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Commissioned by the VSNU and the Dutch Taskforce on Responsible Management of Research Information and Data (click here for more information about the taskforce), Dialogic has examined the feasibility of an Open Knowledge Base (OKB).
The metadata on scientific results such as publications, datasets, software, educational materials, and public-oriented communication, contains critical information about science financed with government funds. This information should be freely available without any restrictions. Therefore, the metadata should be easy to find, access, interoperate, and reuse, enabling other users or service providers to create compelling use cases without barriers.
Our research reveals two core values for an OKB. Firstly, protecting academic independence by making the metadata and indicators underlying science assessment open, and reducing dependency on private enterprises for data and software provision. Secondly, enhancing and expanding the quality and coverage of available metadata within the Dutch landscape of scientific communication infrastructures.
Our feasibility study demonstrates that an OKB is both feasible and desirable. An important opportunity for an OKB that we identify is the establishment of a feedback loop between institutional databases (CRIS systems) and the OKB. This can improve metadata coverage and quality within an OKB by integrating, harmonising, and enriching metadata from multiple sources including participating CRIS systems, open infrastructures (e.g. CrossRef, Orcid, ROD), and research intelligence services. These enhancements and enrichments can be fed back to institutional CRIS systems, thereby enhancing metadata and reporting at the local institutional level.
The report has been published by the VSNU and can be viewed here.
Would you like to learn more about this feasibility study? Please contact Max Kemman.