Common European Research Information Format Research Articles

Using a CRIS for e-Infrastructure: e-Infrastructure for Scholarly Publications

Scholarly publications are a major part of the research infrastructure. One way to make output available is to store the publications in Open Access Repositories (OAR). A Current Research Information System (CRIS) that conforms to the standard CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) could be a key component in the e-infrastructure. A CRIS provides the structure and makes it possible to interoperate the CRIS metadata at every stage of the research cycle. The international DRIVER projects are creating a European repository infrastructure. Knowledge Exchange has launched a project to develop a metadata exchange format for publications between CRIS and OAR systems.

CRIS and Institutional Repositories

CRIS (Current Research Information Systems) provide researchers, research managers, innovators, and others with a view over the research activity of a domain. IRs (institutional repositories) provide a mechanism for an organisation to showcase through OA (open access) its intellectual property. Increasingly, organizations are mandating that their employed researchers deposit peer-reviewed published material in the IR. Research funders are increasingly mandating that publications be deposited in an open access repository: some mandate a central (or subject-based) repository, some an IR. In parallel, publishers are offering OA but replacing subscription-based access with author (or author institution) payment for publishing. However, many OA repositories have metadata based on DC (Dublin Core) which is inadequate; a CERIF (Common-European Research Information Format) CRIS provides metadata describing publications with formal syntax and declared semantics thus facilitating interoperation or homogeneous access over heterogeneous sources. The formality is essential for research output metrics, which are increasingly being used to determine future funding for research organizations.

Institutional Repositories and Current Research Information Systems

IRs (Institutional repositories) with deposit by the author of the ‘green’ peer-reviewed publication provide—through OA (open access)—improved access and intellectual property inventory. Increasingly organizations and research funders mandate deposit OA preferably in an IR. Publishers offer OA by author payment. CRIS (Current Research Information Systems) cover the research activity of an organization. CERIF (Common-European Research Information Format) is an EU recommendation to member states for CRIS. CERIF allows interoperability across CRIS. CERIF provides metadata describing publications with formal syntax and declared semantics. The CRIS provides the research context for the publication and links to associated research datasets and software.