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This report evaluates the impact of two decades of research within the framework of history and computing, and sets out a research paradigm and research infrastructure for future historical information science. It is good to see that there has been done a lot of historical information r esearch in the past; much of it has been done, however, outside the field of history and computing, and not within a community like the Association for History and Computing. The reason is that the AHC never made a clear statement about what audience to address: historians with an interest in computing, or historical information scientists. As a r esult, both parties have not been accommodated, and communications with both 'traditional' history and 'information science' have not been established. A proper research program, based on new developments in information science, is proposed, along with an unambiguous scientific research infrastructure.Chapter 1. Introduction "The historian who refuses to use a computer as being unnecessary, ignores vast areas of historical research and will not be taken serious anymore" (Boonstra, Breure and Doorn, 1990).When we wrote the lines above, fifteen years ago, we sensed that, with the coming of the computer, not only new areas of historical research would be opened, but also that computers would be able to help find solutions to many of the information problems that are so distinctive to historical science. * Address all communications to: Onno Boonstra, Leen Breure and Peter Doorn, NIWI, Postbus 41950, 1009 DD Amsterdam, the Netherlands; e-mail: o.boonstra@let.kun.nl, leen@cs.uu.nl , peter.doorn@niwi.knaw.nl . The online version of this report is also available on: http://www.niwi.knaw.nl/nl/ geschiedenis/onderzoek/onderzoeksprojecten/past_present_future_of_historical_information _science/draft_report/toonplaatje. 5Nowadays, information problems in historical research still exist and are still vast and very varied. They range from textual pro blems (what is the word that is written on this thirteenth-century manuscript? what does it mean? to which issue does it relate? why was it put there? why was the text written? who was the author? who was supposed to read the manuscript? why has it survived?) and linkage problems (is this Lars Erikson, from this register, the same man as the Lars Eriksson, from this other register?), to data structuring pro blems (how can historical contextual information be kept as metadata in a XMLdatabase?), interpretation problems (from this huge amount of digital records, is it possible to discern patterns that add to our knowledge of history?) and visualisation problems (how do you put time-varying information on a historical map?).But this does not mean that nothing has been achieved over the last two decades. On the contrary, hundreds of research projects have been initiated to tackle problems like these. Historians, linguists, literary scholars, information scientists, they all have done their share in making historical information science grow and flo...

Abstract"FAIRness" -the degree to which a digital resource is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable -is aspirational, yet the means of reaching it may be defined by increased adherence to measurable indicators. We report on the production of a core set of semi-quantitative metrics having universal applicability for the evaluation of FAIRness, and a rubric within which additional metrics can be generated by the community. This effort is the output from a stakeholder-representative group, founded by a core of FAIR principles' co-authors and drivers. We now seek input from the community to more broadly discuss their merit. CommentThe FAIR Principles[1] provide guidelines for the publication of digital resources such as datasets, code, workflows, and research objects, in a manner that makes them Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR).

This article is a general introduction into the special issue of Archival Science on ''archiving research data''. It summarizes the different contributions and gives an overview of the main issues in this special field of archiving. One of the leading questions is how and why research data archives differ from public record offices. In the past, the developments in these two worlds have been rather separate. There are however signs that they are converging in the digital world. In particular, this can be seen in the areas of metadata and Internet dissemination as these are strongly influenced by the rapid changes in information technology.

After a spectacular case of data fraud in the field of social psychology surfaced in The Netherlands in September 2011, the Dutch research community was confronted with a number of questions. Is this an isolated case or is scientific fraud with data more common? Is the scientific method robust enough to uncover the results of misconduct and to withstand the breach of trust that fraud causes? How responsible and reliable are researchers when they collect, process, analyse and report on data? How can we prevent data fraud? Do we need to adapt the codes of conduct for researchers or do we need stricter rules for data management and data sharing?This paper discusses the conclusions and recommendations of two reports that were published recently in consequence of this data fraud. The reports are relevant for scientific integrity and trustworthy treatment of research data. Next, this paper reports on the outcomes of enquiries in data cultures in a number of scientific disciplines. The concluding section of this paper contains a number of examples that show that the approach towards data sharing is improving gradually. The data fraud case can be regarded as a wake-up call.