacity to keep the project `on track', i.e. meeting the goals declared in the project proposal within budget and on time. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, we describe how the project team, whose members are distributed across multiple sites (and often mobile), exploit a repertoire of coordination mechanisms, communication modes and tools, artefacts and structuring devices as they seek to establish the orderly running of the project while following an agile, user-centred development approach.

Introduction to the Special Section on Digital Objects: digital objects, digital humanities--Questions, Processes, and Outputs

The concept of the ‘digital object’ is at once quite straightforward and quite complex. A digital object can be a discrete file in a repository with associated metadata, or a highly sophisticated and multifaceted construct in cyberspace incorporating fuzzy logic, semantically diverse interpretations, and differences of interpretation. The fully complexity of this spectrum is sure only just emerging. This is particularly so where digital objects pertain to cultural heritage, and the relationship between ‘the digital’ and the traditional (or rather non-digital) means in which cultural heritage information is stored, studied, and disseminated. In the world of museums, the notion of an object is, naturally widely and extensively understood: objects in cases, neatly labelled, arranged according to type, provenance, place of origin or date, or some combination of all of these. How we translate these varied wealths of intellectual and cultural knowledge from the world’s museums and archives into the digital domain is surely one of the grand challenges for digital humanities today. With this in mind, I have great pleasure in introducing three papers in this special section of LLC, which examine this concept from three different but complementary angles: digital museum objects, objects within Virtual Research Environments (VREs), and as objects which reconstruct fragments from the real world and document digitally the trails of interpretation that lead to those reconstructions.

In the interest of science: The Digital Information Priority Initiative by the Alliance Partner Organisations*

The Digital Information Priority Initiative by the Alliance Organisations is a remarkable joint initiative by all German Science Organisations in the domain of digital information. It has already started to produce significant results and is most likely to enhance and transform the information infrastructure in a significant and sustainable manner at least in this country. But rather than presenting the operative details of the initiative, this article reflects on the reasons and motivations that prompted science organisations to take such an active role in addressing the topic of information infrastructure. To make it clear from the outset: the notion of “science” is not used in the narrower sense of denoting only the natural sciences but in the broader sense of including the social sciences and humanities as well. To bear this in mind will help to avoid misunderstandings and undue reductions. The Digital Information Priority Initiative by the Alliance Organisations started in the summer of 2008, when the Digital Information Priority Initiative was adopted by all institutions that are represented in the so-called Alliance of German Science Organisations: Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, German Research Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, German Rector’s Conference, Max Planck Society, Leibniz Association and German Research Council. The Alliance Organisations agreed upon six priority areas: National licensing, Open access, National hosting strategy or better: a national strategy for safeguarding permanent and sustainable access to digital material, Primary research data, Virtual research environments and Legal frameworks. So far the basic information. But what has prompted science organisations to take such an active role in addressing the topic of information infrastructure? As a result of the digital revolution, which has swept over the science generation of the late second and early third millennium, the significance of information infrastructure has changed considerably. Information infrastructure is no longer a background service that, as a researcher, one only took notice of when it failed to function – as was the case for years or even decades – for example, if the journal or the book that one needed was not available at the library, if one did not understand the library catalogue system, or if it took weeks before an item loaned from another library finally arrived. In fact, in the two preceding decades, we have, through the digitisation of scientific research, experienced how the provision of information has changed as well. It has transformed from a background

Rehbein, Malte, Patrick Sahle, and Torsten Schaßan, eds. 2009. <i>Kodikologie und Paläographie im digitalen Zeitalter, Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age</i>. Norderstedt: BoD. xxiv+349 pages.

The second of the series Schriften des Instituts für Dokumentologie und Editorik, this volume, entitled Codicology and Palaeography in the Digital Age assembles twenty-one papers that were to be subsequently presented at an international symposium in Munich in July 2009, in the context of an eponymous initiative led by the Institute of Documentology and Scholarly Editing (Institut für Dokumentologie und Editorik - IDE, Köln). It is a quadrilingual edition that contains one article in French, three articles in Italian, five articles in German, and twelve articles in English. The preface and abstracts are all available in both German and English. The volume is articulated around two parts: “Codicology: From Catalogue to Virtual Research Environment” (8 papers) and “Palaeography: From e-Learning to New Research Horizons” (13 papers). Additionally, an invited introduction (in German) offers an overview of the contents of the volume, and an appendix gives brief biographies of all authors.

Science as a Social System and Virtual Research Environment

The accumulation of gradual changes in scientific landscape and research practice due to the Internet has the potential to enhance the quality of both cognitive and social aspects of science and scientists. New types of research outputs, modes of scientific communication and new circulation mechanisms, as well as enhanced opportunities for scientific re-use and measuring research impact, in combination with new approaches to research assessment and evaluation are all having profound effects on the social system of science. To be sure that these innovations will not break the social sustainability of the science community, it will be valuable to develop a model of science as a tool for computer simulation of social consequences from possible innovations within virtual research environment. Focusing on possible social problems related to these new virtual research environments this short paper provides a brief analysis of the current situation in science (challenges, problems, main actors), general views on model of science (landscape, main agents, important properties, etc.) and on areas where simulation can contribute to better understanding of possible futures for the scientific community.

Towards a Virtual Research Environment for International Adrenal Cancer Research

For many research areas, the need to collaborate across organizational and in certain cases national boundaries is essential. This is especially the case when dealing with rare diseases where a lack of data, information and/or sharing of expertise can cause delays in progressing the understanding and potential diagnosis/treatment of such diseases. Research into adrenal tumours is one such area where co-ordination of international cancer efforts is essential. The European Network for the Study of Adrenal Tumours - Structuring clinical research on adrenal cancers in adults (ENS@T-CANCER) project has recently been funded by the European Union to establish a state of the art Virtual Research Environment (VRE) supporting all aspects of international research and collaboration into the aetiology, diagnosis and establishing optimal treatment strategies for patients with adrenal cancer. It is envisaged that this VRE will comprise a portfolio of clinical databases for the different types of adrenal tumours that exist; support and integrate a seamless federation of adrenal tumour bio-banks with support for bio-sample tracking; support a wide range of – omics research into adrenal tumours and allow results to be shared amongst collaborators; offer advanced visualization services, and support several large-scale clinical trials comprising cohorts of patients with different kinds/treatments of adrenal tumours. This paper outlines the goals of the ENS@T-CANCER project and outlines the on-going implementation work. We show how security-oriented information can be collected and tracked through the VRE including supporting collection of clinical data sets and their linkage with associated bio-samples in an ethically-driven framework.

Presence Pedagogy as Framework for Research in Virtual Environments

INTRODUCTION Presence Pedagogy (P2) codifies an approach to teaching and learning designed to capitalize on social affordances of tools such as virtual worlds (Bronack et al, 2008). Based on ten years of experience teaching in immersive environments such as Activeworlds, Teleplace, and Opensim, this framework was developed to offer a novel perspective concerning which teaching practices are more likely than others to foster the development of reflective communities of practice that support all learners involved. The novel role presence plays in this model has enabled the manifestation of instructional practices in spaces like virtual worlds that otherwise are difficult or impossible to employ. In much the same way, we contend that presence-based research practices also may lead to novel ways to frame, investigate, and report on phenomena embedded within immersive worlds.

Deploying general-purpose virtual research environments for humanities research

Several virtual research environments (VREs) have been developed to address specific tasks or application domains. Building on the experiences and use cases coming out of these projects, this paper addresses the creation of more general-purpose VREs for the humanities, which move beyond specific, focused tasks, and instead provide services and environments that support more general-purpose humanities research activities. Specifically, we are investigating use cases related to the organization and integration of the dispersed and heterogeneous information on which such research is based. These use cases are highly interactive, interpretative and researcher centric, addressing topics such as annotation environments and support for 'active-reading' processes and scholarly dialogues. We present the background to our work and the technical approach taken, and report the results obtained so far.

Stomosis arachnophila sp. n., a new kleptoparasitic species of freeloader flies (Diptera, Milichiidae)

Stomosis arachnophila Brake sp. n. (Diptera, Milichiidae) is described from Western Australia. The species is kleptoparasitic on araneid spiders. The paper is an example for a new approach in cybertaxonomy which includes generation of manuscripts within a Virtual Research Environment (Scratchpads), semantic enhancement, parallel release of the publication on paper and online accompanied with registration of new taxa with ZooBank.

Top-down and bottom-up informatics: who has the high ground?

AbstractRecent years have seen the emergence of several major initiatives supporting the development of biodiversity informatics infrastructures. In Europe examples include: EDIT – the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy; LifeWatch – a biodiversity analytical platform integrating observatories, databases, processing and computational capacity; and SYNTHESYS – funding researcher access to a network of taxonomic collections, laboratories and libraries. These European projects alone represent a spend of approximately 35 Million Euros, with funding contingent on the collaboration of numerous geographically dispersed institutional partners. In this presentation we will review the major informatics products of these initiatives; the different development models used in their construction; and levels of user engagement that provide an indication of their relative success.A key outcome of these initiatives is the bottom-up emergence of Virtual Research Environments (VRE’s) such as the Scratchpad project ("http://scratchpads.eu":http://scratchpads.eu), the EDIT Cyberplatform ("http://wp5.e-taxonomy.eu/":http://wp5.e-taxonomy.eu/), and CATE ("http://www.cate-project.org/":http://www.cate-project.org/). These tools enable real-time collaboration and dissemination of biodiversity information while simultaneously affording new opportunities for data stewardship, curation, and data mining. Although highly experimental, these environments offer an alternative vision for the practice of biodiversity research that challenges the primacy of traditional publishing as the end point in scholarly communication. Inspired by discourses in the 'Free/Open Source Software' and 'Creative Commons' movements, these tools support the notion of 'Open Science' with its advocacy of more open scientific knowledge production and publishing processes. These VRE’s have the potential to be used as instruments of scientific research, blending social and technical solutions to address the challenges that are otherwise insurmountable through individual efforts. The maturity of these tools is dependent upon greater reliability, especially in the data services on which they depend, and through reduced duplication of developer effort. This will deliver an increasing body of users that can have confidence and trust in the systems they use, and who will benefit from the network effects of an enlarged user community. Delivering this requires greater top-down cooperation and integration of our national funding agencies, supporting bottom-up multinational collaborative efforts amongst our research communities.

Supporting the learning and networking experiences of doctoral students

This study explores the impact of a Graduate Virtual Research Environment (GVRE) on the learning and networking experiences of research students. The GVRE was established to support and enhance research skills and employability training across a university. It provides an extensive range of resources including video reflections based on the experiences of students and staff; GVRE members are encouraged to comment and engage in discussions on these resources. Our work is framed using social theories of learning and the role of communities in the support and development of research students. In particular, we are interested in exploring the challenges involved in developing communities and networks for students whose main focus is their individual research. The GVRE was made available to over 600 students and in this research we explore its impact on the experiences of research students. In particular, we investigate four questions: (a) what impact does the students use of the GVRE have on the development of their research skills; (b) what impact does membership of the GVRE have on the networks and communities of research students; (c) how do research students view the relationships between their research skills training programme, their individual research and the GVRE; and (d) how do research students currently use social media. We use an interpretivist approach and our data sources include site statistics, responses to a questionnaire and also feedback from a focus group. Our findings indicate that networking remains an issue and students suggested approaches to facilitating this using the GVRE: (1) A clearer pathway from skills need identification to skills acquisition; (2) Rewards for activities around networking - possibly through credit on the training scheme; (3) Activities that would involve research directly. Feedback on the GVRE indicated that it is valued by research students as it facilitates the development of their research skills. In terms of marketing the GVRE to research students important factors identified were: the ease of access to the site, the overview it gives of the PhD process; and the value of the site to students around the defining moments of their studies when the students felt they needed additional advice and guidance.

Socio-Technical Influences on Virtual Research Environments

A number of socio-technical aspects that influence interorganizational research collaboration are embedded in local work contexts. Thus, they should be a main concern for the design of virtual research environments. A review of forty papers from different research fields provided an understanding of the influence of eleven socio-technical aspects grouped according to the following categories: nature of work; common ground; collaboration readiness; management style and leadership; technology readiness. There are five main implications for the design of virtual research environments. Emphasis is placed on the importance of consulting the stakeholders so that they suggest solutions and ideas, and imbue the collaborative environment with the values required for it to be sustainable.

Virtual Research Environments

The article reviews the book "Virtual Research Environments: From Portals to Science Gateways," by Robert Allan.

Virtual Research Environments: From Portals to Science Gateways

Virtual Research Environments: From Portals to Science Gateways

An integrated digital research environment: DFG perspectives

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to focus on the vision that the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation (DFG)) pursues with its funding programmes in the field of digital information provision.Design/methodology/approachThe first section of the paper sketches out the strategic decisions which determine the funding policy of the DFG in the field of digital information, while the second section describes in more detail the central funding schemes of the DFG in the field of digital information.FindingsThe funding policy of the DFG seeks to build an integrated digital research environment that includes scholarly publications and primary research data as well as new forms of communication in virtual research and work environments. But it will be only by the common effort of scholars, libraries and providers of scholarly information, funders, publishers and fee‐collecting agencies that the vision of an integrated digital research environment will come true.Originality/valueThe outline of the funding programmes of the DFG in the area of digital information provision will be of interest to librarians and information professionals seeking information about library‐funding policies and strategies in Germany.

A HUMAN‐COMPUTER INTERACTION PRINCIPLES BASED FRAMEWORK TO ASSESS THE USER PERCEPTION OF WEB BASED VIRTUAL RESEARCH ENVIRONMENTS

Due to various challenges and opportunities such as globalisation of research agenda and advancements in information and communication technologies, research collaborations (both international and national) have become popular during the last decade more than ever before. Within this context, the concept of Virtual Research Environments(VRE) is an emerging concept looking at addressing the complex challenges associated with conducting collaborative research. Even though concept of VRE is at its infancy, it is important to assess user perception about those, both to establish its success of uptake and future development strategies. However, to date, there is no formal method established to evaluate VREs .This paper reports a strategy adopted within an international collaborative research project (EURASIA) to evaluate its custom built VRE, VEBER, using the well known Computer Human Interaction principles. Santruka Ivairiausi iššūkiai ir galimybes, tokios kaip planuojamu moksliniu tyrimu globalizacija ir informacijos bei komunikacijos technologiju pažanga, pastaraji dešimtmeti leme didesni nei bet kada tiriamojo bendradarbiavimo (ir tarptautinio, ir nacionalinio) populiaruma. Šiame kontekste virtualiosios moksliniu tyrimu aplinkos (VMTA) savoka – tai gimstanti savoka, kuria siekiama imtis sudetingu iššūkiu, susijusiu su tiriamuoju bendradarbiavimu. Nors VMTA savoka kol kas žengia pirmuosius žingsnius, svarbu ivertinti, kaip vartotojai ja suvokia, siekdami nustatyti, kaip jai seksis prigyti, ir būsimasias pletros strategijas. Tačiau formalaus metodo VMTA vertinti kol kas nera. Šiame darbe pristatoma strategija, taikyta tarptautiniame moksliniu tyrimu bendradarbiavimo projekte (EURASIA), nes norima ivertinti specialiai tam sukurta VMTA, pavadinta VEBER, naudojant gerai žinomus kompiuterio ir žmogaus saveikos principus.

Exploring new ways of working using virtual research environments in library and information science

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present current and ongoing research investigating new ways of working across geographic distances and time within library and information science (LIS).Design/methodology/approachA total of four studies were conducted focusing on: the design of a virtual research environment (VRE) to facilitate the sharing of data collection instruments among students, researchers and professionals; new ways professionals and researchers can collaborate; collaborative decision making in the context of purchasing a library management system; and collaboration among LIS professionals.FindingsEarly results show that VREs within LIS can build on previous VRE research which focused on other domains. However, there are several unique characteristics of LIS that place requirements on VREs and which are not yet implemented within VREs and that offer unique opportunities for VREs to enhance LIS research, education and practice.Originality/valueThis paper reports on ongoing research and preliminary findings of unique studies investigating how VREs could enhance LIS research and professional practice, and how LIS research and practice can inspire the next generation of VREs.