Information management and service integration at German universities

Purpose – Customers do not like to deal with maintenance problems and responsibilities for academic support facilities. They prefer service portfolios that integrate services for an easy and comfortable use. This paper aims to describe the organisational changes needed in the computer centres and libraries of German universities. Design/methodology/approach – The article describes how several German universities are setting up an integrated information management system to improve cooperation between institutions that provide academic support in the areas of information, communication and media services. Findings – The largely traditional support structures of German universities are in transition. The problems and challenges posed by information management and service integration, which Anglo‐American universities introduced during the mid‐1980s, are now a key issue at German universities and are being tackled with ever‐greater energy. Originality/value – This article gives an overview of the current state of information management at German universities.Peer Reviewe

Changing Infrastructures for Academic Services. Information Management in German Universities

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Concept for Setting up an LTA Working Group in the NFDI Section "Common Infrastructures"

NFDI consortia have a variety of disparate and distributed information infrastructures, many of which are as yet only loosely or poorly connected. A major goal is to create a Research Data Commons (RDC) . The RDC concept1 includes, for example, shared cloud services, an application layer with access to high-performance computing (HPC), collaborative workspaces, terminology services, and a common authentication and authorization infrastructure (AAI). The necessary interoperability of services requires, in particular, agreement on protocols and standards, the specification of workflows and interfaces, and the definition of long-term sustainable responsibilities for overarching services and deliverables. Infrastructure components are often well-tested in NFDI on a domain-specific basis, but are quite heterogeneous and diverse between domains. LTA for digital resources has been a recurring problem for well over 30 years and has not been conclusively solved to date, getting urgency with the exponential growth of research data, whether it involves demands from funders - the DFG requires 10 years of retention - or digital artifacts that must be preserved indefinitely as digital cultural heritage. Against this background, the integration of the LTA into the RDC of the NFDI is an urgent desideratum in order to be able to guarantee the permanent usability of research data. A distinction must be2 made between the archiving of the digital objects as bitstreams (this can be numeric or textual data or complex objects such as models), which represents a first step towards long-term usability, and the archiving of the semantic and software-technical context of the digital original objects, which entails far more effort. Beyond the technical embedding of the LTA in the system environment of a multi-cloud-based infrastructure, a number of technically differentiated requirements of the NFDI's subject consortia are part of the development of a basic service for the LTA and for the re-use of research data.3 The need for funding for the development of a basic LTA service for the NFDI consortia results primarily from the additional costs associated with the technical and organizational development of a cross-NFDI, decentralized network structure for LTA and the sustainable subsequent use of research data. It is imperative that the technical actors are able to act within the network as a technology-oriented community, and that they can provide their own services as part of the support for also within a federated infrastructure. The working group "Long Term Archiving" (LTA) is to develop the requirements of the technical consortia for LTA and, on this basis, strategic approaches for the implementation of a basic service LTA. The working group consists of members of various NFDI consortia covering the humanities, natural science and engineering disciplines and experts from a variety of pertinent infrastructures with strong overall connections to the nestor long-term archiving competence network. The close linkage of NFDI consortia with experienced4 partners in the field of LTA ensures that a) the relevant technical state-of-the-art is present in the group and b) the knowledge of data producers about contexts of origin and data users interact directly. This composition enables the team to take an overarching view that spans the requirements of the disciplines and consortia, also takes into account interdisciplinary needs, and at the same time brings in the existing know-how in the infrastructure sector

Using life course charts to assess and compare trajectories of amphetamine type stimulant consumption in different user groups: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) are the second most commonly used illicit drugs in Europe and globally. However, there is limited understanding of what shapes patterns of ATS use over the life course. The ATTUNE project "Understanding Pathways to Stimulant Use: a mixed methods examination of the individual, social and cultural factors shaping illicit stimulant use across Europe" aims to fill this gap. Here we report initial findings from the life course chart exercise conducted as part of qualitative interviews with ATS users and nonusers. METHODS: Two hundred seventy-nine in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with five ATS user groups (current and former dependent users;current and former frequent users;non-frequent users) and one group of exposed non-ATS users in five European countries (Germany, UK, Poland, Netherlands and Czech Republic). As part of the interviews, we used life course charts to capture key life events and substance use histories. Life events were categorised as either positive, neutral or negative, and associated data were analysed systematically to identify differences between user groups. RESULTS: Out of 3547 life events documented, 1523 life events were categorised as neutral, 1005 life events as positive and 1019 life events as negative. Current and formerly dependent ATS users showed more negative life events for the entire life course after age adjustment. Although some group differences could be attributed to the individuals' life course prior to first ATS use, most negative life events were associated with periods of ATS usage. A detailed analysis of the specific life domains reveals that dominantly, the social environment was affected by negative life events. CONCLUSIONS: For non-dependent, frequent and non-frequent ATS users, negative life events from the period of ATS use do not become obvious in our analysed data. Besides preventing a pathway into ATS dependency, the aim of an intervention should be to reduce the harm by for example drug testing which offers also the opportunity for interventions to prevent developing a substance use dependency. For the group of dependent ATS users, our study suggests holistic, tailored interventions and specialist treatment services are needed, as a single, simple intervention is unlikely to cover all the life domains affected