CLARIN-PLUS work was divided over five work packages for which the results are summarized below. WP1 addressed the financial, administrative and legal execution of the project in accordance with the grant agreement and in line with the efforts already planned for the CLARIN construction phase, both in organizational and technical sense.
*WP2* Central Hub
The coverage of CLARIN’s Service Provider Federation has been extended. An enhanced monitoring system for federated login is in place, as well as redesigns for advanced “gateway applications” that demonstrate the added value of the distributed infrastructure: Federated Content Search and the Virtual Collection Registry. The enhanced Virtual Language Observatory workflow for metadata harvesting has led to improved discoverability of language resources and tools. Several innovative and user-friendly web services/applications have been integrated into the CLARIN ecosystem, among which Language Resource Switchboard: a brokering application that for a specific selection of data as input can suggest suitable analysis tools.
*WP3* Central Office
The central CLARIN website has been redesigned in order to provide a more effective and user-friendly experience and went online in June 2016. Usability guidelines guided the design for increased visibility and discoverability of data. In addition, a new house style has been developed that is suited for adoption by all CLARIN nodes. An analysis was carried out of the online communication instruments in use, such as websites, newsletters, social media platforms and video channels. This served as basis for future streamlining of the online communication.
*WP4* Infrastructure Partnerships
CLARIN aims to strengthen the ties with other research infrastructure initiatives, in the EU and beyond, to obtain a higher degree of synergy, by re-using their services within CLARIN and by promoting the external usage of CLARIN services. Models of coordination/collaboration were set up or extended with a.o. DARIAH, EUDAT, Europeana, RDA and the LAPPS Grid. A CLARIN-specific risk analysis for e-Infrastructures was conducted which led to an outline of preventive actions and contingency plans.
*WP5* Outreach
The articulation of the CLARIN Value Proposition yielded an instrument for informing various types of stakeholders and complements the overview of the interest in non-CLARIN countries in joining and the status of the national roadmaps in those countries. Four training workshops for new countries and countries preparing for joining offered crucial input for a series of best practice papers for newcomers. Another four workshops brought together researchers from various disciplines who create, maintain and/or make use of a specific data type: oral history interviews, newspaper archives, parliamentary data, and social media data. The events led to feedback on the user interfaces and follow-up initiatives for resource discovery. An online Digital Humanities course registry has been relaunched and will be maintained as a joint initiative of DARIAH and CLARIN.
*WP6* Governance & Sustainability
A thorough assessment of the CLARIN governance and management was conducted based on the experience since CLARIN was established as ERIC in 2012. The findings were discussed with the General Assembly (GA) and with the National Coordinators. An adjusted governance structure has been proposed and the corresponding changes in the statutes have been approved by the GA. Other topics of analysis concerned the current and future financial situation for CLARIN in various scenarios, as well the needs for technical development in relation to the financial budgets in a number of scenarios. Priorities for future development, central vs. de-central tasks, as well as a landscape analysis were also covered in the analysis.
