Neues Script

Explanatory Video

The HIRMEOS Project from HIRMEOS on Vimeo.

Project Overview

Neues Script helped the University of Göttingen (Germany) to communicate 'Hirmeos', a research project funded within the framework of Horizon 2020 (the EU Research and Innovation programme). The aim of the project is to encourage a greater circulation of knowledge production in the Social Sciences and Humanities, integrating scholarly Open Access Monographs into the European Open Science framework.

HIRMEOS integrates five existing digital publishing platforms: Oapen (Netherlands), Open Edition (France), Univerlag, University of Göttingen (Germany), Ubiquity Press (Uk), E-publishing EKT (Greece).

Challenges

The challenge was (1) to briefly introduce the current scenario of the Open Access way of publishing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2) give a clear textual and visual overview of new digital services and tools on five academic publishing platforms across Europe, and (3) explain tech concepts such as discoverability, annotation, entities recognition service, identification and certification of the peer-reviewing process.

Output

We explored concepts, issues, and business models of Open Access publishing. This gave us the foundation to ideate an explanatory animation and implement an interactive framework (FrameTrail) to provide more context and depth to the information.

The animation introduces the conceptual, economical and technical barriers of the transition to Open Acces, and tells how the new technologies of Hirmeos will help integrating Open Access Monographs into the European Open Science framework.

Hypervideo - FrameTrail

To enhance the information experience, the video, has been enriched by links to external resources and additional materials organized in four thematic collections, becoming a hypervideo. To do this we have implemented FrameTrail, a web based and open source software ideated and developed by Joscha Jäger, allowing people to experience, manage and edit interactive video directly in a web browser. It enables to hyperlink filmic contents, include additional multimedia documents (e.g. text overlays, images or interactive maps) and to add supplementing materials (annotations) at specific points.

The aim of the interactive video framework is to offer a point of reference for all those seeking information on the topic of the Open Access monographs.

The four collections under the video, are the following: Partners & Platforms, which provides links to partners and digital platforms involved in our project. Services & Tools, with links to websites of the resources HIRMEOS is using to enhance the OA digital monograph. Open Access Basics, presenting encyclopedia entries or similar contributions on basic concepts of Open Access publishing. Scientific publishing, with PDFs of articles, monographs and other forms of publication investigating topic related to the Open Access monograp.

Script

(400 words - 3 min video)

Title

Hirmeos - High Integration of Research Monographs in the European Open Science Infrastructure. Shaping new ways to open up the monograph.

Introduction

Scholars in the Social Sciences and Humanities make use of monographs to communicate research data, debate ideas, and shift paradigms.

Rooted in the print format, the monograph is now evolving toward Open Access, becoming an enriched digital document which can be discovered, cited, linked and annotated in a multi-modal environment.

Problem

But the transition to Open Access comes with conceptual, economical and technical barriers, from reading habits and quality assurance, to licensing and data storage demands.

Turning Point

To overcome these obstacles, the European Union funded the HIRMEOS project. HIRMEOS integrates five existing digital platforms on which more than 10.000 open access, peer reviewed monographs are published, in more than 10 languages.

HIRMEOS adds new services to ensure better discoverability and quality certification of books, and provides tools for named entity recognition, annotation and metrics to enhance their usage.

These implementations prepare the way for OPERAS: a wider research infrastructure aimed at developing more inclusive open scholarly communication and exploring emerging publishing models.

Services and Tools

First, HIRMEOS sets up a common framework, integrating standard identifiers and a shared certification service. Three new data sources identify authors, documents and funding institutions.

For researchers, this means it is easier to cite books and verify sources, as well as to cross link documents and find scholarly contributions.

By adopting a system of peer review certification, HIRMEOS aims at giving scholars and libraries confidence in the quality of the monographs they acquire and read.

Three advanced services allow for new forms of interaction with the documents. 1) The first tool recognizes named entities types (person name, location, organization) in the text and identifies them correctly; 2) The second tool enables readers to directly add annotations to monographs, pioneering new forms of commentary and peer review, and transforming the monograph into a place of open discussion between authors and readers. 3) Thirdly, Usage Metrics and Altmetrics describe the reach and impact of a monograph, measuring downloads, views and citations in scholarly literature and social media.

Take away

We intend the Open Access Digital Monograph as a medium that completes and enhances the printed document, uncovering new methodologies and research fields in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

Call To Action

Follow Hirmeos and Operas’ roadmap at hirmeos.eu and operas-eu.org and join the discussion to develop better ways of acquiring and disseminating open knowledge.