Translated material
Experience in the national language
IDW (Germany) and “Open Science” (Russia) - two non -ang -speaking aggregator of scientific news. IDW was founded in 1994, “Open Science” in 2014. More than 320 thousand press releases are available on IDW, and less than a thousand in Open Science. The IDW almost reached the growth ceiling - 980 organizations were registered on it - and the “open science” has a huge resource for growth, it has only about 60 participants. Scientific communicators who stood at the origins of IDW and “He”, Joseph König (IDW project manager (RUR University, Germany) and Alexander Borisov (scholarshipist of the German Chancellor of the Foundation named after the University of Rin-Waal (Germany)) are talking about the beginning of the path, resources for development and the mission. The text was first published in the collection “Formula of the Scientific PR” of the project “Communication Laboratory” of the RVC.
A. B.: I want to start with terminology. The fact is that the term “aggregator”, which has well been established in Russia (and I use it myself), perhaps not entirely correct. The Germans do not understand this term, they talk about PDS (Press-Release Distribution System, a press release distribution system). And this is more correct, because our systems are still not unilateral: they not only collect (“aggregate”) information, but also send it to journalists, simultaneously analyzing themes (“distribution”). Perhaps the term "aggregator" does not quite correctly orient our journalists and PR managers.
But back to history.
Y. K.: IDW (Informationsdiensd Wissenschaft, Scientific Information Service) was originally created at all for press releases. You see, it was in 1994, Web was five years old, journalists took comments on the phone, not everyone had the Internet, but if it was, then from the modem from the telephone line. You were not born then, probably!
But, despite this, journalists had the same tasks and values: they needed high -quality operational information and qualified experts. It all started with experts. Scientific communicators at universities sought to satisfy the needs of the media in the examination, but not one, even the largest, university can have experts in all areas. Therefore, although we competed among ourselves, it was sometimes more profitable to redirect the journalist to a colleague than just refuse him: yes, this time there will be a comment from another university in the media, but the journalist will appreciate the participation and desire to help. There were more and more requests, and there was a desire to streamline this intellectual ping-pong. The pioneers were representatives of the University of Bayreyt (Jurgen Abel), Klaustal Technical University (Yohen Brinkmann), the Klaustal Computer Center (Herald Lange) and the Ruri University of Bochum (it represented it). We gathered in September 1994 and offered a progressive model at that time-lists of emails. Journalists could put their requests for a fax newsletter - and the request immediately came to all the communicators included in the network. Further - whoever sees the first, that and the birthday. About 5,000 marks were invested in the work on the newsletter (this is about 2500 euros at the rate at the time of cancellation of the brand). For all the apparent simplicity, the model was so successful that by the beginning of 1995 we already had 32 press services and 20 journalists. I want to emphasize that this movement began precisely at universities, although in Germany there are also purely research organizations - institutions of society named after Max Planck, to them Leibniz, them. Fraunhofer. But it was universities that became the leaders of this movement.
We were inspired by these successes, cooperation was fruitful, but remained one -sided - with a request from journalists to communicators. We made a second newsletter that worked in the opposite direction: the press service of universities shared their press releases with reporters. Based on these mailings in 1995, the first IDW website appeared.
A. B.: In Russia in 2014, the motivation was, of course, completely different. The fact is that we did not have the formed community of scientific press services. There were scientific journalists, and the press services were very young (Asson Association studies that 17% of the press services in universities appeared in 2014), they did not have contacts and authority in the media, they were very few requests, and they were not perceived as producers of scientific information, and scientific examination holders. Therefore, creating a system of aggregation and distribution of press releases seemed a very logical step (along with routine daily work in other directions, of course). So the scientific and communicative competencies of the press service could be collected in one place that would say to journalists: look, these are the work of our scientists, and these are press releases, they are of high quality, we wrote them, we have these competencies, let's work. “Open Science” arose as a subproject of the infrastructure project of the RVK “Communication Laboratory”, which united (and continues to unite) the community of scientific journalists and PRARS. It was a pure experiment: we then did not know about national aggregators and focused only on Eurekalert, so we did not know at all whether the Russian -speaking resource would “take off”. The site “theory and practice” agreed to make it (thank you a lot!).
In the first year, we gained a close number of information suppliers and subscribers - about 20-30. The universities and their young press services also acted as the development driver-from the very beginning, ITMI, ITMO, HSE, UrFU and a number of other universities were in the “open science”. Certain difficulties arose (and remain) with the positioning of the resource: since this is a subsection on the website of one of the media, not all journalists perceive it as an aggregator - rather as a competing media, which, therefore, does not need to take material. It is planned to solve this problem already in 2017, transferring the system to a separate domain.
Y. K.: We saw the demand for our first, very small site and turned to the Ministry of Education and Science of Germany for support. In November 1996, we were allocated a three -year grant worth 1.8 million marks (a little less than a million euros) for the development of the project. At this stage, we have the current name-IDW, we made a full-fledged site that implemented the functional of press releases, announcements of events and conferences, journalistic requests, photos and multimedia. Our subscription is also very high quality: each journalist can very subtly configure it - on the subject, the region - so as to receive exactly the information that he needs. Content managers appeared in the staff who disassemble and process incoming content, as well as marketing specialists who are promoting the project. Then we laid the basics of IDW, now we are upgrading and developing then.
A. B.: In this story, I was interested in the fact that IDW, it turns out, is older than its “older brothers” - the American Eurekalert (AAAS) and the European Alpha Galileo! They appeared in 1996 and 2000, respectively.
Y. K.: We are not only older, we are more. Today we have registered 980 press services, about 35 thousand users signed up for our materials, of which 7,600 were journalists. The archive is available-without subscription and registration-more than 320 thousand press releases and information about 54 thousand events and events. As you can see, we work not only for journalists, but also for the mass public of interest. In addition, we publish not only releases on the basis of scientific articles, but also reports of the life of universities - awards and bonuses, going to work of a large professor, changes in the leadership, visit of government representatives. There are relatively few such materials, but they are interesting to the local press. It is only important to catalog and deliver them correctly. This is different from the same Eurekalert, which works strictly for journalists and allows you to write only about science.
Thus, we serve all the information needs of universities and institutions. This allowed us to achieve such serious coverage. To complete the picture, it must be said that our releases are not only from Germany, but also from Austria and Switzerland, of course, something happens from Denmark and other nearby countries. That is, we are an aggregator of more than one country, but one language. Now, in addition to the German -speaking release, it is possible to place an English -speaking, but the main language of the resource is German. Since 2000, IDW has existed for membership dues (at first the contribution was 500 marks), since 2002 we have been registered as an association, since 2005 have been introduced by the RSS subscription and news under the embargo, and since 2007-individual statistics for each release for monitoring. Since 2008, we have been handing a reward for the IDW Award press services.
A. B.: “Open Science”, of course, is much less. In 2016, 330 press releases from 57 organizations were published on it, and we are limited only to scientific topics. This is due not only to Eurekalent as a model. Historically, in Russia, reports about the visit of officials and personnel appointments to universities were the main part of the news flow. We were forced to limit it so as not to lose grains of scientific information there, especially in the conditions of the limited technical functionality of our section. Perhaps in the next stages we will think about the inclusion of such news to attract journalists of a wider profile, but it will still be easier to do with press services, who are accustomed to format, restrictions and understand the functionality with which they work.
J.K.: The fact is that IDW is close to saturation. The number 980 is, of course, not all the scientific organizations of Germany, but it looks like that. Some of them are too small, and they do not have a press service, or it works at an insufficiently high level. One organization had to be excluded from the association for abuse (there were several such cases). So for us extensive growth is almost completed. It is important for us to hold their positions and adapt to new technologies and opportunities. And we can state that IDW is a stable structure. Its maintenance costs 580 thousand euros per year, we successfully cover this with membership fees (600 euros per year from a classic university, 800 euros from a commercial company, 550 or 600 euros-from low-scale educational institutions and research institutes). Nine people work on the project - two full time and seven on a partial employment. IDW has three offices - in Bayreyte, Bochum and Claustal.
A. B .: Yes, here analogies, I think, end. "Open Science" is growing dynamically. We only have to switch to a separate site and conduct rebranding-the system is still more associated with open access to scientific articles, and not with popular science information. We also plan to introduce the institute of the embargo and expand the functionality of the newsletter. The transfer and upgrade is carried out with the support of the RVC, and from next year the service will have to go to work at the means of membership dues - its support will go to the Association of Communications in the field of education and science (Axon). And this may not be easy. Tell me how IDW convinced the press service to pay for the fact that for three years it was available to them for free?
J.K.: Reputation, trust and quality of work. When switching to a paid subscription, we first lost a certain number of users, but then they returned and new ones came. This is not such a lot of money, and when they are spent transparently and people see how the service works for which they pay, they are ready to support it. This is my advice to the Russian Open Science.
Joseph König, Alexander Borisov