Tools and Platforms

Objective of the SIG

The Special Interest Group (SIG) “Tools and Platforms” works on emerging practices and needs concerning open scholarly communication tools and services. It focuses on the tools enabling the main publishing activities, like writing, peer-reviewing and disseminating; it also entails, more broadly, activities related to scholarly communication, like annotating or translating. Formerly named SIG “Tools and R&D”, the SIG still has a strong interest in tracking useful and cutting-edge innovations in the publishing area.

The main objectives of the SIG are to provide guidance in front of a complex and evolving context and to examine how the tools and platforms development could benefit the open scholarly communication community in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

In that prospect, the SIG conducted through its White Paper a technical watch, listing the main tools and platforms that could be used for open scholarly communication, and identifying the more important trends in this area. Although focused on open-source technologies and the specific needs of the SSH disciplines, the White Paper also analysed some proprietary or cross-domain tools.

The White Paper also provided a provisional list of criteria that a user could rely upon to select the most appropriate tool for its purpose. Indeed, the SIG considered that the tools could not be compared only from a technical and abstract perspective, but that the choice of a tool also highly depended on various contextual factors (skill set, local infrastructures, etc.).

With all these aspects in mind, the SIG has been working especially on establishing an analytical tools catalogue, information cards, and orientation tools based on main potential workflows. More globally, these work areas could be refined or evolve through collaboration with other SIGs or initiatives. Interoperability aspects should connect the SIG “Tools and Platforms” with the SIG “Common Standards and FAIR Principles”; translation management aspects should be connected with the works of the SIG “Multilingualism”. Beyond OPERAS, some fruitful collaborations could be envisioned with teams already engaged in the creation of catalogues for scholarly communication tools.

A brief history

2017-2019: In the original OPERAS governance, there were Working Groups (WG). The OPERAS WG on Tools R&D produced the first version of its White Paper (WP1) in July 2018.
2017-2019: In the original OPERAS governance, there were Working Groups (WG). The OPERAS WG on Tools R&D produced the first version of its White Paper (WP1) in July 2018.
2019-2021: In 2019, the WG became a Special Interest Group (SIG). Its topic didn’t change, but the group welcomed entirely new members. This group of approximately 10 persons produced a major update of the White Paper (WP2) in June 2021.
2022-…: In 2022, the SIG changed its title from “Tools and R&D” to “Tools and Platforms” to be more consistent with the general organization of the SIGs. It also corresponds to an aspect mentioned in the SIG’s White Paper 2, as tools can often be integrated as a service in a platform.

Outcomes

White Papers

Tools White Paper, version 2018

Tools White Paper, version 2021

Tools Schema Spreadsheet

Contact Point

Antoine Cordelois (antoine.Cordelois@paris-iea.fr), Paris IAS/RFIEA

Monica Roos (monica.Roos@hkdir.no), erih+

Special Interest Group members

Antoine Cordelois, PARIS IAS/RFIEA, SIG coordinator

Antoine Cordelois has a PhD in cognitive science, with a focus on human-computer interfaces, and is a software engineer. After several years in Research and Development with large industrial groups (EDF R&D, Airbus R&T), he worked as a freelance researcher and developer before joining the Paris Institute for Advanced Study in April 2020. He is now the Head of Digital Projects and in charge of the implementation of projects and infrastructures such as the World Pandemic Research Network (wprn.org).

Monica Roos, erih+, SIG coordinator

Monica is a senior adviser at The Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills, where she has the overall professional responsibility for the development of the Norwegian Register and erih+. Monica has a semi technical background and an MA in Digital Culture. Monica has been working with open access and scientific publishing her whole career, spending many years working with open repositories, open source tools for publishing, metadata and all other related subjects. She likes it best when she can operate in the landscape between users and developers, with the aim to build useful and meaningful digital tools and platforms.

Aleš Pogačnik, ZRC SAZU

Aleš Pogačnik, has an MA in philosophy and research interests in linguistics, literature and publishing. From 1994-2011 he worked as an editor for mainly lexicographical works, then as editor-in-chief and head of Založba ZRC, the publishing department of the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU).

Bernard Pochet, Liège University

Bernard Pochet, Publisher, Lecturer and Librarian, Liège University, Belgium

Franjo Pehar, UNIZD

Franjo Pehar is assistant professor at the University of Zadar’s Department of Information Sciences and head of the Laboratory for Interactive Systems and User Experience (UNIZD UX Lab). His research interests include history and theory of information science, scholarly communication, bibliometrics, information retrieval, human-computer interaction, usability, and user experience.is assistant professor at the University of Zadar’s Department of Information Sciences and head of the Laboratory for Interactive Systems and User Experience (UNIZD UX Lab). His research interests include history and theory of information science, scholarly communication, bibliometrics, information retrieval, human-computer interaction, usability, and user experience.

Luca De Santis, Net7 srl, Italy

Luca De Santis is the R&D Director at Net7 Srl, a system integration company based in Pisa, Italy. He holds a degree in Computer Science from the University of Pisa and has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry.

Throughout his career, Luca has been involved in numerous research initiatives and in the implementation of some OPERAS services. He is leading the team for the development of the VERA platform (https://vera.operas-eu.org/), an OPERAS service dedicated to Collaborative Research and Citizen Science in SSH. He was also the technical coordinator in the last year of the TRIPLE project, leading the development of the GoTriple multilingual discovery platform for the Social Sciences and Humanities (https://gotriple.eu). Finally he is the technical leader of the team that developed the Pathfinder platform (https://pathfinder.operas-eu.org/).

When not managing projects, commercial or of research nature alike, he likes to deepen his knowledge in the fields of Semantic Web & Linked Data, Natural Language Processing, Industry 4.0 and Software Architectures.

He has a penchant for noisy music, the French language and wine tasting (not necessarily French…).

His GoTriple profile is https://www.gotriple.eu/profile/ldesantis.

Maddalena Briganti, Lexis, Italy

Mark Huskisson, PKP

Mark Huskisson, Strategic Business Development Advisor for the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) and Co-chair of the Assembly of the Commons at OPERAS, has worked in publishing and scholarly communications for over 30 years, often at the turbulent confluence of rapidly changing technology and business models. He has an MBA from the University of Nottingham where he researched sustainability and publishing business models for scholarly publishing and the global knowledgebase.

Mate Juric, UNIZD

Peter Daengeli, University of Bern

Peter Daengeli (lic. phil. hist., MA in DH) is a Digital Humanities specialist at the Data Science Lab of the University of Bern. He assists researchers in the areas of data generation, analysis and publication (often in the form of Digital Scholarly Editions), in close cooperation with the University Library Bern.

Stefano De Paoli, Abertay University, UK

Stefano De Paoli, is Professor of Digital Society at Abertay University in Scotland. Stefano does interdisciplinary research at the intersection of social sciences and computer science.