ROS User Forum

Attended ROS user forum in Swindon on Friday 30th November.

Introduction – Mari Williams, BBSRC, Corporate Policy and Strategy

• Why is ROS needed :
o ROS, eVal, GtR needed to support argument for continued investment in Research in next Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) .. was due 2013
o RCs subject to performance management by BIS
o Provide evidence for parliamentary questions (PQs)
o Lots of presentations and consultations to make case for research – need metrics

Aspirations
– RCUK continue to collaborate with HEFCE on alignment with REF
– Harmonise standards

Breakout sessions on Functionality and Communications

Priorities for Functionality

–       Reporting – HEIs want to get data back out and see where data is in workflow
–       integration with existing systems 2 way; bulk upload all data; how prevent individuals entering data also
–       standards and harmonization including lists instead of free-text
–       validation by HEIs ; sign-off .. similar to Je-S

Priorities for Communication and Guidance

–       why collecting .. roadmap/vision [tie-in to other data requirements eg HESA, REF, HEBCI]
–       simplicity of quantity of data ie descope
–       speaking with one voice [all ROS & RCs]
–       simple clear messages
–       actual examples of good practice
–       proper data specification
–       demarcation of responsibility … legal eg when leave or move; PI and CoI and how varies from institution to institution
–       does it replace final report; length of time to report over [RCs almost agreed about these] 

Gateway to Research

• Using data collected from ROS (and eVal/ResearchFish and historical final reports)
• Publications data and Impact and Key Findings
• GtR project working to harmonise data collected via different routes

Important for CiA schema to be extended to include this core set of data – particularly Impact and Key Findings

Open Access

[I had to leave to catch a train … delays due to floods  …]

Understand from Gerry Lawson and Simon Kerridge that RIOXX project due to circulate draft application profile for funder metadata – OA compliance –  for Repositories before Christmas; initially DC but also looking at CERIF. RIOXX aiming to comply with OpenAire also but not confirmed yet.

Would be good to get agreement internationally … 

Research Information meets Research Data!

Presented at the DCC Roadshow in Dundee on ‘Research data meets research information: the IRIOS, C4D, CIA and CRISPool projects’

ROS includes data sets as an output so would be good to add this to CiA … so crossover with C4D work.

See details of workshop and presentations at http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/data-management-roadshows/dcc-roadshow-northeast-scotland

Non-Publication Research Outputs

You may be interested in this post on our sister project blog.

http://irios2.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/non-publication-output-types/

Adoption of CERIF in Higher Education Institutions in the UK: A Landscape Study

A very useful document has been produced by Rosemary Russell from UKOLN, with contributions from several members of the project team, which describes the adoption and engagement of CERIF in UK HEIs at the moment.

Concerns raised in the report is a lack of academics’ understanding and/or engagement with CERIF, and that only staff involved with JISC are fully aware of CERIF; reasons cited for this are a lack of time on their part due to REF, etc. Views expressed also included comments such as the CRIS “shielding” users from CERIF and that institutions rely on vendor expertise. However, many institutions are keen to engage more and are aware that a lack of understanding may hinder their CRIS use. It is also seen that a greater understanding of CERIF and RIM processes will be useful, not only for more efficient and cost-effective CRIS implementation, but also that it will likely demonstrate multiple cost benefits for UK HEIs in the future. It should also be noted that all institutions now specify CERIF when procuring their CRISs (although some don’t fully understand why).

Link to the Study

Project progress

Work on the second workpackage is progressing well and the deliverables from this workpackage are on course to be completed and handed over to the software partners very soon:

• A final functional specification is imminent and thanks to all the project partners who have provided invaluable input to the specification; included in the functional specification are the Classification Schemes that will be required and have been assimilated at the CERIF, local and bespoke levels.
• A mapping exercise has also provided very useful, producing a spreadsheet which maps CERIF attributes and role names to previous projects and we are close to providing a definitive standard model for CERIF in Action. The exercise has also separately mapped the fields required for the Research Outcomes System (ROS) to CERIF.
• Furthermore, a sample CERIF-XML file has been produced which follows the full (defragmented) embedded structure now advocated by euroCRIS.

It is anticipated that the pre-final documents will be distributed early next week for final comments and approval, with a view to handing them over to the software partners later in the week.

CERIF workshop and data surgery – UKOLN, Bath Feb 9th and 10th

CERIF experts and newbies met at Bath on 9th and 10th Feb for an in depth tutorial on CERIF from euroCRIS’s CERIF Task Group leader, Brigitte Joerg.

This was followed by a data surgery where members of previous and current JISC RIM & CERIF-related projects discussed how CERIF mappings had been done – what had worked and where gaps in the model or their own understanding existed.

More info at http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/#cerif-tutorial-F2012-01-05-23-25-rr

The CIA mapping document was presented and several of the issues raised by this and other projects were discussed – in particular multiple identifiers e.g. for a single person,  missing classifications schemes,  names and how structured the model should be, and the proposed new CERIF-XML format.

We will assimilate the answers and follow-up outstanding questions over the next couple of weeks in order to finalise the CIA model before work starts at Atira, Symplectic, ePrints and RCUK on implementation

Mapping

Below is a link to a collaborative spreadsheet which maps CERIF entities from the CERIF semantics and three previous projects: CRISPool, IRIOS and CERIFy. The aim of this mapping is to help agree a standard model for CERIF-XML.

The second tab lists the relevant entities together with areas for further discussion (i.e. where the CERIF semantics and one or more of the previous projects differed) and comments as applicable.

The CERIF Semantics are to the prefinal version of CERIF 1.3, but the mapping document will be updated on release of the final semantics from  euroCRIS.

Any feedback is appreciated on this mapping and can be updated, provided you have a Windows Live ID (alternatively, emailed to Scott Brander, CiA Project Manager). We will be discussing the mapping document in more detail at the CERIF Tutorial and UK Data Surgery at Bath on 9^th February, therefore any comments would be welcomed by Thursday 2^nd February at the latest. Please highlight any changes you have made to the spreadsheet – this will make life a little easier for comments to be assimilated.

•  CERIF mapping document

Note: This document will be updated when any new comments are received – last updated 06/02/12.

RIM3 (Research Information Management) Meeting, Edinburgh (11 & 12 January 2012)

Just returned from an invaluable start-up meeting in Edinburgh with overviews of the IRIOS-2 and RMAS projects, support and synthesis project sessions led by Jisc infoNet, UKOLN and OSS-Watch. Also had some very useful sessions on collaborative working where we could identify co-working oppportunites and shared challenges between the projects.

CiA discussions went well and everybody looking forward to receiving full mapping document between various projects shortly to faciltate the development of a common model for CiA. Questions that arose included likely demand and possible use cases for an aggregation system and who could be involved in the wider user group. The CERIF in Action Project Director and Project Manager presented on the CERIF in Action and a copy of the presentation can be found here: RIM3 Programme meeting – CERIF in Action Presentation