1. Virtual Research Environments
Cynthia van der Brugge January 28, 2014

2. Virtual Research Environments
Supports the Research Team in the Research Process
Project start 2009, standard library service since 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*

3. Planning and Project Management
Address book
Team Calendar
Reports
Task List

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

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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. Pilot: De Digitale Samenleving

10. 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

11. Pilot: Protagoras Sources