1. Open Access Project Officer
Progress in the Implementation of the OpenAIRE Guidelines for CRIS Managers
Pablo de Castro
Open Access Project Officer
LIBER 1

2. Overview Introduction: OpenAIRE and the Guidelines for CRIS Managers2
Overview
Introduction: OpenAIRE and the Guidelines for CRIS Managers
CRIS Systems as Data Providers for OpenAIRE
Case studies: CC-REFIM and DSpace-CRIS
Challenges and next steps 2

3. What is OpenAIRE?
The EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot will have been
successful if:
In two years’ time since it started the whole or a significantly large share of its budget has been disbursed in a reasonably
balanced way across projects, disciplines, countries and
business models 3 3

4. What are the Guidelines for CRIS Managers?
The EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot will have been
successful if:
In two years’ time since it started the whole or a significantly large share of its budget has been disbursed in a reasonably
balanced way across projects, disciplines, countries and
business models 4 4

5. The team behind this work
The EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot will have been
successful if:
In two years’ time since it started the whole or a significantly large share of its budget has been disbursed in a reasonably
balanced way across projects, disciplines, countries and
business models 5 5

6. Data providers to OpenAIRE
OpenAIRE Overview 6 6

7. CRIS Systems: additional data providers
The EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot will have been
successful if:
In two years’ time since it started the whole or a significantly large share of its budget has been disbursed in a reasonably
balanced way across projects, disciplines, countries and
business models 7 7

8. A mechanism for information exchange8
A mechanism for information exchange
The OpenAIRE Guidelines for CRIS Managers based on CERIF-XML define:
• the subset of CERIF entities that are supported;
• more specific scope definitions of the supported entities;
• the usage of CERIF attributes;
• more specific scope definitions of the supported attributes;
• the usage of CERIF classifications and the classification schemes used;
• the usage of CERIF linking relationships and the roles used;
• additional integrity constraints on top of general CERIF.
OAI-PMH protocol also used for CRIS metadata harvesting – one catch-all OAI-PMH set plus seven per-entity ones 8

9. The OpenAIRE Validator for CRISs9
The OpenAIRE Validator for CRISs
• Presently under development – beta version available at
• Needs to be adjusted to the most recent version of the OpenAIRE Guidelines;
• Same as for publication/data repositories & journals, it will allow CRIS systems to test their compatibility with OpenAIRE 9

10. The OpenAIRE Validator for CRISs10
The OpenAIRE Validator for CRISs
• Example for Publication Entity;
• Just an early test of the validator design – has not been applied to live systems yet 10

11. 11
Case study: CC-REFIM
• Native CERIF CRIS system for demonstration purposes (“not real data”) available at
• Suitable for testing OpenAIRE validation via the CERIF REST API 11

12. Case study: DSpace-CRIS & FVG Portal
• DSpace-CRIS-based FVG Regional Portal aiming to aggregate content from different systems on a platform-agnostic basis (i.e. repositories and CRIS systems)
• Using the OpenAIRE Guidelines for CRIS Managers as an internal validating mechanism 12 12

13. Challenges and next steps13
Challenges and next steps
• Assymetry between graph-based CERIF and flat DublinCore will require an update beyond the OAI-PMH import strategy;
• Testing rules for validating OpenAIRE CERIF XML for real-life examples;
• Defining OpenAIRE CRIS aggregation: harvesting, entity de-normalization, transformation into OpenAIRE internal representation;
• First test on EKT CRIS – this implementation requires an update of the current OAI-server 13

14. 14 14