DANMARKSHISTORIEN.DK HANDED OVER TO LEX: “AU IS LETTING GO OF ONE OF ITS ACES”

It has long been clear that danmarkshistorien.dk needs new funding, as neither the School of Culture and Society nor the Faculty of Arts can continue to bear the platform’s annual operating costs of around DKK 2 million due to strained finances.

Both Marie Vejrup Nielsen, acting head of school, and Nina Javette Koefoed, head of department, have previously written about this in Omnibus, referring to the fact that the Faculty of Arts is facing cuts of DKK 60 million.

The senior management team has therefore been looking for a solution that ensures the survival of the platform and continued access to its wealth of free and validated material about Denmark’s history provided by professionals. This has been a distinctive feature of the site since it was launched in 2009.

The senior management team announced the solution in a press release published on Monday 27 May. In the future, danmarkshistorien.dk will be run and maintained by lex.dk, Denmark’s national encyclopaedia and the largest Danish platform for knowledge dissemination. According to the press release, the site will be run in close collaboration with the Department of History and Classical Studies.

As a consequence of the decision, two permanent employees at danmarkshistorien.dk have been given notice of their planned dismissal.

EMPLOYEES OBJECT TO DECISION

At a staff meeting on Friday 24 May, historians at the Department of History and Classical Studies were informed of the decision and the consequences for their two colleagues. The historians subsequently issued a statement to the head of school, the dean, the rector and the board, protesting the decision and urgently calling for its reversal. Their statement included the following:

"The portal makes new research and fact-checked knowledge about Danish history available at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult to find reliable knowledge online and when there is a need for a visible and professionally qualified platform to support democratic education. In the future, focus on the universities' duties regarding knowledge sharing, impact and public outreach will only increase. By shutting down danmarkshistorien.dk, AU is letting go of one of its aces - a card that will be impossible to replicate.”

The statement also points out that danmarkshistorien.dk is a strong brand, with approximately seven million visits a year. This makes it "an effective channel for AU's research communication, and an important asset in obtaining external research funding and increasing visibility for student recruitment".

"AU IS SQUANDERING A HUGE ASSET”

One of the organisers behind the employee statement is Associate Professor Charlotte Appel, Dphil in history. She says that employees at the department, who have all contributed to danmarkshistorien.dk throughout the years, were shocked when the faculty management team announced that the portal would be handed over to Lex and that two of their colleagues would be fired as a consequence.

Although Charlotte Appel understands that the school and the faculty can no longer finance the operation of the website, she does not understand why a solution could not be found that keeps the portal in AU's hands.

"As one of my colleagues in Copenhagen put it when he heard the news: ‘AU is squandering a huge asset’.”

She also says that, although research and education are the core tasks of the university, the university is also obligated to disseminate knowledge to society.

“And nothing does that better than danmarkshistorien.dk. In terms of impact and outreach, we’re not going to get our money’s worth anywhere else. It's crazy to let go of this golden goose," says Charlotte Appel.

She points out that traffic to danmarkshistorien.dk accounts for 10 per cent of total traffic to AU's webpages and that the site is widely used by students in upper secondary education, who receive high-quality research disseminated by AU.

Charlotte Appel emphasises that she has nothing against Lex but that the two portals are home to different kinds of knowledge dissemination. The strength of danmarkshistorien.dk is its direct link to an active research environment and that it is continuously updated by dedicated editorial staff.

Unlike Lex, danmarkshistorien.dk links the reader to historical source material and scientific articles via open access.

HEAD OF SCHOOL: THE DECISION WILL NOT BE REVERSED

In a press release from the Faculty of Arts, Head of School Marie Vejrup Nielsen announced that Arts had entered into a partnership with Lex. Marie Vejrup Nielsen would rather not get into the details of the agreement itself, but she does clarify that the partnership will transfer danmarkshistorien.dk to Lex and it will work to enhance research communication in the future.

"We’ll continue to do as we’ve always done and enter into many different types of partnerships; from dissemination via the Danish University Extension to digital communication, which is what Lex can do."

However, she stresses that researchers are not obligated to provide content to Lex under the new agreement. But the fact is that several contributors to danmarkshistorien.dk are also contributors to Lex, says Marie Vejrup Nielsen.

She admits that it might seem paradoxical that the school has to enter into new collaborations to disseminate research digitally when it used to have its own in-house digital dissemination platform.

"But unfortunately, we can no longer afford to run danmarkshistorien.dk at the school. Finances are under pressure, and we’ve known for two-three years that we had to find an alternative solution. The scenario we were facing was the disappearance of the site completely. We’ve explored all the options available," says Marie Vejrup Nielsen, who rejects that keeping danmarkshistorien.dk in AU's hands was a possibility.

That said, the head of school well understands the frustration expressed by employees in their letter of protest.

"I fully acknowledge the sense of ownership the department's employees have over the site and all the work they’ve poured into it over the years. It’s a unique concept that they have fought to uphold. I understand their loyalty to their colleagues and their reaction."

They also argue that it is an unwise decision: That AU is letting go of one of its aces when it comes to research dissemination and branding the university. And based on that, they’re calling for the decision to be reversed.

"It’s true that it will be a big change for the department and for the branding of the history discipline. We need to talk about it. What we can do now? But the decision has been made."

It won’t be reversed?

“No.”

HEAD OF DEPARTMENT: AN UNAPPY SITUATION

Professor Nina Javette Koefoed, partly as head of the Department of History and Classical Studies and partly as a member of the steering committee for danmarkshistorien.dk, understands that employees are frustrated about danmarkshistorien.dk slipping out of AU’s hands.

“I share their frustration about the site leaving AU. I’m sad that we’re losing this identity marker for the department and that we’ll no longer be directly responsible disseminating our knowledge to the world around us. It’s not a happy situation. But I also share Marie Vejrup Nielsen's opinion that there was no other recourse. The financial situation means that continuing running the site is not an option. And on that basis, I’m pleased with the collaboration we’ve entered into with Lex."

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF LEX: A GOLDMINE

Danmarkshistorien.dk will be transferred to Lex at the end of the year. Editor-in-Chief at Lex, Erik Henz Kjeldsen, looks forward to taking over running the site:

"Danmarkshistorien.dk is a goldmine for teachers, pupils and university students alike – and we're thrilled to be part of ensuring that the site and its content remain accessible to everyone."

Lex has no immediate intention to make any changes to danmarkshistorien.dk, says the editor-in-chief:

 "The site works really well as it is. It receives millions of visitors every year and these visitors should land on a site they know and recognise. We’ll take responsibility for continuing this."

The editor-in-chief believes that Lex and danmarkshistorien.dk will benefit from each other. He points out that more than 100 of the researchers who contribute to danmarkshistorien.dk also contribute to Lex. 

"We can now work together with the researchers to create coherence in communication. The plan is for the two sites to nurture each other, so that users can find content on danmarkshistorien.dk at the same time as they are searching for information on Lex,” he says and continues:

"We believe that danmarkshistorien.dk will benefit from being integrated with Lex – and vice versa. I don’t know exactly how we’re going to do this yet. But for both Aarhus University and Lex, the transfer is the first step in a collaboration to strengthen research communication. Our ambition is to disseminate knowledge to as broad an audience as possible."

The number of employees at Lex who will be working on danmarkshistorien.dk is currently uncertain. They are not yet at that stage in the planning, explains Erik Henz Kjeldsen:

"Danmarkshistorien.dk will maintain the same high level as at present, I can promise you that."

He notes that danmarkshistorien.dk would probably have had to shut down if Lex had not jumped in.

"The project has found a way to continue. That’s the main thing. The alternative would’ve been to shut down the website permanently,” he says.