CERIF CRIS UK
landscape study: work in
progress report
euroCRIS membership meeting
Bonn, 13-14 May 2013
Rosemary Russell, UKOLN, University of Bath
UKOLN is supported by:
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Jisc Innovation Support Centre
at UKOLN (until July 2013)
• Includes support for Jisc Research
Information Management (RIM)
Programme eg
– CERIF resources
– project syntheses
– ‘landscape’ studies
• CERIF support project (Brigitte Jörg)
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Wider UK CERIF landscape (by Brigitte Jörg)
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CERIF CRIS UK landscape study aims
• document the adoption and current use of
CERIF CRIS in UK HE institutions
• update March 2012 report
– compare progress/ reveal how far things have
moved on/ identify common issues…
– inform future Jisc planning…
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CRIS used in UK (provisional %)
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CRIS adoption in UK HE
• Symplectic ‘publications’ product launched in 2005
– CERIF compliant data model in 2009
• 1st UK Pure system - mid 2009 (St Andrews/Aberdeen)
• 1st UK CONVERIS system - beginning 2010 (Cranfield)
• Intensive CRIS procurement in 2011, slowed down since…
– eg between May and October 2011 UK Pure users grew from 7 to 17
– 2 new Pure users since March 2012
• Now 57 CERIF CRIS users in UK
= 33.7% adoption of CERIF in higher education institutions
(was 30.7% in March 2012)
• Although eg in Russell Group – large majority have CRIS
• Also - Research in View (TR), Dspace CRIS...
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Study progress to date
• 13 interviews carried out (20 institutions in
2011/2012)
– 7 Pure, 3 CONVERIS, 3 Symplectic Elements
– plus 2/3 newer implementations
• contrast to earlier institutional experiences (eg development of UK
data model)
• Interviewee – ‘CRIS project manager’ or similar,
based in:
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Research Office (7)
Library/Info Services (5)
IT Department (1) RH
[Some changeover when implementation project ends]
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[Coverage]
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Management/implementation/functionality
Developing services eg MRD, benchmarking
Data exchange
CRIS benefits
Community buy-in
CERIF experiences
User group activity
• Will just highlight here a few of the key issues
emerging…
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REF is painful!
Research Excellence Framework = UK research assessment
system, used to allocate funding…
• Biggest research information management issue for
institutions
• Key driver for CRIS adoption
• Majority agreed CRIS functionality to support REF met key
requirements
• although impossible to meet every single requirement
• two said vendor late in providing REF functionality
• one underestimated implementation time needed, so CRIS only
being used partially – rest in spreadsheets…
• most reported gripes from individuals
• using CRIS saved time
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Managing research data
• Next most immediate issue
– under discussion but many putting off decisions until after REF
• Difficult to address – large, disparate datasets for different
subject areas
– “don’t know what to do”
– “too many variations in research data for a single template”
– “academics using range of external data archives”
• Pure user group drafting list of required fields
• Some concern whether CERIF is keeping up with demands
• Bath developing standalone pilot data registry in EPrints – to
link with Pure in longer term (Strathclyde also considering
EPrints, with Pure as catalogue)
• Another looking at Dspace
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Replacing IR with CRIS?
• Ongoing discussion at many institutions
• Most continuing with both repository and CRIS
– CRIS populates IR (one user interface)
– Integration works well for most
• Exceptions:
– 1 of interviewees using CRIS to provide IR
functionality already
– 1 on verge… ‘fairly sure will go ahead’
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CERIF views/engagement
• Not much change
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most have basic understanding only
no time/staff resources to take further
most still rely on external expertise: vendor/user group
“as a manager, I’m happy to be protected!”
• some had planned to get involved in CERIF after
implementation – not happened – other priorities eg REF…
• “There still isn’t a really clear business driver for CERIF
effort”
• “Fair bit of hype about CERIF a few years ago – but no
longer talked about so much”
• One user with CERIF expertise had changed view:
“Suppliers have won the CERIF battle for us, now we don’t
have to worry”
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Publication end of June
• http://isc.ukoln.ac.uk/work/rim/
• euroCRIS Newsflash
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