PARTHENOS has 16 partners from 9 different countries, including two big European Research Infrastructures, CLARIN ERIC and DARIAH-EU. Every partner has its own expertise and identity. In this series of articles, each partner will introduce itself in a story about its background, expertise and role in PARTHENOS. The series is kicked off by the last partner that joined PARTHENOS, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences.
Image courtesy of Potsdam University of Applied Sciences
Potsdam is a city of UNESCO World Heritage, a city of parks and palaces on the idyllic lakes of the Havel, a grand and historical city of culture, a center of film, education and science, characterized by a 1000-year-old history as a royal capital and State capital near Berlin. International influences from France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Russia and many other countries stimulated development and left their mark on architecture, the trades and way of life. Today you can see this in particular in the Dutch Quarter, in Weaver’s Square in Babelsberg or in the Russian Colony Alexandrovka.
City of Science
Potsdam is a city of science as well. More than 10,000 of the 160,000 citizens of Potsdam work in scientific institutions in the Brandenburg state capital. In no other city in Germany are more scientists per capita than in Potsdam. More than 40 scientific institutions are based in the region. Potsdam is an internationally recognized location for science with first-class research institutions. With its University of Applied Science (FHP), College for Sport and Management, Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and the University of Potsdam, students have a choice of
outstanding and prestigious universities.
University of Applied Science
Image courtesy of Potsdam University of Applied Sciences
University of Applied Sciences is an institute of higher education offering 23 bachelor, master and diploma courses in design, architecture, conservation, cultur and media studies geared to practical needs with specific job prospects upon completion. The close relationship with regional, national and international partner enable students to get involved with a hands-on learning experience from day one. Interdisciplinary research and developing projects offer researchers and students the opportunity to cooperate with scholars and scientists from other research organisations and programs.
Following the motif “Learning through Research”, students can get familiar with different methods of application-oriented research at an early stage of their studies.
Information Experts
Image courtesy of Potsdam University of Applied Sciences
The department of Information Sciences at University of Applied Sciences was founded in 1992. Currently nearly 400 students study in one of the three sectors Archive, Library and Documentation. Teached by 12 professors and a number of lecturers and scientific staff members they graduate with BA or MA degrees. The department works at the intersection between research methods and practice as well as on resrearch infrastructure development. Key research areas are the theory and practice of digital libraries, research data management, knowledge organisation and information management (through all steps of the digital lifecycle), IT-driven methods for digital scholarship and research as well as virtual research environments. Besides the regular degree program, FHP also offers a part-time, postgraduate training, leading to the degree of a “Scientific documentation officer/ Information Specialist”. The department of information science is eager to enhance the competence in information sciences in the commercial and public sector. Clients are for instance public broadcasting stations, publishers and other scientific institutions. The department cooperates closely with the Initiative Brandenburg digital, where it offers a range of services within the digitalization of cultural heritage resources. Recently, the department overtook the responsibilities of the Landesfachstelle für Archive und öffentliche Bibliotheken (LFS), which bundles under the roof of a potential Institute for Sustainable Information Structures (Institut für Nachhaltige Informationsstrukturen (INII)). For this combination of training, education, scientific services and research the department enjoys a high reputation among information experts in Germany.
PARTHENOS
Within Parthenos FHP will contribute to a number of working groups or Work Packages (WP’s). However, the focus will be on WP 2 (Community involvement and requirements), 7 (Skills, Professional Development and Advancement) and 8 (Communication, dissemination and outreach), where the FHP team is leading tasks. In WP 2, the FHP team is responsible for the lead of two tasks, which are about the definition of policy requirements concerning the data lifecycle, and the definition of policy requirements on quality assessment of digital repositories and quality assurance of data and metadata items. Besides, FHP will lead the work on the definition of requirements for education and training, analysing currently available educational framework in the digital humanities domain, and the definition of communication requirements. FHP will also lead the training task in WP7 that will implement integrated training plans and will be responsible for part of the work carried out in WP 8, leading the task on scientific communication.
Jenny Oltersdorf, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences
Images: ©Potsdam University of Applied Sciences