The activity manager of the FCCN Unit, Paulo Lopes, explains you all about the relevance of one of our most recent services - the INDEXAR.
The creation of INDEXAR - Knowledge Digital Resources Directory - results from the need of a platform capable of identifying the existing repositories and digital scientific journals at a national levelin the various areas of knowledge. The ultimate goal is related to the need for dissemination and promotion of access to knowledge, but also to standardization, awareness and accountability of entities in the dissemination and access to information.
It is a directory that offers the possibility to search and browse all registered resources through different information, such as location, software or type of stored material. This way, INDEXAR provides complete and credible information regarding the existing national repositories and journals of science and culture, enabling the dissemination of the registered information, namely by international directories linked to the domains of the resources registered in INDEXAR.
"INDEXAR assumes itself as an important aid for [...] research"
For the same reason, INDEXAR is also an important aid in identifying relevant digital resources for needs related to research, academic research, or the simple need to reach very specific information in the area of science and culture.
The Present and the Future
INDEXAR was launched in July 2022 and currently provides detailed information on 237 resources, including Institutional Repositories (118), Archives, Libraries or Digital Museums (55), Thematic or Disciplinary Repositories (45), Scientific Journals (10), Aggregating Systems (6), Research Data Repositories (3).
The registration and availability of these resources is validated by experts belonging to reference entities in the respective fields of action in which these records are included. This validation process offers an added guarantee of quality and relevance of the information that is registered in INDEXAR.
The first phase of the service has been the consolidation of the information present in INDEXAR, the involvement of the community and the promotion of cooperation that may exist between the institutions that are part of the directory, enhancing the sharing of policies, best practices, management models, knowledge, among others.
During the year 2023 new resources are expected to be registered, with particular emphasis on scientific journals. It is also expected that INDEXAR will assume an important role as a reference or certification tool in system or policy development that require a primary source of information about digital resources.
