Course description
The National Library of Norway (NB) has collected and preserved content from the internet since the late 1990s. This web archive is high demand among researchers and holds great potential for academic knowledge production. However, until recently, the web archive has been inaccessible to researchers.
Through the WebData project, a national research infrastructure for web data will be established. The goal is to enable search, exploration, data authentication, and analysis of web data.
The infrastructure will be developed in close dialogue with researchers and based on their needs. Therefore, participants at Digital Scholarship Days2026 are invited to assess:
- Which types of metadata are important to extract, and
- Which methods and techniques are most relevant for research on web archives — both today and in the near future.
After a brief introduction to the web archive and the project’s goals, participants will:
- Assess the importance of various metadata types for their own research,
- Share their needs for digital methods and tools,
- Discuss metadata and tool requirements with other researchers.
The results from this workshop will be included in the WebData project’s needs assessment, identifying researchers’ needs related to access, interface, metadata model and data platform.
Towards the end of the workshop, we will demonstrate the test platform's search service and some future possibilities for analysis.
The WebData Project is led by the National Library of Norway, with partner institutions involving the Norwegian Computing Center (NR), University of Oslo (Humit and LTG) and UiT Arctic University of Norway (Giellatekno).
Target audience
PhD Candidates, researchers, librarians, engineers/IT.
Learning outcomes
- Knowledge about the WebData Research Infrastructure.
- Possibility to influence the development of the infrastructure.
- Information about future possibilities for research.
Prerequisites and required materials
- No prior knowledge or experience is needed.
- Laptop with a web browser.
Lunch
- There will be a complementary buffet-lunch at 12:00-13:00 from the Sverdrups spiseri (Georg Sverdrups Hus, 2nd floor).
- After you get your lunch, join us at Store møterom where we have reserved seats for #DSDays2026 participants.
Number of participants
After the soft deadline, a waiting list will be automatically handled upon de-registrations.
Contact
If you have any questions regarding this course, or anything else about the DSDays 2026 event, please contact us per email: digitalscholarship@ub.uio.no