university of st andrews eurocris/keith g jeffery university of st andrews/anna clements wrn/arma...

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©euroCRIS/Keith G Jeffery

©University of St Andrews/Anna Clements

WRN/ARMA May 2010

An Ideal CRIS?

Anna Clements

Data Architect, University of St Andrews & euroCRIS member

since 2006

@.rl.ac.uk

www.eurocris.org

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Agenda

• What is a CRIS?• Who needs it and why?• A brief history of CERIF and

euroCRIS• CERIF-CRIS at St Andrews• .. Where is the IR?

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What is a CRIS?

“a Current Research Information System, commonly known as "CRIS", is any information tool dedicated to provide access to and disseminate research information” (www.eurocris.org)

– A CRIS consists of• a datamodel describing objects of

interest to R&D• a tool or set of tools to manage the data

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What is a CRIS?

Current Research Information System = CRIS

… information about

• People +• Organisations +• Projects +• Funding Programmes +• Research Results +• …

… that means

• Timeliness• Vitality

… driven by

• A Concept• A Model … incorporated as a

• Implementation (ICT)

an integrated approach towards managing research information

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

What is a CRIS?

Current Research Information System = CRIS

… information about

• People +• Organisations +• Projects +• Funding Programmes +• Research Results +• …

… that means

• Timeliness• Vitality

… driven by

• A Concept• A Model … incorporated as a

• Implementation (ICT)

an integrated approach towards managing research information

changing

relationships

heterogenous entities

Metadata

Integration

CERIF

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Agenda



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Who needs it and why?

• To assist users in their recording, reporting and decision-making concerning the research process

• whether developing programmes, allocating funding, assessing projects, executing projects, generating results, assessing results or transferring technology

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Who needs it and why?

The Users o political decision-makerso funding organisationso research institutionso individual researcherso entrepreneurs and innovatorso media and general public

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• a tool for policy making

• evaluation of research based on outputs

• document the research activities

• document research output

• a formal log ofresearch in progress

• to assist project planning.

Purpose at institution level

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Purpose for individual researchers

• to evaluate opportunities for research funding

• avoid duplication of research activity

• analyse research trends, locally, regionally and internationally

• references/links to full text• locate new contacts/networks • identify new markets for

products of research

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Example outputs from a CRIS

Researcher CV

Researcher CV

Research Bibliography

Research Bibliography Commercial

output report

Management information

Management information

Reports to Funder

Equipment use

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Agenda



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CRIS InteroperationThe Need

• In Europe – recognised need for standard

format for interchange of R&D information

•Two reports– Conference of European Rectors

Conferences– Committee of Heads of Research

Funding Agencies

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CRIS Interoperation The Need (Wider)

• European Commission picked up the ideas

• 1987-1990 Put together a group of experts nominated by national governments

• Purpose to define a Common European Research Information Format (CERIF)

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CRIS Conference

• The first conference on CRISs 1991– Bergen, Norway– Organised by Jostein Helland Hauge– Invited national experts as speakers

• Subsequent conferences until 2000– organised with the EC

• Conferences 2002 onwards– Organised by euroCRIS

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CERIF & euroCRIS• CERIF-91, CERIF2000, CERIF2002, CERIF2004, 2006,

2008• euroCRIS founded formally in 2001 • EC handed over responsibility for CERIF to euroCRIS

in 2002

• euroCRIS setup CERIF Task Group to oversee improvements to CERIF standard

• Also ….– The CRIS conferences and membership meetings – www.cris2010.org Aalborg 2-5th June – Strategic seminars (EC, ESF, EARMA, ALLEA,

ICSU/CODATA, ERCIM, JISC, GreyNet)– Community-building

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CERIF The model today

• CRIS can be implemented using subset or superset of full CERIF model:– for projects– for people– for organisations– for publications, patents , products– for services– for facilities, particular equipment

• with role-based, temporally-bound relationships

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PROJECT

ORGUNIT

Skills

CV

GeneralFacility

ParticularEquipment

ContactResults

PublicationResultsPatentResultsProduct

Service

FundingProgramme

Event

ClassificationPrize/Award

PERSON

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

CERIF The use today

• As a model for an implemented standalone CRIS– But interoperation ready

• As a model to define the wrapper around a legacy non-CERIF CRIS– To allow homogenous access to

heterogeneous systems

• As a definition of a data exchange format– To create a common data warehouse from

several CRIS

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CERIF The use today .. and

tomorrow ...• Examples in Norway, Denmark, Ireland

and the Netherlands • And the UK ?• JISC funded EXRI project

recommendationhttp://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/briefingpapers/

2010/bpexriv1.aspx

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Agenda


euroCRIS• CRIS at St Andrews• .. Where is the IR?

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In the beginning …

• Inhouse system from 2002 - non CERIF CRIS

• Used for RAE• Linked to dSpace• Principles of good data

management

RAE was the driver

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Publications

Fed Out

Research

Information

System

REF, RCUK

SFC, HESA

HEI – Strategic

Planning

Public, Media Recognition / Impact

Industry / SME’s

Interface

Collaborations

Research Pools

Pulled In

Student

Records

Grants,

Projects, KT

Human

Resources

Finance

Manual

Input

Entered

Web of Science,

arXiv, PubMed…

Har

vest

ed

Full Text

Repository

Open Access

Lin

ked

Bibtex, Refman

Up

loa

de

d

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… what happened next - post RAE

• CRIS rising up agenda• More functionality; better

interoperability• Requirements similar across sector • .. So why go alone? Why reinvent the

wheel across the sector?• Joint project to tender and implement

with Aberdeen University for CERIF-CRIS

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Extract from model

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Agenda


euroCRIS• CRIS at St Andrews• .. Where is the IR?

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Linkages From CERIF

• CERIF does not only provide strong, role-typed, timestamped within-links

• But also provides the facility for strong, role-typed, timestamped outward-links

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Linkages From CERIF

• publication X full-text (or multimedia) is not stored within the CERIF data model but in an institutional repository or publisher’s online database. CERIF provides the direct linkage to the full text.

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Result_PublicationInstance Diagram

Person A

Publication X

OrgUnit O

OrgUnit M

OrgUnit N

Project P

member

member

employee

Part of

Part of

owns IPR

author

Project leader

repository

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Linkages From CERIFStaying with this

example:

• more information about Person A may be found in the HR (human resources) system of OrgUnit O, or on web-pages associated with either OrgUnit M or N.

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Result_PublicationInstance Diagram

Person A

Publication X

OrgUnit O

OrgUnit M

OrgUnit N

Project P

member

member

employee

Part of

Part of

owns IPR

author

Project leader

repository

HR System

webpages

webpages

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

CRIS + Repositories

CRISResearch Context

[projects, persons, organisational unitsfunding, products, patents, publications

facilities, equipment, events]

OA Repository(hypermedia) Documents

e-Research repositoryDatasets and Software

OAI-PMH

Various

protocols

End-User

CERIFCERIF

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

IR is not disappearing

• It is being put into context• Expertise and advocacy still required• … but an IR linked to a CRIS is

greater than the sum of the two parts

• … and will make your life easier

New driver : funder mandates

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WRN/ARMA May 2010

Thank you

Anna Clements

[email protected]

www.eurocris.org

university of st andrews eurocris/keith g jeffery university of st andrews/anna clements wrn/arma...

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