Sowiport

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Sowiport logo

The sociological specialist portal Sowiport ( own spelling sowiport ) contained specialist information and specialist databases with over seven million references to social science research projects , publications and events . The databases could be searched at the same time using a superordinate search mask. The offer from sowiport was freely accessible and usable free of charge from 2007 to the end of 2017. The SOLIS and SOFIS databases were released as Open Data in March 2018 .

history

Sowiport has been online since March 2007. The specialist portal was based on the following projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF):

Sowiport was operated by GESIS , but was a cooperative offer from the following partners: GESIS, German Center for Aging Issues (DZA), DZI - German Central Institute for Social Issues , Friedrich Ebert Foundation , Cologne University and City Library , Berlin Science Center for Social Research and Bertelsmann Foundation .

Sowiport was part of the interdisciplinary science portal vascoda , which has since been discontinued .

Sowiport was discontinued at the end of 2017 and has not been accessible via the previous Internet address since then.

portal

In addition to the databases, the specialist portal contained a variety of other specialist information from the social sciences. So social science conferences, workshops, seminars and the like could be researched and found via the calendar of events.

The Sowiport topic feeds offered the latest publications and research projects on current research topics such as "Atomic Energy" or "Health Policy in Germany". The feeds could be subscribed to via the RSS feed function.

The information service “Research Special” was published regularly and contained compilations of publications and research projects, structured according to specific aspects of a topic. The series covered social science topics such as “The Challenge of Terrorism - Internal Security Policy”, “Women in Science and Research” or “Transnational Socializations”.

Specialist databases

18 databases formed the basis of the portaldifferent providers. The databases were evidence databases, publications and research projects were therefore recorded with bibliographical information in the database. In many cases, however, the electronically available full texts were integrated and accessible at the click of a mouse. The following were available:

  • FIS education literature database
  • Catalog of the special collection area social sciences of the University and City Library Cologne
  • SOLIS - Social Science Literature Information System
  • SOFIS - Social Science Research Information System
  • DBK - GESIS database catalog
  • Social Sciences Open Access Repository SSOAR
  • GESIS specialist information guide SocioGuide
  • Catalog of the library of the Berlin Science Center for Social Research WZB
  • Literature database DZI SoLit
  • GeroLit database of the German Center for Age Issues
  • Catalog of the library of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
  • Bertelsmann Foundation
  • Sociological Abstracts
  • Social Services Abstracts
  • ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
  • PAIS International: Database of the Public Affairs Information Services
  • Physical Education Index

The international databases Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, PAIS International: Database of the Public Affairs Information Services and Physical Education Index from ProQuest were part of the DFG national license, which was approved in autumn It was first acquired in 2004. This means that users who can register for a national license free of charge have not only the current content at their disposal, but also the complete archives of the CSA databases.

The automatic recoding of search terms between the thesauri of the databases enabled simultaneous research in several or all databases. Value-added services support the keyword search and help sort the hit list according to new methods. The results of a research were presented in clear hit lists. The individual references could be saved in the personal folder system, sent as an e-mail or exported to a reference management program .

Criticism of the setting of the specialist portal

The successor to Sowiport is a service that is in turn operated by GESIS and focuses on social science open access publications and research data ( open data , open science ).

In this context, it was criticized that in particular the databases SOLIS and SOFIS, which had been set up by GESIS with tax revenues, have no longer been generally accessible since Sowiport was discontinued, which was justified by the fact that, as proprietary services, they no longer belong to this strategy would fit. Against this, it was objected that it was entirely in line with the idea of ​​Open Access to make research data and bibliographical information that are not freely accessible.

GESIS followed suit by releasing the historical data from SOLIS and SOFIS in March 2018 as Open Data in its own Git repository.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c An era comes to an end, a new one begins: The sowiport portal will be discontinued at the end of 2017 . In: press release . ( gesis.org [accessed January 17, 2018]).
  2. ↑ a b Databases from sowiport are now available for free download. In: InetBib mailing list . March 16, 2018, Retrieved March 18, 2018 (official announcement by GESIS).
  3. ↑ a b open-data / solis-sofis. Retrieved March 18, 2018 .
  4. ↑ List of partners . In: sowiport homepage , as of April 27, 2011.
  5. ^ Michael Hohlfeld: Vascoda portal offline . In: vascoda-blog , as of April 27, 2011.
  6. ↑ Topic feeds . In: sowiport homepage , as of April 27, 2011.
  7. ↑ Research special . In: sowiport homepage , as of April 27, 2011.
  8. ↑ List of databases . In: sowiport homepage , as of April 27, 2011.
  9. ↑ Offer of national licenses . In: National Licenses for Electronic Media , as of April 27, 2011.
  10. ↑ Heinz-Jürgen Bove: An absurdity: Sowiport data can only be used beyond the payment barrier . In: Archivalia . December 11, 2017 ( hypotheses.org [accessed January 17, 2018] letter to the editor to the Open Password service).
  11. ↑ Klaus Graf: crazy idea: SOWIPORT data should disappear . In: Archivalia . November 24, 2017 ( hypotheses.org [accessed January 17, 2018]).