Virtual Research Environments Cynthia van der Brugge January 28, 2014

Virtual Research Environments Supports the Research Team in the Research Process Project start 2009, standard library service since 2012 At the moment more than 20 VRE’s / requests Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 Sharing and editing files in a secure way with a team (texts, images, audio, video) (↔ regular cloud solutions) Data storage during the research (4 GB)* Special modules*

Planning and Project Management Address book Team Calendar Reports Task List

Communication (internal / external) Team Discussion Conference website* Weblog

Document and Data Management Documents (Meta)data Access Rights Data Visualisation* Version Management Archiving* VRE Reference Management*

Also a role in education? Connection between research and education is a key value at Leiden University Involvement in research is motivating for students VRE as a platform to engage students Project to explore this

Project Jan 2013 – dec 2014 Looking for 6 various pilots (didactical approach, level, group size, faculty, etc.) Conditions for allowing students into the VRE Didactical aspects, kinds of tasks / assignments Perception of the VRE, difference with Blackboard Viable as a business model? Contribution to university strategy and student motivation

Separate educational VRE’s Students work in groups on a research topic and … … collect data and texts in Document Libraries …discuss their research questions in een forum … write about their experiences in a blog … work on their research design in a wiki

Pilot: De Digitale Samenleving

Research VRE’s with educational functions Examples of student participation: Excercises with existing data, e.g. repeating an analysis Collect or classify material Use data for their own (thesis) research Fit the VRE for student use: Subsite with copy of data and special student functionality (e.g. separate libraries, blog, forum etc.) Protect files or restrict access to (parts of) the original site

Pilot: Protagoras Sources