Funding science needs deliberate decisions but facing the increasing complexity and specialization of research, policy makers find this a daunting task. Looking at the publications of researchers and research groups is an established base for identifying fruitful research. However, the culture of publication within informatics is unique and traditional methods cannot be applied. For informatics the DBLP literature database provides a popular open-source gateway to literature. In a joint project, Leibniz Center for Informatics Schloss Dagstuhl — a world-renowned meeting place for international research groups — and DBLP have started a collaboration to strengthening the value of DBLP.
Informatics researchers prefer to publish their results at conferences, whereas researcher in most other fields tend to publish in scientific journals. That is why the Science Citation Index mainly records journals and journal citations, leaving conference publications underrepresented. In Germany, a recent evaluation looking at the quality of informatics departments came to the conclusion that a comprehensive literature reference base is missing. Obviously, this is not a tenable situation.
The DBLP literature reference database was developed within the last 15 years by Dr. Michael Ley at Trier University. DBLP is internationally respected by informatics researchers for the accuracy of its data which can be used free of charge. As of today, DBLP contains more than 1.5 million entries and many scientists query the database daily. There is no doubt that every tenure committee in informatics uses the database for its decisions before giving a candidate tenure.
However, the increasing number of publications in all fields of informatics requires concentrated efforts for DBLP to remain state of the art in informatics literature reference. Schloss Dagstuhl, a world-renowned meeting place for informatics that is accommodating over 3000 informatics researchers annually, and DBLP join forces to strengthening the value of DBLP. Schloss Dagstuhl is a member of the German Leibniz Society, a federally funded network of non-university research institutions. The joint project funds two research positions for two years. Furthermore, a cooperation with the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies is on its way.
The project is jointly lead by Dr. Michael Ley from DBLP and Dr. Marc Herbstritt from Schloss Dagstuhl. For interviews and press inquiries, please contact the PR office at Schloss Dagstuhl:
Dr. Roswitha Bardohl
Tel. (0681) 302-3847
Email: presse@dagstuhl.de
