The Incubator is a first step towards the commons, in which the consortium collects knowledge on research data management. The incubator is a preliminary stage in which the consortium collects existing materials that support the development of the commons. It also acts as a knowledge base to provide the consortium with orientation in discussions and thus practical help in decision-making in daily practice.

Screenshot of the N4O Inkubator's startpage
Screenshot of the N4O Inkubator’s startpage by Kai-Christian Bruhn, CC0

The incubator is an open portal that lists materials in eight categories. All entries are modelled in accordance with the NFDI CoreOntology and are additionally indexed using keywords. Like the Commons, the Incubator is not a repository but a catalogue. The resources themselves are stored externally via persistent URLs.

Classification

The Incubator makes resources accessible via categories and tags.

Categories

N4O Commons Incubator homepage

The following categories apply to the structural indexing of resources in the Incubator and in the Commons:

Categories

N4O Commons Incubator homepage

The following categories apply to the structural indexing of resources in the Incubator and in the Commons:

  • Recommendation: General advice or best practices for research data management in general or related to a specific application domain.
  • Instructions: Detailed procedural instructions or step-by-step guides for specific processes in research data management.
  • Competency Framework: Specification of required skills, knowledge and behaviours needed for effective research data management.
  • OER (Open Educational Resources): Free and open teaching and learning materials.
  • FDMP Templates: Templates for research data management plans.
  • Dataset: Structured collection of data that has an exemplary function or includes glossaries, vocabularies, taxonomies and ontologies.
  • Specification: Detailed technical requirements necessary for the creation, management, provision and use of research data.
  • Standard: Recognised norms or standards for various aspects of research data management that help to ensure consistency, quality and interoperability.

N4O Commons Incubator homepage

Tags

In addition to the categories, tags limit the topic of the resource. The tag set is currently not defined, but will be mapped to controlled vocabularies in the future.

Currently (as of September 2024) the following tags are being used:

  • Tag

Help and suggestions

Please send us suggestions for the Incubator via the Helpdesk. Ideally you should provide us with:

  • The title of the suggested resource.
  • A description giving details of the resource.
  • A link, ideally with DOI or a persistent URL.

You can contact us directly via the Helpdesk.