News - MPDL https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news.html Thu, 09 Apr 2020 00:03:13 +0200 Joomla! - Open Source Content Management en-gb homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (mpdl) Current Information regarding COVID-19 (Coronavirus SARS-COV-2) https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/590-current-information-about-coronavirus-covid-19.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/590-current-information-about-coronavirus-covid-19.html The Max Planck Digital Library takes the rapid spread of the Coronavirus very seriously and has decided to adopt precautionary measures to protect all employees and guests of the MPG service-unit. Until further notice, all MPDL employees will be working from home. All MPDL-services can be used as usual.

 

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Mon, 16 Mar 2020 14:38:41 +0100
bloxberg @ Aktionspapier des Blockchain Bundesverbands https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/588-bloxberg-aktionspapier-des-blockchain-bundesverbands.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/588-bloxberg-aktionspapier-des-blockchain-bundesverbands.html Der Blockchain Bundesverband übergab am 11. März sein „Aktionspapier Blockchain“ an die Staatsministerin für Digitalisierung Dorothee Bär. Damit soll die Bundesregierung bei der konkreten Umsetzung von Anwendungen mit der Blockchain-Technologie unterstütz werden.
Im Bereich Forschung wird bloxberg, eine von der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft initiierte, globale Blockchain-Initiative, als einziges Projekt hervorgehoben. bloxberg wird als Proof-of-Concept für eine Blockchain in der Wissenschaftswelt empfohlen, auf der beispielsweise das BMBF oder die DFG projektgebundene Forschungsmitteltokens verteilen könnten.

Mit dem Aktionspapier werden vom Präsidenten des Verbands, Florian Glatz, konkrete Forderungen an verschiedene Ministerien weitergeben. Anwesend waren u.a. Vertreter der Ministerien BMWi, BMJV, BMZ, BMWI, BMEL, BMBF, BMI und BMF.

 

Mehr Infos:

Pressemitteilung zum Blockchain Aktionspapier des Blockchain Bundesverbands

Aktionspapier des Blockchain Bundesverband e.V.

Reuters

bloxberg

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Fri, 13 Mar 2020 11:45:23 +0100
Third parties @ bloxberg Summit 2020 https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/584-third-parties-bloxberg-summit-2020.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/584-third-parties-bloxberg-summit-2020.html We are happy to announce that the bloxberg network is being used for many independent dApps and Apps. Since the bloxberg blockchain is open to everyone to built applications on top of, there has been a lot of so-called third parties running non-authority nodes and connecting them to the bloxberg network. Four of these third parties will be presenting at this year’s bloxberg summit which is taking place at the Harnack House in Berlin on March 2-4, 2020. The bloxberg summit is a conference of bloxberg consortium members, that is held to present and discuss current topics around the use of blockchain in a scientific context. The summit will be held by the MPDL this year.

The following parties will be presenting at the bloxberg summit 2020:

 

Wolfram Blockchain Labs (WBL) has developed a suite of functions in the Wolfram Language (WL) that provide straightforward reading and writing capabilities for different blockchains. These functions also provide a powerful environment for users to create custom analytical tools. In order for these services to work seamlessly, WBL hosts nodes from Bitcoin, Ethereum, ARK, and bloxberg in their high-performance cluster. This allows direct connections to blockchain nodes and smooth integration with the WL, for use either on the desktop (Mathematica) or cloud (Wolfram Cloud).

 

ARTiFACTS® is a platform designed to accelerate researcher recognition by securing the provenance of in-progress research outputs created by scientists and scholars and making these findings discoverable and citable among peers and colleagues. Transactions are registered on the blockchain; specifically, the bloxberg distributed ledger, using Smart Contracts to establish the proof-of-existence. The citation actions of scientists provide a permanent, valid, and immutable chain of record in real-time. Maintaining the provenance of research contributions and acknowledgments creates stronger incentives for scientists to share their work, enabling them to receive recognition for their contributions and security for their intellectual property. ARTiFACTS and bloxberg interoperability offer researchers control over when their works are shared and with whom, both pre-publication and upon publishing their findings.

Ethernity HODL UG is a young German startup that is experimenting with integrating blockchain and cloud computing technologies, focusing on the information security aspect. This technology is specifically useful in the scientific field. For scientists involved in scientific computing, getting provable and reproducible results for research papers is perhaps one of the biggest challenges. The mission of this project is to make a platform available where they can run their scientific computing tasks and attain "Proof of Execution". Using bloxberg, the "Proof of Execution" certifies the execution specific scientific computing task. Later, the execution can be verified and validated against the blockchain, which aids in the reproducibility of research.

 

Decentralized Science promotes transparency in peer-reviewing using technologies such as blockchain and IPFS. Using their system, reviewers can openly share their review reports and get reputation and rewards. The practice of revealing the reviewers’ reports (either anonymous or signed) is not new and has been promoted for years because it can improve the quality and fairness of peer-reviewing. Decentralized Science offers services such as a tool to find the best and most reliable reviewers for a specific paper, and a reputation system for reviewers to increase the recognition of their invisible work while increasing the fairness, quality, and timelines of their review reports. Their technology is open and decentralized, and will always belong to the academic community. Join the network and help them promote an open and transparent future for peer-reviewing!

 

More Info: bloxberg

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Tue, 18 Feb 2020 09:49:27 +0100
New KEEPER update https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/580-new-keeper-update.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/580-new-keeper-update.html We are happy to announce our newest KEEPER update. So what’s new?

In addition to the promise to keep your data safe for at least 10 years, KEEPER has now a new Archiving-On-Demand function. This means, that KEEPER users only have to click a button to store their library on a dedicated and KEEPER independent system. It is possible to use this feature via KEEPER web for any library that is owned by the user. Just click the new "Archive"-button. The "Archive"-button can be found either under "My Libraries" or in the drop-down menu within a library.
With a correctly filled out archive-metadata.md file an additional archive will be created. KEEPER will take care of the whole archiving process. So go on – give your data a second home!

For more info please visit the KEEPER Knowledge Base.

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Wed, 12 Feb 2020 14:03:16 +0100
Springer Nature and Germany’s Projekt DEAL finalize world’s largest transformative open access agreement https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/575-springer-nature-projekt-deal-finalize-transformative-agreement.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/575-springer-nature-projekt-deal-finalize-transformative-agreement.html

Following the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in August 2019, Springer Nature and MPDL Services GmbH on behalf of Projekt DEAL today announce that the formal contract for the world’s largest transformative Open Access agreement to date has now been signed. From January 1st 2020, the agreement provides Open Access publishing services to academic authors at 700+ German research institutions. Extensive access to Springer Nature’s journal portfolio will be granted to participating institutions. The agreement will be published in full text online in conjunction with the start of the sign-up process for German institutions in the second half of January.

Read the press release issued by the German Rectors’ Conference here.

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Ana Valente) News Thu, 09 Jan 2020 11:04:04 +0100
3-month trial with Enago - 40% discount on manuscript editing https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/570-3-month-trial-with-enago-40-discount-on-manuscript-editing-2.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/570-3-month-trial-with-enago-40-discount-on-manuscript-editing-2.html Enago provides scientific and academic editing services to researchers and helps them to get published.

Max Planck authors now receive 40% discount on Enago’s manuscript editing services. In order to benefit from the pilot agreement and to receive the discount, you need to enter the service through a dedicated landing page for Max Planck affiliated authors:

https://www.enago.com/inst/mpauthors/

Please note: There is no central payment for Enago services by MPDL, authors need to cover the remaining 60% themselves. Find out more about Enago's terms and conditions on the service's landing page.

[Update January 2020: Discount increase from 30% to 40%.]

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Thu, 07 Nov 2019 13:37:53 +0100
ARTiFACTS Smart Contracts Now Processing on the Max Planck Society bloxberg Trusted Research Infrastructure https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/568-artifacts-smart-contracts-now-processing-on-the-max-planck-society-bloxberg-trusted-research-infrastructure.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/568-artifacts-smart-contracts-now-processing-on-the-max-planck-society-bloxberg-trusted-research-infrastructure.html Scientists Benefit from ARTiFACTS and bloxberg Interoperability

Cambridge, Mass. USA and München, Germany –September 3, 2019 –  ARTiFACTS and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) announced today ARTiFACTS is the first partner organization now registering transactions on the bloxberg distributed ledger. Using Smart Contracts to establish the proof-of-existence and citation actions of scientists provides a permanent, valid, and immutable chain of record in real-time. Maintaining the provenance of research contributions and acknowledgments creates stronger incentives for scientists to share their work, enabling them to receive recognition for their contributions and security for their intellectual property. The interoperability of ARTiFACTS and bloxberg offers researchers control over when their works are shared and with whom, both pre-publication and upon publishing their findings. 

It is universally recognized that sharing research findings earlier in the research process will accelerate discoveries. Working with the Max Planck Digital Library, a central unit of the Max Planck Society (MPS) that supports thousands of scientists in their publication and research data management efforts, both teams are collaborating to advance the effectiveness of blockchain-based solutions for improving scholarly research and communication.

“Enabling researchers to receive recognition for all of their scientific contributions in a secure, reliable and efficient way is our primary mission,” said ARTiFACTS President and Co-Founder, Dave Kochalko. “The ARTiFACTS team is proud to be providing innovative research solutions for the Max Planck community on this trusted infrastructure.”

“The progress from our collaboration with ARTiFACTS is gratifying,” said Sandra Vengadasalam, Head of the Digital Labs Department of the Max Planck Digital Library. “We are continuing to pursue innovation such as this which advances the communication of science and research conducted by our institutes.”

 

About ARTiFACTS

ARTiFACTS, creators of the world’s first blockchain-based collaboration and attribution platform for scholarly research, provides a user-friendly platform, purpose-built for academic and scientific research that leverages blockchain technology. Researchers can record a valid and immutable chain of records in real-time, from the earliest stages of research for all research artifacts, including citing/attribution transactions. ARTiFACTS Smart Contracts with customized bibliographic metadata enable performance of transactions made by researchers on the bloxberg trusted infrastructure.  While today’s digital scholarship creates linkages among a narrowed subset of indexed publications long after discoveries are made, ARTiFACTS focuses on capturing and linking knowledge from its initial ideation throughout the research process to informal and formal dissemination. By using the ARTiFACTS platform, researchers will be able to immutably prove ownership and existence of work, expand access to their research artifacts, provide and receive real-time attribution for novel work and more comprehensively, and rapidly build and demonstrate their body of scholarly contributions.

To learn more, visit ARTiFACTS and follow them on Twitter @ARTiFACTS_ai!

 

About the Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society conducts basic research in the natural sciences, life science, and humanities. The 84 Max Planck Institutes and 17 Max Planck Centers internationally focus on research fields that are innovative and address forward-looking scientific questions. The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is a central unit of the Max Planck Society that supports scientists with a broad portfolio of services in the fields of information provision, publication support and research data management.  With its Digital Labs department, MPDL ensures a constant pipeline of new technologies to provide innovative and sustainable services and tools for all Max Planck researchers.

To learn more, check out our website and follow us on Twitter @mpdl or Instagram @mpdldigitallabs!

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kar Kulpa) News Wed, 02 Oct 2019 11:19:15 +0200
The blockchain strategy of the German federal government: bloxberg as an example of the application of blockchain technology in science https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/566-blockchain-strategie-der-bundesregierung-bloxberg-als-beispiel-fuer-anwendungsbezogene-blockchaintechnologie-in-der-wissenschaft.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/566-blockchain-strategie-der-bundesregierung-bloxberg-als-beispiel-fuer-anwendungsbezogene-blockchaintechnologie-in-der-wissenschaft.html The German federal government refers to the bloxberg-initiative of the Max Planck Society in their recently published strategy paper on blockchain. Here, bloxberg is mentioned as an example of how the blockchain technology can be used and applied in science. Amongst other things, it was announced that future cooperations regarding blockchain-applications will be supported by the federal government.  With an increased funding, a significant rise in the amount of new and open forms of cooperation is expected.

More Information:

Blockchain Strategy of the German Federal Government

bloxberg

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Fri, 20 Sep 2019 09:32:43 +0200
MPDL Services GmbH: Understanding has been reached with Springer Nature on world´s largest transformative open access agreement https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/559-springer-nature-mou-en.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/559-springer-nature-mou-en.html test test

Photocredit: Bettina Ausserhofer

MPDL Services GmbH , on behalf of Project DEAL and Springer Nature, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 22.8.2019 in Berlin which defines the framework for the most comprehensive Open Access agreement worldwide. The previous German subscription expenses for Springer Nature journals will be systematically converted from 2020 onwards in order to make articles by authors from German research institutions freely available in Springer Nature journals. The MoU sets the scene for a transformative agreement which will include an open access gold component and a publish and read element. Around 13,000 contributions from German institutions will be published each year in over 600 open access journals and in 1,900 Springer Nature subscription journals. In addition, the model offers the academic community extensive read access to the scientific journals of Springer, Palgrave, Adis and Macmillan at the 700 or so eligible German scientific institutions. The final agreement is to be concluded and published before the end of this year.

Read the HRK press release

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Thu, 22 Aug 2019 12:46:11 +0200
New Edmond release: ORCID integration and additional metadata suggestions https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/553-new-edmond-release-orcid-integration-and-additional-metadata-suggestions.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/553-new-edmond-release-orcid-integration-and-additional-metadata-suggestions.html Edmond, the Open Access Data Repository of the Max Planck Society, now provides the opportunity to include author ORCID iDs as well as general metadata for data collections. Thereby datasets can be linked to corresponding scientific articles and some context (geolocation, biological study object, chemical element/compound, temporal coverage) can be provided where applicable. This information can also be added to existing collections, or transferred from the description of a collection to new dedicated fields. For details, see here or contact us.

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Thomas Richter) News Wed, 26 Jun 2019 08:52:33 +0200
ARTiFACTS and Max Planck Society Partner to Expand Use of Blockchain Platform for Scholarly Communications https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/551-artifacts-and-max-planck-society-partner-to-expand-use-of-blockchain-platform-for-scholarly-communications-en.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/551-artifacts-and-max-planck-society-partner-to-expand-use-of-blockchain-platform-for-scholarly-communications-en.html Scientists to Receive Recognition for their Research Contributions on Max Planck Digital Library Blockchain-Based Platform

Cambridge, Mass. USA/Munich, Germany  - ARTiFACTS and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) announced today a collaboration to investigate how blockchain technology can advance the way scientific data is handled. By providing the possibility to record a permanent, valid, and immutable chain of research data in real-time, the recognition of scholarly contributions by the MPS research community will be lifted to a new level. Working with the Max Planck Digital Library, a central unit of the Max Planck Society (MPS) that supports thousands of scientists in their publication and research data management efforts, both teams are collaborating to advance the effectiveness of blockchain-based solutions for improving scholarly research and communication.

It is universally recognized that sharing research findings earlier in the research process will accelerate discoveries. However, today’s scholarly communication process provides no system for sharing, discovering and attributing most scientific outputs. This delays the sharing of results, prevents scientists from receiving recognition in the form of citations to their contributions, impedes funding opportunities and career advancement.

In collaboration with MPDL, ARTiFACTS will develop blockchain smart contracts and decentralized applications (dAPPs) on the bloxberg Blockchain enabling MPG scientists to receive recognition for all of the research materials they create. “Scientists repeatedly tell us they seek a secure, reliable and efficient method of sharing research materials in ways that both protect their intellectual property and enable them to receive recognition in real-time for their contributions,” said ARTiFACTS President and Co-Founder, Dave Kochalko. “By providing ARTiFACTS services over the distributed ledger platform supported by the Max Planck Digital Library, we are pleased to advance the mission of this world class research organization.”

“This collaboration is an ideal fit with the forward-looking innovation our Digital Labs seeks to bring to the MPS research community,” said Sandra Vengadasalam, Head of the Digital Labs Department of the Max Planck Digital Library. “Backed by an experienced team delivering creative research information solutions, we look forward to working with ARTiFACTS and accelerating the velocity of MPS research.

About ARTiFACTS

ARTiFACTS, creators of the world’s first blockchain-based collaboration and attribution platform for scholarly research, provides a user-friendly platform, purpose built for academic and scientific research that leverages blockchain technology. Researchers can record a valid and immutable chain of records in real-time, from the earliest stages of research for all research artifacts, including citing/attribution transactions. While today’s digital scholarship merely creates linkages among an artificially narrowed subset of indexed publications long after discoveries are made, ARTiFACTS focuses on capturing and linking knowledge from its initial ideation throughout the research process to informal and formal dissemination. By using the ARTiFACTS platform, researchers will be able to immutably prove ownership and existence of novel work, expand access to their research artifacts, provide and receive real-time attribution for novel work and more comprehensively and rapidly build and demonstrate their body of scholarly contributions.

To learn more, visit us at artifacts.ai and follow us on Twitter @ARTiFACTS_ai.


About the Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society conducts basic research in the natural sciences, life science, and humanities. The 84 Max Planck Institutes and 17 Max Planck Centers internationally focus on research fields that are innovative and address forward-looking scientific questions. The Max Planck Digital Library is a central service unit of the Max Planck Society dedicated to the strategic planning, development and operation of digital infrastructures necessary for providing Max Planck Institutes with scientific information, publication support and research data management services. With its Digital Labs department, MPDL ensures a constant pipeline of new technologies to provide innovative and sustainable services for all Max Planck researchers.

To learn more, visit us at https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/, and follow us on Twitter @mpdl and Instagram @mpdldigitallabs

 

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Sandra Vengadasalam) News Fri, 07 Jun 2019 07:29:37 +0200
How to deal with no subscription DEAL https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/547-how-to-deal-with-no-subscription-deal-2.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/547-how-to-deal-with-no-subscription-deal-2.html In their joint push to bring the advantages of an open digital environment to scholarly publishing, research organizations around the globe are facing long and sometimes tough negotiations with academic publishers which may lead to a situation in which journal subscriptions have to be cancelled. MPDL in collaboration with Max Planck's PhD net have put together an overview of the most valuable alternative access routes for scholarly articles.

Download flyer "How to deal with no subscription DEAL"

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Mon, 03 Jun 2019 08:24:14 +0200
New Consortium members for bloxberg https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/545-new-consortium-members-for-bloxberg.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/545-new-consortium-members-for-bloxberg.html We are very happy to announce the newest members of the bloxberg Consortium. Welcome KIT, Universidad Nacional de Colombia & University of Zurich!

 

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Wed, 22 May 2019 14:21:36 +0200
bloxberg publishes whitepaper https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/541-bloxberg-publishes-whitepaper.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/541-bloxberg-publishes-whitepaper.html The MPDL is happy to announce that the bloxberg whitepaper is published.

Read more @ Newsroom of the Max Planck Society!

 

 

Get the whitepaper @ bloxberg!

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Thu, 09 May 2019 08:32:53 +0200
Open Access Agreement with Cambridge University Press https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/532-open-access-agreement-with-cambridge-university-press-2.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/532-open-access-agreement-with-cambridge-university-press-2.html Building on the ‘read and publish’ agreement coordinated by the Bavarian State Library (BSB) with financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG), MPDL on behalf of the Max Planck Society has now entered in a new open access agreement with Cambridge University Press,

Go to the press release

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Mon, 08 Apr 2019 13:32:39 +0200
Transformative agreement with American Chemical Society (ACS) https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/530-transformative-agreement-with-american-chemical-society-acs-2.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/530-transformative-agreement-with-american-chemical-society-acs-2.html With the beginning of the year 2019, American Chemical Society (ACS) and Max Planck Gesellschaft have entered in a new transformative agreement that provides researchers affiliated with Max Planck institutes the opportunity to disseminate immediately, under an open access license, 100 percent of their research articles upon acceptance and publication by a peer-reviewed ACS journal.

Read the full press release

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Fri, 29 Mar 2019 15:16:20 +0100
Looking back at the Open Science Days 2019 https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/526-looking-back-at-the-open-science-days-2019.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/526-looking-back-at-the-open-science-days-2019.html On February 5/6 the MPDL had invited to the fourth Open Science Days at Berlin’s Harnack House.

“Research Software” being this year’s focus topic of choice, a number of interested attendees from all over Europe and even overseas came together in the beautiful Goethe Auditorium.


 

And the subject really turned out to be the right decision. It became clear that today, Research Software is and certainly will remain one of the central aspects for the future development of research itself.

Compared to Open Access and even Open Research Data, a lot of basic questions are still unanswered – and several things are missing for a proper dealing with this topic in everyday research: Platforms, tools, workflows, standards, guidelines, rewarding systems, business models and much more.

This calls for urgent action by all parties concerned – a message also included in the magnificent keynote by Roberto Di Cosmo. Furthermore, Mr. Di Cosmo reported about the concept and the activities of France’s Software Heritage, which deals with the collection, long term preservation and sharing of software from various sources.

The conference talks included different concrete examples of Research Software like Picasso for DNA-PAINT, the robotic behavior orchestration software playful or GGIR, which is about processing raw data from movement sensors.

Besides that, we got to know about platforms like swMath which brings together software and publication data, or the impressive services AiiDA and Materials Cloud for the procession of raw data at Lausannes EPFL.

Initiatives presented at the conference were the Software Sustainability Institute and de-RSE, the German branch of an international network for Research Software Engineers. These are all about bringing the community together and supporting colleagues in their daily struggle with the reality of Research Software processes.

The MDPL team really enjoyed these one and a half days at Harnack House and we took a huge mass of new ideas, impressions and information with us.

Conference slides as well as some pictures are available at the OSD-Homepage.

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Martin Boosen) News Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:46:16 +0100
bloxberg – The novel Blockchain Consortium for Science https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/523-bloxberg-the-novel-consortium-for-blockchain.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/523-bloxberg-the-novel-consortium-for-blockchain.html Munich, February, 2019 – the Max Planck Digital Library is pleased to announce the new research project bloxberg: the first trusted research infrastructure

Twelve exclusively selected leading research organizations from ten different countries came together to form the global Blockchain Consortium for Science – bloxberg.

Sandra Vengadasalam and Friederike Kleinfercher from the Max Planck Society envisioned the first trusted research infrastructure by initiating the bloxberg summit to propel blockchain in science. The event took place from February 20th to the 22nd at the magnificent Ringberg Castle in the Bavarian Alps, close to Tegernsee.

The two happy initiators after a successful signing ceremony
The two happy initiators after a successful signing ceremony.

 

The bloxberg infrastructure is a secure global blockchain established by a consortium of leading research organizations – including Carnegie Mellon, UCL, ETH Library at ETH Zürich, Georgia Tech, IT University of Copenhagen, University of Belgrade, University of Johannesburg, University of Kassel, University of Nicosia, University of Sarajevo, and the Max Planck Society – to provide scientists with blockchain based services. The bloxberg infrastructure broadens the scientific landscape of regionally and nationally governed blockchain networks to become the first truly globally maintained decentralized network by scientists for science. By establishing the permissioned, public blockchain bloxberg, the network is safeguarded against the cryptographic power of third entities. The credibility of the research organizations maintaining the network constitutes trust in the system.

After two days of intensive discussion, the founders signed a memorandum to establish the Novel Consortium for Blockchain in Science – bloxberg. bloxberg will foster services like proving the authenticity of data, protecting intellectual property rights, sharing of precious research results, peer reviewing and publishing, enabling decentralized autonomous research organizations, and much more.

“With bloxberg a new era has begun” says Dr. Frank Sander, General Manager of the MPDL, “Now the data world has a new dimension: time”.

The bloxberg founders are certain: “With bloxberg, we will change the way scientific data is managed, scientific results are communicated, and scientists collaborate”.

Scientific institutions around the world are invited to join and become a part of bloxberg!

 

To learn more visit: bloxberg

 

The founding members of bloxberg at Ringberg Castle
The founding members of bloxberg at Ringberg Castle.

 

Pictures: Clemens Fantur

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Mon, 25 Feb 2019 15:57:17 +0100
Done DEAL: All German research articles in Wiley journals to be published open access under new transformative agreement https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/516-done-deal-all-german-research-articles-in-wiley-journals-to-be-published-open-access-under-new-transformative-agreement.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/516-done-deal-all-german-research-articles-in-wiley-journals-to-be-published-open-access-under-new-transformative-agreement.html Germany’s Projekt DEAL and the publisher John Wiley & Sons have entered a ground-breaking transformative agreement, in line with the objectives of the Open Access 2020 initiative.This has been officially announced today in Berlin in the course of the 14th annual conference for Academic Publishing in Europe (APE). 

Under this new agreement, all authors affiliated with 700 academic institutions in Germany will retain copyright and their accepted articles will be published open access in Wiley journals. Almost 10,000 articles by German researchers are published a year in Wiley journals, constituting around 9% of the publisher’s total output. The agreement also grants students and faculty read access to the full Wiley journal portfolio including backfiles starting with 1997. The national-level agreement is based on a “publish and read” model in which fees are paid by institutions—not for subscriptions but for open access publishing services.

IMG 2019 01 15T13 56 11

(Guido Herrmann, Wiley and Frank Sander, MPDL)

In order to enable the signing of the DEAL contract with Wiley, the Max Planck Society, as a member of the Alliance of Science Organisations behind the DEAL Consortium, founded MPDL Services GmbH. MPDL's General Manager Frank Sander therefore co-signed the agreement today.

The agreement will be made public in a month’s time and an English-language FAQ will be released by the Projekt DEAL working group.

Read the official press release

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Tue, 15 Jan 2019 08:14:30 +0100
Astronomy & Astrophysics signs transformative Open Access agreement with Max Planck Society https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/511-astronomy-astrophysics-signs-transformative-open-access-agreement-with-max-planck-society.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/511-astronomy-astrophysics-signs-transformative-open-access-agreement-with-max-planck-society.html We are excited about our new transformative agreement with EDP Sciences for Astronomy & Astrophysics, which is the single most important journal for the Max Planck Society, as measured by output. Almost 500 papers from Max Planck authors are published in Astronomy & Astrophysics per year.

Read the full press release

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Thu, 20 Dec 2018 10:15:06 +0100
Max Planck Society discontinues agreement with Elsevier; stands firm with Projekt DEAL negotiations https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/505-elsevier-cancellation.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/505-elsevier-cancellation.html The President and scientific council members of the Max Planck Society (MPS), one of the world’s largest research performing organizations, counting 14,000 scientists who publish 12K new research articles a year—around 1500 of which in Elsevier journals, have mandated the Max Planck Digital Library to discontinue their Elsevier subscription when the current agreement expires on December 31, 2018. With this move the Society joins nearly 200 universities and research institutions in Germany who have already cancelled their individual agreements with Elsevier in the course of 2016 and 2017 and affirmed their support of the national licensing framework Projekt DEAL, led by the German Rector’s Conference.

In response to the untenably increasing cost of access to scholarly journals and, more importantly, the stifling effect of the antiquated paywall system on the research process, Projekt DEAL was established to negotiate nationwide transformative agreements as a means to transition from the current subscription system to one based on open access publishing models that enable complete and immediate access to the latest research for scholars and citizens alike, free of cost or other barriers. “DEAL is fully in line with the objectives of the OA2020 Initiative, which is strongly supported by the Max Planck Society,’ emphasized MPS President Martin Stratmann.

The transformative agreement that the DEAL negotiators propose to the major academic publishers is a “publish and read” model covering open access publication of all scholarly articles by authors affiliated with German institutions and, at the same time, grant reading access for German institutions to the publisher’s entire portfolio of electronic journals still behind paywalls.

As no sustainable offer according these fundamental criteria has been forthcoming from the publisher, negotiations with Elsevier were suspended last July. Researchers at the 200 institutions supporting the DEAL negotiations have consequently foregone access to the Elsevier platform and are broadly making use of alternative routes for their research needs. The Max Planck Digital Library has already set in place mechanisms to address the content needs of its researchers when Elsevier shuts off access at the beginning of January.

“The system of scholarly publishing today is a relic of the print era, and we want to activate a real paradigm shift in order to finally utilize the opportunities of the digital age”, says Gerard Meijer, director at Max Planck Society’s Fritz Haber Institute and a member of the DEAL negotiation team. In a strong show of support for the DEAL negotiations, 13 prominent Max Planck Society scientists resigned from their positions as editors and members of the editorial and advisory boards of Elsevier journals in 2017.

“Transformative agreements are one of the primary strategies for driving large scale transition of scholarly publishing to open access and are increasingly being adopted by the scores of international supporters of our global Open Access 2020 Initiative”, says Ralf Schimmer, Deputy General Manager of the Max Planck Digital Library. ”As both producers and consumers of the research articles circulated through their journal platforms, we have the leverage to demand a system that meets the needs of our researchers, and by adopting these transformative agreements, we will be able to achieve our Society’s goal of publishing the vast majority of our researchers’ articles open access in a matter of a few short years. We have already accomplished such deals with some of the most relevant publishers to Max Planck researchers, such as Springer Nature, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics Publishing. Further publishers will follow in 2019.”

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Tue, 18 Dec 2018 12:37:06 +0100
New transformative Open Access Agreement with Oxford University Press https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/499-new-transformative-open-access-agreement-with-oxford-university-press-2.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/499-new-transformative-open-access-agreement-with-oxford-university-press-2.html The Max Planck Digital Library established a central transformative Open Access agreement with Oxford University Press (OUP) allowing Max Planck Members to publish Open Access in OUP’s journal collection. Open Access charges will be covered centrally by MPDL as of submission date January 1, 2019.

OUP press release

 

 

 

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Mon, 10 Dec 2018 06:09:45 +0100
Aligning strategies to enable Open Access https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/496-aligning-strategies-to-enable-open-access-2.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/496-aligning-strategies-to-enable-open-access-2.html A strong signal to the publishers from the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference

The 14th Berlin Open Access Conference, hosted by the Max Planck Society and organized by the Max Planck Digital Library on behalf of the Open Access 2020 Initiative (oa2020.org), has just come to an end after two intense days with 170 participants from 37 countries around the world discussing where the research organizations and their library consortia stand in their negotiations with scholarly publishers in transitioning scholarly publishing to open access. The participants represented research performing and research funding organizations, libraries and government, associations of researchers and other umbrella organizations, many of them holding high-level positions at their organizations. In his welcoming address, Max Planck Society President Martin Stratmann captured the spirit of the meeting when he stated: 'Open Access is the responsibility of all of us'.

stratmann b14

The conference brought to light strong consensus and alignment among the diverse international communities represented around the necessity of stepping up efforts to move away from the subscription-based system of scholarly publishing to open access-based business models. A major focus was placed on transformative agreements (eg “read and publish”), which were identified as perhaps the most viable instrument at the moment to accelerate the transition to open access. As it became clear from statements made by representatives from Japan, the United States, South Africa and others, that readiness to adopt this approach is now extending beyond Europe, where it originated, and is currently being adopted in several countries; in particular, this was emphasized in a bold statement from China, the nation with the largest share of research publications.

After aligning on the goals and strategies during the first day of the conference, the CEOs of the three largest publishers of scholarly journals, Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, and Springer Nature, were invited by the President of the Max Planck Society, Martin Stratmann, to discuss the global demand for transformative agreements on the second day. The message conveyed to the publishers was that the global research communities are committed to complete and immediate open access, to retaining author copyrights and to negotiating transformative agreements that are temporary, transitional, and cost-neutral as a means to shift to full open access within just a few years with the expectation that cost savings in scholarly communication will follow as market forces take hold. The publishers were called upon to move towards complete and immediate open access according to these principles.

It also came out that there is a strong alignment between the approaches taken by OA2020, Plan S, the Jussieu Call and other approaches dedicated to drive more open access into the system of scholarly communication.

Further reports will soon appear on the homepage of the 14th Berlin Open Access Conference:
https://oa2020.org/b14-conference/

Read more in the Nature News

 

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Kai Geschuhn) News Fri, 07 Dec 2018 18:22:16 +0100
The Novel Blockchain Consortium for Science: bloxberg @ Blockchain Munich Meetup https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/488-the-novel-blockchain-consoritum-for-science-bloxberg-blockchain-munich-meetup.html https://www.mpdl.mpg.de/en/about-us/news/488-the-novel-blockchain-consoritum-for-science-bloxberg-blockchain-munich-meetup.html As a keynote speaker the MPDL presented their new project bloxberg at the last Blockchain Munich Meetup. The bloxberg infrastructure is a secure global blockchain established by a consortium of leading research organizations to provide scientists worldwide with decentralized services based on the bloxberg-blockchain. It aims to foster a collaboration among the global scientific community, empowering researchers with robust, autonomous services that transcend institutional boundaries. For example, with consented transactions on the bloxberg infrastructure, research claims need not be limited to one institution alone, but can be confirmed by the whole trusted network. Additionally, researchers can also leverage bloxberg to create a transparent footprint of their work, without revealing its content.

The vision is to have sufficient representation from various scientific entities participating in the consortium, so that the network itself may replace traditional scientific infrastructure such as closed-access publishing of research results, among others.

A great deal of interest was shown by the participants who were really interested in the topic of Blockchain in Science. The MPDL’s vision was lively discussed during and after the talk.

We would like to thank everyone who joined us at the Blockchain Munich Meetup and we hope to see everyone soon!

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homepage@mpdl.mpg.de (Una Sokcevic) News Fri, 19 Oct 2018 14:33:38 +0200
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