Readiness for REF 3 Dr Mark Cox Research and Learning Development Manager, King’s College London

REF Research Excellence Framework Successor to RAE 2008 Three major factors – Research Outputs – Environment – Impact (new to REF) Use of bibliometric data still under discussion 4

RAE 2008 submission Some use of repositories to gather information on research outputs Some use of Research Information Systems (CRISes) Large amounts of manual entry Most CRISes at the time were bespoke developments CRISes usually held information on publications Little consistency across different institutions (and sometimes within institutions!) 5

Towards the REF Most institutions now have an Institutional Repository, usually managed by library staff Some institutions have in-house built CRISes, sometimes integrated with other systems A few institutions have purchased commercial CRIS systems As the requirement for data relating to research increases, many institutions are looking for a more co-ordinated approach to research information management A growing appreciation that collaboration and harmonization will provide greater value for money, both for institutions and for UK research in general 6

CERIF Common European Research Information Format International-standard data model which describes Research Entities and their relationships Developed originally with the support of the European Commission Development now under the custody of euroCRIS CERIF is neutral to architecture 7

Benefits of using CERIF 8 Institutions do not have the resources to develop a completely new UK data model CERIF has been successfully used as the basis for a number of national systems across Europe CERIF has evolved over ten years via the experience of developers across Europe euroCRIS, as the custodians of the CERIF standard, form an active and enthusiastic community which encourages participation in the development of the model

Readiness for REF (R4R) 9 The R4R Project between King’s and Southampton is examining CERIF as a the basis of a mechanism for delivering data to the REF At the core of this will be a “lightweight “ data schema based on the CERIF model, adapted to the needs of data collection for the REF – “CERIF4REF” The desired outcome is that the CERIF data model will: – form the “glue” that will hold disparate information systems together – deliver repository and CRIS interoperability for the REF – allow for interoperability and exchange of data within and across institutions, including external systems

R4R work streams 10 Carry out an analysis of current practice in UK institutions From REF requirements, develop the CERIF4REF data schema Evaluate CERIF4REF schema applicability Examine mapping this data model to external sources Create “plug-ins” for the three most common types of repository (ePrints, DSpace, Fedora) Demonstrate data exchange between systems at King’s and Southampton

11 CERIF4REF REF data requirements not yet finalised Documentation suggests considerable overlap with RAE requirements Initial mapping exercise was carried out to map RAE 2008 data fields to CERIF elements Data fields taken from RAE forms –RA1: Person data –RA2: Research Outputs –RA3a/b: Students and Studentships –RA4: Research Awards

12 CERIF4REF Involved an iterative mapping exercise, reviewed and refined by euroCRIS developers Vast majority of RAE data fields could be mapped to CERIF elements Missing DoB element was incorporated into latest version of CERIF Certain RAE data fields (especially in RA3 and RA4 forms) required aggregation of lower-level CERIF elements

13 CERIF4REF schema To aid with defining elements, an XML schema (.xsd) has been created for CERIF4REF, accompanied by a data dictionary This describes the underlying elements that are required to generate RAE/REF summary data, such as RA3 and RA4 forms Stylesheets (.xsl) have also been generated which can be used to transform CERIF4REF data into pure CERIF format, or into RAE forms.

Research Information systems at King ’ s 14 Web interfaces Research Gateway Database HRMS Name, job title, start date, etc Feed automatic, overnight SITS PG(R) details Feed automatic, overnight APTOS Grant monthly expenditure Feed automatic, overnight Res. Grants & Contracts Awards, amounts, dates Feed manual, 2 weeks IoP Res. Grants Awards, amounts, dates Feed manual, 1 month Experts database (potential) Staff Profiles (Web pages) RAE/REF outputs AKORD publications database (web interface) InCites -bibliometric information RG Academic Interface Manual entry: Qualifications Esteem Factors Publications not in WoK feed Feedback workflow RG Admin Interface Manual entry: Qualifications Esteem Factors Publications not in WoK feed Feedback workflow AKORD Repository Full text of publications, publication metadata Web of Knowledge Publications in journals Feed automatic, 1 week School web pages (potential) School/College Managers – Research Strategy Direct link

Repositories and CRISes Two general ways of using repositories in research information management Use a CRIS for gathering all research related information, including research output, and feed/link to repository Or … Expand repository to be able to cover a wider range of research related information 15

CERIF4REF in practice 16 Full CERIF Oracle database created by using SQL scripts developed by euroCRIS CERIF4REF model also used to create separate Oracle database Data mapping to existing King’s CRIS (Research Gateway) carried out CERIF4REF database successfully populated from King’s Research Gateway system

Evaluating the CERIF4REF schema CERIF4REF model being used to inform development of local ePrints repository at Southampton Case studies carried out with a number of other institutions to determine if CERIF4REF elements could be populated from existing systems Institutions chosen by size and existence (or absence) of a repository Agreement that CERIF4REF covered a majority of areas 17

External Sources 18 Publication data (Thomson Reuters) – Tool developed at Southampton to allow population of repositories from Web of Science (WoS) basic API via the SWORD protocol – This may circumvent the need to map this data to CERIF UK Research Councils – RCUK are developing a new system to collect research output from institutions – Discussions have been held with members of this project team to determine the overlap of the requirements with the R4R developments

Repository plug-ins 19 Development of plug-ins for ePrints (Southampton), DSpace (Edinburgh) and Fedora (King’s) Tools will generate xml in CERIF4REF format to allow import into other repositories or CRISes Work is ongoing to refine the applications Focus currently is on research outputs Southampton are developing an expanded ePrints system

Data exchange Once plug-ins are completed, we will be testing the exchange of data between King’s and Southampton’s systems CERIF4REF xml output from plug-in will also be used to import data to King’s CERIF4REF Oracle system Eventually hope to use a real test case, where an academic staff member has actually moved between the two institutions 20

R4R: Conclusions so far 21 In the UK, there is much greater awareness of, and interest in, the CERIF model and the role of repositories and CRISes in research management CERIF being increasingly viewed as the best solution for data harmonization within the UK CERIF4REF model has potential to provide a step towards greater CERIF uptake in UK institutions

Related Developments JISC research information management (RIM) group – following up recommendations of EXRI report that CERIF should form a common research information exchange format for the UK REF submission system likely to include some form of CERIF upload capability MICE project – follow-up to R4R to investigate mapping impact to CERIF 22

Finally – thanks to… 23 JISC King’s team – Sheila Anderson – Richard Gartner – Sudden Martes Ex-King’s – Mary Davies – Stephen Grace Southampton team – Tim Brody – Les Carr euroCRIS – Keith Jefferies – Brigitte Joerg – Geert van Grootel And many others – apologies to anyone I’ve missed!

Questions? ? 24