University of Freiburg

Digital Infrastructures

What we offer

We develop and operate sustainable IT infrastructures and central repositories for research. In doing so, we work in collaboration with other university departments (e.g. the University IT Services, the Central Data Facility, the Digital Humanities Lab) and the Galaxy Project.

Research portals

We support researchers in setting up research portals for collaborative work and science communication, particularly in line with the University of Freiburg’s Open Science Policy. We develop these technical infrastructures to be tailored to each individual research project. In doing so, we adhere to international standards for data formats and interfaces, as well as the FAIR and Open Science principles. In this way, we help members of the University to securely store and share research results and data, and to make them accessible in the long term.

The heroicum.net online portal

Heroicum.net is the interactive online portal of the Collaborative Research Centre 948 “Heroes, Heroisations, Heroisms”, developed and hosted by the University Library Freiburg. The project’s research findings are presented in a multimedia and interactive format. The portal also enables seamless collaboration between the participating researchers and offers integrated tools for (metadata) indexing, visualization, and the publication of results.

Heroicum.net

Information infrastructure of the Collaborative Research Centre “Otium”

The University Library, together with the University IT Services, developed an information infrastructure for the Collaborative Research Centre 1015 “Otium”. This research environment integrated all stages of research, analysis and data transformation, and facilitated efficient communication and collaborative working practices among researchers. The platform features a repository for the secure and long-term archiving of research results.

https://www.sfb1015.uni-freiburg.de/ 
https://www.ub.uni-freiburg.de/ihre-ub/kooperationen-und-projekte/inf-projekt-sfb-1015/

Tambora

The University Library Freiburg worked closely with the project partners to develop an open research environment for the project „Tambora“, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). This platform enabled the collaborative analysis of climate data from historical sources. The project's aim was to reconstruct climatic and environmental-historical events. The portal tambora.org comprises a database containing original quotations, bibliographic information, extracted geolocation and time data, and climatic codings, as well as a visualisation toolbox.

https://www.tambora.org
https://www.ub.uni-freiburg.de/ihre-ub/kooperationen-und-projekte/tambora/

Digital editions

Digital editions make historical texts, letters, manuscripts and other sources accessible through structured encoding, machine-readable linking and searchable data models. We consistently rely on established standards such as TEI XML for content encoding, IIIF for image display and Linked Data for enrichment with standardised entities (e.g. from the Integrated Authority File, GND).

Making Mysticism

The ‘Making Mysticism’ project used the surviving library catalogue of the Erfurt Carthusian monastery as a case study to investigate how the concept of ‚mysticism‘ developed as a principle of library classification in the late Middle Ages. The University Library developed a workflow for the virtual reconstruction of the library catalogue and for the creation of a digital genetic edition with searchable TEI markup. This digital edition enables philological analysis through a combination of close and distant reading.

Making Mysticism

Maria Magdalena

The University Library Freiburg hosts a collection of digital editions from the project “Exploring Medieval Mary Magdalene”. The editions feature Latin and vernacular manuscripts relating to the late medieval conversion legend of Saint Mary Magdalene. Using TEI encoding and a dynamic web application, users can compare original and edited versions of the manuscripts side-by-side and search for specific entities. The project was launched in 2017 at Harvard University; as of 2021, the website has been hosted and maintained by the University Library Freiburg.

Exploring Medieval Mary Magdalene

Digital Humanities

Beyond the development and hosting of digital editions, the University Library Freiburg offers a comprehensive range of Digital Humanities services. We provide support for the digitisation and cataloguing of historical sources, as well as automated text recognition using state-of-the-art OCR and HTR technologies.

Digital Humanities

Digital Collections Freiburg

We are digitising parts of our existing collection that are relevant to research, widely used or have hitherto been difficult to access.

Digital Collections Freiburg

Publication infrastructures

The University Library provides robust and sustainable infrastructures for the publication and long-term archiving of research outputs. In line with the principles of Open Science, various open-source software solutions are employed for this purpose.

FreiDok plus

With the publication platform FreiDok plus, the University Library develops and operates the institutional repository and the official university bibliography of the University of Freiburg. It allows university members to publish their academic papers, theses, and related research data. FreiDok plus ensures the permanent visibility and long-term archiving of research results in line with the university’s Open Science Policy.

FreiDok plus

FreiJournals

With FreiJournals, the University Library offers members of the University of Freiburg a platform for the management, publication and customised presentation of Diamond Open Access journals. The entire publication process (submission, peer review, editing, publication, metadata submission, archiving) can optionally be organised using the open-source software Open Journal Systems (OJS) with technical support by the University Library.

Open Journal Systems (OJS)
FreiJournals

Open Encyclopaedia System (OES)

Open Encyclopaedia System (OES) offers a flexibly configurable open-source environment for the creation and ongoing updating of academic online reference works. OES forms the basis, for example, of the interdisciplinary online encyclopaedia Compendium heroicum by CRC 948 “Heroes – Heroisations – Heroisms”, which is hosted and maintained by the University Library Freiburg.

Open Encyclopaedia System (OES)
Compendium heroicum

 

Digital Object Identifiers (DOI)

The University Library is the central point of contact for DOI registration via DataCite for the University of Freiburg. All publications on FreiDok plus are automatically assigned a DOI. If you need a specific DOI structure for your publication, we can arrange a customised syntax with you.

DOI Contact point

Media productions

The University Library’s Media Centre supports researchers in producing high-quality animations, graphics and videos to make complex research findings visually engaging and easy to understand.

Media production

Freikon – Image and multimedia database

Freikon is an interactive digital image and multimedia database. It can be used to:

  • upload and store
  • manage and describe
  • share
  • search and download image material

Members of the university can also search other universities’ image databases. Freikon also enables users to create, view and export presentations with image material.

Freikon