Nodegoat database templates

Project

Develop database templates for the nodegoat research environment that can be used for study, research and teaching.

Nodegoat is a research environment for management, exploration and visualisation of data.

Funding

Strategic funds of the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of Berne (funding instrument ‘Digitisation’)

Duration

10.2022 – 10.2024

Project management

Dr. Kaspar Gubler

Initial situation and goals

At the faculty of Humanities at University of Bern, the virtual research environment nodegoat has been in increasing demand since it was initiated with strategic funding from the Faculty 2020. As of September 2022, 60 projects involving 150 users are using nodegoat for database projects from various disciplines (history, archaeology, English studies, German studies, musicology, theatre studies and linguistics). This interdisciplinary usability makes nodegoat an important research infrastructure for the humanities.  Worldwide, nodegoat is now used by around 70 educational institutions for study, research and teaching. Thus, nodegoat facilitates not only interdisciplinary but especially international subject exchange.

Database templates for nodegoat do not yet exist. Up to now, nodegoat users have compiled their models individually. The present project will first create the technical prerequisites for working with database templates in nodegoat (programming by LAB1100). Subsequently, database templates will be created for various disciplines of the Faculty of Humanities will be created. The main benefit of database templates is that users need less time and no special programming knowledge to create their own research database in nodegoat. At the same time, this should create a low-threshold offer for those interested in databases and (open) research data. Nodegoat database templates are thus also suitable for teaching. This is especially true since templates can be created containing already a set of research data that students can explore and edit collaboratively.

With the new database template functions in nodegoat, it will also be possible for research projects, for example, to share their data models (and optionally the research data contained in them) with other disciplines and interested parties in the same nodegoat installation.

Further information on the project’s progress will be published regularly on this blog.