Supporting open science in virtual research environments: the DAVE experience

DAVE, a conversational assistant integrated into D4Science Virtual Research Environments, simplifies access to services and supports Open Science workflows through natural language interaction. Virtual Research Environments (VREs) provide integrated access to data, services, and collaboration tools for open and data-intensive research. Building on the D4Science Virtual Research Environments, which support over 230 VREs and around 28,000 users worldwide, our work on conversational agents has led to the development of DAVE (D4Science Assistant for Virtual Research Environments), a system designed to assist researchers directly within their workflows.