Final Report Summary - ETHICSWEB (Inter-connected European information and documentation system for ethics and science: European ethics documentation centre)
The ETHICSWEB project strives for the creation of an 'Interconnected European information and documentation system for ethics and science: European ethics documentation centre'. ETHICSWEB is an umbrella term that denotes the actual project funded by the European Commission (EC), the therein produced web portal and its services as well as the Network of Ethic Documentation Centres (NEDC) that resulted out of it. The overall aim of ETHICSWEB is to enhance accessibility to already existing information resources in the field, thus improve its visibility, and consequently, herby foster democratic debate in Europe. The two main achievements of the project comprise:
- The ETHICSWEB portal and ethic documentation centres (ETSs).
- The ETHICSWEB portal (see http://www.ethicsweb.eu and http://www.ethicsweb.org online for further details) is a central access point to decentralised stored information about ethics in science. It provides common search functionality for heterogeneous information resources and comprises the world's largest access point to bibliographic information especially concerned with ethics in science.
Furthermore, it links to further primary information providers in the field. As a prerequisite of database integration, the ETSs were created. In order to make the de-centrally stored information objects centrally accessible common documentation standards are imperative. The ETSs are codified in the application profiles (APs) and corresponding Extensible markup language (XML) schemata which can be downloaded for free form the ETHICSWEB portal.
ETHICSWEB virtual databases and capacity building
As a means of capacity building ETHICSWEB provides 'virtual' local databases to interested academic institutions that lack the resources to develop or implement databases by their own. The virtual database is provided together with respective instruction materials. In the course of the project five new partner institutions have already been successfully equipped with virtual local databases. These infrastructures, together with a knowledge organisation system (KOS) registry, an interactive centres database, and an open entry tool for web resources ETHICSWEB provides even more directly exploitable tools to the scientific community.
Project context and objectives:
It has been the overall aim of the ETHICSWEB project to stimulate an enhanced democratic debate on ethical issues of science and to promote a more engaged and informed public by ensuring easy access to comprehensive information on science and ethics. ETHICSWEB resulted from the experiences made by various networking initiatives supported by the EC and the Council of Europe to set up infrastructures on a regional and national level. Missing was an infrastructure that can serve as an overarching infrastructure for all these diverse and heterogeneous infrastructures and thus not only making information better available but also enhancing exchange between information providers.
ETHICSWEB's main objectives were:
- to allow and ensure easy access to comprehensive information by connecting existing information and documentation systems;
- to create and apply sophisticated tools, technical and semantic in order to make the huge amount of information available for all parties involved in the debate;
- the creation of a common European reference focal point for decentralised information made available in different European Member States.
Accordingly, the two primary objectives were the realisation of the ETHCISWEB portal and its sustainable implementation in the (European) scientific community. These were predominantly realised by technical means:
O2.1: The integration of databases, documents and other kind of digital information in ethics and science in the portal management system provided and hosted by ETHICSWEB and using technologies provided by work packages (WPs) 3, 4. The platform strives for the documentation of different sources related to central issues in ethics and science i.e.:
- literature;
- laws, regulations, and guidelines;
- training materials and training programmes;
- academic exchange programmes and communication platforms;
- ethics related research projects;
- experts in the field of applied and research ethics;
- events and news.
O2.2: The precondition for database integration was the exchange and identification of procedural standards and an agreement on content related specifications of portals and databases. The result is that information can be shared in a more efficient way and thus the integration of user related access becomes possible. The objectives to meet this aim especially were to:
- encourage the sharing of deep-data owned by the providers;
- maintain a minimum and growing standard of technical expertise;
- assist in capacity building by offering for purchase, training products for potential new partners and projects;
- channel funding for new data development and commission new products;
- maintain a high quality mark through the reputation of the partners.
The results were to be implemented into an integrated portal architecture that facilitates single access points to heterogeneous ethics resources, the ETHICSWEB web portal framework, which integrates diverse ethics related information spaces and offers an interactive collaborative environment for information providers, as well as information users.
The central goal of the portal framework was to integrate resources of different providers in a singular virtual infrastructure (O3.1). Within this virtual infrastructure, services are offered that facilitate advanced retrieval, the linking of diverse information sources, and the use of interfaces to other information services in ethics, including integrating software adapters, where needed. The portal itself and all interfaces to project-controlled services and tools are to be multilingual thus reflecting the pan-European nature of ethics discourse (O3.2).
In order to achieve the central goal of making heterogeneous information resources centrally accessible, it is imperative to customise existing XML exchange standards for digital and non-digital resources within the domain of ethical issues. The scope on the content level follows the specifications in O2.1 (O4.1 - O4.6 accordingly). Additionally the work of WP4 is to result in the description and population of a 'KOS registry' for ethics (O4.7 and O4.8).
ETHICSWEB takes advantage of the results and outcomes of already completed projects in the field, especially completed projects of ETHICSWEB project partners, i.e. EULABHOR, EUREC, PRIVILEGED (O7.1); Other EC funded project of interest have been identified and connected to ETHCISWEB (O7.2) and the platform SINAPSE is linked to ETHCSWEB (O7.3 in connection with t7.4). All the work has been accompanied by legal expertise by WP6. The expected impacts are:
- increased awareness of issues of harmonisation, implementation and application of laws and regulations across the Member States;
- increased clarity in the nature of the legal requirements upon research and researchers across the Member States;
- sound legal and ethical operation of the ETHICSWEB infrastructure.
Complementary to the technical realisation of the ETHICSWEB infrastructure measures of capacity building have been implemented by WP5, specifically:
O5.1: To promote the European knowledge-based society.
O5.2: To foster critical debate on issues of major significance in ethics and science across Europe; especially in areas where such a debate is not well established now.
O5.3: To help setting-up appropriate information and documentation systems where they are presently missing.
O5.4: To build capacities for maintaining Ethic documentation centre (EDC)s.
O5.5: To strengthen cooperation between established EDCs and newly emerging institutions.
The framework of ETHICSWEB and its connections with new partners and institutions needs a sustainable administration. Therefore WP1, besides more general objectives in regard to project management (O1.1) has established NEDCs. Centres that are participating in ETHICSWEB, and new identified partners, initiate and strengthen exchange within this network. All objectives were realised in the technical results as described in the deliverables of the technical annex.
Project results:
Description of the main scientific and technological results / foregrounds
ETHICSWEB is an umbrella term denoting the ETHICSWEB project, its achievements and services, e.g. the ETHICSWEB portal, as well as the network of institutions resulting from the project. The ETHICSWEB portal is designed as an overarching infrastructure that is able to bundle already existing infrastructures and services into one common access point. The main achievements of the ETHICSWEB project served the goal of implementing the ETHCISWEB portal and its features. Consequently, the results of the project are predominantly of a technical nature. The technical process of creating the web portal was accompanied by the administrational means that aimed at safeguarding the output of ETHICSWEB. Most notably, the former ETHICSWEB consortium constitutes an informal NEDCs (O1.2). Such a network engages in the care of the portal and its features, ensures its sustainability, and generally contributes to the improvement of the European Research Area (ERA) (O5.1). ETHICSWEB refrained from creating scientific results by its own. Nevertheless, some insights were produced in several deliverables which are, by and large, not intended for the public though.
The main technical results comprise:
- the ETHICSWEB portal and its search functionality (O3.1 and O3.2). Both are based upon database integration (O2.1 and O2.2) made possible by ETS documentation standards (O4.1 to O4.6).
Further achievements are:
- Virtual local databases and corresponding instructional materials (O2.2 and O5.3)
a) the ETHICSWEB primer (O2.2);
b) compendium for setting up and maintaining EDC (O5.4);
c) short legal guidelines for ETHICSWEB (O6.3).
- EC ethic projects (O7.1 and O7.2);
- European research ethics (ERE) (as described in t2.3);
- KOS registry (O4.7 and O4.8).
The ETHICSWEB portal and search functionality
The work of the ETHICSWEB project resulted in various exploitable results. Before all, the technical achievements of the ETHICSWEB portal can be emphasised, which together constitute the ETHICSWEB portal (see http://www.ethicsweb.eu online) and its functionalities. The portal is a central entry point to information about ethical issues in science; a dynamic authoring environment; an environment in which project partners coordinate their work by using the dedicated forum facilities, and registered users can interactively partake by commenting information, contributing new resources and the like; a safe repository for (non-public as well as public) documents that resulted from the work inside the project consortium. It forms the centre of collaboration between the European partners of ETHICSWEB network after the official project period.
The portal has been the project's central point for:
a) collecting and organising ethics in science-related information;
b) searching and browsing through information, which is organised in the project's databases or which is accessible elsewhere through the portal's modules;
c) incorporating or connecting to other non-ETHICSWEB applications for collecting / publishing the information;
d) preservation and archiving of the information.
The portal is developed as a content management system, using the open source software of the Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl / PHP / Python (LAMP) nature while most of the search engine modules are developed in Java.
The communication through the portal is protected and uses safe channels; all potentially destructible actions are password protected and a strict backup and archiving policy are implemented, as well as the technical means to ensure the confidentiality of non-public information.
All the textual data stored inside the portal should be written in UTF-8. The portal user interface will be multilingual. A cross-language information retrieval functionality will be provided for information objects described with multilingual thesauri.
Portal users are of two main groups: administrators and users. Administrators are super-administrators (responsible for portal development), and local administrators (WP leaders with responsibilities ranging from user accounting to forum management). Users are guests (unregistered users) with access to public information and public forums (which are not existing as of yet, but could be easily implemented), and without the possibility to publish to databases or forums; registered users with the opportunity to participate in the portal's public forums and to personalise the portal functionality through personal profiles; and editors with all authoring responsibilities. Such user-centred features might add additional value to the individual information resource in the future. Due to unclear legal circumstances and a lack of resources for intensive portal administration user participation had to be limited in this stage of the project. A more detailed description of the technical details of the portal is given in the document D3.2.
A very important part of work on the portal's tools and services are the APs and XML schemas, which together codify the ETSs. The ETS documentation standards make the development of ETHICSWEB databases and procedures for the transformation and uploading of information objects possible in the first place. The development of APs and schemas was performed mainly by the WP4 and WP2 teams, while the WP3 team was instrumental in the actual implementation of APs and schemas in databases, data acquisition modules, and data-entry forms. More details can be found in the section 'Documentation standards' and the respective deliverables (D4.1-6 and D4.8).
The finalisation of the portal included the integration of heterogeneous databases as previously identified by WP2, the updating and adaption of the used programmes, the evolution of the search interface and the display of search results. Furthermore, a semi-automatic functionality for the linking of records in different ETHICSWEB databases using the hidden semantic network was introduced. The software, which is still in a development phase, analyse each record in each ETHICSWEB database and tries to find records in other databases that have some important data common with the analysed record. In the future such potential links after evaluation can be written into records making it possible to use them during searching.
The centrepiece of the portal is its search-functionality which enables the direct search of the various integrated databases. By the end of the project, ETHICSWEB provides the opportunity for parallel search within 27 different databases providing various resource types as:
- literature and document-like object (DLIO)s;
- training programmes and courses;
- research projects;
- experts;
- centres.
Furthermore information on news and events are presented via the ETHICSWEB portal, but not searchable via the ETHICSWEB database search.
New solutions were chooses in regard to laws, guidelines, and regulations as well as in regard to teaching materials, which are not fully integrated into ETHICSWEB due to different reasons.
Database integration
It was the overall task of ETHICSWEB to merge various database types into one unifying search facility. Therefore, preliminary work by WP2 had to identify procedural standards and content related specification of portals and databases (O2.2) in order to identify adequate information providers, arrange the integration on an administrative level and thus to prepare the technical merging of databases by WP3.
At the end of the project period ETHICSWEB has managed to integrate some of the most renowned databases in the field, e.g. GEObs, PubMed, or BELIT. In regard to bibliographic data, with about 500 000 records, ETHICSWEB is the world's largest access provider in the field of science and ethics. ETHICSWEB is a major disseminator of de-centrally stored information resources that solely concerned with ethics and science. The general goal of ETHICSWEB is not only to document existing resources, but also to provide direct access to these resources on the content level. This is limited only by the legal provisions that apply to the respective information. WP6 assisted in the negotiation of the licence with providers of databases. Licence negotiations were standardised except in regard to PubMed and EURETHNET. PubMed is part of the MedLine provided by the United States National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Although legal environment differ significantly ETHICSWEB was able to conform to the requirements of PubMed, and the negotiation was concluded relatively easily.
The negotiation with one other provider, EURETHNET, was more problematic, as that provider, following the end of its project, did not have clear ownership of the materials. A solution was found, and the experience underlined the need to establish a post-project legal personality for ETHICSWEB.
In regard to the section 'laws, regulations, and guidelines' as well as 'training materials', which includes all kinds of educational working materials, no database was integrated into ETHICSWEB. This is due several reasons:
- ETHICSWEB only provides meta-information about information objects, like books, projects, centres, or persons. In principle, ETHICSWEB does not provide any information which is not already available elsewhere. Links to the provider of the original information object are provided wherever possible. In regard to laws and legislation, meta-information is of much less concern than the actual legislative text. Therefore, ETHICSWEB does not focus on metadata here, but provides access to full text providers of laws and legislation on the national level as well as on the European or international level. Additionally to general access points to legal information, providers of access to highly specialised information about specific scientific or ethical topics are linked via an annotated links list and stored in the ETHICWEB web resources database. More information is codified in D2.3 'Survey on legal databases'.
- In regard to training materials and learning resources, there is a comparable situation. Meta-information on actual learning resources can be stored in a literature database since learning materials are not different per se to other information objects. Again, access to the information itself is of more interest than meta-information about it. Therefore ETHICSWEB only provides links to providers of LR databases. Again, the provider of learning resources can be accessed via the annotated link list or via the respective web-resources entry, where full texts can be accessed (if provided).
- Exchange programmes are not explicitly subsumed under training programmes, since the latter denote are a broader concept. D2.3 t2.5 scrutinised the situation of the status quo in regard to exchange programmes in the European academic scene and identified problems and difficulties, which circumvent an 'easy' entry-tool solution. More details in D2.3 t2.5.
- Further information resources that a searchable via the ETHCISWEB search functionality are:
a) training programmes;
b) projects;
c) centres;
d) experts;
e) web resources.
Additionally, ETHICSWEB provides direct access to event and news calendars in the field of science and ethics.
Documentation standards
The creation of the ETHICSWEB portal and the integration of different databases became only possible due the creation of unifying documentation standards which were developed in the course of the ETHICSWEB project. The ETSs build upon the well-established standards and serve as a basic standard that makes it possible to merge already existing but differing standards into only one unifying standard. The ETS are not restricted to literature. Documentation standards also exist for information about experts, centres, projects, KOSs (e.g. thesauri and ontologies), training programs, learning resources, event, news, and web-resources which all can be easily and cost-efficient employed by interested institutions.
The documentation standards comprise an AP, which documents and explains the application of the standards, and a XML scheme, which is necessary to ensure the exchange between two information systems.
Basic strategies how to proceed were determined in the ETHICSWEB kick-off meeting. Because FAO was not able to engage in ETHICSWEB as described in the technical annex tasks of FAO were reallocated to ISS. Although FAO has leading expertise in the field of documentation standards and database integration, a significant transfer of knowledge could be realised and ISS was able to substitute FAO after their leave.
Details concerning the documentation standards can be found in the documents milestone 4 and 8 'Minutes of the joint workshop on documentation standards and portal specification' and D4.1 to D4.7 and D4.9 which describe and explain the technicalities of the ETSs.
Besides these essential results ETHICSWEB produced further foreground in the course of the project:
'Virtual local databases'
Building upon the ETS ETHICSWEB has created distributable e-tools for documentation as a site product of database integration. The 'virtual' local database, despite the prefix 'virtual', is a fully working database. Databases can be purchased for all categories that exist in ETHICSWEB, even though ETHICSWEB expects virtual local database for literature to be most popular. The tool can be used by interested academic institutions in order to store information about information resources, especially literature (technical term: DLIOs). The databases can be implemented within the ETHICSWEB portal only (therefore 'virtual') and thus save infrastructure capacities on the site of the partaking institution. At the same time, it can be easily accessed and remotely controlled by the respective institution. Of course, the virtual database can also be implemented directly into the website of the participant.
The documentation tools come along with complementary documents: The ETHICSWEB primer, a short guide to documentation (D2.4) the compendium for setting up and maintain an EDC (D5.3) with helpful recommendations in regard to questions of founding a documentation and information centre, as well as legal guidelines for engaging in ETHICSWEB (D6.2).
ETHICSWEB primer
The ETHICSWEB primer
A short guide to ethics documentation was provided by WP2 in April 2010. The aim of the document is to serve as a guide for various target groups with an interest in documentation within the field of ethics in science. In particular, the intended audience includes EDCs. The text provides some general advice concerning documentation activities, but it also describes how to make the data accessible via the ETHICSWEB infrastructure. Apart from its methodological function as an element in a training programme, the document also constitutes the basis for negotiating the integration of external databases in the ETHICSWEB portal.
The ETHICSWEB primer was prepared by KIB in close co-operation with UMG and UBO and in continuous communication and information exchange with the leaders of the WPs 3 and 5 between November 2009 and March 2010. Basic aims and outlines were discussed at a workshop on good practice of documentation on 16 September 2009 in Barcelona. The document provides general information on the aims and scope of ETHICSWEB and on the nature of EDCs. It also comprises more detailed information on the methods and standards of documentation activities in the field of ethics, for example regarding the selection of collected and indexed documents, the different kinds of databases, the procedures of setting up a database (software, data entry), the practice of cataloguing and indexing regarding DLIOs, as well as other types of objects, thesauri and indexing terms as well as copyright and licensing. Finally, the document also contains a detailed section on the different possibilities and strategies of integrating data into the ETHICSWEB portal (data export methods such as ad hoc export, OAI-PMH, RSS as well as direct data entry to the portal via data entry tools) and the technical aspects of the ETHICSWEB search machinery. The ETHICSWEB primer was disseminated and tested for training purposes at the M7 workshop in Rome in April 2010 and revised and finalised subsequently.
The ETHICSWEB M7 workshop 'Good practice of documentation' took place on 12 April 2010 at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) in Rome. It was planned and organised by the University Medical Centre Göttingen and Istituto Superiore di Sanità. Its purpose was to present ETHICSWEB to a broader public and to encourage and train ethics documentation activities and database providers in the field of ethics in science, especially from the new member states, but also from further regions of the world. The workshop was open to scientists, documentalists and librarians engaged in documentation in the area of ethics and science. The University Medical Centre Göttingen provided travel grants of up to EUR 500 so that especially representatives from the new Member States, but also from other European countries could be supported in order to come to Rome. Altogether, more than 20 scholars and documentalists from the fields of ethics, law, librarianship, information technology and computer sciences took. Representatives from relevant institutions in the field of ethics documentation such as the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (Gerogetown, United States) and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, were present.
The first aim was the exchange on expertise and the discussion of standards in the field of ethics and science. This included presentations and discussions on the purpose and scope of ethics documentation in general, the central questions of setting up a database, the selection of the document types to collect and index and the relevance criteria to be used, the basic principles of cataloguing and indexing such as cataloguing rules, thesauri, selection of indexing terms, the copyright and licensing implications of documentation, and the general legal issues involved in documentation activities. This part of the workshop was complemented by presentations of ethics documentation activities in different national and organisational contexts, such as the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, the Bioethics Research Library at Georgetown University, and the Karolinska Institute at Stockholm University, as well as the discussion of their concrete practical experiences and problems. At the same time, the workshop was scheduled as an opportunity to present the work of ETHICSWEB and to discuss the requirements for and the benefits of participation in the ETHICSWEB database integration. This included presentations on the basic purpose and structure of ETHICSWEB, the question which databases are within the scope of integration, the different ways of integrating databases, the basic technical and semantic standards, as well as legal aspects of database integration (APs, XML formats, export methods) and the different ways of becoming involved with ETHICSWEB on an institutional level. Furthermore, the workshop was used to present and disseminate the ETHICSWEB primer (see above). The workshop provided an occasion for fruitful exchange of expertise and for networking in the field of ethics documentation. The results were collected in an abstract book. Furthermore, the workshop initiated ongoing contacts and cooperative relations between the ETHICSWEB consortium and external database providers, partly within the framework of subsequent workshops (WP5: Workshop on capacity building, 16 September 2010 in Maastricht), partly also in view of the ETHICSWEB database integration and the envisaged NEDCs.
Legal guidelines
In two workshops (M5 and M17), legal guidelines were discussed. The first (M5) was a workshop of network providers, which took place in Maastricht on 14 July 2009. Representatives from Göttingen, Utrecht and Bonn attended. As WP2 leader, the Göttingen representative had a keen awareness of the range of network providers. Dr Adcock was also present from the M5 'Legal panel'. The 'Draft legal guidelines' (D6.1) was presented and discussed in detail. On the basis of this workshop, the second (M17) workshop was undertaken in Barcelona on 14 September 2009 where the revised guidelines were presented to and discussed with the whole consortium. It was felt that following these two workshops, sufficient detailed comment had been received on the draft legal guidelines, that this part of the exercise had been sufficient. In particular, comments relating to the content of the standard form contract for New Member Inclusion were given and discussed, and the basis for the draft contract was agreed.
WP6 held the M18 workshop in Maastricht on 14 - 16 September 2010. During this workshop, the standard form contract was discussed with institutions that had expressed an interest in joining the portal. Further, future contract issues were discussed concerning the shape and constitution of the ETHICSWEB after the end of the project. On the strength of the standard form contracts discussion, the final 'Legal guidelines' (D6.2) was produced. This was in three forms to ensure that the concepts and 'take-home messages' were clear to non-lawyers: in a PowerPoint presentation; in a brochure format; and as a report.
Legal documents that were produced in the course of the project have been included in the final version of legal guidelines.
Compendium for setting up an EDC and capacity building
In the course of the project ETHCISWEB produced several measures in regard to capacity building. First of all, a compendium for setting up and maintaining new EDCs (D5.3) has been compiled. The compendium gives best practice examples of successful EDCs, as well as important background information on organisational issues. The document serves as a basic document for institutions that think of becoming an EDC.
Additionally, five institutions (Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw; Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; International Sakharov Environmental University, Minsk; Reference Centre for Bioethics in South-East Europe, Zagreb; Riga Stradins University, Riga) were identified that showed interest in upgrading their information and documentation capacities. None of the institutions disposed of their own database. The institutions were invited to partake in ETHICSWEB. After agreeing to engage in documentation they were equipped with the ETHICSWEB local 'virtual' databases, trained in the correct application of the documentation tools, and finally the respective databases then were integrated into the ETHICSWEB search functionality. Some of the institutions already contributed a remarkable amount of entries while others are still in a training process of internalising the correct documentation procedures.
Additionally, ETHICSWEB created a database for centres and institutions in the field of science and ethics. The reason for this has been the lack of respective existing services. With the Global Ethics Observatory provided by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), there exists only one searchable database in the exclusive field of ethics and science, which explicitly addresses centres. BEKIS, a similar service provided by DRZE, strives to bundle information on experts, centres and institutions, and projects. Although it is technically a database, due to its complexity, it could not be integrated into ETHICSWEB. Alternatively, ETHICSWEB introduced an open database for institutions / centres, closing a gap in the technical annex between T2.8 and D2.4 which was identified in the course of the project. Institutions and centres identified in the several tasks of the project were gathered and stored in this database. The database also serves the goal of integration of relevant institutions in the field, comprising international organisations, e.g. the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNESCO, FAO, the EC, Council of Europe and so on, as well as established national and transnational networks and other important players in the field of science and ethics (see TA p8 and p9f).
Furthermore, ETHICSWEB created a database for web resources. This happened because of two reasons. On the one hand a lack of databases providing information on web-based services and resources was identified in the course of the project. On the other hand a lot of valuable web-based resource providers were gathered within the normal workflow of ETHICSWEB. In order to make the identified information resource better available to the public, all information about web-based resources, that were identified during the project, is stored in the newly created database ETHICSWEB web resources. All resources are indexed with keywords from the multi lingual thesaurus ethics in the life sciences (TELS). Originally, information resources were provided only as a list of links on the ETHICSWEB portal. With the ETHICSWEB web resources database, it is now possible to search for specific web resources via ETHICSWEB by subject heading or keyword, thus making them much easier to find and to access.
EC ethics project portals
ETHICSWEB strived to improve the visibility of the European scientific scene. One way to achieve this goal is to enhance the visibility of scientific engagements, especially in regard to research projects. Besides the implementation of a projects database, which resorts on information from Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS), ETHICSWEB developed a prototypical project-search facility for research projects. This multi-dimensional search feature employs different modes of searching than the general search functionality of ETHICSWEB. It is meant to facilitate identification and retrieval of information provided by different (research) projects concerned with ethics and science.
Via the ETHICSWEB 'EC ethics project portals' section the user can cross-search all featured projects for specific contents. This service provides rich information directly from projects. The search can be conducted by projects, by subject-keywords, or by country. Search categories can be combined and thus specify the information needs in more detail. Identified webpages containing the information searched for can be accessed directly via ETHICSWEB. By now the prototype, due to legal considerations, only comprises four EC funded projects, which had been coordinated by ETHICSWEB participants, EULABOR, EUREC, PRIVILEGED, and PRIVIREAL. Further projects can be integrated in future, thus enrich the value of the tool. In order to include a project in this feature the help of, at least, an external participant of the project concerned is desirable in the process. In order to include a site and its relevant information, the content of the respective website has to be identified in terms of subject matters page by page. In this process, the pages are indexed and linked to ETHICSWEB in order to integrate them into the 'EC ethic projects' search. Persons involved obviously know better about the contents they provide themselves than externals.
More detailed information can be found in the minutes concerning milestone 19 and 21.
ERE
With ERE, ETHICSWEB provides access to one of the most renowned internet resources concerned only with research ethics. ERE is an English translation of the CODEX website which was previously only available in Swedish. ERE has been entirely redesigned and especially adjusted to the needs of the (non-Scandinavian) European user. It focuses entirely on research ethics and provides manifold links to important resources. (TA p18).
KOS registry
ETHICSWEB provides a unique KOS registry. KOSs provide knowledge in a structured way. Typical KOS are controlled vocabularies such as classifications, thesauri, gazetteers, glossaries, or taxonomies. They provide the means, which can be employed in the semantic web in order to make information resources available for the human or automated retriever. KOS registry is explained in D4.3. The KOS-registry itself can be accessed by registered users via the ETHICSWEB portal (see http://ethicsweb.mf.uni-lj.si/obrazci/index_kos.pl?err=15 online).
Prototypical research guide
ETHICSWEB also created a prototypical research guide that provides guidance for embedding applicable ethical standards into projects to be funded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the EC. The Research Guide has been developed additionally to the deliverables and milestones described in the technical annex. Sustainability of the portal has been an issue from the start of the project. One idea that came up in collaboration with the EC was to widen the range the services provided by the portal. Originally, ETHICSWEB has been designed as an information and documentation portal that provides comprehensive information on ethics and science. The ETHICSWEB research guide is a first step towards a more sophisticated ethics portal that does not restrict itself to theoretical scientific information, but interconnects scientific information with practical applications.
NEDC
One of the tasks in ETHICSWEB was to develop criteria for a (European) NEDC.
Regardless of the fact that the ETHICSWEB project is finished, it has been clear from the beginning that the ETHICSWEB portal would need permanent monitoring and administration in order to keep it up-to-date. Databases, which are not constantly updated, search programmes, which are not constantly upgraded, and portals, which are not carefully maintained, become less and less used, and eventually all the work invested into them is lost. Therefore members of the ETHICSWEB consortium agreed to form up as an informal NEDCs in order to provide regular administration of the portal and sustain its functionality.
In a couple of workshops (M1 and M2), questions concerning the formal structure, the scope and actual tasks of a NEDC, and means of sustainability were discussed.
The following basic tasks of a NEDC were identified:
a) sustainable care for the portal after the funding period;
b) networking between institutions and the connection of existing activities;
c) professional organisation for EDCs in the field of science and ethics.
However, the actual legal establishment of such a network turned out to be difficult due to several reasons:
- EDCs come in a variety of legal entities and belong to different legal frameworks in different countries;
- most EDCs are institutions that are part of a larger institution (e.g. university) which narrows legal flexibility;
- many, especially smaller institutions lack the resources to support an official network with funds and/or staff.
Especially the last point makes it difficult for institutions to determine the specific degree of their long-term engagement in such a network.
Discussions resulted in the creation of informal NEDCs. After the project period that network corresponds to the (then) former ETHICSWEB consortium. WP leaders agreed to take care for measure that fall under the scope of the former WP they were responsibility for. Especially former WP1 leader takes care for regular administration of the portal and coordinates the activities. WP3 will care for technical care; WP6 cares for legal issues that might arise.
Potential impact:
ETHICSWEB is designed to contribute to the ERA by connecting many different activities and sources of information and make them accessible via one common access point. The ETHICSWEB portal is the prototypical core realisation of an inter-connected European information and documentation system for ethics and science. It employs sophisticated tools, technical and semantic, in order to connect existing activities in the field of science and ethics and make them more visible to a broader public and thus enhancing the dissemination of information in the ERA and beyond. ETHICSWEB provides easy access to comprehensive information on science and ethics which is the prerequisite for enhancing and promoting the involvement of civil society in the debate on ethical issues in science.
The tools to documentation, technically and semantic, that were created within ETHICSWEB, can also be employed by other academic institutions. ETHICSWEB thus may have a significant impact in regard with documentation practice in the field of science and ethics. Already five institutions have been equipped with these tools and more institutions may follow in the future.
ETHICSWEB enhances visibility and availability of 'hidden' information, and makes ethical and legal debates in Europe better accessible. Consequently, ETHICSWEB is especially apt to making reliable information available to both scientists and to a wider public. It is therefore not only a powerful tool in regard to the scientific scene, but also an important contribution to the ethical reflections of the whole of European society.
By the end of the project, ETHICSWEB provides the opportunity for parallel search of 26 of some of the most renowned databases in the field, e.g.:
- GEObs;
- PubMed;
- BELIT;
- NanoEthicsBank;
- SIBIL;
- ENDEBIT;
- EUROETHICS.
In regard to bibliographic data, with about 500 000 records, ETHICSWEB is the world's largest access provider in the field of science and ethics. ETHICSWEB thus serves as major disseminator of de-centrally stored information resources solely concerned with ethics and science. The portal counts 400 daily hits at the end of the project (and growing).
Project website: http://www.ethicsweb.eu
- The ETHICSWEB portal and ethic documentation centres (ETSs).
- The ETHICSWEB portal (see http://www.ethicsweb.eu and http://www.ethicsweb.org online for further details) is a central access point to decentralised stored information about ethics in science. It provides common search functionality for heterogeneous information resources and comprises the world's largest access point to bibliographic information especially concerned with ethics in science.
Furthermore, it links to further primary information providers in the field. As a prerequisite of database integration, the ETSs were created. In order to make the de-centrally stored information objects centrally accessible common documentation standards are imperative. The ETSs are codified in the application profiles (APs) and corresponding Extensible markup language (XML) schemata which can be downloaded for free form the ETHICSWEB portal.
ETHICSWEB virtual databases and capacity building
As a means of capacity building ETHICSWEB provides 'virtual' local databases to interested academic institutions that lack the resources to develop or implement databases by their own. The virtual database is provided together with respective instruction materials. In the course of the project five new partner institutions have already been successfully equipped with virtual local databases. These infrastructures, together with a knowledge organisation system (KOS) registry, an interactive centres database, and an open entry tool for web resources ETHICSWEB provides even more directly exploitable tools to the scientific community.
Project context and objectives:
It has been the overall aim of the ETHICSWEB project to stimulate an enhanced democratic debate on ethical issues of science and to promote a more engaged and informed public by ensuring easy access to comprehensive information on science and ethics. ETHICSWEB resulted from the experiences made by various networking initiatives supported by the EC and the Council of Europe to set up infrastructures on a regional and national level. Missing was an infrastructure that can serve as an overarching infrastructure for all these diverse and heterogeneous infrastructures and thus not only making information better available but also enhancing exchange between information providers.
ETHICSWEB's main objectives were:
- to allow and ensure easy access to comprehensive information by connecting existing information and documentation systems;
- to create and apply sophisticated tools, technical and semantic in order to make the huge amount of information available for all parties involved in the debate;
- the creation of a common European reference focal point for decentralised information made available in different European Member States.
Accordingly, the two primary objectives were the realisation of the ETHCISWEB portal and its sustainable implementation in the (European) scientific community. These were predominantly realised by technical means:
O2.1: The integration of databases, documents and other kind of digital information in ethics and science in the portal management system provided and hosted by ETHICSWEB and using technologies provided by work packages (WPs) 3, 4. The platform strives for the documentation of different sources related to central issues in ethics and science i.e.:
- literature;
- laws, regulations, and guidelines;
- training materials and training programmes;
- academic exchange programmes and communication platforms;
- ethics related research projects;
- experts in the field of applied and research ethics;
- events and news.
O2.2: The precondition for database integration was the exchange and identification of procedural standards and an agreement on content related specifications of portals and databases. The result is that information can be shared in a more efficient way and thus the integration of user related access becomes possible. The objectives to meet this aim especially were to:
- encourage the sharing of deep-data owned by the providers;
- maintain a minimum and growing standard of technical expertise;
- assist in capacity building by offering for purchase, training products for potential new partners and projects;
- channel funding for new data development and commission new products;
- maintain a high quality mark through the reputation of the partners.
The results were to be implemented into an integrated portal architecture that facilitates single access points to heterogeneous ethics resources, the ETHICSWEB web portal framework, which integrates diverse ethics related information spaces and offers an interactive collaborative environment for information providers, as well as information users.
The central goal of the portal framework was to integrate resources of different providers in a singular virtual infrastructure (O3.1). Within this virtual infrastructure, services are offered that facilitate advanced retrieval, the linking of diverse information sources, and the use of interfaces to other information services in ethics, including integrating software adapters, where needed. The portal itself and all interfaces to project-controlled services and tools are to be multilingual thus reflecting the pan-European nature of ethics discourse (O3.2).
In order to achieve the central goal of making heterogeneous information resources centrally accessible, it is imperative to customise existing XML exchange standards for digital and non-digital resources within the domain of ethical issues. The scope on the content level follows the specifications in O2.1 (O4.1 - O4.6 accordingly). Additionally the work of WP4 is to result in the description and population of a 'KOS registry' for ethics (O4.7 and O4.8).
ETHICSWEB takes advantage of the results and outcomes of already completed projects in the field, especially completed projects of ETHICSWEB project partners, i.e. EULABHOR, EUREC, PRIVILEGED (O7.1); Other EC funded project of interest have been identified and connected to ETHCISWEB (O7.2) and the platform SINAPSE is linked to ETHCSWEB (O7.3 in connection with t7.4). All the work has been accompanied by legal expertise by WP6. The expected impacts are:
- increased awareness of issues of harmonisation, implementation and application of laws and regulations across the Member States;
- increased clarity in the nature of the legal requirements upon research and researchers across the Member States;
- sound legal and ethical operation of the ETHICSWEB infrastructure.
Complementary to the technical realisation of the ETHICSWEB infrastructure measures of capacity building have been implemented by WP5, specifically:
O5.1: To promote the European knowledge-based society.
O5.2: To foster critical debate on issues of major significance in ethics and science across Europe; especially in areas where such a debate is not well established now.
O5.3: To help setting-up appropriate information and documentation systems where they are presently missing.
O5.4: To build capacities for maintaining Ethic documentation centre (EDC)s.
O5.5: To strengthen cooperation between established EDCs and newly emerging institutions.
The framework of ETHICSWEB and its connections with new partners and institutions needs a sustainable administration. Therefore WP1, besides more general objectives in regard to project management (O1.1) has established NEDCs. Centres that are participating in ETHICSWEB, and new identified partners, initiate and strengthen exchange within this network. All objectives were realised in the technical results as described in the deliverables of the technical annex.
Project results:
Description of the main scientific and technological results / foregrounds
ETHICSWEB is an umbrella term denoting the ETHICSWEB project, its achievements and services, e.g. the ETHICSWEB portal, as well as the network of institutions resulting from the project. The ETHICSWEB portal is designed as an overarching infrastructure that is able to bundle already existing infrastructures and services into one common access point. The main achievements of the ETHICSWEB project served the goal of implementing the ETHCISWEB portal and its features. Consequently, the results of the project are predominantly of a technical nature. The technical process of creating the web portal was accompanied by the administrational means that aimed at safeguarding the output of ETHICSWEB. Most notably, the former ETHICSWEB consortium constitutes an informal NEDCs (O1.2). Such a network engages in the care of the portal and its features, ensures its sustainability, and generally contributes to the improvement of the European Research Area (ERA) (O5.1). ETHICSWEB refrained from creating scientific results by its own. Nevertheless, some insights were produced in several deliverables which are, by and large, not intended for the public though.
The main technical results comprise:
- the ETHICSWEB portal and its search functionality (O3.1 and O3.2). Both are based upon database integration (O2.1 and O2.2) made possible by ETS documentation standards (O4.1 to O4.6).
Further achievements are:
- Virtual local databases and corresponding instructional materials (O2.2 and O5.3)
a) the ETHICSWEB primer (O2.2);
b) compendium for setting up and maintaining EDC (O5.4);
c) short legal guidelines for ETHICSWEB (O6.3).
- EC ethic projects (O7.1 and O7.2);
- European research ethics (ERE) (as described in t2.3);
- KOS registry (O4.7 and O4.8).
The ETHICSWEB portal and search functionality
The work of the ETHICSWEB project resulted in various exploitable results. Before all, the technical achievements of the ETHICSWEB portal can be emphasised, which together constitute the ETHICSWEB portal (see http://www.ethicsweb.eu online) and its functionalities. The portal is a central entry point to information about ethical issues in science; a dynamic authoring environment; an environment in which project partners coordinate their work by using the dedicated forum facilities, and registered users can interactively partake by commenting information, contributing new resources and the like; a safe repository for (non-public as well as public) documents that resulted from the work inside the project consortium. It forms the centre of collaboration between the European partners of ETHICSWEB network after the official project period.
The portal has been the project's central point for:
a) collecting and organising ethics in science-related information;
b) searching and browsing through information, which is organised in the project's databases or which is accessible elsewhere through the portal's modules;
c) incorporating or connecting to other non-ETHICSWEB applications for collecting / publishing the information;
d) preservation and archiving of the information.
The portal is developed as a content management system, using the open source software of the Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl / PHP / Python (LAMP) nature while most of the search engine modules are developed in Java.
The communication through the portal is protected and uses safe channels; all potentially destructible actions are password protected and a strict backup and archiving policy are implemented, as well as the technical means to ensure the confidentiality of non-public information.
All the textual data stored inside the portal should be written in UTF-8. The portal user interface will be multilingual. A cross-language information retrieval functionality will be provided for information objects described with multilingual thesauri.
Portal users are of two main groups: administrators and users. Administrators are super-administrators (responsible for portal development), and local administrators (WP leaders with responsibilities ranging from user accounting to forum management). Users are guests (unregistered users) with access to public information and public forums (which are not existing as of yet, but could be easily implemented), and without the possibility to publish to databases or forums; registered users with the opportunity to participate in the portal's public forums and to personalise the portal functionality through personal profiles; and editors with all authoring responsibilities. Such user-centred features might add additional value to the individual information resource in the future. Due to unclear legal circumstances and a lack of resources for intensive portal administration user participation had to be limited in this stage of the project. A more detailed description of the technical details of the portal is given in the document D3.2.
A very important part of work on the portal's tools and services are the APs and XML schemas, which together codify the ETSs. The ETS documentation standards make the development of ETHICSWEB databases and procedures for the transformation and uploading of information objects possible in the first place. The development of APs and schemas was performed mainly by the WP4 and WP2 teams, while the WP3 team was instrumental in the actual implementation of APs and schemas in databases, data acquisition modules, and data-entry forms. More details can be found in the section 'Documentation standards' and the respective deliverables (D4.1-6 and D4.8).
The finalisation of the portal included the integration of heterogeneous databases as previously identified by WP2, the updating and adaption of the used programmes, the evolution of the search interface and the display of search results. Furthermore, a semi-automatic functionality for the linking of records in different ETHICSWEB databases using the hidden semantic network was introduced. The software, which is still in a development phase, analyse each record in each ETHICSWEB database and tries to find records in other databases that have some important data common with the analysed record. In the future such potential links after evaluation can be written into records making it possible to use them during searching.
The centrepiece of the portal is its search-functionality which enables the direct search of the various integrated databases. By the end of the project, ETHICSWEB provides the opportunity for parallel search within 27 different databases providing various resource types as:
- literature and document-like object (DLIO)s;
- training programmes and courses;
- research projects;
- experts;
- centres.
Furthermore information on news and events are presented via the ETHICSWEB portal, but not searchable via the ETHICSWEB database search.
New solutions were chooses in regard to laws, guidelines, and regulations as well as in regard to teaching materials, which are not fully integrated into ETHICSWEB due to different reasons.
Database integration
It was the overall task of ETHICSWEB to merge various database types into one unifying search facility. Therefore, preliminary work by WP2 had to identify procedural standards and content related specification of portals and databases (O2.2) in order to identify adequate information providers, arrange the integration on an administrative level and thus to prepare the technical merging of databases by WP3.
At the end of the project period ETHICSWEB has managed to integrate some of the most renowned databases in the field, e.g. GEObs, PubMed, or BELIT. In regard to bibliographic data, with about 500 000 records, ETHICSWEB is the world's largest access provider in the field of science and ethics. ETHICSWEB is a major disseminator of de-centrally stored information resources that solely concerned with ethics and science. The general goal of ETHICSWEB is not only to document existing resources, but also to provide direct access to these resources on the content level. This is limited only by the legal provisions that apply to the respective information. WP6 assisted in the negotiation of the licence with providers of databases. Licence negotiations were standardised except in regard to PubMed and EURETHNET. PubMed is part of the MedLine provided by the United States National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Although legal environment differ significantly ETHICSWEB was able to conform to the requirements of PubMed, and the negotiation was concluded relatively easily.
The negotiation with one other provider, EURETHNET, was more problematic, as that provider, following the end of its project, did not have clear ownership of the materials. A solution was found, and the experience underlined the need to establish a post-project legal personality for ETHICSWEB.
In regard to the section 'laws, regulations, and guidelines' as well as 'training materials', which includes all kinds of educational working materials, no database was integrated into ETHICSWEB. This is due several reasons:
- ETHICSWEB only provides meta-information about information objects, like books, projects, centres, or persons. In principle, ETHICSWEB does not provide any information which is not already available elsewhere. Links to the provider of the original information object are provided wherever possible. In regard to laws and legislation, meta-information is of much less concern than the actual legislative text. Therefore, ETHICSWEB does not focus on metadata here, but provides access to full text providers of laws and legislation on the national level as well as on the European or international level. Additionally to general access points to legal information, providers of access to highly specialised information about specific scientific or ethical topics are linked via an annotated links list and stored in the ETHICWEB web resources database. More information is codified in D2.3 'Survey on legal databases'.
- In regard to training materials and learning resources, there is a comparable situation. Meta-information on actual learning resources can be stored in a literature database since learning materials are not different per se to other information objects. Again, access to the information itself is of more interest than meta-information about it. Therefore ETHICSWEB only provides links to providers of LR databases. Again, the provider of learning resources can be accessed via the annotated link list or via the respective web-resources entry, where full texts can be accessed (if provided).
- Exchange programmes are not explicitly subsumed under training programmes, since the latter denote are a broader concept. D2.3 t2.5 scrutinised the situation of the status quo in regard to exchange programmes in the European academic scene and identified problems and difficulties, which circumvent an 'easy' entry-tool solution. More details in D2.3 t2.5.
- Further information resources that a searchable via the ETHCISWEB search functionality are:
a) training programmes;
b) projects;
c) centres;
d) experts;
e) web resources.
Additionally, ETHICSWEB provides direct access to event and news calendars in the field of science and ethics.
Documentation standards
The creation of the ETHICSWEB portal and the integration of different databases became only possible due the creation of unifying documentation standards which were developed in the course of the ETHICSWEB project. The ETSs build upon the well-established standards and serve as a basic standard that makes it possible to merge already existing but differing standards into only one unifying standard. The ETS are not restricted to literature. Documentation standards also exist for information about experts, centres, projects, KOSs (e.g. thesauri and ontologies), training programs, learning resources, event, news, and web-resources which all can be easily and cost-efficient employed by interested institutions.
The documentation standards comprise an AP, which documents and explains the application of the standards, and a XML scheme, which is necessary to ensure the exchange between two information systems.
Basic strategies how to proceed were determined in the ETHICSWEB kick-off meeting. Because FAO was not able to engage in ETHICSWEB as described in the technical annex tasks of FAO were reallocated to ISS. Although FAO has leading expertise in the field of documentation standards and database integration, a significant transfer of knowledge could be realised and ISS was able to substitute FAO after their leave.
Details concerning the documentation standards can be found in the documents milestone 4 and 8 'Minutes of the joint workshop on documentation standards and portal specification' and D4.1 to D4.7 and D4.9 which describe and explain the technicalities of the ETSs.
Besides these essential results ETHICSWEB produced further foreground in the course of the project:
'Virtual local databases'
Building upon the ETS ETHICSWEB has created distributable e-tools for documentation as a site product of database integration. The 'virtual' local database, despite the prefix 'virtual', is a fully working database. Databases can be purchased for all categories that exist in ETHICSWEB, even though ETHICSWEB expects virtual local database for literature to be most popular. The tool can be used by interested academic institutions in order to store information about information resources, especially literature (technical term: DLIOs). The databases can be implemented within the ETHICSWEB portal only (therefore 'virtual') and thus save infrastructure capacities on the site of the partaking institution. At the same time, it can be easily accessed and remotely controlled by the respective institution. Of course, the virtual database can also be implemented directly into the website of the participant.
The documentation tools come along with complementary documents: The ETHICSWEB primer, a short guide to documentation (D2.4) the compendium for setting up and maintain an EDC (D5.3) with helpful recommendations in regard to questions of founding a documentation and information centre, as well as legal guidelines for engaging in ETHICSWEB (D6.2).
ETHICSWEB primer
The ETHICSWEB primer
A short guide to ethics documentation was provided by WP2 in April 2010. The aim of the document is to serve as a guide for various target groups with an interest in documentation within the field of ethics in science. In particular, the intended audience includes EDCs. The text provides some general advice concerning documentation activities, but it also describes how to make the data accessible via the ETHICSWEB infrastructure. Apart from its methodological function as an element in a training programme, the document also constitutes the basis for negotiating the integration of external databases in the ETHICSWEB portal.
The ETHICSWEB primer was prepared by KIB in close co-operation with UMG and UBO and in continuous communication and information exchange with the leaders of the WPs 3 and 5 between November 2009 and March 2010. Basic aims and outlines were discussed at a workshop on good practice of documentation on 16 September 2009 in Barcelona. The document provides general information on the aims and scope of ETHICSWEB and on the nature of EDCs. It also comprises more detailed information on the methods and standards of documentation activities in the field of ethics, for example regarding the selection of collected and indexed documents, the different kinds of databases, the procedures of setting up a database (software, data entry), the practice of cataloguing and indexing regarding DLIOs, as well as other types of objects, thesauri and indexing terms as well as copyright and licensing. Finally, the document also contains a detailed section on the different possibilities and strategies of integrating data into the ETHICSWEB portal (data export methods such as ad hoc export, OAI-PMH, RSS as well as direct data entry to the portal via data entry tools) and the technical aspects of the ETHICSWEB search machinery. The ETHICSWEB primer was disseminated and tested for training purposes at the M7 workshop in Rome in April 2010 and revised and finalised subsequently.
The ETHICSWEB M7 workshop 'Good practice of documentation' took place on 12 April 2010 at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) in Rome. It was planned and organised by the University Medical Centre Göttingen and Istituto Superiore di Sanità. Its purpose was to present ETHICSWEB to a broader public and to encourage and train ethics documentation activities and database providers in the field of ethics in science, especially from the new member states, but also from further regions of the world. The workshop was open to scientists, documentalists and librarians engaged in documentation in the area of ethics and science. The University Medical Centre Göttingen provided travel grants of up to EUR 500 so that especially representatives from the new Member States, but also from other European countries could be supported in order to come to Rome. Altogether, more than 20 scholars and documentalists from the fields of ethics, law, librarianship, information technology and computer sciences took. Representatives from relevant institutions in the field of ethics documentation such as the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (Gerogetown, United States) and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, were present.
The first aim was the exchange on expertise and the discussion of standards in the field of ethics and science. This included presentations and discussions on the purpose and scope of ethics documentation in general, the central questions of setting up a database, the selection of the document types to collect and index and the relevance criteria to be used, the basic principles of cataloguing and indexing such as cataloguing rules, thesauri, selection of indexing terms, the copyright and licensing implications of documentation, and the general legal issues involved in documentation activities. This part of the workshop was complemented by presentations of ethics documentation activities in different national and organisational contexts, such as the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, the Bioethics Research Library at Georgetown University, and the Karolinska Institute at Stockholm University, as well as the discussion of their concrete practical experiences and problems. At the same time, the workshop was scheduled as an opportunity to present the work of ETHICSWEB and to discuss the requirements for and the benefits of participation in the ETHICSWEB database integration. This included presentations on the basic purpose and structure of ETHICSWEB, the question which databases are within the scope of integration, the different ways of integrating databases, the basic technical and semantic standards, as well as legal aspects of database integration (APs, XML formats, export methods) and the different ways of becoming involved with ETHICSWEB on an institutional level. Furthermore, the workshop was used to present and disseminate the ETHICSWEB primer (see above). The workshop provided an occasion for fruitful exchange of expertise and for networking in the field of ethics documentation. The results were collected in an abstract book. Furthermore, the workshop initiated ongoing contacts and cooperative relations between the ETHICSWEB consortium and external database providers, partly within the framework of subsequent workshops (WP5: Workshop on capacity building, 16 September 2010 in Maastricht), partly also in view of the ETHICSWEB database integration and the envisaged NEDCs.
Legal guidelines
In two workshops (M5 and M17), legal guidelines were discussed. The first (M5) was a workshop of network providers, which took place in Maastricht on 14 July 2009. Representatives from Göttingen, Utrecht and Bonn attended. As WP2 leader, the Göttingen representative had a keen awareness of the range of network providers. Dr Adcock was also present from the M5 'Legal panel'. The 'Draft legal guidelines' (D6.1) was presented and discussed in detail. On the basis of this workshop, the second (M17) workshop was undertaken in Barcelona on 14 September 2009 where the revised guidelines were presented to and discussed with the whole consortium. It was felt that following these two workshops, sufficient detailed comment had been received on the draft legal guidelines, that this part of the exercise had been sufficient. In particular, comments relating to the content of the standard form contract for New Member Inclusion were given and discussed, and the basis for the draft contract was agreed.
WP6 held the M18 workshop in Maastricht on 14 - 16 September 2010. During this workshop, the standard form contract was discussed with institutions that had expressed an interest in joining the portal. Further, future contract issues were discussed concerning the shape and constitution of the ETHICSWEB after the end of the project. On the strength of the standard form contracts discussion, the final 'Legal guidelines' (D6.2) was produced. This was in three forms to ensure that the concepts and 'take-home messages' were clear to non-lawyers: in a PowerPoint presentation; in a brochure format; and as a report.
Legal documents that were produced in the course of the project have been included in the final version of legal guidelines.
Compendium for setting up an EDC and capacity building
In the course of the project ETHCISWEB produced several measures in regard to capacity building. First of all, a compendium for setting up and maintaining new EDCs (D5.3) has been compiled. The compendium gives best practice examples of successful EDCs, as well as important background information on organisational issues. The document serves as a basic document for institutions that think of becoming an EDC.
Additionally, five institutions (Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw; Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; International Sakharov Environmental University, Minsk; Reference Centre for Bioethics in South-East Europe, Zagreb; Riga Stradins University, Riga) were identified that showed interest in upgrading their information and documentation capacities. None of the institutions disposed of their own database. The institutions were invited to partake in ETHICSWEB. After agreeing to engage in documentation they were equipped with the ETHICSWEB local 'virtual' databases, trained in the correct application of the documentation tools, and finally the respective databases then were integrated into the ETHICSWEB search functionality. Some of the institutions already contributed a remarkable amount of entries while others are still in a training process of internalising the correct documentation procedures.
Additionally, ETHICSWEB created a database for centres and institutions in the field of science and ethics. The reason for this has been the lack of respective existing services. With the Global Ethics Observatory provided by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), there exists only one searchable database in the exclusive field of ethics and science, which explicitly addresses centres. BEKIS, a similar service provided by DRZE, strives to bundle information on experts, centres and institutions, and projects. Although it is technically a database, due to its complexity, it could not be integrated into ETHICSWEB. Alternatively, ETHICSWEB introduced an open database for institutions / centres, closing a gap in the technical annex between T2.8 and D2.4 which was identified in the course of the project. Institutions and centres identified in the several tasks of the project were gathered and stored in this database. The database also serves the goal of integration of relevant institutions in the field, comprising international organisations, e.g. the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNESCO, FAO, the EC, Council of Europe and so on, as well as established national and transnational networks and other important players in the field of science and ethics (see TA p8 and p9f).
Furthermore, ETHICSWEB created a database for web resources. This happened because of two reasons. On the one hand a lack of databases providing information on web-based services and resources was identified in the course of the project. On the other hand a lot of valuable web-based resource providers were gathered within the normal workflow of ETHICSWEB. In order to make the identified information resource better available to the public, all information about web-based resources, that were identified during the project, is stored in the newly created database ETHICSWEB web resources. All resources are indexed with keywords from the multi lingual thesaurus ethics in the life sciences (TELS). Originally, information resources were provided only as a list of links on the ETHICSWEB portal. With the ETHICSWEB web resources database, it is now possible to search for specific web resources via ETHICSWEB by subject heading or keyword, thus making them much easier to find and to access.
EC ethics project portals
ETHICSWEB strived to improve the visibility of the European scientific scene. One way to achieve this goal is to enhance the visibility of scientific engagements, especially in regard to research projects. Besides the implementation of a projects database, which resorts on information from Community Research and Development Information Service (CORDIS), ETHICSWEB developed a prototypical project-search facility for research projects. This multi-dimensional search feature employs different modes of searching than the general search functionality of ETHICSWEB. It is meant to facilitate identification and retrieval of information provided by different (research) projects concerned with ethics and science.
Via the ETHICSWEB 'EC ethics project portals' section the user can cross-search all featured projects for specific contents. This service provides rich information directly from projects. The search can be conducted by projects, by subject-keywords, or by country. Search categories can be combined and thus specify the information needs in more detail. Identified webpages containing the information searched for can be accessed directly via ETHICSWEB. By now the prototype, due to legal considerations, only comprises four EC funded projects, which had been coordinated by ETHICSWEB participants, EULABOR, EUREC, PRIVILEGED, and PRIVIREAL. Further projects can be integrated in future, thus enrich the value of the tool. In order to include a project in this feature the help of, at least, an external participant of the project concerned is desirable in the process. In order to include a site and its relevant information, the content of the respective website has to be identified in terms of subject matters page by page. In this process, the pages are indexed and linked to ETHICSWEB in order to integrate them into the 'EC ethic projects' search. Persons involved obviously know better about the contents they provide themselves than externals.
More detailed information can be found in the minutes concerning milestone 19 and 21.
ERE
With ERE, ETHICSWEB provides access to one of the most renowned internet resources concerned only with research ethics. ERE is an English translation of the CODEX website which was previously only available in Swedish. ERE has been entirely redesigned and especially adjusted to the needs of the (non-Scandinavian) European user. It focuses entirely on research ethics and provides manifold links to important resources. (TA p18).
KOS registry
ETHICSWEB provides a unique KOS registry. KOSs provide knowledge in a structured way. Typical KOS are controlled vocabularies such as classifications, thesauri, gazetteers, glossaries, or taxonomies. They provide the means, which can be employed in the semantic web in order to make information resources available for the human or automated retriever. KOS registry is explained in D4.3. The KOS-registry itself can be accessed by registered users via the ETHICSWEB portal (see http://ethicsweb.mf.uni-lj.si/obrazci/index_kos.pl?err=15 online).
Prototypical research guide
ETHICSWEB also created a prototypical research guide that provides guidance for embedding applicable ethical standards into projects to be funded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the EC. The Research Guide has been developed additionally to the deliverables and milestones described in the technical annex. Sustainability of the portal has been an issue from the start of the project. One idea that came up in collaboration with the EC was to widen the range the services provided by the portal. Originally, ETHICSWEB has been designed as an information and documentation portal that provides comprehensive information on ethics and science. The ETHICSWEB research guide is a first step towards a more sophisticated ethics portal that does not restrict itself to theoretical scientific information, but interconnects scientific information with practical applications.
NEDC
One of the tasks in ETHICSWEB was to develop criteria for a (European) NEDC.
Regardless of the fact that the ETHICSWEB project is finished, it has been clear from the beginning that the ETHICSWEB portal would need permanent monitoring and administration in order to keep it up-to-date. Databases, which are not constantly updated, search programmes, which are not constantly upgraded, and portals, which are not carefully maintained, become less and less used, and eventually all the work invested into them is lost. Therefore members of the ETHICSWEB consortium agreed to form up as an informal NEDCs in order to provide regular administration of the portal and sustain its functionality.
In a couple of workshops (M1 and M2), questions concerning the formal structure, the scope and actual tasks of a NEDC, and means of sustainability were discussed.
The following basic tasks of a NEDC were identified:
a) sustainable care for the portal after the funding period;
b) networking between institutions and the connection of existing activities;
c) professional organisation for EDCs in the field of science and ethics.
However, the actual legal establishment of such a network turned out to be difficult due to several reasons:
- EDCs come in a variety of legal entities and belong to different legal frameworks in different countries;
- most EDCs are institutions that are part of a larger institution (e.g. university) which narrows legal flexibility;
- many, especially smaller institutions lack the resources to support an official network with funds and/or staff.
Especially the last point makes it difficult for institutions to determine the specific degree of their long-term engagement in such a network.
Discussions resulted in the creation of informal NEDCs. After the project period that network corresponds to the (then) former ETHICSWEB consortium. WP leaders agreed to take care for measure that fall under the scope of the former WP they were responsibility for. Especially former WP1 leader takes care for regular administration of the portal and coordinates the activities. WP3 will care for technical care; WP6 cares for legal issues that might arise.
Potential impact:
ETHICSWEB is designed to contribute to the ERA by connecting many different activities and sources of information and make them accessible via one common access point. The ETHICSWEB portal is the prototypical core realisation of an inter-connected European information and documentation system for ethics and science. It employs sophisticated tools, technical and semantic, in order to connect existing activities in the field of science and ethics and make them more visible to a broader public and thus enhancing the dissemination of information in the ERA and beyond. ETHICSWEB provides easy access to comprehensive information on science and ethics which is the prerequisite for enhancing and promoting the involvement of civil society in the debate on ethical issues in science.
The tools to documentation, technically and semantic, that were created within ETHICSWEB, can also be employed by other academic institutions. ETHICSWEB thus may have a significant impact in regard with documentation practice in the field of science and ethics. Already five institutions have been equipped with these tools and more institutions may follow in the future.
ETHICSWEB enhances visibility and availability of 'hidden' information, and makes ethical and legal debates in Europe better accessible. Consequently, ETHICSWEB is especially apt to making reliable information available to both scientists and to a wider public. It is therefore not only a powerful tool in regard to the scientific scene, but also an important contribution to the ethical reflections of the whole of European society.
By the end of the project, ETHICSWEB provides the opportunity for parallel search of 26 of some of the most renowned databases in the field, e.g.:
- GEObs;
- PubMed;
- BELIT;
- NanoEthicsBank;
- SIBIL;
- ENDEBIT;
- EUROETHICS.
In regard to bibliographic data, with about 500 000 records, ETHICSWEB is the world's largest access provider in the field of science and ethics. ETHICSWEB thus serves as major disseminator of de-centrally stored information resources solely concerned with ethics and science. The portal counts 400 daily hits at the end of the project (and growing).
Project website: http://www.ethicsweb.eu