Our overarching objective is to document, evaluate, operate and improve the services provided by the numerous members of our community. Our Helpdesk provides support and advice regarding research data quality assurance, sustainable research software development, legal matters and questions on data ethics, and offer guidance for the use of research tools and data services, as well as repositories and authoring tools for publishing research outputs and education and training in Data and Code Literacy.
In the following years, a collection of guidelines will grow as a result of collaboration between our seven Task Areas.
Culture Helpdesk
The NFDI4Culture Helpdesk provides individual support for a broad range of research data and software concerns to scholars, institutions and data providers, regardless of career level or prior knowledge. We offer project-specific advice, including applications for third-party funding.
We provide support and guidance regarding organisational and technical processes of digitisation projects in the cultural research disciplines, with special emphasis on the data enrichment process. We focus primarily on formats and methods such as 3D, audio, video, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, 2D, thermograph or computer tomography.
Further information about this Task Area
We offer support around data quality and standards in all stages of the data life cycle. In addition, we provide assistance with the implementation of the FAIR and ethical principles (e.g. the CARE principles for indigenous contexts) as well as with the assessment of the relevant data quality.
Further information about this task area
Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum für Kunstgeschichte – Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, Philipps-Universität Marburg
We provide support and guidance for the development, consolidation, operation and certification of sustainable, interoperable research tools and data solutions. In addition to the FAIR principles, the long-term availability of research software and services is a key objective.
Further information about this task area
We offer expert support for researchers at all stages of the publication process in compliance with the FAIR principles, thereby focusing on enhanced publications and their archiving. We further advise regarding trustworthy repositories and services which are tailored to the needs of specific research disciplines.
Further information about this task area
We offer information and clarification for researchers and institutions regarding data rights and ethical questions, such as copyright, property and personal rights (data protection), as well as treatment of culturally sensitive objects. We assist in keeping research data as open and easily accessible as possible and compliant with the FAIR principles and ethical guidelines by clarifying legal issues and reducing legal uncertainty.
Further information about this task area
Our service encompasses advice on content, organisational development and design of training courses, as well as workshops, teaching modules, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), schools, and other formats. Furthermore, we provide support for institutes, museums, archives or other interested communities with regard to the institutional process of implementing training (modules) on cultural data and code literacy.
Further information about this task area
We provide researchers and institutions with information and recommendations around research funding programmes. This includes an overview of various funding bodies and grants as well as specific experiences with them from the NFDI4Culture partners.
Linked Data & Semantics Culture Information Portal
The Culture Information Portal serves as the gateway and single point of access to all services, data and information resources offered by the NFDI4Culture consortium. Based on established and interoperable data standards for research information systems, it will also provide the exchange and integration of NFDI4Culture‘s service offerings with international infrastructures like the European Open Science Cloud. Apart from the graphical user interface, all portal content has been modelled according to Linked Open principles and is offered FAIRly as structured data over a web-based API.
Linked Data & Semantics Culture Knowledge Graph
The Culture Knowledge Graph aims to be a connector for all research data produced within the NFDI4Culture subject areas. This will enable overarching search functionality and access to the distributed research data collections of the consortium and beyond. We will build this by using existing data in the Linked Open Data format as well as working with data providers to convert and integrate their digital assets. We will make use of W3C standard technologies and standard metadata formats that are already recognised by the Culture community. This development of the knowledge graph will be discussed within the 4Culture Linked Open Data Working Group. To stay up to date on their meetings, events and general news about the knowledge graph, sign up for our mailinglist: https://lists.nfdi.de/postorius/lists/nfdi4culture-lod.lists.nfdi.de.
Publication & Availability RADAR4Culture
RADAR4Culture is a low-threshold and easy-to use service for sustainable publication and preservation of cultural heritage research data. It offers free publication for any data type and format according to the FAIR principles, independent of the researcher´s institutional affiliation. Through persistent identifiers (DOI) and a retention period of at least 25 years, the research data remain available, citable and findable long-term. Currently, the offer is aimed exclusively at researchers at publicly funded research institutions and (art) universities as well as non-commercial academies, galleries, libraries, archives and museums in Germany. No contract is required and no data publication fees are charged. The researchers are responsible for the upload, organisation, annotation and curation of research data as well as the peer-review process (as an optional step) and finally their publication.
Tools & Services Registry for Tools & Services
Of particular interest to the Culture Community, the NFDI4Culture Registry service collects metadata about existing research tools and data services, and provides a simple overview and detailed information about the resources.
In addition, the Registry enables researchers to access these resources in order to promote the re-use and further development of existing tools and services. All metadata included will be published under an open licence, and all tools and services will be given a unique identifier to enable referencing. Software and service reviews will also be included to assess, promote and highlight the reliability of research tools and data services against the FAIR principles.