Recent Work by the euroCRIS Best Practice/DRIS Task Group: A Way Forward for Engaging with the CRIS Community

Abstract

Providing specific outputs for the CRIS community from the euroCRIS Best Practice/DRIS Task Group has remained a pending task for quite a long time. This is a description of the strategy laid out by the new Best Practice/DRIS Task Group management for re-launching TG activity within the wider framework of a euroCRIS service catalogue. A deeper engagement with the CRIS community is presented as one of the main challenges to achieve in forthcoming months in order for this strategy to deliver.Following the recent change in the TG management, the first guidelines have now been put together for achieving a gradual increase in the coverage of the Directory of Research Information Systems (DRIS) and the production of Best Practice dissemination materials related to CRIS implementation and operation in different areas. The DRIS and Best Practice sub-strands are perceived as mutually reinforcing, as well as tightly linked to other euroCRIS TGs such as CRIS/IR interoperability. Progress in all of these will require a deeper level of stakeholder engagement activity than the one carried out so far. A successful TG activity will thus strongly rely on the ability to promote participation in and feedback to the Group discussions. We expect the dissemination of useful Best Practice information on Current Research Information System implementation and operation to underline the gradual emergence of a professional CRIS community working together for mutual support and reinforcement. This will eventually attract new institutions to become part of such community both as users and as suppliers of valuable information, in the end leading to a higher degree of harmonisation and optimal performance at HEIs.