BP/DRIS TG
Sergey Parinov,
euroCRIS membership meeting, St. Andrews,
November 2009
Best Practice (BP)
Best Practice legacy - 1998
 Code of good practice, 1998:
 it has been created to establish a framework for encouraging
interoperation and harmonisation between European (and
other) research institutions
 its intention is to focus clearly on the reasons for having a CRIS
and on the main components of the system
 adoption of it will lead to:
 Increased usability of data and value of CRISs to the users (often with
varied demands and requirements)
 Increased interoperability between CRISs
 Reduced operating cost for CRISs
 Reduced effort for information exchange
Best Practice legacy - 2006
 Code of the Best Practice, 2004-2006
 the inter-relationships between CRISs, and between CRIS and
other related information systems environments (e.g. digital
libraries, scientific datasets) has become clearer
“Best Practice” definitions
 “… best-practice is considered by some as a business
buzzword used to describe the process of developing and
following a standard way of doing things …” (Wikipedia)
 “Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient
(least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way
of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures
that have proven themselves over time for large numbers
of people.” (Wikipedia)
Ideas for the Code of Best Practice
2010 ?
 General view:
 What are current tasks of CRIS development according target
groups of users
 … taking from a “large number of people” as repeatable ways to
solve the tasks
 … and publishing as “standard ways for doing things”
Topics suggested by Keith Jeffery
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What data structure do I use for a CRIS
What questions can it answer
Can it produce researcher VCs?
Can it produce web pages describing a group or department?
Can it help in research proposals?
Can it store information on research outputs?
Will it interface to an existing OA IR?
Can it produce a publication list for a group or department or project?
Can I link it with other CRIS to get a continent or world view?
How do I reduce the manual input from researchers?
Will the CRIS interoperate with existing finance, HR, project systems?
How does it relate to patents databases?
Financial and business topics
Can it provide a breakdown of research funding by year, by source, by department, by
group in my university?
Ideas from Max Stempfhuber
 “it should be a nice looking publication downloadable as PDF
and also printable”
 “it could be more efficient if we work on the individual
chapters in a coordinated way and put it up for comments the
moment we feel that the euroCRIS members will be willing
to contribute”
Directory of Research Information
Systems (DRIS)
DRIS legacy - 2008
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Current list:
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ARAMIS, Swiss Information System on Research and Development
Austrian Science Fund project database
Bulgarian Current Research Information System
Dutch Research Database
Estonian Research Information System
Estonian Research Information System
FRIDA - national research documentation system
Inventory on Scientific and Technological Research in Flanders (IWETO)
ISTC Portal "Science and Technology in CIS"
Oasis database
Portuguese Science and Technology Platform
Slovak R&D Information System
Slovenian Current Research Information System
Example of a record
 cfName: Inventory on Scientific and
Technological Research in Flanders (IWETO)
 Acronym: IWETO
 cfURI: http://www.iweto.be/Home.html
 cfResProdId: IWETO
 cfDescription: IWETO supplies information about
Flemish research teams and projects, specifically the
most important research themes, priorities and current
research projects.
Ideas for DRIS from Keith Jeffery
“My personal view is that DRIS is a component of Best
practice and acts as an index to exemplars of best
practice in CRIS”
2. “The DRIS system itself should be CERIF compatible
since we are moving towards the whole euroCRIS
website being CERIF-driven. As a CERIF-compatible
database DRIS itself forms an example of best practice”
3. “…each system indexed by DRIS is a product related
to organisations, persons and probably there are
associated publications, events....”
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DRIS+BP overview
DRIS+BP is a CRIS of a community of
euroCRIS members
 “…each system indexed by DRIS is a product related to
organisations, persons and probably there are associated
publications, events....” Keith Jeffery, president euroCRIS
 DRIS+BP information system should serve euroCRIS community
and create strong benefits for users to be a part of this community
 In general, it can accumulate CRIS artifacts of digital heritage for
future euroCRIS members
 A platform for DRIS+BP current implementation is SharePoint
2007, we looking for better platform, e.g. integrated with future
euroCRIS web site
DRIS+BP technical details
 Pilot version - http://eurocris.socionet.ru/ with public
‘read’ access to all DRIS+BP materials, surveys and
additional services:
 free registration to get ‘participant’ permissions (for euroCRIS
members only)
 DRIS wiki with technical requirements, specifications and other
details
 DRIS forum for discussions about further development
 Help Desk for DRIS+BP users
DRIS+BP main functionality
 live demonstration, it starts from
http://eurocris.socionet.ru/DRIS-CERIF/
Increasing motivations and benefits for
DRIS+BP users
 Create/update your complex professional portrait by
presenting your data as a set of cross linked objects {CRIS –
Pers – OrgUnit - BP_articles}, it can be stored and updated
for a long time
 Present your professional achievements and ideas as a part of
community’s Archive/Museum
 Participate in a DRIS+BP development to build a
professional ‘social network’ and increase benefits of
euroCRIS community (see e.g. a 'Facebook for Scientists‘,
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Federal-Stimulus-FundsFrom/8568/)
 Using DRIS+BP tools and access to the community produce
substantial professional “products”
DRIS+BP annual report
 Idea: to list the best of current year achievements, hot problems
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and new future trends as euroCRIS community opinion
Procedure: online nomination of CRISs, Pers, Orgunits, articles
(using DRIS+BP forms), discussing (online forum) and voting
(online survey) during a year
Title: Annual report of euroCRIS community
Structure of the report:
 achievements (articles+CRISs+pers+orgunits)
 the most popular, hot professional problems
 the most challengeable future trends, expectations
Initial Editorial Committee: Max Stempfhuber, Anne
Asserson, Sergey Parinov
Surveys of euroCRIS community
 As first steps to better understanding of possible benefits
from euroCRIS “community of practice”, the online surveys
can be useful, e.g.:
 Who are we?
 What were done by us (a registry of professional
results/achievements)?
 What common/specific professional problems are we solving?
 What future are we building/expecting?
Professional impact index
 A registry of professional results and achievements
(within DRIS+BP) as information objects:
 “results”+”pers”+”orgunit”+”BP_articles”
 A tool for semantic linking of info_objects
 A service for monitoring changes in DRIS+BP and
linkages, accumulating statistics
 A service for statistics processing to build a set of
professional impact indexes
DRIS+BP TG workplan
List of main actions for 2009-2010:
Preparing of the first issue of an annual report with
publishing it in December 2010
2. Surveys of “things” related with CRISs and forming digital
collections of them (as an Archive or Museum of CRIS
artifacts)
3. Survey of people from euroCRIS community to find and
exploit new community’s benefits
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1. Annual Report
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We will announce (in December 2009) a start of
preparing of the report’s first issue
It will include suggestions for discussing:
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a title and a structure
tools/rules to submit/nominate materials
tools/rules to vote for them
Editorial Committee
2. Digital Museum of CRIS artifacts
 In January 2010 a concept of collections of digital artifacts
related with CRIS will be presented for discussing, including
 A definition of a CRIS artifact, what is not the artifact
 Principles of collections’ forming, submission rules/tools
 Who will maintain it and bear responsibility
 Technical solution, including long-term “preservation” approach
 Currently we invite euroCRIS members to help us with this
first step
3. euroCRIS community benefits
 In February 2010 a concept of the euroCRIS community’s
survey will be presented for discussion and improvement
 What aspects of the community could be investigated
 What community’s benefits or “products” are of interest
 What survey tools could be used, etc
 We invite euroCRIS members to participate in building this
initial concept (to provide ideas, criticism, online tools, etc)