About ZBW MediaTalk

Open science has fundamentally changed the research landscape. Scientific workflows are becoming more collaborative, more reproducible and more transparent, and there are also many new possibilities to make a scientific impact. The development is based on two points: While many researchers engage in open access and open research data practices in their daily work routines in a bottom-up movement, European research policies are also shaping the framework conditions in which open science can develop.

Welcome to the new world of research

Information infrastructures, such as scientific libraries and information centres, play a critical role in the success of this transformation. They are no longer mere intermediaries in the supply of literature and information, but are central in driving this development. They are shaping the transition from traditional modes of payment to worldwide open access to support researchers in their work in a faster, better and fairer manner. They are building intelligent, cross-institutional repositories for open access literature and free research data, struggling for more rights in the sciences in licence negotiations, teaching information literacy and helping to create a network for all relevant interest groups.

The blog

ZBW MediaTalk wants to accompany this transition. The blog is run by ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, which is the world’s largest research infrastructure for economic science literature. ZBW is actively involved in shaping the radical change in science and, its dedicated application-oriented research and scientific policy department bringing new momentum to development – be it in-house, in Germany or in Europe.

The blog retraces the path of transformation. With researched articles, guest commentaries, interviews, conference reports and analyses, we address the following topics, among others:

• The rise of open access and the development of new licencing models
• Changes in publishing behaviour and new forms of publication
• Alternative metrics (‘Altmetrics’) and a reward systems for researchers
• New approaches such as the open peer review of the traditional quality assurance procedure
• Aspects relating to scientific policy such as the GO-FAIR initiative and European research policy
• Research data infrastructures such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
• Modern forms of science communication
• The application of FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) to research data
• Transformations of research data management and open data repositories
• New research methods and protocols
• The development and implementation of Open Educational Resources (OER)
• The use of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, in the scientific environment
• News from the Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science

ZBW MediaTalk is being used as a networking platform for actors and interested parties from the areas of science, information infrastructures and scientific policy at the same time. The blog maintains channels on Mastodon and Facebook and offers a free weekly newsletter that keeps the community regularly updated. Guest authors are invited to publish their own contributions. Suggestions for topics for this can be submitted here.