1. Modelling national research assessments in CERIF Stephen Grace & Richard Gartner Centre for e-Research

2. 2 Periodic research assessments Different national and local systems for different purposes Allocate resources Improve research performance Assess value-for-money or cost-benefit Increase engagement with industry, community, international partnerships etc.

3. 3 Research assessment in Britain Research Assessment Exercise (RAE): 6 cycles between 1986 and 2008 Expert review by disciplinary panels Used in allocation of funding “it has stimulated universities into managing their research and has ensured that funds have been targeted at areas of research excellence”

4. 4 The British system is changing Research Excellence Framework aims to be simpler to administer Introduces Impact element (25% of marks) to cover benefits to economy, society, culture, public policy and services, health, environment, international development and the quality of life Still working out what will be asked, and the form of submissions in the area of Impact

5. 5 CERIF4REF schema – 1 Analyse the XML schema devised for RAE Express each element in CERIF under the five schema subdivisions Research groups, Research staff and students, Research outputs, Funding, Research environment and esteem

6. 6 CERIF4REF schema – 2 Most elements mapped to an entity in CERIF Only four items did not have a home (and two of these have been adopted as new CERIF entities) Almost half are LINK files e.g. cfPer-ResPubl- LINK Identifiers needed in LINKs often auto-generated XSLT stylesheets create XML files for RAE (1) and CERIF (19)

7. 7 CERIF4REF schema – 3: Tables generated in CERIF cfOrgUnit-CORE cfPers-CORE cfFundProg-2ND cfPersName-ADD cfOrgUnitId_OrgUnit-LINK cfPersName-OrgUnit-LINK cfOrgUnit_ResPubl-LINK cfPers_ResPubl-LINK cfResPubl_Class-LINK cfOrgUnit_FundProg-LINK cfResPublBiblNote-LANG cfResPublAbstr-LANG cfClassTerm-LANG cfOrgUnitResAct-LANG cfOrgUnitName-LANG cfPers_Pers-LINK cfPers_ExpSkills-LINK cfExpSkillsDescr-LANG cfResPubl-RES

8. 8 Using institutional repositories Institutional repositories are much more prevalent and embedded in universities than in lead up to RAE 2008 Natural home for research output information Many universities already committed to using IRs to hold publications data

9. 9 Repositories plus research DB Inhouse research databases built for RAE 2008, or adapted for it Rationale and purpose varies: Financial record of grants Managerial tool for research management Few using CERIF – so far

10. 10 Repositories and CRIS together Several buying commercial CRIS products for REF and/or institutional needs Some adapting inhouse DB to CERIF data model Linking CRIS and IRs since they have different use cases and users

11. 11 Challenges for repositories Authority control of persons as authors, to link with cfPerson data in CRIS Identification of projects and grants that funded publications Does the CRIS rely on IR for publication- related data, does the IR inherit wider contextual information from CRIS?

12. 12 Repositories in absence of CRIS Smaller or less research-intensive universities will not have CRIS/research DB Enhanced or expanded repositories offer a way to hold and disseminate wider REF data than just publications CERIF generation offers upgrade path

13. 13 Developing CRIS/IR relations Repositories as showcase of research can link to wider context – funding source, project, staff expertise etc. Data interoperability can reduce the need for recreating information across systems Data exchange within/between institutions

14. 14 Applicability beyond UK CERIF4REF as a model for expressing other national schemas in CERIF ability to compare data across national boundaries for benchmarking, aggregating, challenge of national systems

15. 15 Thank you Stephen Grace, Richard Gartner Centre for e-Research King’s College London http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/cerch/ stephen.grace@kcl.ac.uk richard.gartner@kcl.ac.uk