DARIAH and OPERAS share a long tradition of collaboration in paving the way for a more open, more inclusive scholarly communication in Social Sciences and Humanities. In the past two years, this collaboration manifested itself within the framework of the H2020 project, OPERAS-P. The OPERAS-P project supported the OPERAS Research Infrastructure by furthering its development in view of achieving the necessary scientific, technical and community maturity.
Contributions to community-driven, open SSH scholarly communications infrastructure
DARIAH was involved in the technically oriented aspects and work packages of the project. This included the implementation of core services and specifications, such as the redevelopment of the (peer review) certification service, or development of the publishing service portal prototype.
During the project, a lot of consideration was also given to the EOSC link with OPERAS. Some of OPERAS services have already been onboarded into the EOSC Marketplace, while others are currently being prepared for future inclusion.
Diving deep into realities, challenges and innovations in scholarly writing and peer review practices in SSH
DARIAH also contributed to gaining a deep understanding of Arts and Humanities research realities. Together with the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, DARIAH-EU contributed to a landscape study on scholarly writing innovations on SSH and led another in-depth study focussing on systemic barriers, perceived or real obstacles as well as innovations and emerging trends in quality assessment of publications within the SSH.
The studies are based on 32 deep interviews conducted with Social Sciences and Humanities researchers and publisher representatives across Europe, as well as on a portfolio of relevant case studies. Their results are meant to inform and shape the future service portfolio of OPERAS but also reflect back in DARIAH: the deeper understanding of the complexities of cultural change towards open research workflows directly feed into DARIAH’s own Open Science advocacy and training activities.
The two studies are expected to be published together as an Open Access monograph. For a preview of this work check the links below:
- OPERAS-P Deliverable D6.5: Report on the future of scholarly writing in SSH
- OPERAS-P Deliverable D6.6: Report on quality assessment of innovative research in SSH
- For a visual summary of the work: Future of Scholarly Communication. Forging an inclusive and innovative research infrastructure for scholarly communication in Social Sciences and Humanities
- For a summary of the quality assessment task: Quality assessment of SSH research: innovations and challenges
