A centre of expertise in digital information management UKOLN is supported by: CERIF UK landscape euroCRIS membership meeting Lille 2-3 November 2011 Rosemary Russell, UKOLN, University of Bath

A centre of expertise in digital information management JISC Innovation Support Centre at UKOLN Includes provision of support for JISC Research Information Management Programme eg –supporting documentation for JISC Calls for proposals –CERIF resources –project synthesis –‘landscape’ studies

A centre of expertise in digital information management CERIF UK ‘landscape’ study Aim is to document the extent of adoption and engagement with CERIF in UK HE institutions and related organisations Repeat in one year to reveal how much things have moved on… –help to assess impact of JISC RIM programme –influence future programme planning

A centre of expertise in digital information management Areas of CERIF use CRIS implementations JISC projects Funders… Publishers Focus here mainly on institutional use – ie via a commercial CRIS software platform Existing UKOLN documents cover other areas

A centre of expertise in digital information management CERIF CRIS use in UK HE Lots of CERIF CRIS procurement in last year - some are in early stages of implementation Pure (Atira) - 17  St Andrews, Aberdeen, York, Royal Holloway, Strathclyde, Hertfordshire, Lancaster, Aston, Institute of Education, London, Dundee, Heriot-Watt, Glasgow Caledonian, King’s College London, Edinburgh, University of the Highlands and Islands, Bath, Queen's University Belfast CONVERIS (AVEDAS) - 5 –Cranfield, Hull, Stirling, MRC Oxfordshire Regional Centre, Brighton Symplectic Elements (Symplectic) –eg Brunel, Imperial, Queen Mary, Leeds…

A centre of expertise in digital information management Progress to date 7 interviews carried out –5 Pure, 2 CONVERIS –plan to cover majority of institutions with CERIF CRIS –exception - some very recent procurements which haven’t yet deployed –most keen to be involved! Focused so far mainly on institutions not involved in JISC projects – those we know less about Interviewee – ‘CRIS project manager’ – based in: –Research Office (2) –Library/Info Services (4) –IT Department (1)

A centre of expertise in digital information management Interview questions Asked them about eg –current state of deployment –integration with existing systems – mapping issues etc –how has CRIS been received? staff views –experience of CERIF data model –user group activity –liaison with euroCRIS

A centre of expertise in digital information management Some observations so far… Experience of CERIF mediated by CRIS software used Shielded from CERIF Most have a basic understanding – some more Little direct engagement Unless essential, people don’t have time to investigate CERIF –only institutions undertaking development projects get properly engaged with CERIF People rely on CERIF expertise in user groups CERIF viewed as an insurance CRIS seen as middleware – intermediary between institutional systems

A centre of expertise in digital information management Lack of engagement “CERIF does come up from time to time” “Worried that lack of expertise in CERIF will hinder us” “Focus very much on REF with CONVERIS so far” “Don’t care at all about CERIF – although we specified CERIF, it’s more as a proxy for QA… A lot more complex than our needs… “Provides an insurance that if we need to switch to another system, data can be reused. It doesn’t matter what the standard is” “We licenced the software so we don’t have to worry about CERIF ourselves – someone else does it for us” “Reassured by CERIF knowledge within UK user group” “Depend on Anna…”

A centre of expertise in digital information management How does understanding of CERIF help? “I think it helps to have a broad understanding of the CERIF model so you understand how the content types relate to each other, and to understand some of the concepts introduced by the system” “Helps understand what’s possible and what’s not” “Understanding how eg projects work in CERIF - stopped us going in wrong direction” “Having a concept of CERIF helps when explaining to other people eg academics why things work in a certain way ”

A centre of expertise in digital information management Integration with repository All institutions have integrated their CRIS with the existing IR – one exception –said mapping overhead was too great “Our repository has benefited through integration with the CRIS” “Need to be pragmatic – focus on what we can do rather than what we did in past…”

A centre of expertise in digital information management Getting buy-in from staff… “Politically challenging” “A lot of top-down support in the University – would have struggled otherwise” “Managing expectations” “Bringing together data from individual fiefdoms is tricky” “Buy-in varies across disciplines” “Some academics still not updating records” “Tends to be an initial flurry of activity, then leave it or forget” “People won over by seeing everything can be kept in one place” “The CRIS is becoming so important to academics that they get shirty when they think it’s not working properly – usually because they’ve forgotten how to use it!”

A centre of expertise in digital information management UKOLN RIM resources Landscape study due 16 December…