Research Data Service for East European Studies (OstData)

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Ulf Brunnbauer; Dr. Klaus Ceynowa; Professor Dr. Peter Haslinger; Professor Dr. Christian Lübke; Professor Dr. Martin Schulze Wessel
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages ; Ancient History ; Education Systems and Educational Institutions ; Empirical Social Research ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology ; Early Modern History ; History of Philosophy ; Human Geography ; Medieval History ; Modern and Contemporary History ; Political Science ; Communication Sciences ; Religious Studies and Jewish Studies ; Sociological Theory ; Theatre and Media Studies ; Prehistory and World Archaeology ; Economic and Social History ; Economic Policy, Applied Economics ; Economic Theory ; History of Science
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 413708228

OstData is designed as a central service for research data in the field of East European Studies. It is to be established by five German Research Institutions with considerable experience in the area. OstData is conceived as a network with a modular interconnected architecture including a central search platform which will allow depositing, archiving and publication of research data as well as their locating, reusage and citation by fellow scholars. OstData also comprises guidance and counselling services for the scientific community. The main challenges of OstData are data curation, maintenance and accessibility of research data generated under strongly diverging institutional conditions. Accordingly, OstData’s structure will combine centralized and decentralized models of data management, preservation and quality control. Furthermore, OstData will offer a central search index based on specific metadata which will provide sophisticated search options appropriate to the special character of research data. OstData will increase the international visibility of German research on Eastern Europe by integrating the metadata (and where possible full texts) into international search tools and applications.In order for the new infrastructure to be acknowledged and used by scholars and scientific insti-tutions throughout Germany, specific supporting measures to assist the development of research data management play an important role in the project.

• DFG Programme: Research data and software (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)