Research information: getting more out of digital infrastructures Dr Linda Naughton

5 July 2016

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Content

»A national research information infrastructure (NRII) »Running the numbers»Drivers»Where are we now?»What are the options?»What do we need?»What’s next?

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Our vision and mission

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MissionTo enable people in higher education, further education and skills to perform at the forefront of international practice by exploiting fully the possibilities of modern digital empowerment, content and connectivity

VisionTo make the UK the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world

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A new dawn for research information

What if…?

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Running the numbers» Central management staff costs directly related to the

REF (average cost per HEI, excluding costs of contracting external consultants and excluding costs related to impact assessment): › Senior academic staff time (£8M); › ICT staff time (£2M); › other professional management/central services staff

time (£35M).» Central management non-pay costs directly related tothe

REF (average cost per HEI, excluding costs of contracting external consultants and excluding costs related to impact assessment): › ICT system extensions/upgrades necessitated by REF

(£1M); › new software necessitated by REF (£1M); › other costs (<£1M).

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Recent Research Policy Developments

»Open Access (Finch, Tickell)

»Metrics Tide (Wilsd0n)»Research Councils

(Nurse)»REF Review (Stern)»Higher Education and

Research Bill

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Where are we now – joining the dots?

» Most universities have research output repositories, Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) and databases of staff, research students, finance information systems etc

» Research Councils and grant holders record information about grants and outputs using systems such as ResearchFish and Gateway to Research (GtR) as well as in subject specific repositories

» Various organisations maintain regional/national systems of equipment (eg Kit-Catalogue), people (HESA HEIDI), and expertise (NCUB Konfer)

» There is widespread adoption of open access publication and a searchable repository system is in full operation (Jisc CORE [COnnecting REpositories])

» There is a varied array of metrics for performance measurement (but many are proprietary, and there are concerns about uncertain definitions and their utility as alternatives to expensive peer review)

» Piecemeal adoption of standards and identifiers which is enabling more automation eg ORCID, DOIs, RIOXX,

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NRII Architecture Options

distributed federated hybrid centralised

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Vision for a NRII

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Next steps

»Forthcoming Research Strategy

»Jisc CNI Conference in Oxford this week #JiscCNI

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pictoquotes/14601457842

Thank you for listeningLinda Naughton@naughtonllinda.naughton@jisc.ac.uk

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