News
News
Please find older news releases in our News Archive.
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The MPG Labfolder User Workshop 2023 is here!
We are organizing a Labfolder User Workshop on the 11-12 of May, 2023, at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics.
Labfolder is an electronic laboratory notebook, becoming increasingly popular within the Max Planck Society, with users being spread across many different institutions and locations. Therefore, we are organizing a workshop for the key users of Labfolder within the Max Planck Society. The event is intended as a place to share and learn about people using Labfolder in their daily routines, offering you many opportunities to exchange, expand your knowledge and learn.
The primary target audience are those colleagues who use Labfolder in their daily work. The event is intended as a place to share and learn about people using Labfolder in their daily routines. Have you been working with Labfolder regularly for a longer time? Do you write your lab book with it? Do you use or interact with the REST API automatically or with scripts? Then this workshop offers you many opportunities to exchange, expand your knowledge and learn.
The workshop is not planned in a presentation-discussion mode. Instead, we would like to encourage conversation with each other. Therefore, we are not looking for presentations. In contrast, we have included a lot of time for discussion in the program. At the same time, such an event lives from active participation. To encourage this, we would like to introduce the various Labfolder solutions at Max Planck Institutes via short introductory lightning talks. For this, we are looking for colleagues who can briefly present their local Labfolder applications in two minutes. Do you want to contribute with a 2-minute talk? Please let us know via rdm [at] mpdl [dot] mpg [dot] de.Weitere Infos:
RDM Website
Labfolder Workshop Program
Register here
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The Max Planck Digital Library joins the 1st NEB Digital Talk Series webinar
Exciting news! On February 14, 2023, the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) joined the first NEB Digital Talk Series webinar hosted by digiNEB, where they showcased the bloxberg blockchain and its potential use in the creative industries.
bloxberg is a secure global blockchain that was founded by the MPDL, which allows scientists to certify raw research data on a blockchain, ensuring the protection of intellectual property and the authenticity of data. It is also part of the broad Research Service Catalog of the MPDL, which includes various tools and services for scientists of the Max Planck Society. The MPDL is constantly working to optimize the research process of MPG scientists by providing reliable and effective digital solutions. Blockchain technology has been proven to be a helpful tool for this purpose.
The NEB Digital Talk Series was organized by the New European Bauhaus (NEB), a creative and transdisciplinary initiative that aims to connect the European Green Deal to people's daily lives and living spaces. The event highlighted bloxberg's already existing use cases in registering ideas and promoting fair attribution, encouraging greater sharing of ideas in co-creation processes. For more information on using bloxberg for intellectual property in the creative and cultural environment, visit the bloxberg website.
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[NEWS] We are celebrating the Edmonth!
This month we are celebrating the EdMONTH – your opportunity to get to know Edmond – our research data repository for Max Planck researchers – a little better. It is the place to store completed datasets of research data with open access. Edmond serves for the publication of research data from all disciplines and offers scientists the ability to create citable research objects.
With Edmond, MPDL has allowed its users to create citable research objects with DOI without a usage fee or limitations while storing data within the Max Planck Society's infrastructure. Making daily work and the publication & citeability of research data easier and becoming a reliable service for many years.
Over 60 Max-Planck-Institutes uploading data, 199 327 uploaded files, and research data from all over the world show MPG scientists and employees' trust in Edmond. We are looking forward to many more years of open-access research data. We love data, we love Edmond!
More info:
Get to know Edmond here!
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[NEWS] Software Management Plan (SMP) Template for the MPG now available!
A new template for creating software management plans (SMP) is now available on RDMO, making the usage of research software more sustainable.
Software and sustainability in this context are being discussed by many institutions worldwide. The MPDL has therefore made an SMP template available for the RDMO software accessible to the RDMO community with a CC0 waiver. With the software management plan template, scientific software is viewed through the lens of project management. A software management plan (SMP) can make the conception, implementation, and long-term availability significantly easier. The benefit of an SMP completed in advance is the support of the development of an emerging research software with documented information at hand. This clarifies which topics/ project stages still need to be solved or covered.
Sustainability, reproducibility, and reusability are keywords that are being used in the context of research software. In line with the open source idea, we hope for as many re-uses as possible and a concrete added value for others.
The template for a software management plan with its diverse help texts is aimed at scientists. Still, it can also be used by software, information, and infrastructure experts for consultation, project proposals, or needs analysis.
Max Planck scientists and their cooperation partners can now use the SMP template via the RDMO service of the MPDL. All others can use it with their own RDMO instance.
More info:
SMP template via the RDMO
If you would like to test the SMP, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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[NEWS] We are celebrating five years of KEEPER!
This month we are happy to celebrate the fifth birthday of our tool KEEPER, allowing you to sync & share your project data while being properly archived in the Max Planck infrastructure. With KEEPER, MPDL has been providing its users with storage and many collaboration functionalities, making daily work and research easier and becoming a reliable and secure service for five years now. Over 4000 users, 145.3 TB used storage, and around 65.5 Million shared files show the impact KEEPER has made in the daily workflow of MPG scientist, employees, and their cooperation partners. We are looking forward to many more years of organized research data! Happy Birthday, you are a real KEEPER!
More info:
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[NEWS] Max Planck Society and Brill reach agreement for open access books and chapters
The Max Planck Society and Brill have established a new collaboration on Open Access for books. Within this new agreement, Brill offers a discount on the book and chapter publication charge for all affiliates of the Max Planck Institutes. Coordinated by the Max Planck Digital Library, 50% of the book or chapter publication charge is funded centrally. The other 50% of the Open Access costs are funded by the applicable Max Planck Institute.
This extensive agreement covers not only monographs and edited volumes, but also individual chapters from Max Planck-affiliated authors to any Brill volume. All 86 Max Planck Institutes are eligible, and the agreement runs for three years, until October 2025.
Dr. Ralf Schimmer, Head of Information at the Max Planck Digital Library, comments: “With this agreement we respond to the articulated demands of our researchers and offer a new opportunity to publish their research results in Open Access. We acknowledge the commitment of Brill to finding pathways to more openness in the system and are very pleased to collaborate with this distinguished publisher.”
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[NEWS] 5th bloxberg Summit
The fifth bloxberg summit took place as a hybrid conference in Protaras, Cyprus, from October 26-27. This time the annual Consortium meeting was organized for the fifth time in a row by the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) in collaboration with the University of Nicosia, one of the bloxberg founders. The meeting was hosted at the Sunrise Pearl Hotel by the University of Nicosia. At this bloxberg summit, the decision on founding the bloxberg Association for the Advancement of Science and Blockchain e.V. under German legislation was finalized. The Association has been established with an in-person signing ceremony by 13 founding members with eleven research organizations and two individual members. Please see the press release for more information on the summit.
We are looking forward to the next summit! This time the summit is going to be hosted in Belgrade, Serbia, by the Faculty of Organizational Sciences of the University of Belgrade, a founding member of bloxberg.
For more info:
Press Release Fourth bloxberg Summit
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[NEWS] New Poster on MPDL Services in Research Data Management
We are happy to present our new poster on MPDL research data management services. It gives an overview of the different offers and services Max Planck Digital Library provides to MPG colleagues and their collaboration partners. Eight services take a central spotlight, which are presented on the poster along with the service addresses and contacts. The poster is available online in print quality. If you are interested in a printed version for your Max Planck Institute, please contact our RDM support.
More info:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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[NEWS] New bloxberg Homepage!
As part and initiator of the bloxberg blockchain – the consortium for the advancement of science and blockchain – we are happy to announce the brand new bloxberg homepage!
With the consortium growing steadily for four years, the new bloxberg homepage is not only getting a fresh look and update but also many new features. Learn about bloxberg’s mission, check out all Consortium members on an interactive world map, discover the developer’s hut and get to know all scientific bloxberg applications that can help ease researchers' daily work.
More info:
bloxberg
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[NEWS] Service Catalog becomes Research Service Catalog!
The MPDL Service Catalog has received a new makeover. You can now browse the catalog in the following three categories: Publishing & Reading, Software & Data Services, and Strategic Services. In addition, new service tiles and new texts quickly provide information about how the service will support your daily workflow and research. The new structure simplifies navigation through MPDL's wide variety of services. The content ranges from scientific databases, and a wealth of open access publication services, to blockchain for your science. The new Research Service Catalog is available now! Discover the right service for your research here.
If you can't find what you are looking for or have any questions, feel free to call us at the MPG-City Service Hotline +49 (0) 89 909311-243 (Monday through Friday 7:00-19:00) or send an e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
More info:
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[NEWS] Minerva Messenger Upgrade with Brand New Features!
Our Minerva Messenger aims to provide a great user experience, so the newest server upgrade comes with new functionalities such as voice calling and screen sharing. These share functions make communication in channels more accessible and efficient – with a click of a button, you can join up to three participants in a voice call.
Another available feature is Insights, offering an overview of the most important activities within your Minerva Messenger workspace. Additionally, a message formatting toolbar has been implemented, allowing you to change text appearance, react with emojis and add hyperlinks. Collapsed reply threads to keep your conversations organized are finally available.
The upgrade also fixed minor security level bugs and functionality placements.More Info:
Minerva Messenger Upgrade Details
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[NEWS] RDMO-Service: Horizon Europe DMP template available
Data management is becoming increasingly important for third-party funding applications. Particularly at the European level, requirements for this are increasing. To support this, the MPDL service RDMO for MPG provides a questionnaire on data management for Horizon Europe.
This catalog can be used to organize data management for Horizon Europe projects and ERC grants. For example, it can be used to create data management plans (DMPs). Also, collaborative work can be done on data-specific project management.
More info:
For further questions or onboarding services, please contact our This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
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New Preview Features for Edmond
Edmond now offers new preview features for different file formats. All file types, without any restriction, can be published with Edmond, the Open Data Repository for the Max Planck Society. In order to view the content of individual files more quickly, different previews are now available directly on Edmond’s user interface.
With the brand new ZIP previewer, Edmond now automatically displays the folder structure including files of a ZIP archive. At the same time, individual files can also be downloaded from the ZIP archive, so that it is no longer necessary to download the entire ZIP file. This gives users a quicker insight into the published research data.
Furthermore, Edmond now also supports the preview of several individual file formats in the browser. This preview applies especially to various text and image formats, pdf files but also audiovisual formats (MP3 & MP4).
More info:
For more information, please contact the Edmond support team via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Minerva Messenger now has an End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) Plugin
This new plugin enables end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in Minerva Messenger, aiming to authenticate, encrypt, and decrypt messages on the users’ configured devices.
Have you been looking for a safe way to communicate important matters, data, or research findings with your peers and external collaboration partners, without possibly disclosing information? Then this new plugin may be just the thing you were looking for. End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a method of secure communication that keeps your data safe while it is being transferred from one end system or device to another.
The encrypted message can only be read on one platform after setting the current channel in encryption mode. For instance, if you start the E2EE on the Minerva Messenger, desktop client, you will not be able to read old encrypted messages via browser. Therefore, this end-to-end plugin could be sufficient for the needs of the lab work in which several team members may use a shared device. While chatting with the private key on your personal device, other users will not be able to read your old messages from a public laptop.
More info:
Minerva Messenger End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) Plugin
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4th bloxberg Summit 2022
The fourth bloxberg Summit took place as a hybrid conference on Mai 3 – 4, 2022, at the LABS workspace at 90 High Holborn building in London. The bloxberg Summit is the annual meeting of the bloxberg Consortium, organized for the fourth time in a row by the MPDL and was hosted by UCL this time.
The bloxberg Consortium discussed four main proposals, which led to groundbreaking changes for the research network. These significant decisions revolved around its legal entity, governance model, tokenomics, and the architecture of the bloxberg infrastructure. Please see the press release for more information on the Summit.
It has been an exceptional event with fruitful discussions in the center of London with over 25 research organizations from all over the world.
We are excited for the next Summit, which will be taking place October 26-27, 2022. This time the Summit is going to be hosted in Protaras, Cyprus, by the University of Nicosia, a founding member of bloxberg.
For more info:
Press Release Fourth bloxberg Summit
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Max Planck Society signs open access book deal with Springer Nature
Springer Nature has signed its largest institutional OA book deal with the Max Planck Society through the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL). The agreement covers all Springer Nature book imprints, across a broad range of disciplines, providing OA funding to affiliated authors from over 80 Max Planck Institutes.
The initial three-year agreement, live as of 1st January 2022, will enable authors from all 86 Max Planck Institutes to receive a discount on the standard Book Publishing Charge (BPC) to publish their book OA. MPDL will contribute central funding toward the coverage of the discounted BPC, lowering the costs for authors even further. The discount and funding will be available across all of the publisher's book imprints, under a CC BY licence, ensuring their work is freely accessible and discoverable to all communities across science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences. They will be available to readers around the world via Springer Nature's content platform SpringerLink.
Ralf Schimmer, Head of Information at the MPDL, commented:
“In establishing this new agreement with Springer Nature, we further advance one of our core missions - to support our authors in the dissemination of their research beyond the restrictions of paywalls. By covering a significant share of the open access book publication costs, we are enabling more of our authors to publish their work openly, increasing readership and impact, in particular for those disciplines where books play a crucial role in the scholarly communication process.”
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MPDL is supporting the Peer Community In (PCI) Initiative
Initiated at the request of several Max Planck institutes, the Max Planck Digital Library is supporting the platform „Peer Community in Registered Reports“ by making a one-time funding contribution of 5,000 Euro.
The Peer Community In (PCI) initiative is a non-profit, non-commercial platform that evaluates and recommends preprints in many scientific fields. The overarching aim of this researcher-run organization is to create specific communities of researchers reviewing and recommending, for free, unpublished preprints in their field.
Peer Community in Registered Reports (PCI RR) is a new community dedicated to receiving, reviewing, and recommending Registered Reports (RRs) across the full spectrum of STEM, medicine, the social sciences, and humanities.
RRs are a form of an empirical article in which study proposals are peer-reviewed and pre-accepted before research is undertaken. By deciding, which articles are published based on the question and proposed methods, RRs offer a remedy for a range of research biases, including publication bias and reporting bias.
More info:
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MPDL is now supporting PsyArXiv
In answer to the request of several Max Planck institutes, Max Planck Digital Library now supports PsyArXiv with an annual payment of 1,000 USD over a period of three years. PsyArXiv is a non-commercial preprint server: Preprints and pre-registration are emerging topics within human research. PsyArXiv is a helpful and welcomed tool for a growing number of Max Planck researchers in the field of psychology.
You can find more info here.
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Max Planck Society and IOP Publishing strike a new unlimited open access agreement
The Max Planck Society and IOP Publishing (IOPP) have established a new, unlimited, transformative open access (OA) agreement. The three-year agreement lifts all limitations for Max Planck authors, enabling them to publish all of their articles accepted for publication in IOPP’s full portfolio of 18 fully OA journals and 56 hybrid OA titles openly, with no author-facing article-processing charges.
Thanks to this agreement, the new research produced by the Society's scientists, selected and peer reviewed in IOPP journals will be freely and immediately accessible to scholars everywhere.
The new agreement makes it easier for Max Planck authors to publish open access, as the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) covers OA publishing fees centrally, omitting the need for authors to validate the availability of OA publishing funds. Additionally, the new agreement extends all previous reading rights to IOPP journal content.
Julian Wilson, Sales and Marketing Director at IOP Publishing says: “Continuing our valued partnership with the Max Plank Society supports our vision of making universal access to physics research a reality. We know that these agreements encourage greater uptake of OA publication. In fact, in 2021, 65% of research from authors affiliated with the Max Planck Society was published OA with us. We now have transformative agreements with 242 institutions in 14 countries and see them as key to accelerating the open access transition. We will continue to proactively secure these agreements in an inclusive and equitable way.”
Ralf Schimmer, Head of Information and Deputy Director of MPDL says: “IOPP is one of the ten most relevant publishers for Max Planck scientists, in terms of where they choose to publish their articles. Through this new agreement, the Max Planck Society can provide authors with the opportunity to reach the broadest possible readership for their articles and fully implement its OA2020 strategy, repurposing former subscription fees to support open access publishing, thereby contributing to the broader open access transition in scholarly communication.”
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Open Access ermöglichen! Praxisleitfaden erschienen
Bibliotheken habe eine zentrale Rolle in der Open Access-Transformation. Vor allem die Erwerbungsabteilungen der wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken stehen dabei vor einigen Herausforderungen: Budgets sollen so geplant werden, dass sie die Open Access-Publikationskosten der Einrichtung möglichst umfassend decken. Dabei gilt es abzuschätzen, wie sich das Publikationsaufkommen einer Einrichtung entwickelt und welche Kosten außerhalb der Bibliothek für das wissenschaftliche Publizieren anfallen. Verlage und Konsortien bieten neue Vertragsmodelle an, die bewertet werden müssen und viele der gewohnten Geschäftsgänge verändern sich oder müssen erst neu etabliert werden.
Im Nachgang zu einem Webinar zum Thema Transformation und Erwerbung, das die MPDL Services gGmbH in 2021 in der Reihe der DEAL Praxis-Webinare organisiert hatte, haben sich sechs interessierte Bibliothekar*innen aus unterschiedlichen Einrichtungen zusammengetan, um das vorhandene Fachwissen zum Thema zusammenzutragen und systematisch aufzuarbeiten. Die MPDL war mit Kai Geschuhn als eine der beiden Hauptautorinnen federführend an der Erarbeitung des 50 Seiten umfassenden Praxisleitfaden „Open Access ermöglichen“ beteiligt, der jetzt – natürlich Open Access unter einer CC-BY-Lizenz – veröffentlicht wurde. Das Autor*innen-Team möchte mit dem Leitfaden einen praxisorientierten Beitrag zur aktuellen Diskussion um die Open Access-Transformation liefern, die eigenen Erfahrungen mit Fachkolleg*innen teilen, und die Bibliotheksgemeinschaft dazu einladen, das gemeinsame Fachwissen kontinuierlich zu erweitern.
Link zur Veröffentlichung: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6090208
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Minerva Messenger: New Features & New Knowledge Base
It’s that time again: our messaging service Minerva Messenger has new exciting features you shouldn’t miss!
Next to upgraded integrations, we are presenting you new features like Boards, which is a project management tool that will help you track and manage your work across teams. In addition, with Playbooks, we are happy to present you with a feature you can use for staying in command with integrated communication, collaboration, and status dashboards to manage your entire workflow lifecycle. Last but not least, we made some cosmetic changes: You can now adjust a new & improved user interface to your personal preference.Go here and check out our new Knowledge Base for more detailed information. You can learn more about Minerva Messenger or get in touch with us and submit your request via the new platform! We are looking forward to chatting with you on Minerva Messenger!
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Major Edmond update: new interface, new features and many more!
Edmond – the Open Research Data Repository of the Max Planck Society has received a major update. We have replaced the old software solution of Edmond with the Dataverse software.
Dataverse is an open-source software, which is driven by a worldwide community and was initiated at Harvard University. Thanks to this new software and functions, Edmond has to offer many new features. Some of them include:
- A single-sign-on (SSO) for all Max Planck employees – available now
- There is no storage quota for users anymore
- The upload of huge single file sizes is possible
- A new user interface makes working with Edmond even more comfortable
- With DOI, ORCID, and ROR three different types of identifiers are available
- Other possibilities like versioning of datasets or private URLs to unpublished datasets help to address the different needs of the Max Planck community
Virtual Tutorials
To introduce the new features of Edmond we will offer two virtual tutorials of 30 minutes with a short presentation, a live demonstration, and questions & answers. Join us on:
March 23, 2022 | 2pm CET | Language: English
March 24, 2022 | 11am CET | Language: German
Register now on the RDM Website.
You can find more info on Edmond here.
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Migrate your Slack Channels to Minerva Messenger & keep all your data!
MPG researchers now can migrate their Slack channels with all the existing data to Minerva Messenger.
Have you been looking for a safe way to communicate with your peers and external collaboration partners, but you want to keep all the info you already exchanged on Slack? Then become part of the Minerva Messenger community and join the already migrated teams. Minerva Messenger is provided & maintained by the MPDL, which means all your data is safe within our secure MPG infrastructure.Migrate your Slack channels now and keep all your existing data! You only need to follow a few steps for a customized migration. Our This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. will take care of everything else. We are at your side - every step of the way!
For more info please check out our FAQ or just drop us an This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We are looking forward to chatting with you on Minerva Messenger!
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CfP for the Hybrid Workshop: Future Opportunities for Software in Research
We are very pleased to announce our Hybrid Workshop “Future Opportunities for Software in Research”, taking place on May 12-13, 2022. We are now welcoming workshop contributions on the topic of “Future Opportunities for Software in Research”. Software literacy has become a key competence for scientists across all disciplines. Scientists use software every day, and software development is becoming an increasingly important component of scientific productivity. However, the software needed for certain research projects can get highly complex and take up resources otherwise needed for core research. In the demanded professionalization of software development in research, specialized Research Software Engineers have emerged in recent years. With their help, researchers tackle the challenges in the areas of software and data, such as reproducibility, correctness, user-friendliness, performance, or maintenance.
Our two-day workshop provides new opportunities to learn about best practices in scientific software development, like:
- Seeing recent flagship projects in action.
- Discussing software licensing and intellectual property issues.
- Discovering new ways to make your software known and recognized.
Themes and types of contribution
We are looking for prime examples where software-enabled research (day 1) and working practices in research software engineering (day 2).
Who should submit?
We welcome submissions from any people who have an interesting take on research software development, especially:
- Researchers at any career stage who develop software for research purposes
- Software developers working in a research context, whatever their job title or field, maybe
- Those interested in advancing the understanding of how best to use and maintain research software, e.g. concerning openness, reproducibility, sustainability, scalability, or performance
- Organizations providing tools, platforms, or services that foster research software, such as IT infrastructure providers or computing and data centers.
The deadline for CfP submissions is February 28, 2022. Talks may have a length of 15-30 mins. + variable time for Q&A and discussion. If your talk is accepted, you will be notified about the talk length by the session chair.
We would like to cordially invite all interested scientists, research software engineers, IT and computing specialists, and individuals involved in creating, using, or otherwise dealing with research software in the Max Planck Society. We also welcome participants from other research institutions.
The workshop will be held in hybrid form, so you will be able to connect remotely or come to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön.
Organization Team
Holger Dinkel (Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics)
Conrad Droste (Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology)
Carsten Fortmann-Grote (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology)
Michael Franke (Max Planck Digital Library)
Maximilian Funk (General Headquarter of the Max Planck Society)
Yves Vincent Grossmann (Max Planck Digital Library)
Stephan Janosch (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics)
Sven Willner (Max Planck Institute for Meteorology)
You can reach the organizers via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
You can find info about the event is on the website.
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Minerva Messenger Plugin Release & Update January 2022
We are happy to inform you about the newest update of our messaging service – Minerva Messenger. The Minerva Messenger (based on Mattermost) brings all MPG communication together, making it searchable, accessible & easy to use – anywhere. That is why we are constantly keen on providing you with new updates and ensuring all functionalities are working well.
The Minerva Messenger January 2022 update entails the following integrations and upgrades:
- GitLab Plugin Release
Accessing your GWDG GitLab account from inside Minerva Messenger is possible now. With this plugin, you can receive updates on GWDG GitLab repositories and manage the issues directly in Minerva Messenger. - BigBlueButton (GWDG Meet integration) upgrade to v4.3.0
Improved join meeting UX and optimized the UI in dark theme. Added max length limit on the external user name. Fixed a bug where meetings with no recording were polled forever. Now only the creator of the meeting can end the conference. - Server upgrade to v5.37.5
Fixed the issue that OpenID redirect did not work when hosting Mattermost on a subdirectory. Fixed the issue that v5.37 reported an incorrect mmctl version.
You can find additional details in our Minerva Messenger Knowledge Base.
If you are not on Minerva Messenger yet, check it out here.
- GitLab Plugin Release
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LabCam is now KEEPER Cam!
With the new KEEPER Cam, you have the same functionalities as LabCam while storing all your taken photos directly on KEEPER, even offline. Do you find something interesting at a conference or exhibition? Do you want to record your experiment in real-time? Or you would like to share precious moments with your colleagues? This is made possible with KEEPER Cam, which is an office application to associate the camera of your mobile devices with your cloud storage space in your KEEPER account. In addition, the OCR function makes it easy to extract and store the full text from photos, which significantly improves your work efficiency.
An upgrade and new features will be available soon!
KEEPER Cam is available in Google Play, Apple App Store, and mPad Store – check it out and make your daily work routine easier!
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New ESAC Resources on Transformative Agreements
Whether assessing a publisher “read and publish” offer for the first time or developing a strategic plan to navigate the open access transition, adapting to the evolution of scholarly publishing is a challenge that librarians everywhere are facing. Some first movers have already worked through the transition locally and are looking at what comes after their transformative agreement phase, while many others are just starting out on their transformation pathway.
To support the global library and library consortium community in this process, the ESAC Initiative - an initiative coordinated by the Max Planck Digital Library - has introduced three incredibly rich and authoritative resources, fruit of dedicated efforts by members the international ESAC community that have accumulated first-hand experience and deep knowledge of the strategic and operational aspects of negotiating and implementing transformative and central open access publishing agreements.
Read more here.
ABOUT THE ESAC INITIATIVE
ESAC is coordinated by the Max Planck Digital Library, in consultation an international advisory group comprised of library and consortium leaders with deep knowledge of the operational aspects of negotiating and implementing transformative and central open access publishing agreements with scholarly publishers. The ESAC community includes library practitioners who collaborate to produce open resources and who exchange experiences and insights via mentorship, dedicated working groups and other activities focusing on open access author and library workflows, data gathering and analytics, agreement terms, and stakeholder engagement.
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New Service Alert: RDMO for MPG!
We are pleased to announce a new service: RDMO for MPG – a tool to support the planning, implementation, and organization of research data management. The Research Data Management Organizer (RDMO) is a free service of the Max Planck Digital Library for all MPG researchers and staff. The software allows its users to create and write data management plans for various funding organizations. It also provides the ability to cooperate on plans with a team, providing an overview of your project's work progress. The plans can be updated throughout the various project phases and forwarded to funding bodies. Additionally, RDMO grants an export of your project plans, creating snapshots of your work and assigning roles to project members.
The web-based software is open source (https://rdmorganiser.github.io).
For more info, visit the RDMO website.
If you have more questions check out the FAQ.
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Max Planck Digital Library and Microbiology Society sign transformative agreement
The Microbiology Society and the Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) have announced a three-year transformative agreement starting in 2022. The Publish and Read model will enable researchers of 86 Max Planck Institutes in Germany to publish any article accepted for publication in the journals of the Society open access, without having to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs). Through the agreement, MPDL will cover costs of open access publishing of articles in both fully open access and hybrid journals, allowing scientists to retain copyright and secure the broadest possible readership for their work.
Read the full press release
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15th Berlin Open Access Conference: Adapt and Advance
Nearly 400 participants, representing hundreds of institutions and consortia from around the world, came together for the 15th Berlin Open Access Conference (B15) to discuss the ongoing transition of the scholarly publishing system to open access. Co-hosted by the University of California and the Open Access 2020 Initiative of the Max Planck Digital Library/Max Planck Society, the online conference placed particular emphasis on negotiation processes with publishers.
In the two and a half years since the community came together at B14, negotiations of transformative agreements have advanced worldwide, demonstrating growing support for leveraging publisher agreements to accelerate the industry’s transition to open access.
Under the theme “Adapt and Advance”, B15 shed light on the ways negotiating teams around the world are adapting to the changing landscape of scholarly publishing, refining their principles and objectives, and setting new agreement benchmarks, while also acknowledging different local contexts and current financial realities, and the need for greater transparency and sustainability in these transitional frameworks.
The conference took place from 28 September to 1 October 2021. Further details, recordings and reports of the 15th Berlin Open Access Conference are now available.
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Anniversary of the Cooperation between Labforward and the Max Planck Digital Library
The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is happy to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its successful cooperation with Labforward!
In October 2016, the MPDL gained the then Berlin-based startup Labfolder, now known as Labforward GmbH, as a licensing partner. The product "Labfolder" is used as an Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) and Laboratory Information System (LIMS) by more than 1,000 of the world's leading scientists of the Max Planck Society for their everyday work in the laboratory. The ELN supports them in carrying out their research quickly and in a structured manner and documenting the results following good scientific practice.
Labfolder has been made available by the MPDL to all scientists of the Max Planck Society for their daily work, and it helps scientists from different sections in their daily research work in large part of the 86 Max Planck Institutes.
We are pleased to extend the central licensing for "Labfolder" to continue making the service available to the Max Planck Society researchers. The MPDL is thankful for the fruitful cooperation and looks forward to the following years of mutual growth.
More Info:
Labforward
Labfolder for Max Planck Researchers -
bloxberg Summit 2021
The bloxberg Summit 2021 took place as a hybrid conference on September 29 – October 1, 2021, at the MPG’s Harnack House in Berlin, as well as online. The bloxberg Summit is the annual meeting of the bloxberg Consortium. It has been organized by the MPDL for the third time in a row to discuss current topics and decide the further proceedings of the bloxberg initiative.
The third Summit focused on building Consortium Synergies and deepen cooperation between all participating parties from over 40 different universities worldwide. The Summit emphasized discussions and consisted of presentations of the current bloxberg Use Cases, Applications, and bloxberg Tech. It featured talks by Consortium members from Fraunhofer FIT, University College London (UCL), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and the MPDL. You can find details on the talks here.
During the Summit, the Iron Throne Voting also took place – a voting deciding who is going to be the primary organizing/administrative entity of the bloxberg Consortium. By a majority of votes, the Max Planck Society has been elected for Iron Throne for a third consecutive year.
Since it was such an inspiring event, we are already looking forward to the next bloxberg Summit, which will take place in May 2022. The goal of this Summit will be to conclude the individual projects of the working groups and decisions on the future of bloxberg.
More info:
bloxberg
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Software Licensing at your fingertips!
We are delighted to announce that we licensed several software solutions for your everyday need at the lab and office! Also, for a better overview, we created different categories that will help researchers find the right tool they need for their daily work.
Check out our three new categories & find the right software for you.
For more info on our Software Licensing Service, visit our Software Licensing Service Website*.
*only within MPG IP-range
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Survey Results on the Usage of Electronic Laboratory Notebooks in the MPG 2021
The Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) has become a multi-functional data system that can import and export data, notes, and observations from other devices. Therefore, ELNs are also seen in the context of good research practice, and the demands on ELN systems are thus widely distributed. There are many requirements, ranging from simple use in everyday laboratory work to data processing, provision, and long-term archiving. ELNs are intended to make day-to-day research work easier; therefore, it is essential to not solely focus on the technical solutions but to consider the scientists’ needs. Thus, the MPDL conducted a survey on the usage of Electronic Laboratory Notebooks in the Max Planck Society.
The survey was announced in February 2021 via different MPG internal email lists and was accessible until 31st March 2021. The participation was limited to MPG employees. It consisted of 19 questions, including 15 multiple-choice questions and four free text questions.
The results of this ELN Survey are now available online! If you want to know more about the conducted survey and the outcome, check out the following links to access the ELN Survey Summary:
Key Findings of the ELN Survey here.
ELN Survey Summary online via MPG.PuRe (limited to MPG IP range).
The chart data are available via the Edmond repository.
The survey results will also be presented at the workshop about "Living with Electronic Laboratory Notebooks" on 20th and 21st September 2021.
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KEEPER Summer Release
KEEPER is always keen on keeping your data safe, even during your summer break! While doing that, our KEEPER team prepared something new for you to support you and your research even better. We want to present to you the KEEPER Summer Release 2021. This update entails:
Improved file certification via bloxberg, which includes added library certification (up to 1000 files at once), added entries for certified files under “Library Details”, storing the certified file version and the certificates & an added option to add metadata.
New interactive metadata form – no more manual editing of the archive-metadata.md file. This new form allows you to create your Cared Data Certificate easily, add metadata to your on demand archive & add metadata to your bloxberg file certification.
Reworked and redesigned project catalog, allowing you to explore all libraries with metadata within Keeper, only accessible by MPG users.
& many more! For a detailed description of what this release has in store for you, click here.
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New Talk Series: Open Science in Practice
Open Science practices become more and more a part of researchers‘ lives.
MPDL presents a virtual series of pertinent talks to provide Max Planck colleagues with the latest information on Open Science best practices, tools, platforms, and regulations.
We invited speakers from diverse fields to present their Open Science related projects, experiences or initiatives.
Our aim is to provide the audience with a broad range of topics coming from Open Science related fields like
- Open Access -Public access to research outcome in the form of publications
- Open Research Data - A free access to research data
- Linked Open Data - Access to and cross-linking of public data stocks
- Open Review - The quest for alternative solutions to the traditional review processes provided by journal publishers, in order to improve transparency in this field
- Open Source - The development and usage of Open Source software for research activity
- Citizen Science - The involvement of amateur or non-professional scientists in the research process
- Open Education - The endeavour to a broad access to learning and training – far beyond the existing options provided by the traditional education system
- Pre-Registration/Registered Reports - Submission and peer review of manuscripts, project plans and hypothesis
If you are interested in connecting with MPG wide colleagues, inspiring discussions and upskilling talks we invite you to join our 45 minute sessions starting on Wednesday June 30 at 1:00 pm (CEST).
The first talk will be about
Recent developments in the EC policy on Open Science
by Alea López de San Román, European Commission´s Directorate for Research and Innovation
Dial-in: https://zoom.us/j/94125328264 (Passcode: osip)
All information surrounding the Talk Series can be found here:
Newsletter containing information on the talks:
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Reach out to the MPDL Open Science Team
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MPG City Week 2021 - we say Thank You!
We want to thank everyone who joined us on the ride through our first MPG City Week, which took place June 7-10. The whole MPG Family got the chance to network, find tools & ways to improve their work and research or get an overall orientation on our beloved MPG City.
We had more than 110 City Guides on our tour through 89 slots in which we explored various MPG facilities, networks, and services. The fabulous talks were followed by thoughtful feedback, and we are very grateful for each of you participating in our journey – over 1000 MPG Family members in total!We hope you enjoyed the journey!
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Cooperation between MPDL and Wolfram®
The Max Planck Digital Library (MPDL) is pleased to announce a collaboration with Wolfram Blockchain Labs (WBL): with guidance from the MPDL, Wolfram® has developed a first application integrating Wolfram Language and IPFS. The integration between WBL's distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform and the open-source protocols of InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Filecoin is a step toward decentralized storage and analytics applications.
The implementation represents an extension of bloxberg's Certify & Verify service with a decentralized storage option. These provide researchers who do not have access to dedicated storage solutions via IPFS the ability to store the data and metadata which is associated with the data hashes stored on the bloxberg Blockchain.
The expansion of the service is another crucial step in enhancing the user experience of blockchain-based services, allowing more users to benefit from the unique features of blockchain technology in academia.
Wolfram is also using the integration with IPFS and Filecoin to develop features and use cases that can be integrated into decentralized applications by researchers.Learn more on how to use Wolfram Language.
More Info:
Wolfram Blockchain Labs
bloxberg -
New LabCam Release
The brand new LabCam app with exciting features has arrived! Now, all your photos taken with LabCam are automatically uploaded to KEEPER. Also, the OCR function makes it easy to extract and store the full text from photos, which significantly improves your work efficiency.
LabCam is available in Google Play and the Apple App Store – check it out and make your daily work routine easier!
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Cooperation between Leibniz University Hannover & MPDL: Colony Counter App
We are pleased to announce a cooperation between the Institute of Technical Chemistry (TCI) of the Leibniz University Hannover and the MPDL with the shared mission of developing and distributing a service app to make lab work easier and more efficient. The mutual goal is to further develop a Colony Counter App and provide its open-source availability for a wider network of Max Planck Scientists. The Colony Counter App is a tool, which allows taking and scanning pictures of bacterial colonies, by the inbuilt camera of the smartphone or tablet. Thanks to an image-processing algorithm, providing digital picture analysis, the app counts and determines the amount of captured colonies, enabling lab work to be more efficient and precise. The algorithm has been developed by Dr. Daniel Marquard, Dr. Patrick Lindner, M.Sc. Ferdinand Lange, Prof. Sascha Beutel and Prof. Thomas Scheper from the TCI.
The app will be further developed and improved for usage and distributed by the MPDL Team.
We are looking forward to this cooperation!
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