Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF CRIS seminar, Brussels September 2003 Anne Asserson, University of Bergen

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September What is CERIF? Common European Research Information Format A mechanism for sharing R&D information in Europe An EC Recommendation to EU Member States euroCRIS custodian since 2000

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September Structure CERIF 91 CERIF 2000 CERIF in a nutshell Conclusion

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF working group formed under EC After recommendation of Rectors of European Universities Conference Need for exchange of data on R&D Note : similar ideas at that time –UN/UNESCO/CODATA –OECD

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF91 Exchange of data on R&D in Europe Simple record format –Project was an entity with Persons, organisations, and other information represented as attributes Research classifications scheme recommended 1991, not updated since 1988

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF91 Title (of Project), Abstract (bilinguality of title and abstract will be recommended), Address (including name of the research unit, department, institute), Project director (definition: name of the 'holder` of the contract), Name(s) of the principal investigator(s), Starting date and expected ending date, Identification items: –free key words, –controlled terms (Research Thesaurus: optionally) (Recommended Research Thesaurus (list of controlled terms): Annex II.) –codes of a classification scheme (Recommended Research Classification Scheme: Annex I. - Research Classification Scheme: recommended), Funding directly related to the project: –funding source, –budget yearly, optionally: breakdown into personnel, functioning, equipment, Personnel: number of full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers.

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF91 Not unlike modern Dublin Core –see –Or under Suffered from same problem –Machine readable –NOT machine understandable Basically, insufficiently formal for logic to be applied

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF91 Problem that CRISs had a single-entry focus –Projects (national research councils) –Persons (BEST uk, COS us, ….) –Organisations (LABO fr, …..) Simple Record Format –Project was an Entity with Persons, Organisations and other infomation represented as attributes Problems with repeating groups and relationships Research Classification Scheme recommended 1991 not updated since 1988

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September Structure CERIF 91 CERIF 2000 CERIF in a nutshell Conclusion

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 The requirements were collected systematically –Representative of each country nominated by the appropriate ministry / organisation in that country –Additionally some experts who did not represent their country but were there to assist in the technological solution –Actually, some members of this Working Group fulfilled both roles !

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 cover projects, persons, organisations entities, not more attributes lengths & types & language, character set repeating groups (logical) need flexibility - relationships (conceptual) need better data quality need for consistent coding (semantic) consistently implementable (no supporting systems for CERIF91 existing) extensible for new requirements

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF 2000 Working Group set up 1997 and coordinated by DGXIII-D4, EC CERIF2000 Guidelines, Final Report of the CERIF Revision Working Group, 1999 Common format for development of new CRISs exchange of data from records in existing and future multiple different CRISs implies the need for common format for metadata describing records in existing and future multiple different CRIS

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 CRIS can be implemented using subset or superset of full CERIF model: –for projects (management) –for people (expertise) –for organisations (capabilities) –for publications, patents, products (results) –for services (offerings) –for facilities, particular equipment (offerings) with role-based relationships

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 Neutral Architecture Data Model can be implemented: –relational –object-oriented –information retrieval (including WWW) Process model can be implemented –DBMS and query; centralised or distributed; –html web / harvesting / IR-query; –advanced knowledge-based technology

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 An organisation just starting to build a CRIS An organisation with one or more legacy CRISs and wishing to evolve to a new single one Are in the market for an ‘ideal’ CRIS CERIF provides a template

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNIT SkillsCV General Facility Particular Equipment Contact Results Publication Results Patent Results Product Service Funding Programme Event Classification Prize/Award PERSON

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 –Extended relational model –Linking relations with attributes (roles and time stamp) –3 base entities Person, Organisation, Project –12 secondary base entities (linked to base entities) –36 Look up tables (to ensure data quality) –39 Link tables (flexibility) –all text fields have multiple language fields –maximum representativity with minimum complexity

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 ICERIS (IS) Access to Information on Icelandic Research Projects & R&D Results AURIS-MM (AT) Provides access to Austrian University Research extended with multimedia SICRIS (SL) Access to University Research in Slovenia HUNCRIS Access to R&D in Hungary SRIS (GB) Scottish Research Information Systems, public research in Scotland CRIS-MER (EC) Research information on Migration and ethnic Relations (planned) Corporate model, CCLRC (UK) METIS (NL) previously OZIS, currently used by majority of Dutch Universities Fdok (NO) University of Bergen, results

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September CERIF2000 Metadata Model is a subset of Exchange Model is a subset of Full Model Full Model is intersection of existing CRISs excluding uncommon variants

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September Structure CERIF 91 CERIF 2000 CERIF in a nutshell Conclusion

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNIT SkillsCV General Facility Particular Equipment Contact Results Publication Results Patent Results Product Service Funding Programme Event Classification Prize/Award PERSON

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Three Primary Entities Concepts: (1) entities that reflect main ‘views of entry’ into CRISs (2) entities with no direct functional dependency on each other (3) entities that can refer to themselves (recursion) (4) entities linked in pairs by ‘linking relations’ (5) ‘linking relations’ represent temporally-bound roles (6) ‘linking relations’ have primary key of each entity, role, date/time start, date/time end and any other constraints

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Linking Relations As an Example: PERSON-ORGUNIT Concepts: (1) May have many instances of the relationship for each instance of PERSON and ORGUNIT due to role and temporal bounding (2) Role: the purpose of the relationship e.g. employee | head | …. (3) Temporal: the use of and defines the duration of this relationship Analagous for PROJECT_ORGUNIT and PERSON_PROJECT Person-Orgunit

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Primary Base Entity: ORGUNIT Concepts: (1) ORGUNIT may have an organisationally subordinate relationship to another ORGUNIT e.g. a Group within a Department (2) ORGUNIT may have a symbiotic relationship to another ORGUNIT e.g. two Groups that have a cooperation agreement (3) ORGUNIT may have a financial relationship to another ORGUNIT e.g. customer - contractor Orgunit-Orgunit

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Primary Base Entity: PROJECT Concepts: (1) PROJECT may have an organisationally subordinate relationship to another PROJECT e.g. a sub-Project (2) PROJECT may have a symbiotic relationship to another PROJECT e.g. two Projects that cooperate by agreement (3) PROJECT may have a temporal relationship to another PROJECT e.g. one project follows on from another

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Primary Base Entity: PERSON Concepts: (1) PERSON may have a socially subordinate relationship to another PERSON e.g. a child of a parent (2) PERSON may have a symbiotic relationship to another PERSON e.g. two researchers that cooperate by agreement (3) PERSON may have a temporal relationship to PERSON e.g. a lecturer (dates) becomes a reader (dates)

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Funding Programme Concepts: (1) Funding Programme is related to (a) ORGUNIT and / or (b) PROJECT (2) A Person is only funded via (a) ORGUNIT and / or (b) PROJECT (3) any other entities are only funded via (a) ORGUNIT and / or (b) PROJECT FUNDING PROGRAMME Secondary Base Entities:

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Contact Secondary Base Entities: example: CONTACT Concepts: (1) all contacts in one place - no replication, no update problems (2) >1 contact dependent on role e.g. private address|work address (3) the PROJECT contact is usually the project leader: a PERSON (4) the ORGUNIT contact is usually the head: a PERSON (5) but may have a generic address e.g. project URI | Orgunit Analagous for Publication, Product, Patent, Event, Prize/Award....

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON Result_Publication Secondary Base Entities: example: RESULT_PUBLICATION Concepts: (1) temporally-bound role linking relations (2) >1 linking relation : Result_Publication and other entities (3) PERSON role may be author, co-author, editor, reviewer…. (4) ORGUNIT role may be publisher, IPR or copyright owner.. (5) PROJECT role may be the source of the idea

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECT ORGUNIT PERSON Result_Publication Can Express: (where DT-date/time) Person A (DT1 - DT2) (is author of) Publication X Orgunit O (DT1 - DT2) (is owner of IPR in) Publication X Person A (DT1 - DT2) (is employee of ) Orgunit O Person A (DT1 - DT2) (is project leader of) Project P Person A (DT1-DT2) (is member of) Orgunit M Person A (DT1-DT2) (is member of) Orgunit N Orgunit M (DT1-DT2) (is part of) Orgunit O Orgunit N (DT1-DT2) (is part of) Orgunit O Secondary Base Entities: example: RESULT_PUBLICATION

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON SkillsCV General Facility Particular Equipment Contact Results Publication Results Patent Results Product Service Funding Programme Event PERSON Links Prize/Award

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON SkillsCV General Facility Particular Equipment Contact Results Publication Results Patent Results Product Service Funding Programme EventPrize/Award PROJECT Links

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON SkillsCV General Facility Particular Equipment Contact Results Publication Results Patent Results Product Service Funding Programme Event ORGUNIT Links Prize/Award

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON SkillsCV General Facility Particular Equipment Contact Results Publication Results Patent Results Product Service Funding Programme Event Classification Prize/Award

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September PROJECTORGUNITPERSON SkillsCV General Facility Particular Equipment Contact Results Publication Results Patent Results Product Service Funding Programme Event Classification The Whole Thing Prize/Award

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September Structure CERIF 91 CERIF 2000 CERIF in a nutshell Conclusion

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September Conclusion CERIF is based on a knowledge of: –Previous CRIS systems throughout Europe and wider –The R&D in relevant information technologies CERIF2000 (and its subsequent developments) is used already in systems –And new ones are starting up all the time

Anne AssersonCRIS seminar, Brussels, September Conclusion CERIF as it is today –Has a long evolution –Has been improved with Experience of use of earlier versions Improved technology support allowing –More accurate representative data structuring –More expressive data management CERIF is an EC recommendation to EU Member States CERIF is managed and maintained by euroCRIS not-for-profit organisation