The HardiBlog

In early November, I attended the first National Open Research Festival (NORFest: https://norf.ie/norfest-2023-programme/ ) a two-day event run by the National Open Research Forum (NORF) and the Digital Repository Ireland (DRI) at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin. The organisation and running were led by Dr Daniel Bangert, NORF’s National Open Research Coordinator, shortly before taking up his new position as Director of 4TU.ResearchData in the Netherlands.   My talk, ‘Strengthen and align Ireland’s network of open access repositories,’ was part of Lightning Talk Session 2: Achieving 100% Open Access to Research Publications, a very interesting and varied panel of speakers chaired by Dr Marion Boland, Head of Research Policy at Science Foundation Ireland.                                              https://twitter.com/dri_ireland/status/1720081331361841236/photo/1    At 7 minutes, the talk was a short overview of the progress of a two-year NORF-funded project to align Ireland’s netwo

The survey reveals fragmented metadata practices in Irish repositories. Highlighting the urgent need for national cooperation and standardisation. The goal is now to elevate Irish open repositories and align with European and International best practices and standards. Staffing disparities highlight the need for dedicated resources with recommendations for collaborative national initiatives and training. Introduction The survey of Open Repositories in Ireland was conducted between April 24 and May 30, 2023, as part of the National Open Research Forum (NORF) funded project on strengthening and aligning Ireland's Open Repositories . This survey engaged stakeholders from educational, governmental, and research institutions, seeking to evaluate key performance indicators related to repository provision and management. The resultant findings offer critical insights into the current state of open repositories in Ireland and pave the way for strategic recommendations to advance the open

Access to Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders (2021) second edition, published by Springer is now available. This major online reference work explores autism through a wide range of issues. It contains 3,745 fulltext entries and covers topics across the following major conceptual areas of Autism Spectrum Disorders and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, including: Research trends and findings Behaviour/speech Communication Treatments Education The Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders can be accessed via the library catalogue.   Collection Development / Forbairt Bailiúchán

Recently, the University of Galway Postgraduate Research Society invited me to conduct a workshop on Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and their application in the research process. This workshop, primarily attended by PhD students and postdocs, discussed the burgeoning potential of AI in enhancing different parts of the research process and scholarly work. Banner for the Open Scholarship Cafe on 27 Nov. 2023   This blog summarises mainly the attendees' sentiment towards AI in the research process. Through a series of polls, we gained valuable insights into the priorities, concerns, and experiences of researchers as they contemplate integrating AI tools into their work. These polls revealed a pragmatic view of AI's role in research, from eagerness to enhance literature discovery to cautious optimism about drafting and data manipulation, and highlighted the community's awareness of the ethical dimensions that come with this technology. The results of the polls and the s