European Natural Science Collections (NSC) are part of the global natural and cultural capital and represent 80% of the world bio-and geo-diversity. Data derived from these collections underpin thousands of scholarly publications and official reports (used to support legislative and regulatory processes relating to health, food, security, sustainability and environmental change) and let to inventions and products that today play an important role in our bio-economy. In the last decades, the research practice in natural sciences changed dramatically. Advances in digital, genomic and information technologies enable natural science collections to provide new insights but also ask for changing the current operational and business models of individual collections held at local natural history museums and universities. A new business model that provides unified access to collection objects and all scientific data derived from them. Although aggregating infrastructures like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, GenBank and Catalogue of Life now successfully aggregate data on specific data classes, the landscape remains fragmented with limited capacity to bring together this information in a systematic and robust manner and with scattered access to the physical objects. The Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) represents a pan-European initiative, and the largest ever agreement of natural science museums, to jointly address the fragmentation of European collections. DiSSCo is unifying European natural science collections into a coherent new research infrastructure, able to provide bio- and geo-diversity data at the scale, form and precision required by a multi-disciplinary user base in science. DiSSCo is harmonising digitisation, curation and publication processes and workflows across the scientific collections in Europe and enables linking of occurrence, genomic, chemical and morphological data classes as well as publications and experts to the physical object. In this paper we will present the socio-cultural and governance aspects of this research infrastructure. DiSSCo is receiving political support from 11 countries in Europe and will gradually change its funding model from institutional to national funding, with temporary funding from the EC to support the preparation and development. Solutions to achieve large scale digitisation are currently designed in the EC funded ICEDIG project to underpin the future large scale digitisation carried out by the countries. Unified virtual (digitisation on demand) and transnational physical access to the collections is over the next four years being developed in the EC funded SYNTHESYS+ project. The governance of DiSSCo is designed to gradually change from a steering committee composed of a few large natural history museums contributing in cash to initiate the development into a legal entity in which national consortia are represented, with a central coordination office for daily management. Each country individually decides how its entities (scientific collection facilities, research councils, governmental bodies) are organised in their national consortium. A stakeholder and user forum, Scientific Advisory Board and International Advisory Board will ensure that DiSSCo will be functional in enabling science across disciplines and within the international landscape of infrastructures. Training and short scientific missions are being developed in the MOBILISE COST Action to build capacity in FAIR data production, publication and usage of scientific collection-derived data in Europe and to initiate the socio-cultural changes needed in the collection-holding institutes. A Helpdesk is being constructed in the SYNTHESYS+ and DiSSCo Prepare projects to further facilitate the use and scientific use cases have been collected in ICEDIG to develop and facilitate e-services tailored to scientific needs.
Editorial _______________________He aquí el quinto número de la Revista De Prácticas y Discursos. Cuadernos de Ciencias Sociales, publicación que, como es de público conocimiento, se realiza desde el Centro de Estudios Sociales de la UNNE, y a partir de 2015, con el compromiso de su edición semestral.Pretendemos, de este modo, contribuir a su consolidación, duplicando nuestros esfuerzos. Nuestro entusiasmo refiere, asimismo, al haber logrado en estos pocos años, un creciente reconocimiento en el mundo de las publicaciones científicas.
El presente artículo deriva de un proceso de investigación-acción, realizado en el marco del Programa Iniciativas, en una escuela de la ciudad de Corrientes, Argentina, y cuyo propósito se orientaba a definir estrategias que permitieran incidir en los niveles de repitencia y deserción en la misma. Las reflexiones, en este caso, derivan de información construida mediante entrevistas a docentes, alumnos y padres/tutores, a partir de una muestra dirigida, utilizando como criterio para la definición del número de casos el de saturación. A partir del análisis del discurso de los distintos actores es posible mostrar que la imagen de escuela/alumno que construye el docente —y en la cual basa su práctica educativa— corresponde a una definición histórica propia del proyecto de la modernidad y por lo tanto no adecuada a las características que derivan de la crisis del sistema educativo; el énfasis en los aspectos estructurales como factores del fracaso y un proceso de des-responsabilización por parte de la institución escolar; en consonancia con esto los padres tienden a culpabilizar al alumno, siendo, en definitiva, éste el único capaz de asumir el fracaso escolar como propio. La comprensión de tales procesos y del papel que desempeñan los distintos agentes educativos pueden contribuir a develar la cultura escolar y los mecanismos de exclusión que son generados en la realidad de la escuela, en su relación contradictoria con la sociedad pero también a construir en lo cotidiano espacios de lucha que permitan el desarrollo de una escuela de calidad y no excluyente.
Specimens held in private natural history collections form an essential, but often neglected part of the specimens held worldwide in natural history collections. When engaging in regional, national or international initiatives aimed at increasing the accessibility of biodiversity data, it is paramount to include private collections as much and as often as possible. Compared to larger collections in national history institutions, private collections present a unique set of challenges: they are numerous, anonymous, small and diverse in all aspects of collection management. In ICEDIG, a design study for DiSSCo these challenges were tackled in task 2 "Inventory of content and incentives for digitisation of small and private collections" under Workpackage 2 "Inventory of current criteria for prioritization of digitization". First, we need to understand the current state and content of private collections within Europe, to identify and tackle challenges more effectively. While some private collections will duplicate material already held in public collections, many are likely to fill more specialised or unusual niches, relevant to the particular collector(s). At present, there is little evidence about the content of private collections and this needs to be explored. In 2018, a European survey was carried out amongst private collection owners to gain more insight in the volume, scope and degree of digitisation of these collections. Based on this survey, all of the respondents’ collections combined are estimated to contain between 9 and 33 million specimens. This is only the tip of the iceberg for private collections in Europe and underlines the importance of these private collections. Digitisation and sharing collection data are activities that are overall considered important among private collection owners. The survey also showed that for those who have not yet started digitising their collection, the provision of tools and information would be most valuable. These and other highlights of the survey will be presented. In addition, protocols for inventories of private collections will be discussed, as well as ways to keep these up to date. To enhance the inclusion of private collections in Europe’s digitisation efforts, we recognise that we mainly have to focus on the challenges regarding the ‘how’ (work-process), and the sharing of information residing in private collections (including ownership, legal issues, sensitive data). Where necessary, we will also draw attention to the ‘why’ (motivation) of digitisation. A communication strategy aimed at raising awareness about digitisation, offering insight in the practicalities to implement digitisation as well as providing answers to issues related to sharing information, is an essential tool. Elements of a communication strategy to further engage private collection owners will be presented, as will conclusions and recommendations. Finally, digitisation and communication aspects related to private collection owners will need to be tested within the community. Therefore, a pilot project is currently (2018-2019) being carried out in Estonia, Finland and the Netherlands to digitise private collections in a variety of settings. Preliminary results will be presented, zooming in on different approaches to include data from private collections in the overall (research) infrastructures.
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