Virtual research environments in scholarly work and communications

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the implications of the emergence of virtual research environments (VREs) and related e‐research tools for scholarly work and communications processes.Design/methodology/approachThe concepts of VREs and of e‐research more generally are introduced and relevant literature is reviewed. On this basis, the authors discuss the developing role they play in research practices across a number of disciplines and how scholarly communication is beginning to evolve in response to the opportunities these new tools open up and the challenges they raise.FindingsVirtual research environments are beginning to change the ways in which researchers go about their work and how they communicate with each other and with other stakeholders such as publishers and service providers. The changes are driven by the changing landscape of data production, curation and (re‐)use, by new scientific methods, by changes in technology supply and the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of research in many domains.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper is based on observations drawn from a number of projects in which the authors are investigating the uptake of advanced ICT in research. The paper describes the role of VREs as enablers of changing research practices and the ways in which they engender changes in scholarly work and communications.Practical implicationsLibrarians and other information professionals need to be aware of how advanced ICTs are being used by researchers to change the ways they work and communicate. Through their experiences with the integration of virtual learning environments within library information services, they are well placed to inform developments that may well change scholarly communications fundamentally.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to emerging discussions about the likely trajectory and impact of advanced ICTs on research and their implications for those, such as librarians and other information professionals, who occupy important support roles.

How to teach digital library data to swim into research

“…Nevertheless, interoperability is identified as one main challenge [2]. VRE tools should be able to interact with other tools used in research as well as archives and libraries and their objects.…”

“…1 Lately, libraries and archives have digitalized a range of their objects that can be addressed from VREs by encompassing different tools to conduct research. Nevertheless, the VRE community identifies interoperability as one of its main challenges and demands for light-weight tools [2] [5]. This paper argues that VREs combined with Semantic Web technologies could provide the missing link between libraries and research by taking into account their heterogeneous practices and styles of using data and schemata.…”

“…The integration process is part of the VRE project "Semantic MediaWiki for Collaborative Corpora Analysis" (SMW-CorA) 2 which aims to adjust Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) for research: enabling researchers to create a research corpus, enrich, annotate and analyze digital objects. The SMW-.CorA project takes insights from previous failures into account by balancing the fallacies of false abstractions and concreteness.…”

“…For a more detailed introduction to VREs see [1][2][3] [4]. 2 This project is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) entitled: "Entwicklung einer Virtuellen Forschungsumgebung für die Historische Bildungsforschung mit Semantischer WikiTechnologie -Semantic MediaWiki for Collaborative Corpora Analysis" in the domain of "Scientific Library Services and Information Systems" (LIS). It is realized in a co-operation between the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Library for Research on Educational History (BBF) and researchers of educational history.…”

Developing dynamic virtual geographic environments (VGEs) for geographic research

“…Accordingly, modern geographic research has moved towards integration and a comprehensive perspective on the world, which requires experts from different domains to work collaboratively while not keep their head down. Because of this aspect, on one hand, web-based virtual worlds provide a favorable natural advantage for users to communicate within a same environment; on the other hand, some virtual research environments (VREs) have also supported generic research tasks such as data management (horizontal view) as well as allowing scientists to use their tools and technologies within their particular disciplines (vertical view) (Voss and Procter 2009;Granell et al 2013). Indeed, there is an urgent need to merge these two types of systems so as to facilitate collaboration based on common cognition .…”