Innovation Support Centre » CRIS http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk Fri, 26 Jul 2013 16:25:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.2 Copyright © Innovation Support Centre 2012 systems@ukoln.ac.uk (Innovation Support Centre) systems@ukoln.ac.uk (Innovation Support Centre) 1440 http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/isc-blog/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg Innovation Support Centre http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk 144 144 Innovation Support Centre Innovation Support Centre systems@ukoln.ac.uk no no euroCRIS Spring 2013 Membership Meeting in Bonn http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2013/05/17/eurocris-spring-2013-membership-meeting-in-bonn/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eurocris-spring-2013-membership-meeting-in-bonn http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2013/05/17/eurocris-spring-2013-membership-meeting-in-bonn/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 00:57:26 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=2021 SONY DSC

Just back from the euroCRIS Spring 2013 membership meeting which was held in Bonn this week, 13-14 May at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). As well as being one of the main research funders in Germany, DFG is also one of the main providers of research information at a national level. There has been a recent upsurge in CERIF-related activity in Germany, as related in the many interesting national presentations. These included a significant initiative to develop a ‘Core Data Set’ for research activities in Germany. Leuphana University reported on use cases to reduce workload but also increase the quality of research reporting (since quality is valued most). Developments in Italy include a CERIF compliant open source CRIS in DSpace (as part of SURplus) at CINECA (with Hong Kong University as a partner). I presented a work in progress report on my current study for JISC addressing the use of CERIF CRIS in the UK.

The draft OpenAIRE guidelines for CRIS interoperation based on CERIF XML were announced. euroCRIS is a partner in several EU projects including OpenAIRE and the new PASTEUR40A project on OA and open data. Other euroCRIS news included the development of a CRIS ‘Reference system’ with data export in CERIF XML plus compliance testing. euroCRIS is also working on mapping CASRAI data profiles to CERIF; the CASRAI approach is bottom up and CASRAI top down, so the two complement each other. In closing the meeting, Ed Simons, the new euroCRIS president suggested that euroCRIS work has previously focused more on technical development of the CERIF model and implementation, whereas it’s now relevant to spend more time addressing business needs.

Story image

euroCRIS participants congregate for the official group photo at DFG
(photos by Pablo de Castro and Barbara Ebert)

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2013/05/17/eurocris-spring-2013-membership-meeting-in-bonn/feed/ 0
Managing ethics review information: RMAS-EE project http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2013/02/05/managing-ethics-review-information-rmas-ee-project/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=managing-ethics-review-information-rmas-ee-project http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2013/02/05/managing-ethics-review-information-rmas-ee-project/#comments Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:32:57 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1973 Ethical approval is needed for most research work before it can be carried out although processes and requirements tend to differ across disciplines, funders and institutions. Many institutions use standalone systems to manage the approval process, with potential for duplication of effort, while Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) provide varying levels of support for ethical review information.

  • The CONVERIS CRIS does already support ethics review and is being used for this purpose by UK user institutions. However functionality is currently limited compared to what is being developed – Avedas are working with CASRAI (as described below) at the same time as reviewing institutional requirements in order to develop configurable forms, workflows and user rights for CONVERIS (systems programming changes are not anticipated). The CONVERIS specification will be aligned with CASRAI work.
  • Although Symplectic Elements could currently support the capture of ethics review information such as an ethics status flag, institutional users have not yet expressed this requirement; it is thought that most Symplectic users currently capture ethics information either offline or in pre-award/clinical trial systems.
  • Likewise Atira report that Pure users have not requested support for ethics review, so it is not currently provided within Pure (apart from a flag to remind staff to initiate ethics review) and there are no plans to change this for the moment.

Therefore while one of the drivers for the Research Management and Administration System – Ethics Extension (RMAS-EE) work was the need to raise awareness of the role that ethical review plays in research projects, another was to reduce administrative overheads. It was funded by the Jisc research information management (RIM) programme as a rapid innovation project, starting in July 2012 and finishing in December 2012.

As its name indicates, the project extends the work of the earlier RMAS project which developed a Procurement Framework to enable universities to purchase individual research management system modules using a simplified and much-shortened procurement process. It also developed tools and guidelines to help institutions integrate new modules with existing research systems and corporate systems. RMAS uses CERIF for the representation of data and worked with euroCRIS to extend the CERIF vocabulary to meet UK requirements. An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) facilitates the exchange of messages (encapsulated in CERIF) between different research management applications.

The RMAS-EE project was based at the University of Kent, one of the three RMAS ‘pathfinder’ institutions. However the blog points out that the project team at Kent was not involved in the original RMAS project and was therefore dependent on RMAS documentation to understand the applications. The project consequently provided a useful case study for RMAS as a side product.

Prototyping the integration of the ethical review of research proposals into the RMAS framework was the central aim of RMAS-EE. Additional aims as indicated included informing the CERIF data standard so that it is better able to describe ethical review information.

The existing OpenEthics software was adopted to manage the ethics review process. The project planned to use the RMAS Supplier Agnostic Connector (which is based on a commercial product) between OpenEthics and RMAS to translate to and from CERIF. However investigation revealed that expected specifications were missing (for the proposal-created message in particular) so it was decided to use the project team’s expertise in Python to write the required software instead. Another issue encountered was synchronising users across RMAS and the OpenEthics system. A mapping solution was developed for the project, but this will be a problem that any other integration work will also need to address.

The original plan was to contribute to the CASRAI data dictionary as well as the CERIF standard; while this proved to be unnecessary to meet immediate project needs, the University of Kent is continuing to work with CASRAI on the structure of an ethical review application, which would allow interoperability of different systems for managing ethical review. Agreeing the status definitions (whether a project has been approved or not) will be the first step. The project participated in the inaugural CASRAI UK chapter meeting in December 2012. Avedas (developers of CONVERIS) are also part of the CASRAI UK Ethics Review working group.

One of the project’s conclusions was that ‘ RMAS as a concept works brilliantly’. However the team has expressed several concerns about the broader RMAS environment. Firstly the lack of RMAS event specification and a production ready ESB means that integrating with RMAS is very difficult (it was acknowledged that only the team’s strong technical capabilities made this possible). Secondly, there is no evidence of an RMAS user community – when the project proposed a specification for discussion, there was no response. As a result it was not possible for the project to test the claim that integrating research ethics into RMAS allows enhanced reporting of ethical review data in the broader research information context, because there were no other systems to integrate with via RMAS.

The project has been useful in initiating further activity relating to ethics review in the international standards communities, specifically euroCRIS and CASRAI. It is less clear if awareness has been raised in the wider UK research information management communities (a diverse group). A key output of the project is the proposal to euroCRIS for including ethical review Status in the CERIF vocabulary. The terms are currently under consideration by the CERIF Task Group. As well as software outputs, the project has also made a lot of technical documentation available via the blog which could be useful for future RMAS integration work.

 

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2013/02/05/managing-ethics-review-information-rmas-ee-project/feed/ 0
REDIC project – contributing to improved information about research equipment in the UK http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/12/18/redic-project-contributing-to-improved-information-about-research-equipment-in-the-uk/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=redic-project-contributing-to-improved-information-about-research-equipment-in-the-uk http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/12/18/redic-project-contributing-to-improved-information-about-research-equipment-in-the-uk/#comments Tue, 18 Dec 2012 13:35:59 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1909 The JISC-funded REDIC (Research Equipment Database in CERIF) project has recently been completed and deliverables are becoming available to the community. It sits alongside several other initiatives addressing the lack of available information about research equipment. Most universities own large quantities of expensive research equipment  which can include individual items costing millions of pounds. There is no national database of equipment/facility data and moreover, desk research carried out by REDIC suggests that most universities do not maintain their own internal registers of equipment. The current initiatives tackling different parts of the problem are partly in response to the Research Council 2011 changes in how equipment is funded on grants; the aim is to gain the best possible value from existing capital investments (includes procurement efficiencies as well as promoting the sharing of equipment across institutions). In addition to REDIC, UK initiatives include:

  • The JISC-funded Kit Catalogue Project carried out during 2011 at Loughborough University delivered an open-source system available for any HEI to catalogue and share information about their research equipment. The catalogue implemented at Loughborough is publicly available
  • The University of Leeds together with its partners within the N8 consortium has developed and implemented a common taxonomy to categorise medium and large-scale research equipment
  • Funded by EPSRC, the Uniquip project aims to deliver a set of standards for cataloguing and publishing information about research facilities and equipment; partners are the Universities of Southampton, Leeds, Loughborough and Bath
  • The University of Bath has also integrated its existing >£10k asset register into Pure (allowing linking of equipment to other information such as outputs)
  • CASRAI UK is likely to take forward work on an authoritative list for equipment/facility.

REDIC is a JISC-funded rapid innovation project which ran from June to November 2012. Managed by the University of Edinburgh Digital Library, development was carried out by EDINA. The project has built a CERIF-compliant prototype system and infrastructure to support an authoritative registry of information about research equipment and facilities, intended for use by researchers. Making the prototype available in the CERIF format enables incorporation or referencing in local Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) or institutional repositories.

The prototype model is shown below.  SWORD is used as the deposit mechanism and DSpace as the record store. The use of Sword was a challenge initially because SwordV2 did not interface with DSpace in the way the project required. However this was fed back into the DSpace/Sword communities for discussion and resolution.

The core dataset used was recommended by the Uniquip project and acquired from Southampton via the data.ac.uk site. Other datasets (such as the N8 taxonomy) can be added as required by adjusting the ingester. DSpace provides a facility to convert data to CERIF-XML. However some required data elements could not be mapped to CERIF – REDIC has therefore worked with Brigitte Jörg from the CERIF Support Project at UKOLN and initiatives at other UK institutions to suggest additional CERIF entities to be considered by the CERIF Task Group. CERIF 1.3 (in February 2012) previously included improvements to the equipment and facility entities.

The equipment and facilities contained within the register are each assigned a persistent identifier  (via the Handle System, as used by DSpace). The CERIF data model allows the linking of equipment to other information, such as people, projects and outputs (including research data) produced as a result of using the equipment; impact of use (and sharing) can therefore be captured.

REDIC has succeeded in bringing the concept of equipment/facility into the ‘information mix’ as an instrument of research. Together with the other equipment initiatives, REDIC is supporting steps towards the cultural change needed to achieve wider implementation and realise the benefits.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/12/18/redic-project-contributing-to-improved-information-about-research-equipment-in-the-uk/feed/ 0
euroCRIS membership meeting in Madrid http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/11/08/eurocris-membership-meeting-in-madrid/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eurocris-membership-meeting-in-madrid http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/11/08/eurocris-membership-meeting-in-madrid/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2012 23:59:47 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1860 Just returned from the euroCRIS membership meeting in Madrid, the largest to date, with around 80 participants. euroCRIS  is showing a steady growth in membership, at around 15% per year. It was particularly interesting that the takeup of CERIF in the UK in the last few years was acknowledged as an important strategic breakthrough for the standard. In addition, the JISC Research Information Management Programme was cited as an example to follow! JISC funding of a number of small UK-based projects has been seen to have had a big impact.

An Ariadne article on the meeting is in the pipeline, so some selective points of interest follow here in the meantime:

  • A new euroCRIS board has just been elected (now with 50% women members)
  • CRIS 2012  in Prague this year was also the largest euroCRIS conference to date – interest in CERIF CRIS is growing at many levels
  • euroCRIS is continuing to grow its strategic partnerships – an agreement with COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories) was signed during the meeting
  • CERIF 1.5 has been released – a major upgrade this time
  • The Linked Open Data Task Group has carried out a mapping of VIVO and CERIF  (a potential use case is performing analytics on VIVO and CERIF data)
  • A new Task Group on impact indicators was introduced at the meeting
  • The Snowball Metrics ‘Recipe Book’ was distributed – designed to facilitate cross-institutional benchmarking (and will be CERIF compliant)
  • Despite a lot of interesting CRIS activity in Spain, no Spanish CRIS are currently CERIF compliant – although there may be scope for alignment of CVN (a national system for exchanging standardised CV information) and CERIF; however this is not straightforward, since CVN is researcher-based. There is a wide range of CRIS in use, unlike in the Netherlands (where METIS is used by everyone) and the UK (three systems) which makes coordination more complicated. Spain has the same issues as other countries with person IDs.
  • Three Italian research organisations have recently merged into CINECA. Planning to implement CERIF using open source software is already underway, which will bring 100 Italian research institutions into euroCRIS
  • A session on identifiers covered current work by the CERIF Task Group to incorporate federated identifiers into the CERIF model, effectively opening up closed internal systems to the outside world; ORCID could be one of the person IDs assigned
  • A Directory of Research Information systems (DRIS) is being developed; the system is currently being populated by euroCRIS members in a trial phase, before being opened to the wider public to input their CRIS details.  The DRIS could in future act as the basis for a portal to access heterogeneous CRIS

With the new euroCRIS board in place from January 2013, there are likely to be some changes afoot next year. Presentations from Madrid should be available shortly on the euroCRIS website.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/11/08/eurocris-membership-meeting-in-madrid/feed/ 0
OpenAIREplus and CERIF http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/10/31/openaireplus-and-cerif/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=openaireplus-and-cerif http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/10/31/openaireplus-and-cerif/#comments Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:04:06 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1854 The second OpenAIRE conference will be held at Göttingen State and University Library, 21-22 November 2012. As well as presenting results from the OpenAIRE project the programme will also ‘give insight into the OpenAIREplus project, which will link publications to research data, enabling seamless access to scientific knowledge’. euroCRIS is working with OpenAIREplus (via the Greek National Documentation Centre, EKT-NHRF) to align the OpenAIREplus data model with CERIF in areas where there is conceptual overlap. OpenAIREplus will support import and export of data to CERIF XML so that information in CRISs can be ingested into the OpenAIRE portal and CRISs can also use OpenAIREplus data in other applications. CERIF is able to represent the OpenAIREplus concept of ‘enhanced publications’, since it captures semantic relationships between multiple objects using ‘link entities’ (which include a temporal and role-based structure). Each component of an enhanced publication represented in CERIF can be assigned a unique ID.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/10/31/openaireplus-and-cerif/feed/ 0
CERIF in Action workshop http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/10/24/cerif-in-action-workshop/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cerif-in-action-workshop http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/10/24/cerif-in-action-workshop/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:38:30 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1833 UK higher education interest in CERIF continues unabated as demonstrated by the numbers registering for the CERIF In Action (CIA) workshop held in London last Friday. The event was moved to a larger venue given the level of interest, and even then we almost ran out of chairs. Participants were mainly from university research systems/support offices and libraries, with others from the Research Councils and Current Research Information System (CRIS) vendors.

CIA Wordle

The CERIF in Action project forms part of the JISC Research Information Management programme third phase (RIM3). This phase has focused on business to business information exchanges between live systems. CIA has therefore developed a standard CERIF-XML schema and built plug-ins to import and export data in this format for CRIS, repository and Research Council software. Two business processes were chosen: exchanging data between partner institutions (eg when an researcher moves to a new institution) and uploading grant-level information to the RCUK Research Outputs System (ROS).

At the workshop institutional project partners successfully demonstrated the use of these plug-ins with their live systems: the University of Cambridge demonstrated the uploading of publications data to ROS via their Symplectic plug-in and the EPrints plug-in was shown in action by the University of Glasgow.

Dale Heenan revealed huge predicted savings in reporting cost per RC grant per year from using CERIF eg from the highest cost of £15.40 for manual single reporting to £0.50 using CERIF bulk reporting. Further detail on these figures would be useful.

It was interesting that the content of the workshop amply illustrated that leadership in implementing and embedding CERIF in UK research information infrastructures is now coming from RCUK and HEFCE – this was identified as critical in Stuart Bolton’s business case report back in 2010. RCUK indicated that they are using the valuable work produced by JISC programmes and putting it into production systems. Testing of the Gateway to Research within the Research Councils also starts this week.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/10/24/cerif-in-action-workshop/feed/ 0
Pure goes live at the University of Bath http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/08/03/pure-goes-live-at-the-university-of-bath/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pure-goes-live-at-the-university-of-bath http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/08/03/pure-goes-live-at-the-university-of-bath/#comments Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:37:19 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1469 The first phase of the Pure CRIS rollout at the University of Bath started in July, when the system was made available to all academic and research staff. Having reported on CRIS and CERIF developments for JISC for the past couple of years, being able to access (and use) information about my own research in a real live system is exciting stuff!

A user profile has been set up for all academic and research staff, so on logging into the system for the first time, existing data can be accessed on research grants and contracts, publications and postgraduate research students. Information in the profile has been taken from several University systems including human resources, the EPrints instutional repository, finance and the student system. I can report that the interface is very user friendly, having just added a new publication (including full text) to my profile. For now, staff can only access their own research information; at a later date tailored views will be possible, so that eg Heads of Department will be able to view departmental data. There is a facility to create CVs and bibliographies and later this year automatic population of personal web pages will be available. The Research Development and Support Office provides a Pure User Guide and a series of training workshops is being held from July until end September.

The REF module will go live at the end of September, with a ‘dress rehearsal’ exercise planned to start in October. The Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN will also be working with University of Bath colleagues to test REF submission from Pure using CERIF; a CERIF XML template is currently being developed with HEFCE.

The institutional repository will be populated via Pure from now on – adding a full-text document to a publication’s record automatically adds the full-text document to the corresponding record in the IR. However, like many other UK universities, Bath will assess the requirement for a separate repository in the medium term, if it can be demonstrated that Pure is capable of replicating EPrints functionality.

The reporting module is due to be launched in November, following further development work by Atira to cater for specific UK reporting requirements.

Jane Millar, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, and Pure Project Sponsor, has said that the implementation of Pure is a major step forward in how  information about research is handled at the University. It’s certainly looking good from a researcher point of view.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/08/03/pure-goes-live-at-the-university-of-bath/feed/ 0
RIM CERIF workshop in Bristol http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/07/05/rim-cerif-workshop-in-bristol/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rim-cerif-workshop-in-bristol http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/07/05/rim-cerif-workshop-in-bristol/#comments Wed, 04 Jul 2012 23:30:22 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1161 RIM CERIF workshop, Bristol 28-29 June 2012
The Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN (together with the JISC RIM and RCSI Programmes) organised a workshop in Bristol on 27-28 June on Research Information Management (RIM) and CERIF. The aim was to bring together people working on the various elements of the UK RIM jigsaw to share experience and explore ways of working together more closely. There were around 30 participants over the two days, including JISC RIM and MRD projects and programme managers, support and evaluation projects, Research Councils, funders and repository infrastructure projects. It was great to have Brigitte Jörg there in the first week of her new role at the Innovation Support Centre as National Coordinator for the CERIF Support Project. JISC projects formed the core audience, with some other contributors coming and going according to demands back at the office. RIM-related developments certainly continue apace. Just published the previous week was the HE Data and Information Landscape report; Andy Youell (director of the project at HESA) highlighted the significance of getting decision makers right across the sector to work together for the first time eg there has been no HE body to lead on data standards, hence no coherence. There is a need to raise information and data issues out of the ‘nerd space’ (!) to senior management level.

Another signficant step forward announced was a test verion of a ‘CERIFy’d’ Research Outputs System (ROS) which had just been made available on the first morning of the workshop. A demo can be viewed showing CERIF import. Live use is planned within several weeks. With NERC taking the decision to move to ROS, there will shortly be five Research Councils using the system. Interestingly, ROS plans to harvest from institutional repositories, which will avoid PIs having to submit individual outputs. ROS  staff are working closely with the JISC CERIF in Action project and there are also close parallels with the IRIOS2 project.

The CERIF-based Gateway to Research (GtR) was another focus of discussion. Whereas ROS will be used for institutional input, GtR will be for access. Since data will be sourced from six different Research Council systems with no common ontology, a data dictionary will need to be developed. The project has been advised (by Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia) to concentrate on making the data available in a standard format (CERIF) and not to worry about the interface – instead prize challenges will be offered to communities for developing applications.

As might be expected the issue of identifiers arose a number times, researcher identifiers in particular, with ORCID being recommended by the JISC Task and Finish Group. HESA also highlighted the ‘big opportunities’ for person identifiers.  The prospect of a ‘UK ORCID’ was discussed, alongside the business case and data security issues. JISC will be looking at organisational identifiers next, agreed as a much more difficult nut to crack.

Repository infrastructure development work was presented by the RepNet project at EDINA (aiming to increase the cost effectiveness of open access repositories) and RIOXX (metadata guidelines for repository managers specifically).

A range of breakout groups covered topics including impact, vocabularies/ontologies, institutional repository/CRIS challenges, research data, and options for maintaining CERIF outputs from JISC project (eg role of euroCRIS and CERIF task group). The REF breakout discussion resulted in agreement with HEFCE to develop a CERIF XML template for research groups, staff and outputs submission and to initiate a test pilot for submission (with KCL and the University of Bath – both to be approached). A test pilot will allow valuable learning within a proper framework – import/export of CERIF XML is planned to start in September 2012.

Presentations from the workshop and breakout outputs are available via the programme page. A fuller event report will be published in the next issue of Ariadne.

 

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/07/05/rim-cerif-workshop-in-bristol/feed/ 0
UK presence at upcoming euroCRIS conference http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/05/29/uk-presence-at-upcoming-eurocris-conference/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=uk-presence-at-upcoming-eurocris-conference http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/05/29/uk-presence-at-upcoming-eurocris-conference/#comments Tue, 29 May 2012 17:01:23 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=1086 The biennial euroCRIS conference takes place in Prague next week (CRIS 2012, 6-9 June), with a growing UK presence. Looking at the programme, there are six UK papers, up from three in 2010. This is a clear indication of the significant impact of JISC programmes including Research Information Management (RIM), within the international CRIS community. The UK papers include presentations of JISC RIM and Managing Research Data (MRD) project findings as well as work not directly funded by JISC (abeit closely related). Mahendra Mahey of the Innovation Support Centre together with Niamh Brennan (Trinity College Dublin) will present the CERIFy project which was led jointly by UKOLN and TCD (Using business process mapping to engage with Research Information Management processes and the CERIF data model). Others are CERIF in Action, CERIF for Datasets (C4D), Project Snowball and RMAS, the Research Management & Administration System. Topic areas include national CRIS, university CRIS, data, semantics, identifiers, data models. Looks like a great programme.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/05/29/uk-presence-at-upcoming-eurocris-conference/feed/ 0
JISC RIM2: HEIs need a better understanding of CERIF http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/23/jisc-rim2-heis-need-a-better-understanding-of-cerif/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jisc-rim2-heis-need-a-better-understanding-of-cerif http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/23/jisc-rim2-heis-need-a-better-understanding-of-cerif/#comments Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:54:10 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=849 This is the third in a series of posts on the JISC Research Information Management (RIM) Programme second phase synthesis, aiming to highlight common themes from the programme, as well as some of the lessons learned. Three of the four RIM2 projects discussed the need for better understanding of CERIF in institutions, a topic which still frequently arises in any discussions of CERIF. It is notable that BRUCE, the project with the least previous experience of CERIF, commented on the inital steep learning curve: ‘even staff with extensive technical experience required considerable time just to understand the CERIF schema’. CERIFy highlighted in particular the lack of expertise in CERIF mapping and therefore the need for more training and support. IRIOS also reported on the lack of CERIF awareness in the wider community: ‘In our dissemination work, and in discussions with vendors and HEIs, it is clear that most people in the sector have heard of CERIF but not what it actually is, or how it is used. MICE was the only project which did not comment on the area of CERIF awareness – they were more focused on the intellectual exercise of extending the CERIF model (to encode impact information), rather than institutional implementation issues (although they did specifically investigate the feasibility of incorporating the impact model into working institutional systems).

In order to address the need for more support for CERIF use in UK, the JISC RIM Programme and UKOLN ISC are coordinating a range of support initiatives. Among these is a new CERIF national coordinator post, based at UKOLN. A CERIF Tutorial and UK Data Surgery was organised in Bath in February 2012, together with euroCRIS task group meetings. A range of CERIF-related resources is provided, including the recent UK CERIF adoption study. UKOLN ISC is also working with the euroCRIS Best Practice Task Group to produce supporting materials on CERIF use. These are just some examples of activities. In parallel, the UK user groups for the individual CRIS platforms (Pure, CONVERIS and Symplectic Elements) have grown rapidly in the last 18 months (as a result of much procurement) and provide valuable CERIF support for institutional users.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/23/jisc-rim2-heis-need-a-better-understanding-of-cerif/feed/ 0
Adoption of CERIF in UK HEIs – report just published http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/15/adoption-of-cerif-in-uk-heis-report-just-published/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=adoption-of-cerif-in-uk-heis-report-just-published http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/15/adoption-of-cerif-in-uk-heis-report-just-published/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:24:46 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=803 Adoption of CERIF in Higher Education Institutions in the UK: A Landscape Study by Rosemary Russell of UKOLN ISC has just been published and is available in PDF and Word formats. The study documents the extent of adoption and engagement with CERIF in UK Higher Education institutions (HEIs) in late 2011/early 2012. 51 institutions in the UK are using CERIF Current Research Information Systems (CRIS), indicating a 30.7% adoption of CERIF. All institutions are using commercial CERIF CRIS with one exception. Since 2010, UK institutions procuring CRIS have demonstrated a clear trend to purchase Pure from Atira (based in Denmark), which now has 19 university installations (other systems being used are CONVERIS and Symplectic Elements).

However despite the widespread use of CERIF as an underlying standard, many institutions are not engaging with CERIF directly. Staff find CERIF complex and rely on external expertise from CRIS vendors and UK user groups; only institutions involved in JISC projects are properly engaging with CERIF. Many staff are keen to engage more – this is likely to happen as local CRIS implementations are completed and institutions are able to start exploiting the many efficiency benefits offered by CERIF.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/15/adoption-of-cerif-in-uk-heis-report-just-published/feed/ 1
JISC RIM2 project endorsement of CERIF http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/10/jisc-rim2-project-endorsement-of-cerif/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jisc-rim2-project-endorsement-of-cerif http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/10/jisc-rim2-project-endorsement-of-cerif/#comments Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:36:17 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=780 Continuing the series of posts on the JISC Research Information Management (RIM) Programme second phase synthesis, it is worth highlighting the projects’ firm endorsement of the CERIF standard. Given the phase 2 declared focus on the CERIF standard, this is sometimes implicit in project reporting. However the projects found that CERIF did allow them to do the job they set out to do. Given that they were working in new areas, this was by no means a certainty at the beginning of the programme. IRIOS, for example, considered their finding that CERIF is fit for purpose to be one of the main project results – working as an interchange language for communication between Research Councils and institutions. Nonetheless, the general endorsement by all projects was set alongside the declared need to improve awareness and understanding of CERIF and its application in the UK. A series of initiatives is addressing this need. More on this topic to follow…

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/03/10/jisc-rim2-project-endorsement-of-cerif/feed/ 0
JISC RIM2 project synthesis: innovation using CERIF http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/02/28/jisc-rim2-project-synthesis-innovation-using-cerif/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jisc-rim2-project-synthesis-innovation-using-cerif http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/02/28/jisc-rim2-project-synthesis-innovation-using-cerif/#comments Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:31:17 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=693 In addition to a more traditional synthesis report on the technical outcomes of the second phase of JISC Research Information Management (RIM) Programme, UKOLN will also use this blog to highlight some common themes across the projects. A series of posts will appear over the next month. Firstly looking at the theme of innovation using CERIF also serves an introductory purpose.

JISC funded four projects in RIM2: BRUCE, CERIFy, IRIOS-1 and MICE, which ran from February to July 2011, with some extensions until the Autumn allowing for the short timescale. As a departure from RIM1 (which had a broader remit), all projects were based on CERIF at the core and aimed to:

  • expand the community of HE institutions and organisations using CERIF
  • realise some of the projected benefits
  • support an emerging community of practice in RIM

All the projects have helped to move CERIF use forward at a technical level in various ways. The BRUCE project for example developed an open source CERIF-based reporting tool. While the reporting element may not be innovative in itself, mapping data to CERIF has allowed Brunel University to perform analysis on research information which was not previously possible. The open source tool could be used by other smaller HEIs without a ‘full’ CERIF CRIS.

The CERIFy project also worked with institutions which did not have a CERIF CRIS at the time. It carried out business process mapping for common RIM activities (which revealed many similarities across institutions). The project successfully tested the export and re-import of CERIF-compliant institutional data from the CERIFy CRIS to Thomson Reuters InCites.  This was innovative in that it demonstrated data exchange rather than one-way import/export, which is the most common process, given the lack of mature CERIF compliant systems which are capable of exchange and the absence of business demand to date.

However the IRIOS projects (1 and now 2) have been working with the Research Councils, and therefore helping to drive forward the CERIF agenda outside HEIs; the business need may grow in future. IRIOS developed a CERIF-based demonstrator ‘interrogation’ tool for Research Council-funded projects and outputs.

The MICE project was driven by the fact that CERIF did not fully address impact issues, thus limiting its applicability to the UK Research Excellence Framework. The project worked closely with euroCRIS and succeeded in extending CERIF to incorporate impact indicators and measures into the model’s architecture. However further work is needed to agree a taxonomy of indicators and measures within the community.

Further JISC projects are currently building on the work of completed projects, particularly CERIF in Action which has synthesised mapping work from previous projects in order to define a standard model. (The project has also mapped the fields required for the RC Research Outcomes System (ROS) to CERIF.) Being innovative with CERIF often means reusing existing work.

 

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/02/28/jisc-rim2-project-synthesis-innovation-using-cerif/feed/ 0
Impressive Turnout at CERIF Tutorial and UK Data Surgery in Bath http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/02/13/impressive-turnout-at-cerif-tutorial-and-uk-data-surgery-in-bath/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=impressive-turnout-at-cerif-tutorial-and-uk-data-surgery-in-bath http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/02/13/impressive-turnout-at-cerif-tutorial-and-uk-data-surgery-in-bath/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:44:40 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=527 UKOLN, euroCRIS and JISC were delighted to welcome around 54 people (there were several last minute additions, so the number is approximate) to the CERIF tutorial and UK data surgery held in Bath last week. There was a great spread of participants from universities as well as research councils, CRIS vendors and other research organisations. It was also encouraging that so many people from outside the UK came, mainly as a result of the euroCRIS meetings which took place the next day.

Brigitte Jörg’s in-depth tutorial covered the CERIF data model (eg there are lots of entities but all are described in exactly the same way) and how it is used, including new items in CERIF 1.3. CERIF also has a triple structure, so can link to the semantic web.

The data surgery in the afternoon focused firstly on a synthesis of UK CERIF mapping work, so involved a number of JISC projects, including CERIF in Action, IRIOS (1 and 2) and CERIFy. There was lively discussion on some of the issues to be resolved eg multiple identifiers, person names, titles, vocabularies. The CERIF in Action project is tasked with implementing the resulting model.

Other sessions covered CERIF use in the Research Management and Administration System (RMAS) – institutions will be able to start buying from framework at the end of February; CERIF and research datasets; linked open data; and a taxonomy of research equipment for inclusion in CERIF. A fuller write-up will follow.

Most of the presentations are already on the UKOLN web site. A number of participants used the #cerifbath Twitter hashtag at the event and a record of the tweets has been published on Storify. Twitter users (and, indeed, non Twitter users) at the event may also wish to add their details on the CERIF tutorial and UK data surgery Lanyrd page which will enable you to make links with others with an interest in this area.

Also watch this space for JISC RIM project synthesis posts, coming up soon…

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/02/13/impressive-turnout-at-cerif-tutorial-and-uk-data-surgery-in-bath/feed/ 0
JISC RIM3 project meeting in Edinburgh http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/16/jisc-rim3-project-meeting-in-edinburgh/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jisc-rim3-project-meeting-in-edinburgh http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/16/jisc-rim3-project-meeting-in-edinburgh/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:54:59 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=467 Last week I participated in a useful kickoff meeting for projects funded in the third phase of the JISC Research Information Management programme (RIM3). There are just two projects in this phase, CERIF in Action (CIA) and IRIOS-2. I presented a technical synthesis of the last RIM programme, covering the four projects in phase two. Given the current projects’ central aims, most of the discussion focused on implementing CERIF using approaches that will ensure interoperability (eg standard mappings, vocabularies, sharing best practice). Demonstrating the benefits of using CERIF will be very important for institutions, something that is currently not well documented. Other discussions included using CERIF in the cloud, and minimising data security issues (need to balance risk with benefits).

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/16/jisc-rim3-project-meeting-in-edinburgh/feed/ 0
euroCRIS Best Practice Task Group http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/10/eurocris-best-practice-task-group/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eurocris-best-practice-task-group http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/10/eurocris-best-practice-task-group/#comments Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:50:17 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=447 I’ve just accepted an invitation to joint the euroCRIS Task Group on Best Practice, which is chaired by Barbara Ebert (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg) and Sergey Parinov (CEMI RAS, Moscow). The invitation was based on the work that I’ve been doing for the UK CERIF landscape study which I presented at the last euroCRIS membership meeting in Lille in November 2011. In addition to documenting best practice, the Group plans to produce a Directory of Research Information Systems which will provide an overview of CRIS implementations across Europe. This therefore fits well with the RIM synthesis work I’ve been doing for the JISC RIM programme.

The Group will be meeting in Bath (see details of agenda, papers, maps, etc.) on 10 February 2012, alongside the other euroCRIS Task Groups, and preceded by the CERIF Tutorial and UK Data Surgery on 9 February.

 

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/10/eurocris-best-practice-task-group/feed/ 0
CERIF and euroCRIS meetings to be hosted by UKOLN http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/09/cerif-and-eurocris-meetings-to-be-hosted-by-ukoln/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cerif-and-eurocris-meetings-to-be-hosted-by-ukoln http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/09/cerif-and-eurocris-meetings-to-be-hosted-by-ukoln/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:18:38 +0000 Rosemary Russell http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/?p=423 Research information managers will have an opportunity to participate in a series of euroCRIS and CERIF meetings in Bath in February 2012, hosted by UKOLN. Note that that an Introduction to CERIF document is available for those who are unfamiliar with CERIF (PDF format).

For the first time euroCRIS task group meetings will be co-located, and preceded by a CERIF tutorial and data surgery. UKOLN, euroCRIS and JISC are jointly organising these events on 9-10 February. CERIF, the Common European Research Information Format, is now being widely used in UK higher education institutions as a result of many recent procurements of CERIF-based CRIS (Current Research Information Systems) – particularly during 2010 and 2011. However staff in many institutions have expressed the desire to strengthen their understanding of CERIF in order to better exploit the opportunities offered by this powerful (and complex) standard. The meetings are being supported by the JISC Research Information Management (RIM) Programme which is working to increase engagement with CERIF and support the emerging community of practice in the UK.

An introductory CERIF tutorial will be held on the morning of 9 February. In the afternoon there will be a ‘data surgery’ session which will examine the use of CERIF in real life scenarios. The aim is both to support new adopters of CERIF and to consolidate existing expertise. The afternoon session will therefore be divided into two groups – one for those new or relatively new to CERIF, and another for more advanced users. Participants are being asked to bring CERIF queries and data modelling/mapping issues for discussion with CERIF experts.

On 10 February five euroCRIS task groups will meet in parallel sessions. See the agendas and note that CERIF expertise is not required to participate. Task group leaders are keen to gather UK RIM experience.

The meetings are open, and all those involved in research information management (eg CRIS managers and IT staff, metadata/repository managers, research office staff…) are strongly encouraged to participate.

Note that the closing date for registration is 3 February.

]]>
http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/2012/01/09/cerif-and-eurocris-meetings-to-be-hosted-by-ukoln/feed/ 0