2022: Quarter 4 - Visualisations in CatalogPlus | Start of project “Responsible Metrics” | 2nd General Assembly of EOSC Support Office Austria

Visualisations as a new feature in CatalogPlus

In cooperation with Open Knowledge Maps, opens an external URL in a new window, the search function and search result display in CatalogPlus, the library's central discovery portal, has been expanded by two features: Since December 2022, search results can be displayed not only in list form, but also visualised as a clustered knowledge map, or in chronological sequence as a stream graph. The thematic clusters of the map and the timeline are generated in real time based on AI. For the time being, the prototype contains content exclusively from the external source BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine, opens an external URL in a new window. As a next step, the library's own holdings on the UN Sustainable Development Goals will also be included as a special use case and made available as an Open Knowledge Map.

Start of project “Responsible Metrics”

This project will identify, discuss and evaluate new indicators for assessing research achievements at two pilot faculties. The project team includes 16 persons from the Faculty of Physics, the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and from central divisions. In accordance with S.P.A.C.E., opens an external URL in a new window, different career levels of scientific staff and other diversity aspects were taken into account. At the kick-off meeting on 05 October 2022, the framework was established with regard to international initiatives such as CoARA, opens an external URL in a new window and the Austrian Open Science Policy, opens an external URL in a new window, common project goals were set and tasks were defined. A project page with relevant materials was set up in a coLAB space. Analyses of trends in research assessment in an international and regional context started in December.

Second General Assembly of EOSC Support Office Austria

The Second General Assembly of EOSC Austria, opens an external URL in a new window took place on Monday, 07 November 2022 at Graz University of Technology, chair of the Management Board until the end of 2022. The opening by Katrin Vohland, Vienna Natural History Museum, and the keynote speech by Ute Gunsenheimer of the EOSC Association were followed by further professionally valuable contributions. In the afternoon, summaries by the working groups (including Beate Guba), the Synergy Team (including Barbara Sánchez) and the back office (Juliana Giroletti) presented their results and the planned next steps. The ACONET Association and the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) expressed their support and praised the initiative. The office of the Support Office Austria was set up at TU Wien.

2022: Quarter 3 - Implementation of the library's sustainability concept | OPUSH kickoff | Skills4EOSC kickoff

Systematic implementation of the library's sustainability concept

TU Wien Bibliothek confirmed its commitment to sustainability by signing the Green Library Manifesto, and in 2022 developed a concept for this purpose that takes into account buildings, library services, administration and environmental aspects. In order to reduce the library’s ecological footprint, continual monitoring was implemented. To calculate our greenhouse gas emissions, we feed CO2-relevant data on our consumption of heat, electricity, service water, toner, paper and print products, our IT equipment and our mobility data into the calculator provided by the Alliance of Sustainable Universities in Austria. Our energy consumption has already gone down. We collect used and empty toner cartridges and donate them to a social project of the Austrian Children’s Cancer Charity. The ecological handprint shows a saving of a minimum of 1139.60 kg of CO2 for this year: This is the amount 8 library staff members achieved within the “Wien radelt” (Vienna cycles) campaign, covering a distance of 6460.30 km by bike and on foot between 20 March and 30 September 2022.

Open Urban Sustainability Hubs (OPUSH): First on-site meeting of the international project team and official kick-off with national partners in Vienna

With Christian Peer as Principal Investigator, two OPUSH workshops took place in Vienna as personal attendance events to an enthusiastic welcome. The first workshop aimed to create connections between the national partners and discuss first ideas for citizen science experiments in Vienna. The second workshop was held with the international project partners. The participants visited TU Wien Bibliothek and Deck 50 of the Natural History Museum and discussed urban sustainability practices involving open science in Barcelona, Delft, Tallinn and Vienna, and the current state of research on the importance of citizen science for the urban sustainability transformation.  

Start of Horizon Europe project Skills4EOSC

In September 2022, the Skills4EOSC project kick-off took place in Pisa. The aims of the project are: 1. unifying the current training landscape into a common and trusted pan-European ecosystem, 2. upskilling of European researchers and data professionals in the field of FAIR and Open Data, 3. making intensive-data science and scientific data management more efficient. The competence centres to be established in the course of the project will serve as centres of gravity of Open Science and EOSC activities in their countries.
TU Wien institutions participating in the project are TU Wien Bibliothek, the Center for Research Data Management and the Research Unit of Data Science. Overall the project will bring together expert knowledge from 18 European countries.

2022: Quarter 2 - First international citizen science project at TU Wien: OPUSH | Workshop „Key Performance Indicators” of Austrian EOSC Initiative | EOSC Focus kickoff

First international citizen science project at TU Wien: OPUSH

The project Open Urban Sustainability Hubs, opens an external URL in a new window (OPUSH) aims to build capacity for the urban sustainability transformation, social innovation and co-creation in four European cities, by making knowledge on sustainable development and transformative action more visible and traceable, and empowering local communities by granting access to and interaction with open knowledge ecosystems. Communication between libraries, museums, urban planning, citizens and local initiatives is intensified strategically and operatively. Thereby, OPUSH enhances the role and capacity of libraries within Open Science and through Citizen Science as a driver of sustainable development. The project contributes to achieving the UN SDGs, opens an external URL in a new window 4, 11 and 16. OPUSH was submitted to the JPI Urban Europe Call ERA-NET Cofund Urban Transformation Capacities (ENUTC) by Christian Peer of the future.lab as Principal Investigator and TU Wien Bibliothek together with partners from Barcelona, Delft, Tallinn and Vienna, and was among the 16 projects selected out of 152 applications. Here you will find a short project description of OPUSH, opens an external URL in a new window. The project started on 01 April 2022 and will run for three years.

Successful workshop „Key Performance Indicators” of the Austrian EOSC Initiative

The Working Group “Key Performance Indicators” of the EOSC Support Office Austria, opens an external URL in a new window, set up in May 2021, organised a workshop at the Natural History Museum Vienna on 10 May 2022, starting a participatory discussion process on evaluating the EOSC and measuring its impact on a national level. 35 experts from different stakeholder groups (ministries, universities, non-university research institutions, research funders, infrastructure providers, R&I consultants and R&I monitors amongst others) took an active part in the workshop, deepening the shared understanding of EOSC’s objectives, considering current Austrian strategies such as the Open Science Policy Austria, the RTI Strategy 2030 and the UniNEtZ options report from the angle of the EOSC, and identifying challenges to EOSC monitoring. The presentation slides from the workshop "Key Performance Indicators", opens an external URL in a new window are available on Zenodo. More information on the working group, opens an external URL in a new window, which is coordinated by Kathrin Vohland (NHMW) and Beate Guba (TU Wien Bibliothek), is available on the EOSC Austria website.

Kick-off of the Horizon Europe project EOSC Focus in Vienna

In the call HORIZON-INFRA-2021-EOSC-01-02, the EOSC Association together with TU Wien and 7 other partners successfully submitted the project “EOSC Focus”, which will consolidate the governance of the EOSC Association, building on the results of the EOSCsecretariat.eu project. From 29 June to 30 June 2022, the kick-off meeting took place at TU Wien. In the course of the meeting, Karel Luyben and Ute Gunsenheimer of the EOSC Association and Michel Schouppe of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission underlined the importance of the Memorandum of Understanding for the Co-programmed European Partnership for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), opens an external URL in a new window and of the ambitious project goals. The acronym “Focus” stands for “Focusing on Open, Collaboration and Useful Science” and expresses the goal of establishing Open Science as the “new normal”. On the TU Wien side, the research unit Information and Software Engineering, TU Wien Bibliothek and the Center for Research Data Management are part of the project team. More on the project EOSC Focus, opens an external URL in a new window

2022: Quarter 1 - TU Wien Bibliothek image video | Annual goals for 2022 | New service for creating accessible PDV documents

A concise insight into TU Wien Bibliothek

The vital role of libraries in digitisation, the transformation of science and the university's third mission is presented concisely in a short YouTube video, opens an external URL in a new window. In this video, TU Wien Bibliothek gives examples of its daily work, which is shaped by various technologies, such as cloud computing, search engine technologies, RFID, and robotics. The library has been driving digitisation for more than 30 years through its services. As a living lab, it also connects the physical space with the digital world of data. For a better understanding, it's worth looking at the video.

The library team sets ambitious annual goals for 2022

In a multi-stage discussion process, the library has set ambitious goals for the year 2022, putting its mission statement into action and operationalising its strategic priorities. In addition to COVID-19-specific measures, our Data Visualisation Space and international developments are implemented or consolidated. To improve the library's environmental footprint, the library team is participating in the "Wien radelt" (Vienna Cycles) campaign (20 March - 30 September 2022). We are thrilled to see how many kilometres we will cover by bike or on foot, contributing to climate protection together.

New service for creating accessible PDF documents

The new library web service Asura, opens an external URL in a new window allows students and TU Wien employees to check their PDFs for accessibility standards and full-text extractability, optimise them, and, if necessary, merge them from several parts without loss. The tool is helpful before submitting a thesis or publishing a paper and makes subsequent corrections unnecessary. The text extraction supports a possible plagiarism check. The library team will soon provide information on avoiding the most common problem sources and continuously improve the software in cooperation with the manufacturer.