‘The university has been around for much longer than Big Tech’

The University of Groningen is striving for digital autonomy. But how can we become less dependent when virtually all university activities take place on platforms run by commercial parties? Marjolein Nieboer and Babette Knauer talk about the pioneering role of the University Library (UB). ‘We’re in it for the long haul and we’ll persevere.’

Text: Jelle Posthuma

‘This is the best conversation of the day,’ says UB Director Marjolein Nieboer as she arrives. ‘The topic of digital autonomy is central to the university. You can wake me up in the middle of the night for that.’ According to Nieboer, the University of Groningen’s digital autonomy has come under pressure in recent decades. The UG is heavily reliant on large commercial providers, which supply cloud services for virtually all of the university’s activities.

‘Not a done deal’

Universities have often been a catalyst for digital innovation, says Babette Knauer, head of communications at the UB. ‘But as universities, we’ve lost control. The question now is: how do we take back control?’ The University of Groningen has set its sights on becoming the first Dutch university to break away from Big Tech. Or at least, the ambition is to be less dependent on large commercial tech companies by 2030, Nieboer clarifies. ‘Something like that isn’t just a done deal.’

The UB director calls it a vendor lock-in: even if we want to, we cannot simply walk away from the major suppliers. ‘At the time, we chose these providers for practical reasons and in good faith. I, too, was convinced that it was a sensible decision at the time. With hindsight, it turns out that the minority who objected were right. We are now faced with the fact that we want to move away from Google Suite, for example. And yet, it's easier said than done.’

That said, significant progress has been made recently. The Alliance for Digital Autonomy (ADA) – ‘a coalition’ of academic staff, the UB, the CIT and University Services, in collaboration with the Jantina Tammes School – has developed a roadmap. This plan now forms the basis for the recently approved programme aimed at reducing the university’s dependence in the coming years. Three principles are central to this: academic freedom, independence and security. ‘We are seeing a great deal of commitment from the Executive Board, the academic community and the University Council,’ Nieboer emphasises.

‘Practise what you preach’

The UB is playing a pioneering role in the move towards greater digital autonomy, the director continues. ‘When you think of a university library, you might think of books and study spaces, but we are much more than that.’ She highlights the UB’s central role in the fields of Open Access and Open Science – movements that ensure free access to academic articles and make science accessible to a wide audience. ‘Thanks to our experience with Open Access and Open Science, we as a University Library have already made considerable progress in the area of digital autonomy,’ says Nieboer.

These experiences serve as an example of how the university as a whole can become less dependent, says Knauer. In her own discipline, she cites as examples the decision to stop using X (formerly Twitter) and switch to Mastodon, a federated open-source platform with similar features, and the switch from YouTube to PeerTube, an open-source alternative.

Nieboer refers to this as ‘practising what you preach’. Also, the UB and the Medical Library wish to gain experience with an open-source alternative to the commercial database Web of Science (by Clarivate) and are therefore supporting OpenAlex with an institutional membership. Switching to alternatives requires thorough preparation. This will be the case in many areas over the coming years.

‘It’s up to the academic community’

A key principle is the importance of bottom-up ideas and initiatives, says Knauer. ‘We don’t want to impose the new tools or systems from above, but rather enable the community itself to get started with pilot projects. This should spread like a wildfire throughout the entire organisation.’ A kick-start fund is being set up to enable staff to submit small-scale applications for projects in the field of digital autonomy. Knauer: ‘Ultimately, colleagues themselves know best what they need. From there, we’ll assess whether we can scale up these small-scale alternatives within the university.’

Nieboer acknowledges that the new services will operate and feel differently for staff. ‘At the moment, the current cloud services focus heavily on user-friendliness. If we consider alternatives, we may have to compromise on look, feel and user-friendliness.’ Knauer sees it slightly differently: ‘Open source has a reputation for compromising on these aspects, but I believe the alternatives work perfectly well. They’re just different. Ultimately, it comes down to which features we really need. That’s not for us at the UB to decide – it’s up to the academic community.’

Nieboer highlights the variety of requirements from different faculties and other units. ‘We want to avoid a huge number of different solutions. Ultimately, we will have to make some choices.’ An important step is to factor digital autonomy into tenders. According to the UB director, this will lead to a shift in costs: ‘We will no longer be dealing with expensive licenses, but we will need to allocate people to support and maintain new systems. Fortunately, the Executive Board recognises that this cannot be achieved without funding: a provision has been made in the budgets for the coming years.’

Moreover, this is not just a local issue for Groningen. The University of Groningen is working with other Dutch universities, SURF, several universities of applied sciences, the AI Factory and various public authorities to reduce dependency. Rector Jacquelien Scherpen plays a central role in these efforts: she is a member of the UNL committee on ‘Digital Autonomy for Universities’, which is developing proposals for a coordinated approach within higher education.

‘We’re in it for the long haul’

Both Nieboer and Knauer acknowledge that it will be no easy task in times of budget cuts. But they emphasise that, ultimately, this is a matter of principles: how can the University of Groningen remain independent? Nieboer knows that switching to alternatives takes time and effort. ‘It’s a struggle to get it off the ground. It affects everything we do: research, teaching and impact. That’s why we’re starting on a small scale. We’re in it for the long haul and we’ll persevere. After all, the university and the university library have been around for far longer than the big tech companies,’ she concludes.