Research Data Service for East European Studies (OstData)

Project manager: Tillmann Tegeler
Project editor: Ingo Frank
Project partners: : Bayerische Staatsbibliothek  (BSB), Collegium Carolinum (CC), Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO), Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe (HI)
Project duration: 2019—2022

OstData is designed as a central service for the provision of research data in the field of East European Studies. The service will 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 research data to be deposited, archived, and published, as well as located, reused, and cited by fellow scholars. OstData also includes guidance and counselling services for the scientific community.
The main challenges of OstData are data curation, maintenance, and accessibility of research data generated under very different institutional conditions. Accordingly, OstData’s structure will combine centralized and decentralized models of data management, preservation, and quality control. Further, OstData will offer a central search index based on specific metadata, which will provide sophisticated search options tailored to the specific 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.
To make sure the new infrastructure is recognized and used by scholars and scientific institutions throughout Germany, targeted support measures assisting the development of research data management will also play an important role in the project.

Funded by: